Time to Orbit: Unknown

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

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next “That can’t be right,” I said. “We definitely don’t do things the way you do.” “Well, the Stalwart was built two colonies ago. Maybe your society’s changed since then.” “Maybe yours has.” “Ha! You might be right.” She suddenly stopped smiling and looked thoughtful. “Actually, you probably are. … Continue reading 41: The Colonisation Paradox

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next Trying to find out why Tikka thought that other ships were deadly was hard. I couldn’t understand most of what she tried to tell me, and it seemed like she didn’t know, either. Like maybe it was just something that the grown ups had warned her about. She … Continue reading 40: Ability Rankings

First -- Prev -- Archive -- Next The Stalwart doesn’t have viewports. I’m not sure why; I didn’t want to ask anyone in case it set off a rant about inefficient weak spots in the hull or something. After the historians left, I changed the projector view to a view of space, and stood in … Continue reading 39: Foreigner