1. Mitna City – On the edge of Noesis

       The million lights floated like a never
ending light show all around Lini. This was her favorite
place in the whole of this city. The large round 180
degree viewing window of the café let you see nearly all
the space cities that made up the 15th cluster
of Noesis Universalis.

Large and small, in myriads of shapes and sizes,
some with blue rings around them, others without,
some brighter, others just faint specks in the
distance, countless space cities, industrial stations,
farm stations,and many others- all forming a
magnificent tapestry of tiny colored lights in space,
as if woven into a fine invisible black mesh
all around her. Lini gazed on forever,
captivated by the limpid tranquility of the many
scintillating lights of Noesis Universalis.



"You can see almost the whole of Noesis from here" the
soft voice was Bubby, the owner of ‘Café on the Edge’,
“not just the space cities of cluster 15, but most of
the other clusters as well, - see that fuzzy
white blob over there, that’s Noesis One, and that one
is the Paradise cluster, where I wanna go in a few years,
just as soon as I have enough”. He smiled a big ear to
ear smile, and slid a cool glass of ‘purple sun’ down the
counter towards her.

“On the house”

Lini reached out at the softly glowing purple drink, but
instead of sipping at her favorite drink, went right back
to her incessant city gazing-

“Bubs, where is Silnosa City?”, Lini paused, “how far is it
from here?”

“Well, Silnosa Poli, I think is in cluster 7”, Bubba pointed
with a finger on the nano logic enabled window and a
translucent marker showed up on its surface, “So it must be
at least 300 thousand kilometers from here. It should take
about 5 or 6 hours to get  there by  Transcity, unless its
has got a Shifter port near by, then it would take much less.
It will be just a speck without magnification, want me to  …”

“Have you ever traveled by a shift port Bubba?”, Lini interrupted
Bubba, “how is it like,-  to just  ‘be’ at the new place instantly,
just like that? Isn’t that a bit unsettling?”

Bubba was a bit disappointed; he really wanted to show off the new
Nanoware Logic he had installed in his window.

“Not at all, why would it be unsettling, it’s just like walking in
and out of a small room, and besides there are five shifter
companies now with Transinta entering the shifting business too,
shift porting is sure to get cheaper soon.  I think one day
shifting will be as ordinary as Transcity. I heard they will soon
be building a common port here in Fifteen…”

“So you’ve traveled by Shift ports then”, Lini interrupted again

“Yes I have”, Bubby announced proudly, "my son Danny is a
Civil Admin in New Barco, cluster 8, and sends me travel credits
every year. Me and my wife went to see the Palukea Belt a couple
of years back. Magnificent place, never seen any thing like it
in my whole life. Nature is truly grand, it is, and so colorful
too. You should get your dad to take you there some day. Totally
worth the 2000 Rols.”

Lini drifted back to her gazing, the view was truly amazing,
especially for a 12 year old, and missed the alerts in her com
entirely.

“Hello HELLO” her com buzzed behind her ear. Finally Lini broke
out of the spell, “Hello, Oh hi Topin, What’s up”, it was her
old friend and classmate.

“As per your prior request, your Mom’s car just went past my
house, so you have about 5 minutes to get home”, Tobin was
trying hard to make his voice sound as deep as he could.

“Oh my gosh”, Lini muttered as she eyed the small translucent monitor
in the corner of her vision, “its nearly 20, moms gonna kill me”,
she raced to her brand new city glider, “Bye Bubba”, she punched
thin deft fingers at the thin curved console she took out of her
pocket and the machine whirred even as she jumped, twirling in the
air to plant herself onto the seat, shoving the console on the
steer pad.

“Thanks for the drink”.

“Bye sweets, ride carefully”, but she was way past Bubba’s
audible range and already picking up speed to hear his reply,
his voice trailed away knowing she was probably already half way
across Mitna by then, riding at breakneck speed.

“Ahh, Kids”, he grumbled at the other lone customer in the café,
but there was no disdain in his voice, in fact he had grown quite
fond of this scrawny little kid over the years, in spite of her
rather unpredictable impulsiveness's. His mind went back to when
his own daughter Mimi was still at home, he missed her dearly,
more than he missed Danny, his son.
Mimi- his sweet little munchkin, had all grown up suddenly, and
now gone to study Noesis history at the Canten University just
last year, three clusters away on Alca, the education city.
He missed her dearly.

Post 1 ends.
To be continued in the next post