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memento_vivere The first time the sedatives wore off and Blink stirred out of hibernation, she was surprised – but not that surprised – to find that a whole day had passed. For a while, she felt stuck halfway between being fully asleep and fully awake, not able to nudge her way back into either state, able to do nothing but stare at the wall, listening to the pleasant soporific white noise of the ship’s engines.
Blink grunted and rolled the covers back up over her head. Her little cocoon of blankets was warm, and her body felt too comfortably heavy to move, but her dehydrated brain ached just enough to stop her dozing off once more into that comfortable, dreamless sleep. So what if it was infinitely more comfortable than the cramped conditions and horrible suit she’d endured getting here from Hesger? The hibernation wasn’t total. Passengers still needed to do all the things that passengers did, including eat and bathe and… other things.
At last, Blink’s body overruled Blink’s brain, and she slid ungracefully off her mattress and onto the floor. After a quick wash (and infinitely longer staring into a mirror, adjusting her disguise) and some clean clothing from the printer, she peeked blearily out into the corridor, checking for other travellers before allowing herself to fully emerge.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt so twitchy. Perhaps because she hadn’t had her disguise assessed by her confidante. Perhaps it was just the residual brain-fog from the sedation. Perhaps it was nothing to do with her, and everything to do with the empty, featureless hallway that looked longer than it had yesterday, as though the warp’s general weirdness had triggered it to sprout a few extra doors. It certainly felt longer than yesterday, as she shuffled her way towards the food hall, passing room after room of other hibernating long-haul passengers.
As the voice had promised shortly before departure, crew were infrequent ghosts in the corridors. Without even seeing it there, she walked straight past the bored umskel’i desk attendant, sitting quietly in one of the general access booths, reading. They smiled and chirped a friendly greeting at her as she passed; “Hello, sir. Everything all right?” which almost made her jump clean out of her clothes.
Blink swallowed her heart back into her chest and laughed, uneasily. “It-… yes, thank you.” For one horrifying instant, she felt the urge to correct him, it’s miss, actually, but succeeded in swallowing the words before they could escape. “Still not used to the tablets.”
“Never take them, myself. Would rather find other ways of occupying the quiet, in transit.” The umskel’i smiled, and lifted the magazine. “Are you looking for the galley? Carry straight on and up the stairs at the far end…”
Sneaking a peek through one of the cabin doors as she passed, Blink noted that the galley was located on a floor with rather better accommodation than her own Spartan cabin. As well as a bed, her room had only a small, built-in storage cabinet, a holographic entertainment projector, and a washbasin. The latrines were two doors down, and the bathing suite was almost half way along the corridor. This little suite looked like it had its own bathroom – she swallowed a flash of envy.
The galley made a pleasant change to the deserted corridors; long and brightly lit, with a pleasant cheery décor, it was actually quite busy, a good hundred or so travellers quietly tending their appetites. She was relieved to see that she wasn’t the only one looking half-asleep on her feet – one or two other travellers had gone back to sleep at their tables, almost laying right in their half-eaten plates of food
Blink scratched the back of her neck, and made her tired way down the long table of offerings, plate in hand, trying to decide on something to eat. Exactly as intended, the drugs that helped her sleep had also killed her appetite. No-one wanted to be woken mid-voyage with a craving for exotic food, after all. It would only lead to waking back up a little while later, with indigestion into the bargain. It felt very strange to have a griping stomach but no real desire to eat, though. Even all the interesting, nice-smelling food that she’d usually have at least sampled a little bit of? No. Nothing on offer looked especially appetising.
She added a token selection of tidbits to her plate – a selection of steamed vegetables, some salted meat, and some crackers – and shuffled away to find a private-ish table. Most of the better tables were already partially occupied, and she didn’t want to tempt her shaky disguise into question by joining any of the dining parties. Instead, she settled at the far end of the big room, close to a screen on which a recorded game show was playing. At least everyone watching wore headphones, so she didn’t have to endure the grating irritation of a false laughter track as well as the outlandish and flashy colours.
Blink slid into the seat and propped her forehead against both hands, just staring down at her plate. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could still see the purplish inflammation of her sore arms, peeking out from the hems of her sleeves; did she dare go ask the on-board Infirmary for a painkiller? She wasn’t precisely experienced in how all this sort of thing worked, and the idea she might have to confess her true gender to the doctor remained uppermost; she could endure a little soreness, for a while. Better that than be arrested.
Her stomach griped, quietly, protesting that it was now awake, and empty. She ate one of the salty crackers, slowly, hoping to placate it long enough for her to decide if she wanted to eat the rest-
“Hello!”
Blink startled fully awake at the voice in her ear and almost swallowed the biscuit whole. She turned to find a visitor at her elbow – a bright, pretty, far-too-alert fessine, all expensive clothes and make-up, topped with a great mound of curly hair that must have taken half a day just to comb through. She found that her voice wouldn’t work; not even to make the smallest noise of acknowledgement.
The newcomer was cheerfully undaunted. “Why are you sat all the way down here, all on your own?”
Blink coughed to clear her throat, and managed the smallest of questioning grunts – perhaps not the politest of noises, but it seemed to satisfy her visitor that she was at least awake and not sleepwalking.
“Anyway! I’m Lunete. I don’t remember seeing any single spurs on the passenger list. Are you a latercomer?”
“Uhh-?” For a second, Blink could only stare, caught off guard by how forward the fessine was.
“What’s your name?”
“Uhh-… Blink.”
A frown flitted across the fessine’s brow. “What? Is that an instruction?”
“I-… no. No! Sorry.” At last, Blink managed to cough the vocal block away. “Blink is my name.”
The confused frown stayed where it was, but at least Lunete’s lips changed to curve upwards. “That’s… unusual.”
“Story of my life. My whole family was unusual.”
“Must be your first time by sleeper, too.”
“It’s that obvious?” Blink forced a drowsy smile. “Yes, it is. How could you tell I was single…?”
“Oh, that was easy. All the other laima that boarded are on the upper decks, and you aren’t one of them.” Lunete propped her head on one hand, and brazenly helped herself to a cracker off Blink’s plate. “Although, you could be, if you wanted.”
Blink opened her mouth to speak, and realised she didn’t know the first thing to say. Was the fessine flirting with her? They’d barely been speaking for thirty seconds. She had to still be mostly asleep. Not processing things properly. After a few moments gawping like an idiot, she managed to get her mouth to close.
“Kind of shocking that such a handsome spur is still free and single,” Lunete went on, with that artfully leading innocence. “Do you, um.” She twirled a ringlet of hair around one finger. “Prefer other spurs, maybe?”
That finally woke Blink up enough for her to laugh, genuinely; Lunete gave her a funny look. Talk about six of one, half dozen of the other. “No. I didn’t have a whole lot of opportunity to do anything, on Hesger. Took all our energy just to stay alive.”
A little flicker of the real Lunete showed through, just for a moment, and she straightened out of the playful lean. “You came from Hesger?”
Blink nodded, and resumed carefully picking at her ‘breakfast’ (or whatever it was. She’d lost track of what part of the day they were even in.) “Matriarch was a professor, emigrated to one of the science colonies when she was young. I was born there.” She watched Lunete’s face very carefully as she spoke, looking for any hint that the fessine didn’t believe the story she and her friends had carefully woven before leaving the Institute.
Lunete leaned closer, head perked. “You were born on Hesger?” she questioned, in a whisper, as though scared to betray a deep dark secret. “How did you escape? I thought the place was quarantined-!”
“The Consulate recently opened borders to a few scientists. Since I was clean of the virus, I was able to leave. It’s not terribly exciting.”
Lunete laced her fingers and propped her chin on them. “What was it like, living there? Everyone talks about how society just fell apart. No electricity, no heating, no food… it must have been horrible!”
“I don’t know. I was born after it all happened, so I never really knew much else.” Blink chewed quietly on a piece of stringy vegetable. “We lived in an old library, to start with, then moved up to a university building which had solar generators, once we figured out the locks.”
“Nice for you to get away and see the galaxy, then? Listen, if you want company, you can always come visit. I’m travelling with my family,” Lunete offered. “Kainda has one of the larger suites upstairs, so we have plenty of room, if you don’t mind Grieta’s pregnant brain. Technically, I don’t need to come down here, but I got bored, wanted to see if I could spot any new faces.” She leaned closer. “Spotted some nice ones, so far!”
Blink steered the conversation back to more neutral territory. “You didn’t join on tiao’I?”
“No, we’re en-route from Hah’zeept. Working holiday!” Lunete laughed.
Blink couldn’t work out the joke, so just… smiled, tiredly.
“See, we’d normally travel privately, but Inda’s yacht had to go in for a service, so we left it behind on Brume. That’s where we’re going now, to pick up the Venture, then we’re going back to Tejiva, to see what the market’s going to be like for some of the stuff we looked at in Lanali city.”
“You’re traders?”
“Kind of.” Lunete smiled, suddenly coy, and wouldn’t be drawn. “It was clearly fate that brought us together, Blink.” She placed her hand firmly – possessively – over one of Blink’s. “Come see me sometime.” She held out a datachit encoded with a contact frequency, and winked. “Pretty little guy like you shouldn’t have to sleep in a cold bed all on his own, now.”
Blink felt like she’d swallowed her tongue. “Uh-! W-won’t your wife mind?” she blurted, looking for an exit clause.
“Don’t be silly. Variety is the spice of life. Besides? She might like you too.” She kissed Blink’s cheek, playfully, and waved goodbye.
Blink watched her go, arms limp against the tabletop. She managed to lift one (weirdly heavy) hand, and wiggle her fingers in a sort of wave.
It was only when the fessine had gone that she realised how hot her ears felt.
25,457 out of 50,000
Blink grunted and rolled the covers back up over her head. Her little cocoon of blankets was warm, and her body felt too comfortably heavy to move, but her dehydrated brain ached just enough to stop her dozing off once more into that comfortable, dreamless sleep. So what if it was infinitely more comfortable than the cramped conditions and horrible suit she’d endured getting here from Hesger? The hibernation wasn’t total. Passengers still needed to do all the things that passengers did, including eat and bathe and… other things.
At last, Blink’s body overruled Blink’s brain, and she slid ungracefully off her mattress and onto the floor. After a quick wash (and infinitely longer staring into a mirror, adjusting her disguise) and some clean clothing from the printer, she peeked blearily out into the corridor, checking for other travellers before allowing herself to fully emerge.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt so twitchy. Perhaps because she hadn’t had her disguise assessed by her confidante. Perhaps it was just the residual brain-fog from the sedation. Perhaps it was nothing to do with her, and everything to do with the empty, featureless hallway that looked longer than it had yesterday, as though the warp’s general weirdness had triggered it to sprout a few extra doors. It certainly felt longer than yesterday, as she shuffled her way towards the food hall, passing room after room of other hibernating long-haul passengers.
As the voice had promised shortly before departure, crew were infrequent ghosts in the corridors. Without even seeing it there, she walked straight past the bored umskel’i desk attendant, sitting quietly in one of the general access booths, reading. They smiled and chirped a friendly greeting at her as she passed; “Hello, sir. Everything all right?” which almost made her jump clean out of her clothes.
Blink swallowed her heart back into her chest and laughed, uneasily. “It-… yes, thank you.” For one horrifying instant, she felt the urge to correct him, it’s miss, actually, but succeeded in swallowing the words before they could escape. “Still not used to the tablets.”
“Never take them, myself. Would rather find other ways of occupying the quiet, in transit.” The umskel’i smiled, and lifted the magazine. “Are you looking for the galley? Carry straight on and up the stairs at the far end…”
Sneaking a peek through one of the cabin doors as she passed, Blink noted that the galley was located on a floor with rather better accommodation than her own Spartan cabin. As well as a bed, her room had only a small, built-in storage cabinet, a holographic entertainment projector, and a washbasin. The latrines were two doors down, and the bathing suite was almost half way along the corridor. This little suite looked like it had its own bathroom – she swallowed a flash of envy.
The galley made a pleasant change to the deserted corridors; long and brightly lit, with a pleasant cheery décor, it was actually quite busy, a good hundred or so travellers quietly tending their appetites. She was relieved to see that she wasn’t the only one looking half-asleep on her feet – one or two other travellers had gone back to sleep at their tables, almost laying right in their half-eaten plates of food
Blink scratched the back of her neck, and made her tired way down the long table of offerings, plate in hand, trying to decide on something to eat. Exactly as intended, the drugs that helped her sleep had also killed her appetite. No-one wanted to be woken mid-voyage with a craving for exotic food, after all. It would only lead to waking back up a little while later, with indigestion into the bargain. It felt very strange to have a griping stomach but no real desire to eat, though. Even all the interesting, nice-smelling food that she’d usually have at least sampled a little bit of? No. Nothing on offer looked especially appetising.
She added a token selection of tidbits to her plate – a selection of steamed vegetables, some salted meat, and some crackers – and shuffled away to find a private-ish table. Most of the better tables were already partially occupied, and she didn’t want to tempt her shaky disguise into question by joining any of the dining parties. Instead, she settled at the far end of the big room, close to a screen on which a recorded game show was playing. At least everyone watching wore headphones, so she didn’t have to endure the grating irritation of a false laughter track as well as the outlandish and flashy colours.
Blink slid into the seat and propped her forehead against both hands, just staring down at her plate. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could still see the purplish inflammation of her sore arms, peeking out from the hems of her sleeves; did she dare go ask the on-board Infirmary for a painkiller? She wasn’t precisely experienced in how all this sort of thing worked, and the idea she might have to confess her true gender to the doctor remained uppermost; she could endure a little soreness, for a while. Better that than be arrested.
Her stomach griped, quietly, protesting that it was now awake, and empty. She ate one of the salty crackers, slowly, hoping to placate it long enough for her to decide if she wanted to eat the rest-
“Hello!”
Blink startled fully awake at the voice in her ear and almost swallowed the biscuit whole. She turned to find a visitor at her elbow – a bright, pretty, far-too-alert fessine, all expensive clothes and make-up, topped with a great mound of curly hair that must have taken half a day just to comb through. She found that her voice wouldn’t work; not even to make the smallest noise of acknowledgement.
The newcomer was cheerfully undaunted. “Why are you sat all the way down here, all on your own?”
Blink coughed to clear her throat, and managed the smallest of questioning grunts – perhaps not the politest of noises, but it seemed to satisfy her visitor that she was at least awake and not sleepwalking.
“Anyway! I’m Lunete. I don’t remember seeing any single spurs on the passenger list. Are you a latercomer?”
“Uhh-?” For a second, Blink could only stare, caught off guard by how forward the fessine was.
“What’s your name?”
“Uhh-… Blink.”
A frown flitted across the fessine’s brow. “What? Is that an instruction?”
“I-… no. No! Sorry.” At last, Blink managed to cough the vocal block away. “Blink is my name.”
The confused frown stayed where it was, but at least Lunete’s lips changed to curve upwards. “That’s… unusual.”
“Story of my life. My whole family was unusual.”
“Must be your first time by sleeper, too.”
“It’s that obvious?” Blink forced a drowsy smile. “Yes, it is. How could you tell I was single…?”
“Oh, that was easy. All the other laima that boarded are on the upper decks, and you aren’t one of them.” Lunete propped her head on one hand, and brazenly helped herself to a cracker off Blink’s plate. “Although, you could be, if you wanted.”
Blink opened her mouth to speak, and realised she didn’t know the first thing to say. Was the fessine flirting with her? They’d barely been speaking for thirty seconds. She had to still be mostly asleep. Not processing things properly. After a few moments gawping like an idiot, she managed to get her mouth to close.
“Kind of shocking that such a handsome spur is still free and single,” Lunete went on, with that artfully leading innocence. “Do you, um.” She twirled a ringlet of hair around one finger. “Prefer other spurs, maybe?”
That finally woke Blink up enough for her to laugh, genuinely; Lunete gave her a funny look. Talk about six of one, half dozen of the other. “No. I didn’t have a whole lot of opportunity to do anything, on Hesger. Took all our energy just to stay alive.”
A little flicker of the real Lunete showed through, just for a moment, and she straightened out of the playful lean. “You came from Hesger?”
Blink nodded, and resumed carefully picking at her ‘breakfast’ (or whatever it was. She’d lost track of what part of the day they were even in.) “Matriarch was a professor, emigrated to one of the science colonies when she was young. I was born there.” She watched Lunete’s face very carefully as she spoke, looking for any hint that the fessine didn’t believe the story she and her friends had carefully woven before leaving the Institute.
Lunete leaned closer, head perked. “You were born on Hesger?” she questioned, in a whisper, as though scared to betray a deep dark secret. “How did you escape? I thought the place was quarantined-!”
“The Consulate recently opened borders to a few scientists. Since I was clean of the virus, I was able to leave. It’s not terribly exciting.”
Lunete laced her fingers and propped her chin on them. “What was it like, living there? Everyone talks about how society just fell apart. No electricity, no heating, no food… it must have been horrible!”
“I don’t know. I was born after it all happened, so I never really knew much else.” Blink chewed quietly on a piece of stringy vegetable. “We lived in an old library, to start with, then moved up to a university building which had solar generators, once we figured out the locks.”
“Nice for you to get away and see the galaxy, then? Listen, if you want company, you can always come visit. I’m travelling with my family,” Lunete offered. “Kainda has one of the larger suites upstairs, so we have plenty of room, if you don’t mind Grieta’s pregnant brain. Technically, I don’t need to come down here, but I got bored, wanted to see if I could spot any new faces.” She leaned closer. “Spotted some nice ones, so far!”
Blink steered the conversation back to more neutral territory. “You didn’t join on tiao’I?”
“No, we’re en-route from Hah’zeept. Working holiday!” Lunete laughed.
Blink couldn’t work out the joke, so just… smiled, tiredly.
“See, we’d normally travel privately, but Inda’s yacht had to go in for a service, so we left it behind on Brume. That’s where we’re going now, to pick up the Venture, then we’re going back to Tejiva, to see what the market’s going to be like for some of the stuff we looked at in Lanali city.”
“You’re traders?”
“Kind of.” Lunete smiled, suddenly coy, and wouldn’t be drawn. “It was clearly fate that brought us together, Blink.” She placed her hand firmly – possessively – over one of Blink’s. “Come see me sometime.” She held out a datachit encoded with a contact frequency, and winked. “Pretty little guy like you shouldn’t have to sleep in a cold bed all on his own, now.”
Blink felt like she’d swallowed her tongue. “Uh-! W-won’t your wife mind?” she blurted, looking for an exit clause.
“Don’t be silly. Variety is the spice of life. Besides? She might like you too.” She kissed Blink’s cheek, playfully, and waved goodbye.
Blink watched her go, arms limp against the tabletop. She managed to lift one (weirdly heavy) hand, and wiggle her fingers in a sort of wave.
It was only when the fessine had gone that she realised how hot her ears felt.
