OOM: Tahiri and the ship in space
They drift in hyperspace, in the darkness between stars, for time without measure. It may be a day. It may be a week. It may only be an hour.
They drift in the darkness, and breathe.
Breathe in.
Feel the ship around you.
One. Two. Three.
Feel the pulse of her power conduits and nerve clusters, the curious dim twistings of her mind.
Breathe out.
Reach out and touch the joins between organic circuitry and mechanical parts. There is a taste of home.
Four. Five. Six.
Feel the space between the stars, the safe paths through uncharted mass shadows and gravity wells.
In.
There is a consciousness out there.
Out.
It is calling to you. Calling to both of you. Feel the way it tugs on the ship's mind, feel the aching resonance in your own.
Tahiri's breathing has become slow and deep.
Zonama the planet, Sekot the mind.
So has the blinking of the ship's lights.
Sekot protects all of her children: those who woke her, those who feared her, and those who left her.
The subsonic hum of the engines is like being wrapped in a warm blanket of sound.
She knows each and every being by name, and remembers them all.
She does not touch the ship's controls-- she does not need to. She does not even notice when they fall out of hyperspace and into orbit around a bright living world masquerading as a gas giant's moon.
Sekot remembers the ship that now falls into her atmosphere like a blazing spear thrown from the heavens. She remembers when this ship left, and is surprised to see it return with one less passenger. She welcomes it all the same.
They drift in the darkness, and breathe.
Breathe in.
Feel the ship around you.
One. Two. Three.
Feel the pulse of her power conduits and nerve clusters, the curious dim twistings of her mind.
Breathe out.
Reach out and touch the joins between organic circuitry and mechanical parts. There is a taste of home.
Four. Five. Six.
Feel the space between the stars, the safe paths through uncharted mass shadows and gravity wells.
In.
There is a consciousness out there.
Out.
It is calling to you. Calling to both of you. Feel the way it tugs on the ship's mind, feel the aching resonance in your own.
Tahiri's breathing has become slow and deep.
Zonama the planet, Sekot the mind.
So has the blinking of the ship's lights.
Sekot protects all of her children: those who woke her, those who feared her, and those who left her.
The subsonic hum of the engines is like being wrapped in a warm blanket of sound.
She knows each and every being by name, and remembers them all.
She does not touch the ship's controls-- she does not need to. She does not even notice when they fall out of hyperspace and into orbit around a bright living world masquerading as a gas giant's moon.
Sekot remembers the ship that now falls into her atmosphere like a blazing spear thrown from the heavens. She remembers when this ship left, and is surprised to see it return with one less passenger. She welcomes it all the same.