“I can’t see her, where is she?” I said, frantically turning around and searching the crowd for her.

“You are looking in the wrong direction. Please sit comfortably in your seat, face straight, then look straight down, and that’s where you will find her,” Hepf advised.

I relaxed and followed his instructions, and then I saw her, exactly as Hepf had directed. Next to her I saw Vince and Kyran, the three of them waving up at us cheerfully.

“I see her! Thank you so much, Hepf,” I said, deeply grateful for this moment.

I stared intensely at Koharu, trying to send my thoughts specifically to her.

“I love you Koharu. Forgive me for not being able to stay with you when you give birth to our child. I know that this is a very important moment. Please tell our child that her father will come back to stay with her as soon as possible. Please take care of her for me, and I promise to do my best to make amends for your sacrifice. I love you Koharu,” I told her in my mind while struggling to hold back the tears.

I looked at her, overwhelmed by my emotions. I wish I could hug her just one last time, but I knew I couldn’t. At that moment, a thought struck me: ‘It seems that we have to look forward to seeing each other again. Do you now understand how it feels to have to wait for someone?’ When this wave of thought had passed, I recalled the moment in which I had met Koharu for the first time. At that instant, I understood how it feels to wait anxiously for someone whom you have so patiently longed for, and the heart-wrenching feeling of not being able to wait another minute to be reunited with your loved one. She had known these feelings so well but it was me who had never experienced these emotions before.

“Hepf, we can go now,” I said, realising that we had been hovering there for quite a while already, and, as heavy my heart was, I knew that I had to tear myself away and leave Koharu behind.

“Very well,” Hepf replied.

“Goodbye, Koharu,” I repeated in my mind.

Our spaceship climbed steeply as Hepf brought us up so high that the whole city looked like a miniature town. Even though the ship was now soaring almost vertically, it felt very still and quiet as if the aircraft was not restrained by friction at all.

When our ship reached a certain height, I saw that the other spaceship, flown by Piet, was already waiting for us. His vehicle, in the shape of a glowing white flying saucer, was hovering not far from us.

“I’d like to do a few more dry runs by flying around the planet with Piet to get familiar with the spaceship again,” Hepf announced. “We’ll fly at two speeds: first at about half the maximum speed that the ship can reach, and then at full speed.”

“We’re going to commence the flight. Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m ready,” I replied, instinctively gripping the sides of my chair, even though I knew that it was not necessary. Abruptly, Hepf took the ship into a steep climb, and we flew much higher than before, closely followed by Piet. Soon we were high enough to see the whole planet, and only then did I realise that Ruthorn’s city was located not very far from the sea. This height must have been the maximum reach of the airplanes in my world. As soon as we had reached the desired altitude, the flight test began. The ship soared at an incredibly high speed and I noticed that when the vehicle was moving that fast, the stone disk in the centre became even more transparent. It had become so transparent that I could see through it and it seemed as if only Hepf and I were still visible, while all other objects were completely transparent now. I could see the view all around me so clearly as if our bodies were zooming through the air.

I tried to detect any differences inside the ship when stationary and in-flight, but I couldn’t identify any. The acceleration during take-off that had propelled us from zero to 350 kilometers per second didn’t feel any different to when the ship was parked. There was hardly any resistance or vibration at all, and the spaceship had reached this supersonic speed without making any sound or even accelerating.

The view outside changed quickly; a minute earlier we had flown over land, but now we found ourselves above the ocean. We flew over ocean and land twice, experiencing both day and night during the flight before the ship came to a stop. The flight test had taken less than three minutes in total.

“We’ve now completed a whole tour around the world,” Hepf remarked when he stopped the spaceship in mid-air.

“Oh really? Did we really go all around the world? That was very quick,” I commented.

“The second test will be twice as fast and I will reduce our flight altitude by half. Are you ready?” Hepf asked.

“Ready when you are,” I replied, really looking forward to the ride.

The two spaceships reduced their altitude before simultaneously accelerating to their highest speed. And just like before, from take-off to maximum speed, we didn’t experience any sudden surges or jerks. This time, our ship flew at a much lower altitude, allowing me to observe the geographic characteristic of Tuengra better than before.

But because of the high speed, I could only catch a glimpse of the land and the ocean below. In about a minute, we had returned to our starting position.

“We’ve completed another round,” Hepf reported when the ship had stopped.

“I have to admit, flying in your spaceship is very different from what I had expected,” I told him.

“What did you expect?” he asked.

“At first, I thought the adrenalin rush would give me a thrilling experience, but when we actually took off, I didn’t feel anything at all. The experience was not what I had totally expected.”

“Well,” said Hepf, “I told you before about the very special way that this vehicle moves. We can indeed say that the ship always remained still, and no part was built to actually move. When parked, it’s so heavy it cannot be lifted. The important factor is to know the gravity value of the magnetic field at each specific point, since each place has a different magnetic value. On the surface of the planet, for example, the gravitational value is much higher than in space.”

“Does the magnetic field exist in space? I thought that there was nothing in space,” I asked.

“Actually, our whole universe is intertwined with the magnetic field. So, when we know the specific gravity value of each place, we can set the particle accelerator of this spaceship to that value using our mind,” Hepf said.

“Our ships use the same laws of physics that were applied in lifting massive stones to build the pyramids. It is a process in which we widen the magnetic field to create a space that allows objects to move in the direction that we’ve specified. However, the movements of spaceships and large stones are a bit different. Our spaceships have built-in particle accelerators, while the stones would require external particle accelerators to move them,” he continued.

“This is why we need another assistant to help guide the stones into the right positions during the construction,” Hepf explained.

“I understand,” I said, “but if that’s the case, can a spaceship fly faster in space than on earth?”

“There is no difference. Depending on our decision, it can travel at the same speed because we set the gravitational value to zero in both cases. How fast the spaceship can go is therefore entirely up to us to decide,” Hepf said.