I felt the tingle again as the thing made contact. I didn't back away. I figured there was nowhere to run from this thing. If it wanted me, it was going to find me. I just as soon have this meeting while I am awake and ready, my crew by my side.
Slowly the shadow of black swirls encompassed my arms and stopped advancing. The sensation transitioned then to a frozen bite of pain. Very similar to the one that I had been getting down my spine. It was the same exact chill, only more intense.
I stared directly forward into the smoke in search of a face. I needed some sort of method of communicating with it. When I asked it what it wanted, there was no reply. Before I could try another tact, the thing withdrew slowly and dissipated into thin air.
"My sensors show no interference now," Portia said calmly. "Is the shadow still there?"
"No Portia. It is not," I said as I stared at my arms, moving them around. The chill was still lingering. I began shaking them as if I wanted to fling water from my hands.
"Are you okay?" Lin asked. "We should get you to the medical facility."
"I don't think that you will find anything," I responded.
Portia then stepped over to stand in front of me. Cupping her strong hands under my elbows she lifted to place my forearms directly in front of her face. "I agree," she said. "Your medical scanners are unlikely to find anything. Can you explain the sensation?"
"It is like my arms are frozen, they are so cold. But I don't feel like shivering. And there is no loss of mobility either."
"What about strength?" Portia asked, lowering my arms. Then she placed the palms of her hands on top of mine. When I raised my hands, she leaned forward, but didn't prevent my hands from moving.
"Push down," I told her, not understanding why she wasn't already.
"This is over two hundred kilograms of force," she told me. "Now at two-fifty. Do you not feel the resistance?"
"I feel something," I answered. "It is getting a little harder."
It wasn't until she reached four hundred and fifty kilos of force that I had difficulty raising my arms. That was a bunch more than I could even bench press. And over five times as much as I could bicep curl. My strength had just increased dramatically.
"Let us repeat the exercise after two minutes and move five meters away," Portia suggested. I liked the way she was thinking. Certainly more clear-headed than me at the moment.
My strength dropped about twenty percent when we retested. Lin and Nancy went back to the control room to analyze the computer readings on the entity and try to find it somewhere else in the ship. Portia and I continued at two-minute intervals to repeat the arm strength test. It continued to drop slowly until about double my normal strength.
The chill had consistently decreased during that time until there was only a memory of the neural frozen state. Then suddenly it returned full force. As did my strength. The test shot up to five hundred kilos that time before I couldn’t lift her.
When I felt the chill dissipating again, I understood what was happening. Then came the implications. If I could summon the coldness of the jump space creature at will, I would be incredibly strong when I needed to be. I decided to test that hypothesis later.
Portia and I joined Lin and Nancy in the control room as we scoured the data. According to the computer, nothing significant was ever there. It never had been, not even when we were in the alternate two-dimensional universe. But the three of us knew better now. No one more than me. Portia's verdict was still out as she was reluctant to express an opinion contrary to mine. She could not debate the effect on my strength but considered the possibility that it came from a residue effect instead of a living creature.
After a few hours without any new readings to examine, we got hungry and headed for the galley. It was in the center of the upper level of our ship along with the restrooms and showers. A hallway encircled them to connect the control room with all the quarters and medical bay.
As Lin and Nancy worked the food processors Portia performed the strength test on me again. The numbers were disappointingly low, right up until I felt the chill return down my spine. When it reached my arms, my power was right back up at maximum again. I was getting an Incredible Hulk vibe. I checked over my skin to see if it was turning green. Thankfully, it was not.
Chapter Eleven
We still had some time to kill before our outgoing cargo would arrive for Portia to load. During that time Lin and I studied the crystal market with the limited information that we had. Potential profit was not estimated to be as high as I previously thought. However, it was worth grabbing a case to see how well we could actually do with it.
I reviewed the video of my conversations at the crystal shop as Portia played it in the form of a hologram. Then I sent a message to the shop that I would like to have a crate delivered to my ship as long as it didn't delay our departure. They promised that it wouldn't and stated that we had a few hours to pick out our selection in person. Otherwise, they would go with a standard assortment.
I wasn't eager to run back out again right away, so I grabbed a cup of nano-whiskey from the galley at sat at the table. It was a shame that we didn't have more of a living room setting somewhere on the ship. We had to
