Chapter One
There wasn't really anything to look at through the window of the ship, but it was better to stare out into the dark expanse than it was to look ahead of me at the bright, almost iridescent white interior of the pod chamber I had been looking at for the last four days, so I continued to gaze out. I sat in my pod, tucked down so I was reclining in the thick padding that filled the rounded egg-like pod with a notebook open in her lap. The top of the pod was as wide open as I could get it and I hadn't closed it since the moment the pilot announced we were out of Earth's atmosphere and I was able to open the pod and move freely around the chamber. I hate being confined in any way. It makes me feel out of control, which was something that I never handled well.
"How are you doing in here?" a flight attendant asked, leaning against the side of my pod and looking down onto the notebook in my lap.
I sighed and smiled up at the frail, rather plain-looking but pleasant girl who had been rotating shifts with a young man during the voyage. The trip from Earth to Uoria was long, but I had been unwilling to undergo the sedating process that would have allowed me to sleep throughout the entire five day sailing. It might be tedious to stay within the same area for such a long time, but giving up five days of my life was not something I was going to do, especially not when I still felt like I had so much to do to prepare for my teaching position on the new planet.
"I'm doing alright. I'm definitely ready to get out of this ship, though."
The flight attendant gave a short laugh and nodded.
"I can totally understand that. These voyages can get stressful. At least you decided to stay awake though. Sitting around here during voyages that are more than a day with passengers that go to sleep can really wear on the nerves."
"I'm sure. I bet there is only so much you have to talk about with your coworker over there."
We both glanced across the chamber at the other flight attendant. He was sitting in one of the long chairs beside the tall windows opposite of my pod, plugged into a game that he held in his lap with the same level of interest and consideration that I held my work. We laughed and the flight attendant shook her head.
"Yeah. He's an exhilarating conversationalist."
"Do you always travel with him when you're working?"
As a teacher, I am naturally curious and constantly found myself feeling like I was doing little research projects throughout my days, trying to find out more about any situation or person that I encountered. I didn't know much about space travel, considering this was my first excursion away from Earth, and it fascinated me to find out about the intricacies of the travel companies and their staff. The curiosity sometimes got me in trouble, but I figured that there wasn't much that could happen just by asking about how they planned their shifts.
"Yes. The university charters teams and we essentially stay together throughout our careers."
"I guess they want to foster closer bonds and trust between the members of the teams so that you can cooperate on a higher level and manage crises more effectively."
The flight attendant stared down at me with a slightly blank look in her eyes.
"That sounded like it came directly out of the training manual."
I laughed. That was not the first time that I had had someone accuse me of sounding like a textbook.
"I guess it's like my grandmother always said, 'You can take the professor out of academia, but you can't take academia out of the professor.'"
The flight attendant giggled.
"I love old-fashioned sayings like that. I haven't heard that one since I was a little girl." She gave a sigh and peered over her shoulder briefly, "It looks like it's just about lunchtime. Can I get you something?"
I nodded.
"Yes. I'm starving. Thank you."
I had packed snacks in the luggage I kept with me at my pod, but I hadn't anticipated the somewhat small portions they served me on the ship and had already eaten almost all of them so I was rationing them carefully so that they lasted throughout the rest of the voyage. When the flight attendant walked away, the pod chamber fell still and quiet again. Even the other attendant had turned off his game and was somewhere else in the ship helping prepare the meal. I let my mind wander to Uoria again and what could be waiting for me there.
I thought about Leia and what the university had told me about the first student who had made the journey to the new planet. It had been two months since the brilliant but troubled young art student had made the courageous decision to the be the very first Earth student to join in the exchange program with the Denynso and make the trip to Uoria to study the culture and the land. Since she left, the university hadn't heard anything about her, and while many of the other professors and even the organizers of the program felt that there was nothing to be concerned about considering how intensive the level of study would be suddenly arriving on another planet where there had been no previously established school or connection, I had felt a twinge of nervousness every time I thought about her.
I didn't know Leia extremely well. Our relationship had not gone far beyond the level of educator and student, but I had always felt a personal interest in her. Though Leia didn't talk about it, I could tell that this was a young woman who was constantly struggling with her own set of demons from her past and was constantly running. She ran by choosing to go to the university. She ran in the type of art that she created. And she ran by being eager to be the first student to sign up for the exchange program even though it was completely uncharted territory and no one had any idea how the engagement with the Denynso was going to go. It seemed strange, even, to call the program an "exchange" program considering no students from the other planet had made the decision to go to Earth to study. Instead, they had requested a professor be sent to the planet in order to instruct them about the history, culture, and environment of Earth.
The lack of news from Leia and the seemingly evasive response of the Denynso when they asked questions about what they wanted to know about Earth and why they didn't want to send their own students or representatives to Earth to learn instead had made it more difficult for the university to find a professor willing to take on the challenge. Even those who didn't think it was strange at all for a young girl on a study abroad program to not check in with the university or send any type of update were reluctant to involve themselves in a program that didn't seem thoroughly planned, especially considering it was designed to foster cooperation and involvement between Earth and a culture known for being fearsome and ruthless warriors.
Though scientists and journalists had had successful excursions to Uoria over the years and had brought back a tremendous amount of information that helped to illuminate the culture and facilitated in laying the foundation of greater cooperation and involvement between the two species, they also brought back stories of aggressive, violent men who towered over seven feet tall, a vicious other species that roamed the planet and engaged in bloody warfare with the Denynso, and laws that governed that visiting humans under the threat of severe punishment. This veil of mystery had made the other professors too afraid to leave their positions on Earth and embark on the journey. Despite my own nervousness, however, I had been intrigued by the stories and eager to find out more. After the Denynso representatives had finally gotten back to the university to tell them that Leia had been on a personal retreat during her time on Uoria gaining inspiration for her art but had recently emerged and had gained special permission from the king and queen to extend her original six month stay into the indefinite future, I decided that if the young, embattled girl could dive into the experience so completely and so quickly, and gain such incredible meaning from it that she decided to leave her home planet and live on Uoria, maybe I should be courageous as well.
With no husband, children, or anything else concrete tying me in place at the university, I finally stepped forward and volunteered. That had been only a day before the scheduled flight, not enough time for me to put together a real lesson plan for the classes or even really narrow down what I wanted to teach. The program had given me fairly loose guidelines about how they wanted the instructing structured, leaving most of the planning and management completely up to me. Without really knowing what age group I would be teaching, what they wanted to learn, or what type of environment and resources I would have access to, I had brought with me as much teaching material as I could and spent the journey putting together my ideas. It was yet to be seen what would really happen once I arrived and got started.