Jack heard voices from somewhere above him. He was certainly in the Land of the Ancestors now, nobody could survive a free-jump, but why did the ancestors sound like Luca? “Is he dead?” asked Luca, poking Jack with a stick he'd found on the beach. Tan touched the side of Jack’s face. “No, but I am worried about the burn on his arm.” “Lucky that’s all that happened, we made it with only four seconds to spare,” said Luca, continuing to poke Jack with the stick, and only stopping when Tan took the stick from him. Tan tossed the stick aside and watched with relief as Jack's breathing became stronger. “That didn’t feel like any of the other gate jumps we've made, I thought I was going to freeze to death.” Luca rocked back on his heels and pouted at the loss of his stick. “Jumps are only supposed to be one to five seconds, exactly so we don’t freeze.” Jack realized it was Luca talking, but he hurt everywhere and didn’t feel like opening his eyes yet. “How am I still alive?” “I put a shield around you, jerk,” replied Luca. "Luca, let's not have any name calling," scolded Tan. Jack barely shook his head. “That can’t be right,” croaked Jack, but unable to form a thought as to why and shrugged it off for now. “Take it easy, buddy, just rest.” Tan looked up at Luca. “You guys have force fields?” Luca shrugged. “Yeah.” Jack forced his eyes to open and his mind to focus. “Force fields take twice as much energy as a Gate Jump, and they only last for sixty-seconds. They’re not practical to even try to use.” “I did it,” said Luca. “You should have told me what you were going to do. I barely got it around you in time.” “Help me up,” said Jack, shaking his head. “Luca, I gave you my key, but a key doesn’t have enough energy to make a shield, you must have done something else.” Tan gently lifted Jack to a sitting position. “Take it slow, and try to explain to me what just happened.” “I did a free-jump, but a person can’t be connected to the Gate Map, so it’s never done,” said Jack scanning the beach they were on. The yacht was about 100 feet away and half buried in the sand. “You just pick a direction and go.” “It’s suicide for the person initiating the jump," explained Luca. "You would burn up without a lamp post to absorb the energy being used, that’s why I put a shield around you.” Jack shook his head again. “Luca, a shield isn’t possible with a single key, it’s not enough energy.” Luca shrugged and twisted his mouth to the side. “Why did you say we made it with 4 seconds to spare?” asked Tan. “A shield can only last for one minute,” replied Luca. Jack frowned at Luca. “Okay, forget about the shield for now, you’re saying we were in the jump for 56 seconds?” Luca nodded. “Yeah, I counted.” “So, we traveled about 850 million light years,” said Jack. “Umm… so where are we?” asked Tan. Jack rolled over onto his knees to push himself up. “I don’t know, I didn’t have time to take a celestial reading, I picked a direction and hoped my imaginary line across the universe intersected with a habitable world.” Tan took Jack by the arm and helped him stand. “Wait, so if the direction you picked didn’t intersect with a habitable world, we’d just keep going?” “Until you froze to death,” said Jack, standing on wobbly legs. “Sorry, I had no choice. I had to roll the dice and hope.” “Are we on an Aeden world?” asked Tan, exasperated at Jack’s casual disregard for the situation. Jack looked up at the night sky. “I don’t think we’re even in Aeden space anymore, I don’t recognize any of those constellations.” Tan raised a brow and frowned. “So we went the wrong way, and now we’re 850 million light years in uncharted space?” Jack, having just realized what Luca did, ignored the question and spun around to Luca. “You sneaky little brat, you’ve got a second key, that’s how you were able to access enough energy to make a shield.” Tan put a hand out to hold Jack. “Slow down, we’re in enough trouble without resorting to name calling.” Jack pointed angrily at Luca. “When your dad told you to run away and escape, he wouldn’t just say, run away, Luca. He would have given you his Gate Keepers Master Key and told you to escape off-world, but the Eroden were between you and the gate. We’ve had a Master Key the whole time!” “Luca, is that true?” asked Tan. “I didn’t know Jack was a World Walker,” said Luca. “I thought he knew what he was doing. You’d already gotten us lost with that one-way broken key by the time I found out. And I didn’t know you yet, so I wasn’t going to tell a World Walker, or a Lesser Human, that I had a Master Key.” “Luca, I thought we were past that Lesser Human thing,” said Tan. “We are, now,” said Luca guiltily. “But I didn’t know you then, and I wasn’t going to tell a Lesser Human I had the most powerful Aeden weapon there is in my pocket. There are rules, and I follow the rules. I didn’t know Jack was just making things up as he was going. By the time I knew, it was too late for my key to do anything to help us, and Jack knows it. Don’t put this on me.” “Fair enough,” said Tan. “Jack?” Jack had his lips pressed together in anger. “Fine, I saved your life, and now you’ve saved mine, we’re even, let’s leave it there.” Luca held Jack's key out to him. Jack snatched the key and shoved it into his pocket. “Okay, we’ll stay on the boat tonight and go explore tomorrow when it’s light,” said Tan.