Time to Orbit: Unknown

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next Four days before we left for Starlight, it was my birthday. I forgot all about it, until the historians woke me up with a birthday egg. “It’s not perfect,” Tima said apologetically while I tried not to cry. “I don’t think we got the shell right?” “They don’t … Continue reading 53: Starlight

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next Tikka and I kept messaging each other. I told her more about Hexacorallia, she told me more about her life on the Stalwart. Her life didn’t sound very interesting, but maybe it was just hard to say the interesting parts across languages. I don’t know. I told her … Continue reading 52: Markball

Previous The extra shots gave me an opportunity. The parts of me that weren’t connected to the eye, I’d spread out to sample signals from any other interesting-seeming nerves I could reach, and comparing the shots to incoming signals allowed me to logically deduce another sensory system: hearing. The incoming signals there seemed to undergo … Continue reading Inner Life 2: Sight

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next I woke up all tensed up and frozen, heart racing. A nightmare about being in open space. Already fading. I didn’t move. Something was wrong. Was it time to get up? No; the bedroom lights came on by themselves when Hexacorallia’s violet shift started. They weren’t on. But … Continue reading 51: The Device

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