Time to Orbit: Unknown

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next “What do you mean?” Plia asked. “We got the idea from Arborea Celestia,” Ella explained. “Arborea is a ship with design problems. Just so, so many design problems. I mean, right from the fleet’s obsession with ring-shaped habitats… but more importantly, their whole ecological structure results in a … Continue reading 36: Perfect Plans

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next “What’s the deal with the capuchins, do you think?” Tima asked at breakfast. Plia shrugged. “Just what Fari said, I’d imagine. They seem to be really big on efficiency here. If you can keep your mass and your food and oxygen cycling down when supporting the huge force … Continue reading 35: Efficiency

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next I rushed out into the hall and almost ran right into the historians. “Taya!” Plia threw her arms around me protectively, glancing around for trouble. “What happened? Are you okay?” “Structural issue?” Hali asked, rushing over to my door and checking that it was sealed. “I’ll call Fari,” … Continue reading 34: Tikka

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next The next ship on our itinerary was the Stalwart. I’d looked it up before our journey, and it was quite strange. It had normal inertial pull, like the Courageous and the Arborea (phew), so you’d think it would be a nice sensible ring shape, or maybe several rings, … Continue reading 33: Stalwart

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next The next day, being so put off by the Dawn Festival felt silly. All the stuff they’d been chanting was just the fleet mission, sort of. They didn’t think about it like we did on the Courageous, and we’d definitely never describe ourselves or our mission like that, but … Continue reading 32: Moon Mysteries

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next The people of the Arborea Celestia are all farmers, but they don’t think of themselves as farmers. They work three hours a day at some other job and farm in their “free” time. Once I talked about looking after the forests as working in Farming, and the Arborean I … Continue reading 31: Dawn Festival

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next “You’re super young to be exiled,” Strawberry said one morning as we ate some big round fruits for breakfast (not all Arborean food needed to be cooked; these were raw). She sounded impressed. “I’m just accompanying my sister,” I told her. “We thought that if I came now, it … Continue reading 30: The Dreamspeaker

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next Arboreans don’t have harems or nuclear families or orphanages like we do aboard the Courageous. Instead they live in ‘clusters’, where a group of grown ups live together in the trees with their kids. Grown ups can move between clusters however they feel like, and they take their kids … Continue reading 29: Arborea Celestia

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next We had nothing to do the whole next day except travel closer and closer to Arborea Celestia. The historians spent a lot of their time arguing with each other, which seemed to be their favourite hobby. “All I’m saying,” Tima was saying, “is that the Smallest Possible Loop doesn’t … Continue reading 28: Jessies

First -- Prev-- Archive -- Next I wasn’t sure what to say about Hali’s story, but luckily I didn’t have to say anything because right then came the warning that we were about to start moving toward the Arborea Celestia. We stowed our bags safely in a locker and Plia helped me figure out the … Continue reading 27: Rodge