We were told the ship would respond to our commands, and not just when it came to flying, but when it came to its interior appearance and the view outside. We weren’t sure exactly what this meant until we entered the ship and opened our eyes.
The ship’s interior mimicked the beach we had just left! Perfectly! In a way that defied belief. It was absolutely astonishing. Perfect holography didn’t begin to do it justice.
We knew intellectually there couldn’t be a long sand beach and ocean as far as the eye could see inside a fifty-foot aircraft, but our senses were completely fooled. The floor not only looked like sand, but felt like it, making use of both holographic and nanite technology.
When we asked how this was done, the ship’s AI told us that many billions of nanites were used, each much larger than the ones now in our bloodstreams. These enhanced the holographic illusions by reconfiguring instantly to mimic any shape, texture, and material, natural or otherwise.
We could move in any direction for as long as we wanted, and while the floor acted as a sort of treadmill, ensuring we never really progressed, the topography and appearance of the ground changed as we walked, as did the scenery, creating a perfect illusion. In fact, despite knowing we were in a relatively small ship, the sense of vastness, of reality, was so great that we’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between this and an actual beach, fake sun included.
How the holographic and nanite systems managed to work in concert to pull off this incredible feat, I’ll never know, but I could see how living on the inside of an asteroid could go from being sterile and claustrophobic to magnificent and limitless.
I ordered the ship to hover at ten thousand feet while we experimented with this magical toy, like primitives who had stumbled upon a working cell phone.
For the next five minutes we were like kids on Christmas morning, our eyes wide as we tore open package after package, desperate to see the surprises within. We had the ship mimic the inside of the Taj Mahal, and Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Oval Office, and the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and Niagara falls, and a dozen other famous locales, marveling at the perfection of each illusion.
With tech this remarkable, the fact that the ship could also fly around the world in thirty minutes was almost an afterthought. The owner of an immovable theater equipped with this kind of technology could charge anything he or she wanted for the experience.
We next experimented with the outer view. At first we ordered the entire ship to go transparent, but I quickly realized what a mistake this was, at least for me. After all I had been through, I thought the illusion of being suspended at ten thousand feet in the air wouldn’t bother me, but I was wrong again. While I knew intellectually a ship was around us and we wouldn’t plummet to the all-too-distant ground, the primitive fear centers of my brain didn’t seem to get the message.
After further experimentation we finally settled on the configuration we would use for this round of travel. The floor of the ship was transformed into the illusion of a lavish Japanese garden, complete with winding stream, while we left the sides fully transparent. This let me have my cake and eat it too. I could take advantage of the ship’s holographic artistry, while still getting a generous view outside that didn’t throw me into a state of panic.
We then asked the AI pilot to take us into space. We fixed our gaze on a mountain range to give us perspective as we rose straight up at more than twelve miles a second. While the mountains receded at a truly dizzying rate before quickly blending into a broader diorama, we felt absolutely no sensation of motion. We must have pulled thousands of G forces, but we could have been sitting in recliners at home watching TV for all we knew.
Once again, the laws of physics had become nothing more than the optional suggestions of physics.
The Earth from space was more glorious even than we had expected. It was impossible to gaze at our magnificent planet and not be moved by the experience, not feel a poetic sense of the shared journey of all mankind. We had seen pictures of the Earth from space, of course, but they couldn’t begin to do it justice, and to land-based mammals like us, the sheer magnitude of Earth’s oceans was awe-inspiring.
We whipped around the planet for almost an hour, reveling in the spectacle of the Earth and star-field from space while floating slightly above our Japanese garden. The ship could have produced artificial gravity for us, but that’s the last thing we wanted. I had thought weightlessness would be a blast, but I didn’t guess the half of it. I never realized just how harsh a taskmaster gravity really was, but I had to say, I was no longer a fan.
Finally, the ship informed us it was time to leave for our final destination. Gravity quickly returned as we raced toward the ground, and we arrived at Murramarang National Park in minutes. The ship made itself invisible, deposited us near the Roo View Lodge, out of sight of any onlookers, and confirmed tomorrow’s pick-up time and location.
The rest of the day and night was amazing. I mean, nothing could compare to our experience traveling here, but this actually came close. The cabins were perfectly positioned, and we saw our fill of kangaroos and birds, although the dolphins weren’t jumping. I guess you can’t have everything.
All the while we unwound, relaxed, digested, thought, discussed, and even chatted with our cabin neighbors.
At nightfall, Tessa and I were intimate—repeatedly—and if anything could ever top my UFO experiences, making love to the woman of my dreams while nanites increased both my endurance and nerve sensation came close. I had engaged in what I thought was great sex before. But I had never experienced sex so great that I almost blacked out, that I could almost feel my brain melting from the ecstasy of it all.
We both eventually fell into a blissful slumber, our naked bodies still enmeshed, closing out what had been the perfect day.