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Once the ship was set on its new course, I decided to sleep a few hours. I figure I have at least five hours before I hit the Military Board’s no man’s land. I crawl into my hammock and sleep as though I drugged myself along with the others.
I wake up with a faint memory of something like feathers dusting across my face. I shake my head, trying to bring back something half-remembered, but it was gone. Perhaps it was just Ifrit crossing my pillow as I slept. Ifrit is the only one here who will not think of me any differently from now on; Ifrit’s entire life has been this ship. She’s a mod-pet, based on a mustelid but with a few enhancements for low gravity: suction disks like a prosimian’s at the ends of her toes, a prehensile tail and enhancements of her species’ natural agility. She is quite a graceful thing in zero gee, although sometimes entirely too clever for her own good. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to buy her, because mod-pets aren’t cheap, but at the time I felt I needed a friendly face on my ship, even if it was a rather furry one.
There she is, asleep at the foot of my hammock, tail coiled through the net to hold her in place. It must have been her I felt brushing by me. I push out of the hammock straight up to the ceiling so as not to disturb her sleep and roll across the wall to stand upright on the floor. I go through a normal morning’s routine, as though I can somehow make this a normal morning. Exercise. Shower. Braid my hair tight against my head so it doesn’t strangle or blind me. Check Ifrit’s food and water dispenser. Head to the galley for breakfast. I catch myself singing some wordless tune and realize that I am composing melodies around the call in my head. It has not exactly become stronger; in fact, it has mercifully decreased in volume and intensity. But it has become more musical, a series of harmonies, almost pleasant, and I am reminded of how I felt as I changed the ship’s course last night and felt the new alignment resonnate within me.
I leave the galley and head to the bridge with a handful of dried apricots and strong dark coffee, the kind only Nasr and I will drink. I start to chew an apricot but find it has turned to ashes in my mouth. I will have to wake them soon. They need to sleep through whatever confrontation there will be with the Military Board, but I am not sure I can pilot Ehrengard alone in the uncharted reaches of space. I call up our current trajectory and feel that same sense of satisfaction, viewing it both with my eyes and with somewhere else deeper inside my head. “Here there be monsters,” I whisper. My reflection on the com panel mouths the words back at me.
I wake up with a faint memory of something like feathers dusting across my face. I shake my head, trying to bring back something half-remembered, but it was gone. Perhaps it was just Ifrit crossing my pillow as I slept. Ifrit is the only one here who will not think of me any differently from now on; Ifrit’s entire life has been this ship. She’s a mod-pet, based on a mustelid but with a few enhancements for low gravity: suction disks like a prosimian’s at the ends of her toes, a prehensile tail and enhancements of her species’ natural agility. She is quite a graceful thing in zero gee, although sometimes entirely too clever for her own good. I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to buy her, because mod-pets aren’t cheap, but at the time I felt I needed a friendly face on my ship, even if it was a rather furry one.
There she is, asleep at the foot of my hammock, tail coiled through the net to hold her in place. It must have been her I felt brushing by me. I push out of the hammock straight up to the ceiling so as not to disturb her sleep and roll across the wall to stand upright on the floor. I go through a normal morning’s routine, as though I can somehow make this a normal morning. Exercise. Shower. Braid my hair tight against my head so it doesn’t strangle or blind me. Check Ifrit’s food and water dispenser. Head to the galley for breakfast. I catch myself singing some wordless tune and realize that I am composing melodies around the call in my head. It has not exactly become stronger; in fact, it has mercifully decreased in volume and intensity. But it has become more musical, a series of harmonies, almost pleasant, and I am reminded of how I felt as I changed the ship’s course last night and felt the new alignment resonnate within me.
I leave the galley and head to the bridge with a handful of dried apricots and strong dark coffee, the kind only Nasr and I will drink. I start to chew an apricot but find it has turned to ashes in my mouth. I will have to wake them soon. They need to sleep through whatever confrontation there will be with the Military Board, but I am not sure I can pilot Ehrengard alone in the uncharted reaches of space. I call up our current trajectory and feel that same sense of satisfaction, viewing it both with my eyes and with somewhere else deeper inside my head. “Here there be monsters,” I whisper. My reflection on the com panel mouths the words back at me.
