Read Online Torian Reclamation 2: Flash Move by Andy Kasch - Free Book Online Page B

detect a wrinkle or two forming on your face. If you insist on continuing to live here, you’ll be an old man soon.”
    “Not afraid of what I am,” Derek said. “That’s what you never understood, man. I’m an Earthling, and Earthlings age.”
    Brandon shook his head. “Not so much on Banor. Even the oldest of us now looks younger than you.”
    “Youth isn’t a good look for a professor, Brando. When and if I decide to change planets, I’ll be the respected one over there—the one they come to for advice. Might just set up shop next to you and give you some competition.”
    They laughed and cracked a few more jokes, then asked about the welfare of each other’s small families. When all was reported well, the two of them came over to Jumper and Alan.
    “How did the suits work?” Derek asked.
    Alan said “partially” at the same time Jumper said “perfectly,” causing Brandon to laugh and Derek to frown.
    “Tell me about it as we all walk to the chemistry building,” Derek said.
    The four of them left the lecture room and ambled through the halls and courtyard. Jumper told his dad the same partial-truth story about the mountain trip that Alan had given his father.
    “I’m glad you didn’t try anything stupid with them,” Derek said. “I’ve since discovered there needs to be a certain geological composition in the nearby ground for the anti-gravity fields to kick on properly.”
    “Does it include cortzye stones?” Alan asked.
    “They contain one of the necessary elements, yes.”
    Jumper saw Brandon glance at him and Alan with a wry face.
    “Yob3 is giving a lecture at the moment,” Derek said, “so let’s slip in the back row and wait while he finishes up. With any luck we’ll freak him out.”
    “I’ve never seen Professor Yob3 freak out over anything,” Jumper said.
    When they came to his lecture hall, they went in single file through the rear door and sat down quietly. Five native students and one Earthling were in attendance. Yob3 glanced up at the new arrivals, shook his head slightly and chuckled. There was a small metal sphere balanced on a thin pole in front of him, which was dimly lit from the bottom side. Yob3 went on with his lecture.
    “So we see that the isolation of the light from an accelerated nuclide can be controlled in this manner, and is not particularly dangerous to handle. By rearranging the supporting spectrum…”
    At that moment, Jumper thought he saw a recognizable flash of light from under the small metal sphere—the flash move flicker from polwar. That didn’t make any sense. He must have been imagining it. But he knew he wasn’t. He was the colony champ because he learned to distinct that flash from all other light reflections. Jumper leaned forward in his seat and felt a tightening in his lower stomach.
    The light under the metal orb turned blue, and the orb levitated off its resting point until it held in place in the middle of the room. The students were looking up at it now. The tightness in Jumper’s gut increased and he clutched his abdomen with both hands.
    Yob3 continued. “We have achieved a partial transformation of light energy here, what some would mistakenly assume is matter related. But the matter is only reacting to the energy transformation. Now we can set the sphere back down gently by continuing to rotate through the spectrum—”
    A second familiar flash sparkled under the elevated metal orb and Jumper’s abdominal pain became severe—but only for a second. The orb then shot upward and impacted on the ceiling. It exploded in an intense flash of white light that spread across the entire ceiling of the lecture hall. The resulting blindness was a welcome relief to Jumper, because his stomach was suddenly fine again.
    It was a few minutes before Jumper could see normally, and correspondingly a few minutes before Yob3 spoke again.
    “That was unexpected,” he said. “Is everyone all right?”
    The students in the room looked at each