Date Point: 1y 5m BV
Eallva
The darkness retreated as Eallva slowly opened her eyes, the world around her sluggishly coming into focus. She was on the floor of the dim room, surrounded by the metal boulders that had so intrigued, or perhaps excited, Selvim upon their arrival. Her mind, still reluctant after waking, began reminding her of its last thoughts before she had blacked out. It submitted for her perusal the despair she’d felt at having no way out, Selvim’s instructions, the terror of the moment, then the flash of red accompanied by sharp pains in her head.
Thinking of that pain returned her focus to the moment as that very sensation made its presence known in a decidedly unpleasant way. Less intense than when they had first appeared, the needles she felt were still far from comfortable, but in no way incapacitating. Stiff limbs ached in protest as she stood, surveying her surroundings. Nothing had changed, as far as she could see, except that there were no guards. She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, but at least it hadn’t been long enough for another group to have found and apprehended her. That there would eventually be a follow-up group she was certain. As for the original group, she supposed her current freedom meant Selvim’s plan had been successful. How it had been so remained a mystery.
In the deathly silence, she stalked to where she last remembered Selvim’s voice before she had blacked out. What she found did little to enlighten what had happened. Every guard lay where they had stood, clearly dead but without any hint or injury indicating what had made them so. She continued searching, finding the small disk Slevim had dropped. It was no longer flashing, but once again she could see nothing obviously different about it. She replaced it where it had fallen, looking about for Selvim’s body amongst the fallen guards.
She couldn’t find it, and it wasn’t as though his would be difficult to spot. It wasn’t there. She looked back up at the metal boulder. Now that she focused upon it, she noticed several small lights around it’s edges, flashing sporadically with a myriad of colors. They were dim – she would have spotted them sooner had they been brighter – and seemed to have no other purpose than to blink on and off.
Where those there before?
The top of the boulder was dominated by a black dome. It wasn’t the black of oil trapped in glass, but rather true blackness. Not even the faint light of the room reflected off its surface. The only parts of the boulder not dominated by the strange black dome were the edges with the lights and – as she hopped closer – odd circles and markings.
Her eyes roved across those markings until lighting upon distinctly jarring mark upon them. A circle of dried blood encompassed a circle barely distinguishable from the metal around it. She doubted she’d have even seen it had it not been highlighted. There were no further instructions, only the circle of blood, yet the intention was clear. She pressed against the circle; it sunk slightly beneath her touch.
Nothing happened. Then the silence broke as the dome vanished without a trace. Selvim lay in a indentation in the boulder, a ragged breath heaving from his chest, ending in a ragged gurgle that sounded anything but healthy. His eyes snapped open and a smile spread quickly across his features.
“Holy fuck that worked! Like, the whole ‘Stasis-cancels-Nervejam’ thing and the ‘Circle-the-external-engage/disengage-button-with-blood-so-if-you-survive-and-come-looking-you-get-me-out-before-Vanicil-finds-me-and-kills-me’ plan. I came up with that last part in the few seconds before I powered the field so I’m frankly shocked it went so well. And you lived, and are here, alone,” He paused his senseless babbling, peering behind her, “You are alone, right? I can’t rightly see that well at the moment, I don’t do too well in the dark.”
Considering the blinding quality of the light he preferred in his quarters she could easily believe that. “We’re alone for now, but I don’t know how long I was unconscious. More guards could be on their way right now, so I’ll refrain from asking you what under the gods just happened in favor of running.”
He frowned, “I think there might be a better way out, and if I’m right then it’ll be much faster than running, but right now I’ll be happy with stopping up my leg before I bleed to death.”
She glanced back at his leg, noticing the blood flow. She once again fought the urge to ask the obvious question of why that had not already killed him in the time that she had been out, but it was difficult. Gingerly he eased himself out of the metal bed, holding a long arm out to her in an unspoken request for support. She obliged, although their general anatomies had him placing his hand between her shoulders and leaning rather heavily upon it. She couldn’t jump without seriously unbalancing him, so what finally occurred was an awkward shuffle as he led them a short distance to a table strewn with small objects.
Plucking one from the selection he opened it, took something from inside, and applied a substance to the wound. Instantly the bleeding stopped, adding yet another question that would wait out of necessity. Stifling those was becoming harder. He sighed in oblivious relief, removed his hand from its uncomfortable position between her shoulder blades, and surveyed their surroundings.
“Alright,” he eventually spoke, “There’s got to be another exit in here, because there’s no way they got that,” he gestured to the largest of the boulders, “Through there,” he redirected her attention towards the only obvious door through which they had entered. He was right, the boulder was far too large to have fit through that particular entrance.
“Any idea where this other exit might be?”
“Not a clue,” he shrugged, “I still can’t really see. I would hope it would be hidden in the same way the first door was, but I don’t know if whatever was blocking it would be one solid block like last time, or multiple smaller ones. Either way, as I said, I’m not able to see the outline of the masonry. You, however –” his voice died off hopefully. She sighed.
“I’ll have a look. Try not to trip and open up another wound while I’m gone.”
He pointedly ignored her remark, “Oh, If you see any blocks that look small and moveable but you can’t reach them, shoot them with this.” Taking another object from the table, he proffered it to her. Shaped with no obvious purpose, she gave him a quizzical look, but he hadn’t finished talking.
“Just point this end at whatever it is you think might move, and then pull this trigger right here. I don’t know why it was already configured to something, but I guess the guy who built this pod didn’t think any other species would be using it or the gear inside. Our luck, I suppose, but all you need to do is make sure THIS end is away from you. And me, I don’t feel like taking a heavy pulse to the face right now.”
“I’m going to pretend everything you just said made sense. After all, it’s not like you just killed a bunch of guards by yelling at them, fell asleep in a bed where you stopped breathing and apparently bleeding, then woke up, instantly healed the wound, and are now telling me to point whatever this thing is at stone blocks I think might cover a secret exit from this gods forsaken place.”
“Just roll with it; that’s how I get by.”
“Have I ever told you that there’s usually some part of everything you say that doesn’t make sense? Like how would rolling help right now?”
“The fact that you’ve never brought this up before shows that you’ve already gotten pretty good at rolling. Didn’t you say that more guards could be on their way right now?”
Sighing again to express her displeasure, she hopped off to the closest wall, examining it for anything that shouldn’t be. The object was awkward to hold, but shockingly light for something that felt to be made of metal. It didn’t feel like any metal she knew, but its hardness left little doubt in her mind that it could be anything else. Perhaps stone, yet she would still expect something of stone to be heavier.
Her eyes chanced upon a small block close to the ceiling, too high for her to apply any appreciable force against it. Pointing the correct end of the object at the stone she pulled the trigger. To her shock a flash of light leapt from the end, smacking with a respectable force against the wall some distance from her intended target.
With a yelp she dropped the light-staff – no it was too short for a staff – tube? Light-tube? But tubes didn’t shoot. Light- sling? It wasn’t really shaped like a sling, but then again, it wasn’t really shaped like anything in particular.
Naming quandaries aside though, it shot light! There was no other way to describe it; for the briefest of moments a bright flash had arched from the light-sling to the wall. Of all the possible objects in existence that could be used as a projectile it had launched something that shouldn’t have been a projectile.
The light-sling was too much, she had to ask. “Okay,” she shouted across the room, “what under the gods is this thing?”
“Heavy pulse gun” as if that clarified the matter. And no, regardless of what he thought it might have been, it was defiantly called a light-sling.
“Thank you, it all makes sense now,” she shot back acidly, “How does it work?”
Moments passed before a hesitant reply drifted back, “Magic.”
“Really?” She’d heard of magic before, but had never actually seen it. If anyone had asked her before this very moment, she would have told them she thought it unlikely magic even existed. But what else could explain something that could fling light?
“Yup. Whole lot of magic up where I come from.”
Incredible. “And do you know any magic?”
“Hardly. Honestly, aside from one little bit involving Diet Coke and Mentos, I don’t know anything impressive. The real magic users make crazy stuff though, like that pulse gun and stasis-pods to name a few. In fact, if you find that alternative exit, you’ll probably get to see some flying magic, so long as I can find that return pod.”
Her curiosity momentarily sated, she didn’t feel the need to ask what “Diet Coke”, “Mentos”, or any of the other evidently magical items he’d mentioned were, and continued searching the wall for any hints of irregularity. After firing off the light-sling a couple times until she actually hit the block she’d been aiming for – and a few more for the fun of it – she began what quickly became a study in monotony.
Several fruitless minutes passed in silence. Frustration mounting, Eallva decided to break it again. “How do you know it’s only covered by one layer of stone? And what if the stones are too heavy to be affected? What if –”
“Then we’re fucked and not getting out of here alive,” Selvim cut in from close behind her, making her jump, “But why would you start out with that assumption? Oh, I found the return pod – I didn’t just sneak up behind you for shits and giggles – so if you could hurry up with finding the exit. . .”
Glaring was her only response. He sighed, “Alright, I’m sorry. Okay, Vancil isn’t too hot on wasting time, so if there had been a larger exit she had built to haul all this stuff in here, it’d probably be behind the wall in the direction that offered the most direct route to the surface. Which wall would that be?
“How should I know, I’ve gotten all turned around since – well, I think if you went that way,” she motioned to the wall to her right, “you’d have to pass through most of the city, and that direction would take you into the temple, and over there you’d probably clip the Ring, so that leaves –” she drifted off pointing to the wall on her left.
Hopping quickly in the direction of her hand, Selvim following close behind. He wasn’t even hobbling. Magic was pretty powerful. Searching the wall as she reached it, Eallva couldn’t find any obvious indications of a hidden exit. Nonetheless she pushed against the first block she reached. Nothing moved.
“This’ll be faster,” Selvim came into view, blade alight, and stabbed the stone next to hers. With some obvious effort and several alarming flares, Selvim withdrew the oversized knife and peered down the hole he’d made.
“Okay, I think there’s something on the other side, but if there is then there’s no torches, so all I really see is more dark.” Handing her his staff with one of the blades extended and glowing, they cut a slightly larger opening. Once the liberated block was removed the existence of emptiness on the other side was readily apparent. Indicating an even larger area on the wall they cut one final hole into the false wall, large enough for both of them to fit through. Clearing the opening they had made, Selvim motioned her to follow as he walked back towards the metal boulders.
“Alright, If I’m right I don’t see any reason why that room on the other side shouldn’t be a tunnel that leads directly to the surface. Working off that assumption, Vancil might already have the exit guarded if she’s smart, and I’ll stop you right there and say she is. So just waltzing out isn’t really an option.”
Eallva’s eyes narrowed, “Why would we dance anywhere?”
“Hush. There’s an alternative, but it’s probably best if you understand it before we go through with it. I found the return pod. Basically the way I got down here had a way to get back up. It’ll involve flying though, and I mean flying high, like, to your moon kind of high. I’ve had a look over the controls and it’s about as basic a vessel as it gets. Only one destination locked in, a ‘go’ button, and not much else.” He stopped walking before a long boulder on the ground. It looked very similar to the one that she had found him in, the “stasis pod” but had many ridges and other irregularities dotting the exterior. Once again, it appeared to be constructed for a much taller being.
“So any questions or reservations?”
Many, but only a few were relevant, “How exactly does it fly without –” Selvim spoke over her.
“Any questions that start with ‘How’, the answer is magic.”
Fine, “Then are you sure this is safe?”
“Safer than walking out for sure. As for the return pod working, it powered up just fine, and the beings who made it aren’t the kind to build something without a shit-ton of kinetic – err – magic fields to keep it in working order. Just don’t kick anything when we’re inside and we’ll be fine.”
It wasn’t exactly an answer to inspire confidence, but she did recognize the possibility that the tunnel’s exit was under guard. “Okay then, let’s do it,” she looked back at the pod, “Uh, how exactly do we get in it.”
“Okay, right, so normally it’d change itself to best suit whatever organic being got in it, but due to a registration error it won’t recognize either of us. So we just get to lie down and be thankful there’re inertial compensation systems. Basically which side do you want to hunker down on?”
Hopping into the side closest to her she watched as Selvim lay down on the side opposite. Due to the pod’s size there was still a reasonable amount of space between them, “And we’re lying down because?”
“Hold on a second and you’ll see,” from her limited perspective she thought Selvim pushed something. Nothing visibly changed, but she instantly felt claustrophobic. Panic rising she tried to stand, but was met halfway by another invisible wall. Real fear blossoming in her stomach she pushed harder. She might as well have been trying to lift a mountain for all she could tell. Selvim’s voice cut through the haze in her mind.
“Stop hyperventilating. I don’t know how much these life support systems can take and there’s already two of us. Everything will be fine if you just calm down and stay still.”
Forcing herself to breathe normally she hunched back down. Another wave of shock rolled over her as through the transparent barrier she saw the ground drop away below her, then shoot back as the pod rocketed through the hole they had created in the wall. Nearly choking on the effort to keep her breathing slow she watched in awe as their speed continued to increase, blurring the walls of the passage with inconceivable velocities. Despite their movement she felt nothing of it, as though the pod were still sitting motionless on the ground in that room filled with other magical items. Even when the craft began climbing a ramp that she could only assume terminated at the surface, nothing pushed her towards the lower end where Selvim was.
She spoke, her voice coming out in a squeak, “How is it that –”
“‘How’?”
Gods damn it. A small light ahead approached at an alarming rate, and before she had prepared herself she was blinded by the morning sun as they shot out of the tunnel. Outside their speed was even more apparent, as was their dizzying rate of ascent into the sky. She was flying! She felt that she shouldn’t have been surprised – after all Selvim had said they’d be doing exactly that – but flying! Looking out at the ground she saw the world spread out beneath her, mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, places she had never seen except on a map now small and dwindling below.
The thought of being so far from the ground, below which she had always lived, filled her with dread, yet at the same time it was as though she could still feel it beneath her, the pod’s strange cancellation of motion creating the illusion of normalcy. The claustrophobia afforded by the invisible barrier above her now helped keep her fluttering heart in her chest. She was so entranced by the world underneath that it took her a while to realize that the surrounding sky was darkening. Only when the darkness crept into the edges of her vision did she look up and gasp as another wonder met her eyes.
Instead of the pure blue she had only known, the void above was the darkest navy. The moon, whose ghost had still been visible in the early morning hours, now hung directly ahead of them, bright once more. Even as she watched, the last vestiges of blue faded from sight, first directly above, then all around, replaced by the darkness of night. Looking down again she found she could discern only the largest of geographical features. She could see – see – the curvature of the planet. Knowing was one thing, actually viewing it quite another.
All around her the stars shone, more numerous and far brighter than she had ever seen them. And yet here they didn’t shimmer as she had always seen. Here they shone with a cold, pure light. Somehow that just made them less – personable. It was silly she knew, but when she had seen them before their gentle strobe had always given her small comfort. They looked dead now; beautiful, but dead nonetheless. Indeed she found those two words described much of what she saw. The sky so far from the ground was eye-wateringly gorgeous, but also lifeless as a corpse.
A slight sound from behind reminded her of Selvim’s presence. “This thing’s not too fast, so it might be a few hours before we reach the moon,” he paused a moment, then laughed at some unspoken joke, “Anyway, you can sleep if you want. Or not, up to you, just remember what I said and try not to kick or push too hard on anything, because even if you don’t, I am going to sleep, and I’d rather not wake up to hard vacuum.”
Sleep? Now? With the world outside so beautiful? How could he possibly – oh.
Eallva remained awake, the moon slowly growing larger, and she enjoyed every minute of it.
Dear Journal,
I have a good feeling about this,
Heh, what’re the odds of that lasting long?
I awoke to something shaking my foot. “I think we’re here, whatever here is.” I sat up and instantly hit my head against the kinetic barrier. Disengaging it with a curse I sat up entirely, looking about. The return pod sat in the middle of a small, cylindrical hanger.
“Yup, this is it. Follow me and we’ll see what we can find in the way of vacuum suits.”
“And those are?”
“Magic clothing that keeps you alive when you walk outside.”
“Why would walking outside kill us?”
Man am I glad she asked that question. Just think of all the possible outcomes if she hadn’t. “Okay, life or death lesson number one: No matter where we are, unless I expressly tell you otherwise, opening a door to the outside will kill you and everyone around you in a very violent, explosive manner. Not the warm kind of explosion either, the freeze-your-eyes-off kind. There’s instances where that changes but for now just leave it at asking me before you open an exterior door. Deal?”
She looked confused and a little scared, which I supposed was a good thing, “Deal.”
Nodding, I exited the hanger into the station proper. Memories flooded back as I saw the burn marks left by fusion blades carved into the walls and floor. A mechanical tail and leg helped with the memories, but they weren’t exactly happy ones. I wanted out of the station as soon as possible. Glancing back to make sure Eallva was still following I found a storage closet with vacuum suits. For whatever reasons there was more than one, yet they were all for the same anatomical form. I reclaimed the one I’d left at the entrance of the airlock all those years ago, but Eallva was a different matter. She was nowhere near what the suits allowed.
Turning to her I apologetically lifted the suit, “This isn’t going to be very comfortable, but I’m going to need you to try and put this thing on.”
She looked at the mass of material I deposited in front of her. “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”
What followed were several frustration packed minutes as we tried to fit her into the suit in a way that kept her free to move. We eventually gave up on such a solution and settled for managing to just fit her into the suit. The arms and legs had so much excess material that I was able to tie them together to make something of a backpack out it. In such form did I exit the station, alien-kangaroo-rat backpack firmly secured.
On the surface of the moon I was faced with a dilemma I honestly thought I’d never meet again.
Where had I parked?
You’d think it’d be easy enough with my ship and the Mutant’s being the only ones out here, but both were under cloak. I guarantee you no one would ever find their car if every time you left it it turned invisible. I was considering how long it would take to find my ship just by walking blindly around until I looked at the ground where two sets of footprints lay perfectly imprinted in the dust.
Right. Moon, footprints, problem solved.
I had retraced mine for a meter or two before I paused again, thinking. If I remembered correctly the ship I’d taken here had been lacking in several departments. If it was still here – which I thought doubtful – then I might as well have a look at the Mutant’s ship. Walking over to what I could only assume were his tracks I followed them until they abruptly ended. Hand held out in front of me they quickly met some object, and after some feeling about lit upon the hatch control.
It wasn’t lost on me that this ship’s presence meant the Mutant was still down on the planet. I’d already thought out possible ways of finding him before that voice interrupted.
You’ve already dealt with that. Maybe some other day, but not now.
Fine, have it your way. Closing the hatch behind me, I unslung Eallva and helped her out of the suit once the airlock had pressurized. Straightening the tunic-thing that was the pinnacle of alien-kangaroo-rat fashion, she glared at me. “We’re never doing that again.”
I shrugged apologetically, “Sorry, but I can’t promise you that. We might need to go outside again, and until I get you a tailored suit that actually fits, the backpack is about as good as it’ll get.” The look she gave me was a deadly promise of retribution if the backpack became a norm in transportation methodology. I sincerely hoped this ship was the better of the two.
It was. By an extremely significant margin. My memories of the other ship that was cloaked out there were fuzzy after all this time, but I could still remember hard angles and uncomfortable spaces. Despite its size, which I deemed similar to my old ship, this new one’s design led to spacious rooms, giving it the impression of being much larger. Wanting to be sure of its supremacy my next stop was the engine room. It was even better than I’d hoped; this ship was fast. How fast I hadn’t the slightest, but despite my time-decayed memories I could tell it had speed. Honestly though I could have been completely wrong. It’s been a while okay? The floors had carpet, alright? It was final, I was keeping this ship. That and I didn’t want to try and force Eallva back into the backpack again.
“Right,” I turned to her, “We’re leaving soon. Where do you want me to drop you off?”
“Drop me off?” Uh oh.
“Yeah, you know, drop you off, put you down, place you. This ship can take you anywhere on the planet, where do you think your friends – hopefully they all made it – would congregate after getting out of the city,” She stayed silent for a while, eyebrows in a “V”.
“I have some guesses, but I’m not going back. At least not yet.”
“No. Nope. Uh uh. Not gonna happen. You’re not staying with me.”
“You said you would accept judgment for what you did.”
“And getting you out of there alive wasn’t enough to settle that debt?”
“You were saving your own skin too,” she pointed out, “And I’m still not entirely sure you weren’t the one who put us in that position in the first place. Maybe Vancil tricked you, and that’s why you turned on her in the Ring. Either way I’m not letting you out of my sight before I’ve come up with a proper recompense for everything that happened down there.”
Well I couldn’t really argue with that. Actually, I could, and I most certainly wanted to, but another part of me wanted her to stay. I’m sorry journal – you’re a great listener and all – but you suck at conversation. Oh don’t give me the silent treatment like that. Dammit.
Journal’s pouting aside; I wasn’t averse to some company. Even if that company’s purpose was to ultimately find some painful way of enacting retribution upon me for past wrongs. I’ll take what I can get. Still, I couldn’t let her win that easily. Precedents are troubling things.
“Remember life and death lesson number one?”
Confusion flashed across her eyes, “Never open any exterior doors without your permission?”
“Yeah. If you tag along with me then there’ll probably be dozens more of those that I don’t think to forewarn you about. Then you’ll blunder into them and either die instantly or get into some situation and expect me to come rescue you.”
At the mention of rescuing her hair bristled, “I don’t need your rescuing, I can take care of myself.”
I gave her a look and waited until the events of the past few hours reinserted themselves into her apparently selective memory. It only required a few seconds, “Okay, fine, yeah, but that was a special circumstance. There were far more of them than me, and if I recall you helped partially plan that debacle so even if you weren’t involved with it failing then you at least share some of the blame for the planning.”
“Oh now I did have something to do with the plan? None of that ‘Oh-I-know-what’s-best-and-I’m-bringing-in-a-whole-new-group-of-people-and-am-telling-you-what-to-do-now’ nonsense?”
“You came to me for help!” she was shouting now and I couldn’t help but start laughing. It had honestly been hard to keep a straight face up until this point. I’d missed arguing. Not the concept of an internal conflict that led to arguing but the actual act of arguing. For as long as I could remember conflicts of interest had always been resolved via some other method, whether it was Vancil telling me I was an idiot, Crubec just glaring at me silently, or me putting a fusion blade through someone. Right, that.
But even if she didn’t see it this way, I had missed such good natured arguments. She stopped yelling once she noticed my laughter.
“Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny, I am not helpless!”
Oh right, that was what had started it. “It’s fine, it’s good,” I subsided into the occasional chuckle, “You’re not helpless. You can stay if you want, but I’ll need you to listen to me. You don’t know it yet, but you have a major advantage over most beings out here, but that comes with its own problems. If you don’t know what you’re doing then you can quickly wind up injured or dead or something. Deal?”
For the second time today she hopped her understanding. “Deal.”
“Great. Then I need to start this thing up and see what she’s capable of. Follow me and I’ll show you all the cool buttons and shit you’re not supposed to touch.”
Eallva
Magic was complicated. And yet at the same time much simpler than she would have assumed. The greatest surprise had been that she was actually able to practice it. At least she gathered as much from what Selvim was having her recite over and over.
“And these lights over here are astrometrics. They help with navigation and FTL jumps. Probably more but that’s all I use ‘em for. What is your relationship with them?”
She sighed, “I’m to keep my hands as far from them as possible lest I doom us to a horrendous and agonizing demise.”
“Exactly,” he smiled, “Those lights directly in front of you deal with communications. Just as you’d expect, they deal with communicating with other ships and stations. All you need to do with them is –”
“Keep my hands as far from them as possible lest I doom us to what is beginning to sound like the sweet release of death.”
His face danced in a myriad of motions that included a grin coupled with a rolling then closing of the eyes, culminating in a nod and shrug. Aside from its interesting combinations of movement it meant nothing to her before he spoke in a relenting tone. “I get your drift, but if you forget everything I say just please please please don’t touch anything up here. Even I don’t know what all of it does, and so I too will avoid them until sometime when I feel like asking the computer what they do.”
“Computer?”
He thought a moment before answering, “Right, okay yeah I guess that’s important. Computers are simultaneously our slaves and masters. We make them do all the tough micromanagement shit that us organics either don’t want to do or are literally too stupid to do on our own. They’re absolutely everywhere and control everything from this ship’s engines to its life support down to the grey-dough-sphere distribution systems. Ooh, dough-spheres. I’d forgotten about those.”
He fell silent for a time, from the looks of it remembering something traumatic. She was still curious about the computer slave-masters. Or should it be master-slaves? She let him reminisce several moments more before regaining his attention with a squeak, “So about the computers?”
He took a deep breath as his eyes refocused to the present, “Right, so yeah, computers control everything. Essentially none of these magical items would be possible without computers. We could make them, sure, but we’d have no way to actually control them to the level we do now. It’s a computer that’s allowing us to understand each other, even.”
She’d known she wasn’t seeing things when his mouth didn’t seem to match his words. The first few times she’d noticed had been disconcerting enough to the point that she’d avoided actively looking for the discrepancy again.
“So when you say you’ll ask the computer you mean you’ll ask the one that controls this ship what those unknown lights do?”
He smiled, “Precisely. And that computer controls many of the functions that keep us alive here in the ship, so you can imagine how bad it would be if that computer were to somehow break.”
She couldn’t really, but she assumed it would probably be something horrendous and agonizing. He leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath, “So I guess now’s as good a time as any to get to life and death lesson number two. Actually, no, I want to be on our way to somewhere before I get to lesson two.” Turning to the lights that he had lectured her on for what seemed days, he worked for several minutes before something happened.
A deep hum throbbed from somewhere back in the ship, and she thought she felt the slightest vibrations through the floor that caused her fur to rise. The sounds and feelings shook with untold power, and she found herself suddenly feeling much less sure of her decision. All such thoughts vanished as the vessel moved, lifting slowly from the moon’s surface, then rushing away in an acceleration that made the pod’s look sluggish in comparison. Once again she felt nothing of the motion that should have smashed her into the far wall.
The humming and vibrations continued to increase in intensity. They were building up to something and she looked to Selvim to be sure it was something good. He didn’t look concerned, but then, he rarely looked concerned, even when any sane being should have looked concerned, so that wasn’t much of a comfort.
Her fear and the thrumming energy peaked. At that same moment everything vanished. Well, not everything, but the sun, moon and lights from the gods did. All gone as though they’d never been. After several moments she saw the glow from the distant stars slowly moving across her field of vision. She was still worried. “What just happened?”
“FTL jump. Pretty big letdown huh? No vortex, no timey-wimey shit, not even a Windows 95 screensaver. Just blip, the system you were in is gone and then nothing but a crawl from the other stars. Really boring.”
“FTL?”
“Magic mega-speed.”
“Oh, then why not call it MMS?”
“Because the people who come up with all this magic stuff don’t want to admit that what they’re doing is magic so they give it all these ‘technical’ terms to make themselves seem less like sorcerers.”
Eallva really had no response to that, so let the subject and room drop into silence. Some time later Selvim spoke.
“Okay so now life or death lesson number two. And this is more about other’s lives or deaths so listen closely. There’s a lot of other beings out there, and they come in all shapes and sizes. One thing that doesn’t change much between them though is they all really like dying. I mean, they don’t like dying, but they’re really good at it. And if you give them even the slightest provocation they will die, and do it in the most explosive and violent way a being can. So when we meet new people, every interaction you have with them should be as gentle as you can make it. That means no chest kicks, no javelin throwing, nothing.
“Another product of their proclivity for death is that they like to have the gravity so low that any person not interested in dying due to muscular dystrophy is liable to give themselves a concussion just by taking an overenthusiastic step and flying into the ceiling.”
Eallva had to interrupt him there, “Okay, gravity seemed like an important word to understand there.”
“Gosh darn. Okay, Computer, increase gravity plating by 40%.”
Instantly a massive weight slammed into Eallva, throwing her out of her chair and onto the floor. Selvim too was thrown from his seat, crashing down beside her. Lying motionless it was difficult to breathe, let alone stand. Selvim gasp-wheezed another order.
“Computer, return gravity to original setting.” Instantly the weight vanished. Warily, Eallva stood. Selvim, for his part, looked apologetic.
“Okay, I didn’t know it would be quite that dramatic. I’ve never done that before, but all you need to know is gravity keeps you on the ground and makes eating too much such a health hazard. It’s probably a better demonstration if I turn it off.” Once again he gave a verbal command and this time all weight vanished, causing Eallva to slowly drift off the floor. This experience was even worse than the last. She felt as though she were falling without end despite her eyes reporting that she was next to motionless. Nausea clawed at her stomach until Selvim, correctly judging her reactions, returned the “gravity” to normal.
“Okay okay, I get it, massive shifts of gravity in either direction are a bad idea. You get the gist though right?”
Still fighting her intestines for control, she only managed a tired hop in the affirmative.
“So I’ve got this turned up to what we’re used to, but everywhere we go will probably have it turned to something like this.” Another terse command and she suddenly felt lighter. Not weightless, but definitely lighter. She jumped experimentally, and flew off the seat and into the low ceiling with enough force to raise an unfortunately sizeable bump. It didn’t help that Selvim had burst into laughter as she’d rocketed skyward.
“Like I said,” he managed between breaths, “It’ll give you a concussion if you aren’t careful. Keeping it at such a low setting will wreak havoc on our muscle mass, but both of us have to get used to the low level so we don’t accidentally stumble into someone and crush them. It’ll help if we get used to switching in between the two, actually, so I was planning on keeping half the rooms on this setting and the other half on the low.”
Eallva didn’t want the gravity on anything but normal, and yes there was a ‘normal’, it was her definition of it and that was the way it should be. “Do we have to? Couldn’t we just avoid places with some dumb setting on gravity?”
Selvim laughed again – he was doing that a lot lately – “Not unless we plan to avoid every other living being in the galaxy. Your gravity is unique to your planet.”
She sighed, “Fine, but if I keep hitting my head because you thought this was necessary I’ll start aiming for you every time I jump.”
Selvim’s smile died on his face in an oh so satisfying way. Both their attentions shifted as several lights in front of Eallva blinked brighter than their neighbors, accompanied by a soft beeping sound. Whatever remnants of joviality left Selvim’s face as he tapped a few more lights, calling up information that meant nothing to her.
“Oh fuck, I completely forgot,” Selvim breathed, “Uh, Eallva, I’m gonna need you to exit the cockpit for a bit. You can listen in at the door if you want, I don’t care about that, but I need you to be off view from the camera when I answer this okay?”
“Off view from the what?”
Selvim made an exasperated noise, “Just, stand behind the door frame over there and keep quiet, please? I don’t want her knowing you’re here.”
Eallva wanted to ask who “she” was, but Selvim’s sense of urgency made her keep the question for later. Hopping quickly she ducked behind the indicated door frame to Selvim’s satisfaction. Thankfully the gravity was normal in the cockpit and the room outside so she didn’t sustain any brain injuries as she went.
The moment she was out of sight the soft beeping ceased, replaced by Selvim’s voice in a tone far less worried than it had been moments before.