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  When we arrived outside my room, she made a gesture at the sensor, and the door opened without a sound. We both peered inside. It was small and austere with a single bed, a hygiene pedestal on one end, and a small, outmoded monitor on the other.

  “It’s not much, I know…” she said, trailing off.

  I stepped inside the room and turned around to face her. “I’ve spent my whole life living in close quarters,” I said with a smile. “As far as I’m concerned, a private room with a data interface is the essence of luxury.” I walked over to the monitor. “I’ve probably spent more time than anyone should poring through our data archives back home.” I patted the monitor. “This makes me feel right at home.”

  She laughed. “Glad to hear it.” Then she held out her hand. “I’m Saiara Tumon Yta,” she said.

  I looked blankly from her face to her hand and back again.

  She laughed again. “Here. Hold out your hand like this. Good. Now touch your fingers to my wrist.”

  I blushed, feeling the fool, but I mimicked her. Her graceful fingers brushed against my wrist.

  “Now you’re supposed to tell me your name.” Her smile was wide and amused.

  “Oh right. Sorry. I’m… I’m new at this. My name is Oren. Oren Siris.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Oren,” she said brightly. “First time offworld?”

  I nodded. “Last summer, a smuggler gave me an orbital ride, but he left the next day, and I haven’t seen him since. I… I wanted to go with him, but he said no.”

  “A smuggler! You run with a dangerous crowd.”

  That made me laugh. “Hardly. The mines on Verygone can be pretty dangerous. And if you go outside in the winter unprotected, you will freeze to death very quickly. But beyond that, our moon is a pretty dull place.”

  “You know,” she said, “we’re practically neighbors. I grew up on Jarcosa, right near the equator. Even in the winter, the days and nights were warm.”

  “Really? My great grandparents on my mother’s side were born there. What’s it like?”

  “Beautiful. A glittering sapphire in space. I wish we could stop there now. It’s been over four years since I’ve seen my mother, and I am not sure when I’ll get the chance after this. But Forndala told me we’re headed straight for Forsara. Word from Darpausha herself. The suns are drawing into alignment and the Inner Coven has evoked the Conclave.”

  “The Conclave?”

  “Don’t worry, Oren, that’s going to happen a lot.”

  “What will?”

  “You not having a clue.”

  I silently cursed myself for how much this beautiful offworlder had me at a disadvantage. Then I realized that I was an offworlder now too.

  “Oren! I’m only teasing you.”

  “Sorry. I know. I’m just… I’m not used to being the slow one.”

  “Trust me,” she said, getting serious, “if you were slow they wouldn’t have let you join up. You’re here for a reason, Oren. I promise you that. Be patient, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. You’ll be in my shoes soon enough, showing off all of your insider knowledge to the newest recruit.”

  “Right,” I said. “Thanks, Saiara.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  There was an awkward pause then. I fumbled for something to say. “So… you haven’t seen your mother for four years? Is that when you joined up?”

  “Just about. A little more than that, now. A meditician from the Fellowship came to Jarcosa when I was a child. An outbreak of holermna was spreading through the main islands. It killed thousands and left many more weak and suffering. She came to help, and I apprenticed with her for many years.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Prethi Sa Salunto. An incredible woman. She came to us from the central worlds, where she learned and mastered the healing crafts. But she was born out here on the fringes. Like us. When she felt she had learned all that she could, she returned to the fringes, traveling from world to world to care for those who needed it.

  “When she got word that Transcendence was passing through our system on its way out to an uncharted sector, she encouraged my mother to let me join the crew as an ensign. They sent down a scout ship, and after my interview and assessments, I was whisked away.”

  “Was it hard for your mother to let you go?”

  “Of course. But my mother revered Prethi Sa, and so did I. Prethi believed in me. Believed that I could be of service to the galaxy. As far as my mother was concerned, if Prethi said ‘go,’ then it was my duty to follow.”

  I nodded. “I spent most of my time with my mother in the refinery, which is about as safe as it gets, but when the time came, she let me go too.”

  “I suspect that’s the hardest part of being a parent; knowing that someday, you’ll have to let her go.”

  I gave her a sad smile, thinking of my parents and how much I already missed them.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I have to get back to the analysis lab. I’m supposed to be learning about the varieties of chemical reactions that produce energy. Old Cresshu gets irritable if I keep her waiting too long.”

  “You won’t get in trouble, will you?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll just tell her she has fresh meat coming her way. She loves to break in the new ensigns.” Her smile was wicked.

  I faked a laugh, but she could tell I was nervous.

  “Look,” she said. “Don’t worry. Today is your first day. You’re welcome to explore if you want. Any door that opens to you is a place you can go, as long as you make sure not to get in anyone’s way. Or, you can stay here and access the data archives. Check out the materials for new recruits. That will keep you busy.”

  “That sounds good. Thanks, Saiara.”

  “See you tomorrow morning, Oren,” she said, trotting off.

  “Wait! What’s tomorrow morning?” I called after her.

  “All hands,” she called back. “Main deck. Third hour. Don’t be late!”

  “How will I know when it’s third hour?”

  But she was already gone.

  * * *

  Saiara plopped down across from me in the canteen, her tray rattling on the chrome table. “Hey there moon man,” she said, tearing off a hunk of bread in her hands. She slathered it with spiced oil from the small vase of curved metal sitting in the bin at the center of the table. As she chewed on the bread, a spot of oil dripped on her chin. She wiped it with her delicate fingers, her tongue darting out to lick them clean.

  I stared, enraptured.

  “Everything okay in there, moon man?”

  “Moon man?” I said, collecting myself.

  She grinned at me. “That’s right. You’re from a moon. You’re a man. And as senior ensign, it’s my duty to provide you with a formal designation. It could be a lot worse, you know.”

  “But seriously,” I said, giving her skeptical look, “‘moon man?’”

  “You want me to try for something else? I’m pretty creative when I need to be.”

  “No no. Moon man is fine, thanks.”

  She nodded, satisfied.

  “What did your senior ensign call you?” I asked her.

  “Ensign Yta,” she said, grinning even wider.

  “Right. Let me guess. You just invented this naming duty today, didn’t you?”

  She shrugged. “Might be.”

  I let my shoulders sag in mock defeat, chuckling as I shook my head.

  “So you made it through your first week then,” she said. “How are you holding up? Cresshu treating you alright?”

  “She’s being patient. There’s a lot to take in.”

  “That’s for sure. Hey, Qurth tells me you’re a chronostones competitor. Third echelon, if the rumors are true.”

  “Do you play?” I said, perking up. Qurth and I had played an intense match three nights ago. He was the first real challenge I’d ever faced in the game. I barely eked out my victory.

  “Occasionally. When I feel like passing the time,
” she said, her pleasure at the little pun clear on her face.

  I chuckled again, taking her double meaning. Passing the time was one of the key strategies in chronostones. Certain combinations can speed up your opponent’s clock or slow down your own, altering the passage of time in favor of one side or the other. Not everyone played with time passage rules in effect, but it added an undeniable drama and tension to a game of strategy that might otherwise drag on for hours, or even days.

  “We could play now, if you want,” she said, leaning back in her seat, acting casual.

  “Do you have a set?”

  She nodded, shoving her tray of food aside, and placing a thin, translucent wafer about the size of her palm on the table between us. “It’s just an old holo set.”

  “I have to warn you,” I said, “I’m quite good.”

  “That’s what Qurth tells me. But I’ve fought and won my fair share of inter-dimensional conflicts, so why don’t you show me what you’ve got, moon man?” She tapped the disc, and the game cube materialized in front of us. The pristine empty tiles at the beginning of a chronostones battle always filled me with excitement, with its promise of virtually infinite possibilities.

  “It’s my board, so I’ll give you guest rights. You can play white.”

  I smiled, eager for the game to begin, and placed my first stone.

  Twenty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds later, it was over, my chronostones scattered and ruined across the plane of battle.

  There was a moment during the game when she had leaned in close to the board, and then looked up at me from beneath her eyelids. It was a dark, mischievous glance. She knew then it was over, even though I hadn’t seen it yet. With her next move, my stones had cascaded from white to black, wiping away the main phalanx of my force.

  She looked up at me and smiled when it was over. “Not bad,” she said. “But you’re focusing too much on the opening game. You can’t control for every outcome. By the time we reached the end game, you were in over your head. You’ve got to get comfortable with the chaos.”

  I stared at her.

  “Another round?”

  I still had nothing to say. I’d never been beaten so handily. In fact, until that moment, I’d never really been beaten at all. The game had always come easy to me. Sure, I’d lost some in the early days, when I was learning, but once I grasped the fundamentals, no one on Verygone had been able stand in my path.

  “Maybe not today then,” she said, tapping the holo disc and turning off the game projection as I sat there, dumbfounded. She slid the disc into her pocket and stood up. “Embrace the chaos!” she called over her shoulder as she walked out of the canteen, leaving me alone with our half-eaten food and my defeat.

  * * *

  Forn, the dala of The Gourmand, was pacing across the main deck. An energetic, boisterous man, he was the largest person I had met since leaving Verygone, and the only person bigger than me. He had the musculature of a miner, thick slabs of muscle covering his broad shoulders and powerful arms, and his legs worked like two pistons as he moved back and forth. Whenever I was around him, I felt a little closer to home.

  He was speaking at length about the essential purpose of a fueling vessel. The main portion of the crew had gone back to their stations after the daily all-hands meeting, but he had asked us three ensigns to remain behind, along with his second, Shu Cresna.

  “By fueling the voyagers,” he said without looking at anyone in particular, talking as he walked back and forth, “we fuel the whole Fellowship. Without our assistance, long range voyagers like Transcedence would be starlocked, unable to generate enough thrust to reach even the edge of a modest star system without wasting centuries gathering speed.”

  He paused for a moment, mid-stride, his eyes on the polished floor beneath his similarly polished boots.

  “Ensign Yta,” he said to Saiara, lifting his head to look at her. “How many months do you have left on your rotation?”

  “Three, sir.”

  He nodded. “Almost a year with us here on The Gourmand. Shu Cresna tells me your studies are going admirably, and although she has not said so outright, I think she suspects, just as I do, that you have the gift of farsight.”

  Saiara bowed low, clearly humbled by the compliment.

  “So tell us, ensign, what would you say is the single biggest challenge we face in our work?”

  Saira stood tall, cocked her head, and met Forn’s gaze. She did not answer right away. Then a smile crept onto her lips. “That feels like a trick question, dala,” she said. “Cresshu has led me to believe that there is no harder job in the whole of the galaxy.”

  Forn laughed his booming laugh, and even Shu Cresna chuckled. She was a hard teacher, but not a rancorous one, and Saiara had already proven beyond any doubt that she was a capable student.

  “The art of making a massive space voyager hum with life,” he said, lifting his index finger towards the ceiling to underline the idea, “certainly requires a healthy dose of humor. But what is the throughline, ensign? When do we reach the point where even laughter is inadequate?”

  Saiara pondered this. “There are dozens of complex processes running in unison,” she said, serious now. “At any moment, a single measurement may be off by a micron or two. Taken alone, such irregularities generally do not pose a problem. But compounded, small miscalculations can be catastrophic. Once the accretion of errors begins, it can spiral quickly out of control. The biggest challenge in our work is diagnosing problems before the spiral begins, so we can correct with minimal repercussions.”

  “Precisely so! Well said, ensign Yta. Wouldn’t you agree, Cresshu?”

  Shu Cresna gave a barely perceptible nod. Her mirth at Saiara’s earlier jibe had faded from her craggy face, leaving us with her usual phlegmatic skepticism.

  “Which brings us to our teachable moment,” Forndala continued. “And as you all know, ensigns, our shu loves teachable moments.”

  All three of us laughed at that.

  Forndala let the laughter fade, then held the silence. After almost a month onboard, I recognized Forndala’s tendency to pause whenever he presented us with a question or an enigma. Clearly then, we had arrived at the important moment, to the point of this whole conversation.

  “Perhaps Dala Forn cares to illuminate?” ensign Qurth Foli asked, breaking Forn’s meaningful silence with his heavy Arborean accent.

  Every ensign onboard a voyager like Transcendence learns the trades of the spacefarer through experiential rotations. With an active-duty crew of more than five thousand people, and another twelve thousand-plus scholars, astronomists, research fellows, artists, merchants, and passengers, voyagers are massive ships, with an equally massive litany of systems and processes. A world unto itself.

  It would take centuries for one ensign to rotate through all the various roles. Life extension techniques could make that possible, but not practical. So each of us is assigned an individual rotation map based on our intake interviews, a battery of aptitude assessments, and the genetic and psychomedical profiles built by the ship’s heart and the staff of mediticians who oversee the physical and mental health of every person on board.

  Qurth was from the forest moon of Arborau, where settlers had shaped their evolution over the millennia to adapt to a life amongst the dense rainforests and alpine jungles of the moon. His emerald eyes and fibrous green skin were striking, making him look, to my eyes, almost inhuman, and he spoke the universal tongue in a formal, stilted manner. He was in his seventh year as an ensign, and he had rotated through more than a dozen roles onboard Transcendence in that time. He was clever and confident, and he was usually the first to draw Forn out whenever the dala toyed with us like this.

  “I do care, ensign Foli,” Forndala said with amusement. “I most certainly do.” He turned to Cresna. “Shu?” he said, tilting his head towards the command table.

  Shu Cresna shuffled over to the circular command table and lifted up a small silver cylinder.
/>   “And that is?” Qurth asked.

  He raised his pointer finger again. “A challenge!” He seemed quite pleased with himself. “As each of you move through your rotations, you will be faced with numerous challenges. Some of them will be unanticipated, arising from the demands of the job. Others are scripted, designed specifically to help you learn. This has the flavor of both.”

  He took the object from the shu and held it closer to us. It looked lightweight and transluscent. “Ensign Siris,” he said. I stood up taller. “You grew up on mining settlement. Perhaps this looks familiar to you?”

  He rotated the cylinder in his hand. As he did so, its translucent surface became transparent. In the heart of the cylinder, a perfect sphere as dark as the void of space vibrated like an angry hymenoptera.

  “That is an ingot of pure terranium,” I said, shocked.

  He nodded. “Refined and stabilized to a solid, inert state.”

  “I have never seen such a small antigravitational container before,” I whispered.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” He held the cylinder towards me.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He nodded, encouraging me to take it.

  “You hold in your hand the most valuable substance in the galaxy,” he said as I turned the small containment unit over in my hands. “The only substance we know of that interacts directly with the invisible dark matter that undergirds our whole universe.

  “As long as the antigravitons that suspend the terranium do not fail, it is relatively safe to transport in its inert state. But we are not terranium merchants. We are spacefarers. We work with terranium in its plasmic state, and a tiny ingot like that can power a voyager like ours for more than a month. Without our converters, Trancendence would be helpless and adrift, an errant asteroid knocked out of orbit.