[IC] Lost in Dreams (Chandra)

[Rocket Man]

Desert? Oasis? The Arabian Nights are sounding more and more apropos. Uncomfortably, Chandra remembers that those stories also included harems, slaves and forced marriages.

But getting lost in an alternate India, even on a tourist world, might carry fates just as grim; she know those possibilities too well. And the Academy wouldn't be an option much longer, not with Gopal sure to blow the whistle sooner or later.

Home? She had to be practical. With the thousands of known worlds the Academy talked about and the greater number of unknown ones, her odds of finding her own world without training were infinitesimal.

Without training ...

Training, or trap?

Maybe it no longer mattered. Maybe a danger imagined was less bad than a danger becoming more certain by the day.

She hesitates. Looks Tereza in the eye. And then takes her hand.