“General...” Melody put down her coffee. The cursor on her computer screen blinked expectantly.

“Director,” Sensus said, “I wouldn’t ask this unless it were important. Though I admit that I was not previously aware of your relationship with the captain. Only that you had ties. However, I don’t want to put you through...”

“No. I’ll do it. Sorry. I didn’t, uhm, mean to... I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?”

The lump in her throat kept her from talking, so she nodded.

“Okay. Melody, thank you.”

“Do we need to go right now? Her voice was only just over a whisper.

“No. I have work I can do if you need some time.”

“Uhm, give me an hour?”

“Okay. Meet me outside Oak.”

“Okay.”

She teared up as soon as the door was shut. She didn’t want to be alone as much as she wanted to. She kept it buried in her subconscious that the general reminded her of her father, even more than Solomon did. Other than his African skin tone and bald head, he even looked a little like him. And he stood his ground and shouldered his burdens, but he did so without complaint. If only her father had been a fighter like these two Harbingers, had their discipline, he might not have panicked when the duke's thugs tried to intimidate him. Then he wouldn't have gotten shot. Wouldn't have found himself on a slab, his brain kept alive by machinery.

She opened a drawer in her desk to look for tissues. Her nose ran from time to time, when she’d neglected her visits to Dr. Ambat. She found the box in the third drawer she checked, and it had exactly one piece. She used it for her nose and wiped her tears on her sleeve. She’d gotten herself fairly composed when she thought of her mother, crippled by her procedures, and how tightly she’d held her hand before the final brain scan.

A memory of Ethan correcting her when she was teaching him Pfaffian equations almost doubled her over.

“Oh my god.” She leaned over her desk and held her face in her hands. When her nose began to run again, she went to her lavatory to wipe it with toilet tissue. When next she felt somewhat composed, she checked the time. She had too much to leave right away and not enough to kill, so she tore off a length of toilet tissue and wadded it into her coat pocket before heading to Oak.

“Ms. Omri,” said one of the senior editors.

“Hi Albert.” She stopped.

A fourth-year intern came running. “Doctor Park! Director Omri!”

Melody raised a hand. “I’m sorry. I have an urgent meeting with the general.”

She rushed to the door and through the concourse, almost running to the VIP garage. She found a car with a robotic driver and was thankful that she never bothered with cosmetics as she drained her eys down her cheeks. Her wad of tissue was used up by the time she arrived at Oak.

“Melody,” said Sensus.

She wanted to tell him not to talk. “I’m fine. Please, General, let’s just go.”

Solomon stepped outside of Oak just then.

“Melody?” He spoke to her like a grandfather.

She wanted to pull away when he reached for her shoulder, but she felt paralyzed, and when his hand touched her, she felt calm.

“I told Sol,” said Sensus.

Solomon’s eyes, though they glowed like a ship’s engines, showed compassion. “You only have to get us a discreet meeting. There’s no reason for you to afflict pain on your heart.”

If only. “No. I, I need to be there. Otherwise, the conversation will go nowhere.”

They went on, passing Oak through the doors leading to Albion’s inner sanctum. In the large foyer where many crucial facilities intersected, Melody became so lost in memory she might have strayed through the wrong doors if she were not flanked by the two great Harbingers.

Song, said Ethan, unable to say her proper name due to his speech impediment. Song. Hew Song. She went to the rock he’d upturned. Thew so many.

“These aren’t real bugs, silly.” She explained to him why no organic flora or fauna were allowed in that portion of the ship. While he understood the mechanics, and even a great deal of the physics, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the point of having simulated gardens near the ship’s vitals.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“It’s so the people who work here feel happy. You see, they spend almost all their time in the engineering sections of the ship. This way they can feel like they’re still close to nature.”

An IQ of 247, and his mind was still the mind of a child.

But it’s fake.

She patted him on the head and, knowing full well how loudly he’d whine, messed up his hair.

The park in the foyer had changed since then. The rocks were bigger, the trees from some exo homeworld, and the pond was replaced by a branching stream. The grass, then a rich lavender, was now many shades of muted blue. Only the symbols over the doors were familiar. They went through the third largest set, marked by the two-headed raptor her dad nicknamed the ‘chicken twins’. It was cold in those hallways, for the sake of the sensitive machinery stored within the warmly decorated walls. Children’s paintings punctuated the space between holographic displays and analog gauges. In the antechamber to the bridge, the zodiac of old earth lined the circular wall in statues of copper and bronze. The hall that led by many zigzagging paths to the bridge was between Aries and Pisces.

At the door, a panel appeared and she spoke into it. A field of so many micronpoints of lignt caught her breath, analyzed it, and the door opened. She turned.

“We can bypass all other sections of the bridge if you want, but it will feel strange. Stranger than Oak.”

They both nodded.

“I’m sorry. You were both briefed, weren’t you?”

“It’s allright, Melody.”

Solomon was normally so intimidating. It felt weird to be so comforted by him.

But something bothered her. “You knew I had ties?”

The general spoke. “Melody, we made inquiries. People directed us to you. We knew the process of course, but...”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t... I have no reason to be upset with you.”

“Let’s get through this, Melody,” said Solomon.

She nodded.

Into the hall they went. The walls stretched, the floor dipped, the ceiling bent. Wind came and nearly toppled her, and stars streaked beneath her feet. She looked back at the Harbinger. They were unphased. Of course they were.

She expected to walk through her childhood home in the Presidio. But the floor and walls and ceiling simply flittered into nothing, and she stumbled even though she knew it was an illusion meant to shorten her perception of time on their long commute. Knowing didn’t help. She kept falling reflexively whenever a comet came toward her, or a star went Nova beneath her feet. Once a rain of planetary fragments blasted by and she fell back.

Sensus caught her. “Are you allright, melody?”

She turned, embarrassed, then horrified. Again, knowing the falseness of the vision did not diminish its impact. Their skin turned to blisters, bubbling, melting into jelly from the heat within their bodies. Senses had only a charred skeleton left, where a dark shape writhed within the field of blinding gold that was Solomon.

They were in the tall domed room where the Captain’s Chair was contained, standing outside it’s twelve foot hyperfiber doors.

“These are the same material as the ship’s hull,” Sensus said. He turned to Solomon. “You want her. I can see it. Your old self wants you to take her, no matter how she feels.”

The dark shape inside Solomon wrestled with something; a beating heart, wrapped in thorny vines. The vines wanted to writhe free.

“She is holy,” Solomon said. “And my old self is of Ulro, not the oily sack that tortures me for weakness in battle.”

“Melody,” they were both saying.

She blinked. They were back, themselves. Sensus; tall, lean and chiselled, with his bare scalp and large eyes. And Solomon, no taller than her and a thin man at that, yet with presence and poise, and a dangerous quality to his narrow, handsome features.

The cold, minty green light of the room cast an odd tint on them both. She took a deep gulp of air, let a few tears out, then leaned close to the door and knocked.

A digitized voice responded from an unseen source. It was deep and male, stately, yet not so far from laughter.

Melody?

“Hey Dad.”

Song!

“That’s right, buddy. It's me. You likin’ it in there?”

In whew?

She hugged herself and shuddered. “In the house, with all your toys.”

There was a long, quiet pause. Her mother spoke next.

Honey, are you okay? Why don’t you come out and get some fresh air. You can help me with my gardening.

Her father: She’s got some onions coming up. And tomatoes. We’ll make the best sandwiches in the Presidio soon.

Solomon put a hand on her shoulder again, giving her strength. “Okay. I’ll help you. Hey, I hope you’re not mad at me, but I let a couple friends in without asking.”

Her father: Are they boys?

Her mother: She’s nineteen. Of course they’re boys.

“They’re just my friends, mom. Simon and Saul.”

Her father: Like the musicians in the archives?

“No. Not really. It's okay, Dad. You’ll meet them in a minute.”

Bring them on out with you, honey. I won’t bite.

She looked at them both, holding their eyes. “You were briefed. You know what’s in this room.”

Solomon’s face was grave. “We saw videos, Melody. Not of your family, though.”

She nodded. “Okay Dad, be nice.” She pressed her hands to the large, heavy doors. They opened soundlessly to a dark space and a steep flight of downward plunging stairs.