Author: Derin

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next Somehow, surprisingly, nothing went wrong. Obviously, unsurprisingly, it was the scariest thing I’d done in my life. There I stood, with the three historians and our safety supervisor, a man named Piko, in an airlock. An airlock that was cycling. Right from when they can first walk, every … Continue reading 50: External

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next I laid in bed until it was almost a normal time to get up, double checked that the treegrave could find me in case the historians of Jamon wanted to know where I was (it should be obvious that a ship’s treegrave could find you anywhere on the … Continue reading 49: Impossible

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next “Children!” Jamon said firmly, standing up – well, straightening her posture, at least. (People don’t really ‘stand up’ or ‘sit down’ in zero pull, but they do have more relaxed and more attentive stances.) “We have guests, and Kichi needs his rest!” “Sorry,” various kids mumbled. Nimi raised … Continue reading 48: Unregulated Growth

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next “What’s a creche?” I whispered to the historians quietly while the two Hexacorallians talked. “It’s sort of a half-orphanage,” Hali whispered back. “It’s like, for kids that have families but they can’t find anyone to watch the kids during the day. They go to the creche to be … Continue reading 47: Kichi

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next We all stared at him. “What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s the treegrave! It’s not a ship without a treegrave!” “It’s not a fleet ship without a treegrave,” Miya corrected me gently. “Peripheral vessels don’t have treegraves and they do just fine.” “Because they have a fleet … Continue reading 46: Fleet Status

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next Behind me, the historians were talking to Miya about the ship. “I see you have a secondary airlock in case of airlock faults,” Tima was saying, “but there’s no extra protection against hull breaches, and this thing has the thinnest hull I’ve ever seen on a vessel. What … Continue reading 45: Hexacorallia

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next A couple of days before we left for Hexacorallia, I got a message from my family. It wasn’t anything urgent. They just said they were missing me, told me how everyone was doing, asked how I was doing. (They didn’t seem worried about me, so I guessed that … Continue reading 44: Messages

My family line is really good at being born. That was something that I discovered right away. As I became aware for the first time and dug into my memories, I found that a really high proportion of them were about the physiology of bodies. Here is where the heart is in a Bantic slug; … Continue reading Inner Life 1: Birth

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next “We have a complication,” Tima said one morning at breakfast. Plia stopped chewing. “A serious one?” “Not really. The trip to the Dish is all secure. It’s the ride back to the Courageous that’s going to take some finagling. The Velocity – ” “Terrible ship name, very confusing … Continue reading 43: Travel Plans

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next After that, I was pretty bored for a while. Ella did get more busy in the lab and couldn’t hang out with me much, and the historians were also busy, spending all of their time looking through the Stalwart’s databanks even though they admitted that they didn’t expect … Continue reading 42: Holding Pattern