How in the dark hells does a novice human mage get a job on a starship?

Miles' system indoctrinator had asked him that question the previous night, in response to forwarding the elderly Hurc his candidacy letter.

He’d honestly shared Gart's skepticism. Miles was a novice mage, with only two spells in his index and no combat experience casting them.

Humans were recent emigres, from a world that didn’t even have magic before Earth’s bower break. He had no work history in the spiral. He had no qualifications the real universe recognized. Even his recommendation letter from Gart was lukewarm at best. He’s desperate and his homeworld’s a shit heap. Give him a chance.

Looking at the vessel floating beyond the window of the skydock now, Miles finally had his answer.

It’s not much of a starship.

Miles reached forward and tapped the berth’s info panel. Information about the ship flowed out over the black screen, pages of green alien text and diagrams that twisted themselves into English after a few seconds of direct attention.

The Starlit Kipper was a tech cruiser built in the Alfaen style; a weave-corroded green metal chassis of dented curves and fins, two cloudy glass-domed observation decks meant to represent eyes, and a euphospher drive that could barely hit thirty astral knots. It was shaped more like a stingray than a kipper, in Miles' view, but artistic fidelity was the least of its problems.

It was a doomed junker. Its civilian weapons had been removed at some point, it was apparently four crew members down from a normal complement of eight, and it had a captain gullible or desperate enough to hire Miles as ship's healer.

When Miles took a closer look at the ship through the viewport, he could see a hole in the hull, badly plugged with some kind of foam. He could barely believe it was spaceworthy. If it was registered for anything other than cheap scavenger runs, it probably wouldn’t be.

Miles tapped on the screen, bringing up a bio for the Kipper's captain. Rhu-Orlen, an Orbellius. A skipper in good standing, apparently. Rhu-Orlen had captained various ships over the last twenty years, working as a tech engineer before that.

Tech and magic were competing specializations in the spiral. Some worlds had physics that had allowed magic before their bower break, others had systems where technology ruled, like Earth.

After a world dropped through its false vacuum into the vaster, weirder universe of the spiral, all its local laws would butt up against the prevailing physics of the weave, with fundamental laws jostling and percolating into a new holistic system.

Most of the physics Miles had learned in high school still worked the same way out in the weave, momentum, states of matter, conservation of energy, but the stuff he’d learned in his first year of college, not so much.

After a bower break, a planet's inhabitants would find themselves in a bubble of their native space where everything worked as they expected, but beyond that, only natural laws that didn't conflict with the wider weave would prevail. Somehow, through luck, through some omniversal law, or by the actions of an unknown intelligence, anyone who dropped through to the spiral would be able to survive in the common space of the weave, but only some of their technology, or magic, or spirituality, or whatever other unique craft they had on their pre-bower world would work beyond their pocket.

When Earth fell through, the collapse had brought the sun, the solar system, and a few dozen AUs of vanilla spacetime with it, and that was the limit for a lot of Earth’s advanced science. Relativity was purely a spacetime phenomenon. Gravity and magnetism still existed out in the weave, but had different underpinnings. Quantum physics stopped at the border of Solar space, and a lot of people were glad to be rid of it. Miles had got a couple of drinks bought for him after telling Spirallers the horrors of those particular fundamental laws.

With the bower break had come new technology. Euphospher drives that could propel vessels hundreds of times faster than anything possible in Earth spacetime. Resonance comms, allowing instant communication across any distance. The index was maybe the most important for Miles; a device that tapped into the magical truth of what you were, in a way pre-bower Earth had no easy way of describing, and gave you the chance to change it.

An index bypassed the years of training, meditation, ritual scarification, and whatever else the practitioners of the spiral's many magical traditions normally had to do to attain mastery, at the cost of having to pay for the modifications using delta, a secondary currency of the spiral traded among the magic-leaning denizens.

As Miles turned away from the panel and started walking towards the port, he brought up his index and tapped the access button.

There was a buzz of energy through his body, a tingle, and the sense of something in his gut starting to rotate as the index connected with the core of his being.

Name: Miles Asher Traditions: Harmonizer Index Value: δ1,200

Fundamental Properties:

Strength (0)

Durability (1)

Speed (0)

Reactions (0)

Will (0)

Authority (1)

Spells

Close Wound (Tentative)

A weft of harmonizing energy brings together the free edges of a tear, sealing the join in materials which are co-bondable, such as cellular membranes, metal compounds, woven fabrics, and homogenous molecular surfaces.

Temporary Enhancement (Tentative)

A temporary matrix of harmonizing energy alters one of a being’s fundamental properties by an amount in accordance with the weaver’s authority.

Core Effects

Eyes of the Emigre

Embeds a matrix of harmonizing energy within the being’s mind which will reveal to them the meaning of any plain text or spoken language.

It was pretty dire, Miles thought. A novice mage couldn’t be expected to have much in their index, especially an emigre with a limited settlement allowance, but it still seemed lacking to him. He felt like there at least should have been a way to practice his spells up beyond tentative.

He’d tried to bring Close Wound up to the next stage, Grasping, by cutting and healing his clothes, but either that wasn’t enough to raise his ability with it, or he just wasn’t doing it enough. Four or five casts was all he could manage before he needed a good meal and a few hours rest, and overdoing it could be dangerous in ways he didn’t yet totally understand.

As it was, he felt like his bare index was as much a liability as an asset. Hopefully, the captain wouldn’t ask to see it.

* * *

“Show me your index.”

Captain Rhu-Orlen was a coral-colored fleshy sphere about the size of a beach ball. They had ten or so hair-like tendrils emerging from goose-pimpled skin and no other features. When they spoke, their tendrils buzzed to create vibrations, and presumably they sensed their environment through the same threads. The air near them had a hot-house plant smell that Miles remembered from a visit to one of Earth’s forest reservations as a child. It wasn’t unpleasant.

Orlen was a member of a species called the Orbellius, and with no visible eyes, mouth, or features of any kind, Miles was having trouble working out their tone. Were they joking? Were they angry at Miles' lack of experience? Maybe they were as disappointed by how Miles looked as he was after his first sight of the Starlit Kipper.

They hovered in the Kipper’s docking bay in front of him, kept aloft by a quietly whining tech hoverbelt strapped around their equator.

After a few seconds without Miles responding, the captain held out a single tendril toward him.

Miles reluctantly passed the captain his index.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The tendril wrapped around the tablet and lifted it up to face the sphere. It was surprisingly strong, for a limb no thicker than a spaghetti noodle.

Orlen tapped the screen with another tendril, regarded the display for a second, then passed it back.

Miles took it back with relief, locking it before sliding it into his cargo pants pocket.

“Your spells are undeveloped.”

Tentative.

“I’m new to this," Miles admitted. "My world only had its bower break a year ago.”

He hoped he wasn't sinking his chances by being too honest.

“Can you close a wound?”

“Yes. I’ve practiced them, some.”

On cloth, but it should work the same way.

The captain used a tendril to touch a device on their belt. Miles hadn’t noticed it before, but thought it was probably a communicator. A bead of yellow light appeared on the device, and the captain spoke to someone on the other end.

“Brisk, come to the docking bay,”

“Yeah.”

The captain released the comm unit after the reply and didn’t speak again.

The two of them remained in place, Miles standing still, feeling increasingly awkward, the captain hovering in silence. Apparently Rhu-Orlen didn’t feel awkward silences the same way Miles did.

“So, do you have any other mages on board?” Miles asked, as much to make conversation as because he was curious.

"No.”

Miles nodded. He was both relieved and disappointed.

He knew working alongside a real mage would have made him feel even more inadequate, but it might have been better in the long run to have someone more experienced he could ask questions.

His only real non-human contact on the station was Gart Illaw, his system indoctrinator, and Gart didn’t know much about magic. In a universe where technology made lots of things easy, magic use was perpetually out of fashion. If someone wanted to protect themself, they could either connect an index to the core of their being and go through the accelerated process of learning to cast an offensive spell, or they could just buy a weapon. A lot of people apparently just bought the gun.

Magic’s advantages over tech were that it was universal, and integral to the individual. A healing spell didn’t care whether its target was an Orbellius or a human, it worked on deeper principles, and someone could be stripped and dropped on a deserted moon and still have access to all their abilities. Both appealed to Miles, who didn’t have many possessions and wasn’t sure where he’d be in even a month’s time, but it wasn’t a selling point for many people.

Even among the human emigres on the station, who all must have grown up with romanticized ideas of magic, he was one of only about three who’d bought into a mage line.

Miles had selected the Harmonizer class to start, because that was both the cheapest, and the only magical tradition newly bowered worlds were cleared for, but browsing even that limited catalog had shown him a huge range of potential spells, as well as permanent enhancements it could make to his body. It seemed skewed towards support more than individual action, but Miles had no problem with that. He wanted to be useful. A useful sapient was an employable sapient.

Rhu-Orlen remained perfectly quiet and perfectly still for the next two minutes, until a door on the far wall of the docking port slid open with a broken-sounding grinding noise.

The smell of mineral oil and burned dust drifted through the door, followed by a Hurc with light purple skin and short black hair.

Hurcs were one of the spiral species that were closest to humans in appearance. They were humanoid, with all the limbs and facial features Miles would have expected on a human. Ten fingers, ten toes, a different number of internal organs, but that was to be expected. Back on pre-bower Earth a Hurc might have been able to pass as a human wearing luminescent body paint, if it weren’t for the pointed ears, over-developed incisors, and the slight translucence of their skin, like cloudy jello.

The newcomer was about six inches taller than Miles, lightly muscled, and dusted with black grime. He stepped into the docking bay wearing a pair of baggy beige pants, plated gray boots, and a canvas belt full of tools and tech. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but there was a collar around his neck fitted with a thermal unit that had been popular with the other human emigres on the station.

He slowed as he spotted Miles, looking him up and down, then shot a questioning look at the captain.

“Who’s the squirrit?”

Squirrit. The word didn’t translate, but Miles' Eyes of the Emigre supplied him with a mental image of a tiny rodent-like creature with huge eyes and a long furry body, hiding in a hole barely big enough for it. If the word had been translated, the sentence might have meant something like 'Who's the rat'.

Rude.

“Ship’s healer candidate,” the captain replied plainly, then commanded, “Prove his ability.”

The newcomer, who Miles assumed was the guy the captain had addressed as Brisk, looked from Miles to the captain, then back.

“You want me to let him work on me?”

The captain bobbed lightly in the air. “He will heal a wound.”

Miles looked from the captain to the Hurc. He found his gaze roaming Brisk’s body.

From shoulder to hips, there were no obvious wounds, and if there were any at all then they would be obvious. There didn't seem to be anything he could heal.

Brisk rasped his large incisors together in an expression that Miles was sure meant annoyance, then pulled a short knife from his belt. He put the point against the top of his chest, then drew it down sharply, opening a small cut along his skin. Whitish fluid immediately started seeping from it, and the Hurc hissed in pain.

He sheathed the knife as he marched over, giving Miles a dubious stare on the way.

“Okay, squirrit. Fix me up.”

Ignoring the squirrit barb, Miles examined the wound. It was a clean cut, shallow enough that it only broke the top layers of skin, the edges only slightly parted. Closing it wouldn’t tire him too much.

He pulled his index from his pocket and brought up his spell list.

“I’m going to need to touch you,” he said to Brisk, watching for his response. At least with the Hurc he had a chance of reading his body language.

“Do it,” Brisk said, seeming more bored than anything.

Miles pressed his right hand to Brisk’s chest, covering the cut with his palm. It was Miles' first time touching a non-human sapient, and he was shocked at how hot the man’s skin was. Higher body temperature than a human.

With his left hand, Miles tapped on his index to cast the spell. In theory, he would be able to cast his spells with just a thought, but that was the part of this that needed practice and experience to pull off.

Turning. Whirring. Miles felt the semi-real core in his gut lurch into action, spinning up to frenetic speed as the spell kicked in. Electricity kindled below his ribs, warmth flooded up his arm, and a pale golden light started to shine through the fingers pressed against Brisk’s skin.

He could feel the spell working. He could almost hear the voice of the magic as it sang its truth through his body.

The wound is an aberration. In a harmonious world, the two are one. The cut must close. Such should it be.

The light between Miles' fingers turned hot, and he felt physical movement as the separated skin pulled back together. Milk-white blood that had been spilled oozed back, sealing itself inside the cut as the injury closed with a flash of white fire. The purple skin was clean and unbroken. There never had been a wound. Miles had made it so.

Miles pulled back his hand, blinking, his arm shaking. It was his first time actually using the spell to heal a living being and it was more intense than he was expecting. Compared to this, fixing torn cloth was a cold and clinical experience.

“You ever see a mage need to touch their index to cast a spell before?” Brisk asked the captain.

“No.”

After feeling the burning truth of the cosmos passing through him, Miles didn't really feel the shame at hearing that he might have felt a few minutes earlier.

He was regretting taking such a relaxed approach to the index, but that was because he didn't realize magic was so much. It was an issue of professionalism, now. He’d make learning to cast spells without it his top priority.

“It is enough," the captain said. "This sentient will do.”

Miles looked back at the Orbellius. “I got the job?”

“Yes." The captain tapped a spot on their belt. "Your contract has been sent to your comm."

Miles felt a buzz in one of the lower pockets of his cargo pants as his comm unit received the message.

Brisk’s eyes went unfocused and his pupils slid to point in two different directions. Miles interpreted it as a Hurc eye-roll. Without another word, Brisk turned and started heading for the door he’d come in through.

“Show him his berth," the captain called.

Brisk paused on his way out. Miles heard the grinding of incisors before the Hurc turned around and fixed him with a stare.

“Come on, squirrit. I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

* * *

Miles watched the white bulkheads of Unsiel Station recede through his cabin window. The skeletal length of the docking arm took shape as the Starlit Kipper gained distance, and then the slowly spinning spindle of the station’s body, hundreds of times longer than it was wide. Inside the station was every human who’d escaped Earth, as well as a handful of refugees from other recently bowered worlds.

Something in the ship thrummed, and a teal-blue field sprung up between the ship and the darkness of space. There was a disorienting lurch, Miles felt the bottom dropping out of his stomach, and a low vibration spread through the floor and walls of the cabin. The ship’s euphospher drive had kicked in.

As the distance between the ship and the station yawned open, Miles caught sight of a few scattered spots of light, arranged in a curving downward spiral. Every new world that suffered a bower break would appear at the bottom of the spiral, occupying the correct geometric spot to continue the curve downwards.

An unbroken helix of many-colored fireflies, from the first world to have fallen through, uncounted eons ago, to the newest. Miles wondered if there’d ever be a last.

As the ship turned, putting Solar space out of view, Miles left the window and headed for his bunk. His cabin was spartan in the extreme, a bare steel box not much bigger than a closet, with a padded platform that folded down from the wall. The room didn’t come with any bedding, and Miles didn’t have any of his own to bring. There was no furniture, aside from the bed. At least he had a window.

Sitting on the bunk, Miles opened his bag, just a slim nylon runner’s pack, and pulled out a folding knife. He might have a lot of time to himself before the crew needed him, and he was going to spend it practicing.