Time to Orbit: Unknown

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... [Glossary] .......... Next> “Okay,” I explained to Glath, “so I need 240 volts, 10 amps to connect to these bits of metal on this plug here, as AC – uh, with the electrons zigzagging back and forth.” “What are volts and amps?” he asked, crossing his front legs in … Continue reading 5: Physics and chemistry

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... Next> .......... Last>> “Okay, look,” I say. “There’s something you should probably know.” I explain the synnerve experiment. The Leadership stare at me with uniformly horrified expressions. “We’re so, so sorry that that happened to you,” Tana says. “We should have picked up on what was happening. That should … Continue reading 173: AI

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... [Glossary] .......... Next> From the outside, the Stardancer was ugly. I guess I’d grown up looking at spaceships in fiction, with the occasional video of a shuttle launched from Earth for good measure. But what space needed, apparently, was neither style nor aerodynamics. The Stardancer was a big fat … Continue reading 4: Space is big

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... Next> .......... Last>> I stare at Dandelion. “Reaching another exoplanet is the entire plan.” “Yes, but it doesn’t actually solve anyone’s problems, does it? The Hylarans want to avoid having their settlement overwhelmed by a refugee population five times the size of their own, but don’t want to kill … Continue reading 172: LIFETIME

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... [Glossary] .......... Next> Sometimes I look back on my life and try to figure out exactly how I ended up on the edge of charted space with the Princess, outrunning the authorities. It is not, I suppose, a difficult question; every step in the sequence makes sense. I chose … Continue reading 3: Orbits of metal and plastics

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... Next> .......... Last>> It takes about two weeks for Captain Klees to find an algae pancake recipe that’s halfway tolerable, and by then the first hydroponic root vegetables are almost ready. By order of our dear captain, we ground crew are barred from eating the root vegetables beyond a … Continue reading 171: VELOCITY

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... [Glossary] .......... Next> The interpreter led the way down the tube. I followed closely, taking the opportunity to study them. They must have been watching me, too, because even though I was kind of drifting between hatches rather than actually walking, the interpreter’s faux-arms and legs moved in a … Continue reading 2: Shanghai

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... Next> .......... Last>> The dandelions have started to bloom. Specks of yellow dot the patches of green spread across the largely dead sands on the slopes just out of sight of the colony, and it’s well past time to take samples to see how the seeded microbial communities in … Continue reading 170: BLOOM

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... [Glossary] .......... Next> As any decent stargazer will tell you, you can’t do it in the city. You can’t do it in a town either, really, not properly. Too much light pollution. No; to properly see the stars, you have to wait for a moonless night and head out … Continue reading 1: Fuck Photography

<<First .......... <Prev .......... [Archive] .......... Next> .......... Last>> The next day is full of preparation. The first thing we do is set up a meeting between our ground crew, a handful of Hylarans (Hive, Celti, Elenna, Max and Dr Kim, chosen for their existing proximity to us and expertise in relevant fields), and the … Continue reading 169: INDEFINITE