CHAPTER 6 - TAKEOFF

A mere twenty minutes later, an announcement blared through the room, a woman’s voice transmitted through an intercom. The TV on the wall turned on to close-caption the message.

"GREETINGS, PASSENGERS! THIS IS CAPTAIN JASMIJN EVERS SPEAKING. ALL CABINS HAVE FILLED. GRAVITY IN THE RING WILL TURN OFF IN TWO MINUTES. AFTER THIS, YOU WILL HAVE TWENTY MINUTES TO REARRANGE THE FURNITURE IN MICROGRAVITY UNTIL THE SHIP UNDOCKS AND BEGINS ACCELERATING. HAVE A NICE DAY!"

Kayden nearly fell off the bed, scared by the sudden noise. "Right."

"Sso early… I didn’t even finissh my prayerss…"

Lai jumped up and down slightly, waiting for the gravity to disappear, while the cyborg remained just as motionless as they were before.

Kayden and Nheka rushed to fasten what they had unloaded from their luggage to the dresser or walls via magnetic pads. Then, with a noticeable jolt, the ring stopped spinning, and the four passengers slowly floated up into the air.

"Right, what side will the new gravity be on, again?" Kayden then glanced over the walls. "Oh, there are those holes, the bunks are probably meant to peg into there. Nheka, you’re really strong, help me move this bed," he said, struggling to manipulate the furniture without hitting someone or something. There might have been no weight anymore, but mass remained the same.

With the help of Nheka’s superior strength, everything was moved into its proper place within a few minutes, especially with the lightweight aluminum and plastic construction of the furniture. Kayden presumed that there was plenty of ‘buffer’ time given due to accessibility concerns. Lai and Ray helped a bit, but overall stayed in the background.

"I’m worried about being in mid-air when the gravity comes back," Kayden said, holding onto the blanket, which was attached to the mattress. "I know they’ll give us a warning, but it’s an irrational fear, you know?"

"Why?" Ray asked nonchalantly, floating upside down, as little as such descriptors made sense in the current environment.

"What do you mean why? I don’t know why."

"Strange," Ray intoned.

"Maybe it is, but unlike you I am an emotional being. I have a lot of these weird little fears," he then thought for a bit. "Like, I am very afraid of heights if there is even the most remote way to fall. Not like in a space elevator cab where it’s completely sealed, but even in my apartment I try to not look down from the window because immediately my heart starts pounding."

"I ununderstand, but I respect you regardless," they paused. "Are you fine if I ask you a question to know you more?"

Kayden nodded.

"Are you, Nheka, and Lai moving to or just visiting Earth?"

"Just going on a vacation. I am happy here and I have family and friends who I’m not going to abandon. Or basically abandon, with the comms warp-lag– hard to tolerate four jumps’ lag compared to one jump’s lag. I met Nheka on a programming forum despite the latter, two days or so between replies is completely alright. Not more than a week." He let his stream of consciousness run free for a small while.

Ray waited for Kayden to finish speaking. "I unhave family since ten years ago. I unmiss them completely." They said coldly. "For friends, I choose to unhave them, at least physical friends. I keep contact online with some people."

"As for me I have quite a lot of both, I’ll try to keep in touch with them by writing mail every once in a while. Many aren't even from Terra."

"My battery is running low. Goodbye," Ray intoned as they took out a charging cord, plugged it into an outlet on the wall, and went into a hibernative state after connecting it to a slot on their forearm.

Lai, who was silent before, went over to Kayden and whispered "I completeeeely don’t get that person. How do they even liveeee? Once I had my pills confiscated by overzealous security, until I proved to them that the ‘exception’ for us relmai does indeed exist. Also had no access to my bhavorite games because my datapad crasheeeed. Those 2 days felt like hell. Can’t imagine avoiding fun on purpose."

Kayden sighed. "Are you sure you’re not just addicted?"

The relmai recoiled and shook his head. "Nope nope nope! Not atticted!" He audibly replied.

"...you literally have that stuff in the air on your homeworld."

"Actually it’s specifically made to not be– oh whatever. Maybe I am. Don’t care as long as I have more," the relmai said as he swallowed another pill.

"You do you," Kayden chuckled.

Lai went back to his bunk, and Kayden just waited, occupied with saying his goodbyes to his planetside friends via the internet. He went through every chatroom and copy-pasted a message explaining his departure, then answered any questions, of which there were not many, as he had been talking about the planned trip weeks in advance. Then he forwarded the same message to the general discussion board of every forum he was active on. For some of the users of said forums, namely those far from the Flamerider system, including many aliens from neutral space outside of the Alliance, the messages would arrive more than a week after his actual departure, but he didn’t really care.

Soon after this rapid-fire farewell session concluded, the captain’s voice blared from the walls a second time.

"GREETINGS, PASSENGERS! THIS IS CAPTAIN JASMIJN EVERS SPEAKING. THERE ARE THIRTY SECONDS LEFT UNTIL THE SHIP UNDOCKS AND BEGINS ACCELERATING. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE STANDING ON AN APPROPRIATE SURFACE TO AVOID INJURY."

"I’m hyped," Kayden said, putting down his datapad, "I haven’t traveled by ship in years."

"I am not. I wass in one for one week and a half beforekhand..." Nheka said.

"Yeah I can see how that– LAI! TAKE OFF YOUR HEADPHONES AND GET TO THE ACTUAL FLOOR! LAI!"

The relmai, who was kind of floating in the middle of the room, turned his head to look at Kayden and just made a strange gesture while shaking his head…

The roar of the ship’s engines became audible, conducting through the hull. Kayden felt himself being pushed slightly into the mattress as the blankets settled down gently… and without as much as flinching, Lai was slowly and gracefully lowered onto the carpeted floor, then gave a thumbs-up. Kayden sighed deeply– he forgot that in the vicinity of planets, ships accelerate slowly for safety reasons, as mandated by Federation regulations. This was because the exhausts of fusion drives at full throttle could easily incinerate a station or a ship that ended up in their path. He supposed that the warnings were mostly to prevent people or heavy objects from landing on top of each other, rather than the impact itself causing damage.

"Well, guess we’re off," he said, then turned on the television’s viewscreen mode. By rotating his datapad, he could pan the camera, in actuality a composite of various cameras located on the outside of the ship. Kayden saw the spaceport slowly shrink, alongside the thick bundle of cords connecting it to the planet. Somewhere below was his hometown, also shrinking even further into invisibility, from a tiny gray splotch to a dot. He felt a strange feeling of sadness, soon replaced with anticipation and a bit of uncertainty.

The other passengers just watched as this occurred. For about four days, the time needed to cross the boundary necessary for the safe usage of the warp drive, there would be not much else to see– just stars and distant planets that look like stars. So they took the time to enjoy this view while it lasted.

"I feel less lonely than I felt during the trip here… Maybe it iss becausse I am with you, Kayden…" Nheka hissed.

"Aw, thank you. I don’t know if I’d want to go without you either," he replied with a slight smile on his face as he turned away from the screen.

"This ship is nice," Lai said, finally undistracted, "Last time I traveled, a short hop to Vesper to see a bhriend, it was in some old ferry probably bhifty years old or something. Cabin smelled. No entertainment. Crew was rude."

Vesper was New Arizona’s sole moon, a small one that was barely round, rocky, and covered in massive fissures and craters. It was visible on the viewscreen, large enough to not be confused for a star.

"Yikes. This one is also pretty old but the company seems like a reputable one."

Lai adjusted his massive sunglasses. "Skyway, right? I didn’t really pay attention when ya showed me it yesterday because I was even higher than I am now."

"Nah, Skyway is trash, or so I heard. They skimp on everything, safety included, barely fitting within regulations. This is UniversExpress, still cheap but we’re less likely to all die," Kayden responded.

"Ya’re even less likely do if ya don’t poke your heads where they don’t belong again," Lai said with a mocking smirk.

"We won’t, don’t worry. I’m still thinking of an alternative plan."

"Is it to stay in places you are actually meant to go and not look into this bhurther until Amani says something?" Lai said in a sarcastic tone, before heavily softening his voice. "I’m genuinely worried bhor you, Kayten."

"In a way," Kayden then rolled his eyes, "but if I tell you the specifics, you will mock me," he paused. "...anyways, why are you still wearing those sunglasses, we’re no longer in the desert."

"I wore them on Tama, I wore them on Buqeimou, I wore them at Glimmer-2, I’m gonna wear them all the way to Earth too. Part obh my unique look, ya know?" he then made another of his exaggerated gestures, and his bangles clinked loudly.

"Right. But doesn’t it get dark? Like at night?"

"I got used to it."

Kayden turned back to watch the spaceport slowly recede on the screen. By then it was very small, appearing less like the massive structure it was and more as if a stalk of mold, complete with a roughly circular cap, was growing out of the planet, which still appeared more like a plane than a sphere. Then, he barely saw another ship undocking from it and activating its drive, moving in a direction perpendicular to the camera. The flash of the fusion drive, even running at the lowest throttle and dampened by the inherent limitations of the television, was like a second star. It blocked the view of the rest of the installation with its radiant white shine that pulsated slightly, and also blotted out the ship itself. This interruption to the otherwise-static scene lasted for a minute or so until the vessel left the frame.

Soon after, he felt the ship begin to accelerate faster. The gravity was still weaker than when the ring was spinning, but it felt more-or-less normal now. The planet started to visibly shrink, turning from a plane into a hemisphere. It was still not distant enough to be visible in its entirety, but with each second it grew ever-so-slightly further and further. One by one, the cities below became impossible to spot amid the sandy and rocky plains of the endless desert. Kayden fully realized how tiny he and his friends were, and even the ship they were on, compared to even this quite unremarkable planet. Everything he ever knew in his life, aside from a brief few weeks in his childhood that he barely remembered, fit on a screen just slightly larger in diagonal than his outstretched arm. Hazy memories of witnessing this exact course of events returned to Kayden’s mind, and a deep, warm feeling of nostalgia washed over him. Mesmerized by this sight, he stared at the screen for what felt like hours, even though perhaps twenty more minutes had passed before he looked away.

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Nheka looked at Kayden with concern. "Why are you crying?"

"Nothing. No reason," he said as he wiped his tears away. "Don’t worry, it’s not out of sadness, I just… I don’t know how to explain this…"

"I do not quite undersstand why you would cry when not ssad, but I do not undersstand mosst things humanss feel…"

"Have you felt this way when leaving your homeworld too? You traveled before this, right?"

"I felt happiness at the thought of mysself finally getting inssight into human culture, and I certainly would not have cried if I was even capable of crying… I traveled by sstarsship before but it wass five decadess ago, and only to chohjozra coloniess…"

"I see. And five decades? I sometimes forget how old you are compared to me. You’re how old now?"

"Eighty six… Not an old age for my sspeciess. We live to two hundred human-yearss or more."

"Right."

Meanwhile, on the screen, the planet shrank faster and faster. The slight variations in its sandy plains blended together into an uniform orangish-yellow color, interspersed with scars of high mountains and splotches of highland plateaus. Soon, it fit in its entirety on the screen, with no evidence of human habitation, until the night side became visible due to the ship’s tilted exit trajectory. Faint yellow dots of still-nascent cities became apparent, less like the glowing spiderwebs that Kayden saw on pictures of the core worlds and more like small asterisks against a backdrop of darkness. Gradually, the ship’s acceleration grew, becoming actually somewhat higher than the gravity on New Arizona, and Kayden felt himself being pressed quite deep into the bed, which seemed to be calibrated for lower gravity. After a few taps on his datapad, he made the springs more rigid.

Lai stood up, walking around with an odd gait. "Hmmm… I’ll get used to this pretty soon. I got uset to how it was on New Arizona compared to Tama abhter all."

"Yeah?" Kayden then got out of bed too. "Wow, this feels weird," he said, hunched over slightly, each step heavy and taking effort. "I don’t at all remember this happening last time, guess they have better engines now. At least we’ll get to the edge faster… I do wonder what the acceleration is…"

The readout on the app was 1.3g. By comparison, the normal gravity on New Arizona was 0.95g. Kayden rapidly acclimatized, however, and looked back at the monitor, sitting at the edge of the bunk as Lai watched with him, the latter's eyes glazed over under his shades. By now, the planet’s features were nigh-impossible to see, and it appeared as a mere yellow half-circle. Lonely specks of light danced around it occasionally, appearing and disappearing. A bit later, the ship ended up orienting itself compared to the planet in such a way as to have it eclipse the star, letting the orange star light its atmosphere from behind, forming an incandescent halo framing the celestial body.

"Are you recording?" Nheka said.

"Yeah I set this thing to vid the whole transfer."

The ship did not accelerate any more after this swing past the planet as Kayden had expected, presumably to avoid adverse health effects of high acceleration on the elderly, physically disabled, and those who grew up on planets with low gravity. Soon, New Arizona turned from a circle to a large orange dot. Without much more to look at, Kayden sighed and turned off the camera swivel app, letting the screen continue to operate like some kind of window.

"This was fun to watch. Lots of pretty swirls and rainbow colors emerging bhrom the stars," Lai said.

Kayden just rolled his eyes. "When’s your friend coming anyways?"

"Probably this eveniiiing."

"Hm… I’m bored. What do you two want to do to pass the time, if anything?"

"Well, that holoconcert iss probably over now... we missed it. What iss the sschedule for that room…?"

Kayden looked something up quickly on the ship’s local Internet shard. "Let’s see… hmmm, yeah it’s over. Instead there’s a… oh wait, the room is under maintenance, and will be for two hours," he then tapped his fingers on the back of his datapad loudly, "How about… a movie? Nheka, you wanted to learn more about human culture, would you want that?"

"Ssure…"

"I’m down!" Lai said.

Kayden dug through the library of movies, courtesy of a streaming service. Some were apparently not on the ship’s servers, mostly more obscure films, and thus were unavailable. He scrolled all the way through, then did it all over again, and so on for several times. Finally he settled down on one of Beyond Progress’ feature-length adaptations, of which there were a dozen by now. He had only not watched the latest one, having put it off for two weeks due to hearing criticism of it online and thus reducing his anticipation, but now he was willing to give it a try. He also set the refresh rate to be faster than normal. While it made the picture a bit blurry to his eyes, Nheka could watch.

***

106 minutes and 95% of the movie pass…

The main villains’ flagship, the Devourer, materialized over an Earth transformed by tens of millenia of development into an ecumenopolis, only to be intercepted by Iyyxa, the Star God who the heroes allied with. A climactic space battle ensued, involving entire fleets of warships fabricated in mere minutes and seeing half of the Moon reduced to a lava field and the Pacific Ocean gaining a few new trenches as collateral damage. In the end, the Devourer was blasted apart by antimatter inversion beams. The heroes proceeded to celebrate, some within the virtual reality most humans lived in by the time of Beyond Progress’ setting. The End.

Kayden thought for a bit before speaking up first. "Yeah this one has much more explosions and stuff than the show huh. Not many philosophical dilemmas or anything. Just politics and then things going boom."

"Would the debriss not fall onto Terra and kill possibly billionss of khumanss? What about sse radiation from sse antimatter annikhilation?"

Kayden shrugged. "I swear they’d have paid attention to that on the show. I. It's usually plausible... yeah... aside from that episode with the AI uprising and that one with the sapient planet and that one with the machine that turns people into apple trees with feelings. Actually even there they at least… paid attention to how stuff is supposed to work if it was real? Now I kinda understand the reviews, huh?"

"Oh come on, it’s not meant to be high-minded baqusiumu. I just turned my brain off and enjoyed it."

"Ah but here’s the thing, you weren’t meant to do that with the show and the previous movies. I think they ran out of ideas. Or maybe the network decided to ruin it, as they do. Nheka, did you like the movie other than that?"

"Yess."

Kayden checked the time. 16:23. Plenty of time left. "Another?"

"Yess."

Ray seemed to have unplugged and started watching silently somewhere along the way. They did not comment on anything.

***

As soon as the second movie, a fairly unremarkable drama film set on 2220s Earth, finished, There was a knock on the door. Lai quickly stood up and opened the door. "Ey Tiikchche!"

Standing in the doorway was a white-furred male relmai, whose fur was thicker than Lai’s, and his eyes were a bit more narrow. Otherwise he looked similar enough (at least, to Nheka and Kayden), aside from his clothing: instead of a jumpsuit, he wore a loose robe-like garment that exposed much of his chest and lower limbs, did not quite reach the ground and was colored just as garishly as Lai’s clothing, to the point where it could not be said to have any color besides ‘all of them, and also some which humans couldn’t distinguish too’. Tiik wore similar articles of jewelry, from bracelets to a necklace to anklets, but made of multicolored polished metal rather than transparent glass or plastic.

The two then exchanged a few phrases in a fast-spoken yet melodious language Nheka and Kayden did not understand. Lai waved widely at the cabin and its contents and inhabitants, including the three filled bunks and just one empty one, and nodded vigorously.

"Er, feel free to come in?" Kayden finally said.

"I will, thank you very much," Tiikchche said unusually eloquently, aside from the usual accent, and in a calmer voice than Lai, yet still very cheerfully. "Lai told me about you all, wonderful people."

The two relmai then climbed up to the upper bunk which was normally Lai’s spot. They kept talking there quietly. Nheka could hear the bed strain a bit under their weight, and carefully edged to a spot where she felt she wouldn’t be crushed after a potential catastrophic structural failure of the rest unit. Kayden just wondered why they went here of all places, instead of having their conversation in the corridor or Tiikchche’s cabin. Strange creatures, those relmai.

"Anywayss," Nheka said, looking at Kayden, "I thought about thiss for a while now… Why do human moviess have consstant camera cutss? And on the sstorytelling sside, I did not ssee much, what iss the word, deep ssymbolissm…"

"What do you mean?"

"In our civilization’ss culture, we have our vissual media involve lengthy sshotss… often minutess long. Not to mention, the moviess were sshort by my sstandardss, less than two hours, I am ussed to eight or more… and in ourss every character and element musst have a deep meaning…"

"...huh. Eight hours? That sounds… nevermind."

"Khuman culture iss very fast paced…"

"I frequently watch cellular automata for hours," Ray finally said, "They help me appreciate the nested nature of existence."

"Right," Kayden said, then yawned. "I like them too but I don't see any sort of high-minded meaning in them. They're just neat. Anyways, I’m feeling sleepy. Maybe it’s the constant gravity shifts. Maybe it’s my injuries. Maybe it’s just the air or the noise of the engine," he then looked at the two relmai. "Are you going to talk for much longer?"

Lai turned to look at him and gave a thumbs up, then said something to Tiik and the two climbed back down. The white relmai then waved and left the room after hugging Lai for a while.

"What did you talk about, if it’s not a secret?"

"Oh, just soooome news bhrom my homeworld. Since I went bhrom it to here do reunite with my bhamily who work here, I had only internet news to keep in touch with… and those aren’t like learning things bhrom someone who was there a mere two weeks agoooo."

"What happened there?"

"Well, mostly personal stubh involving dhe rest of my bhamily who stayed… all seventy-eight obh them who are related enough to me. Like Tialumou, that crazy–"

"Seventy-eight? How do you like, keep in touch?"

Lai recoiled. "I think about human bhriend groups and bhamilies and think ‘how small!’. That’s like me asking you… ‘why is all your entertainment so slow and boring?’, ‘why don’t you go to daily parties with drugs and booze?’, ‘why don’t you enjoy moulwiubu-ing?’ and so on and so on?"

"Sorry."

"Don’t worry about it."

Kayden sighed. "I’m going to sleep. If you’re going to listen to music or play a game, you know how to not wake us both up, especially Nheka with her super-hearing. I suppose Ray can like, turn off their senses or something, heh," he paused. "And please don’t pull another all-nighter."

Nheka, who hadn't gotten enough sleep the day before, was already quite lethargic. The chohjozra didn’t quite go to sleep in the same way humans did– they did so very gradually. All she could do now, however, is nod weakly.

"...where do you like, brush your teeth et al on spaceships," Nheka said.

"The bathrooms have sinks. Down the hall," Lai literally pointed out, at the door then at the wall in the general direction of said installation.

***

Soon after, the lights in the cabin turned off. It was lit only by the viewscreen, which by now only displayed an unmoving background of stars, some of which were just slightly moving. Nheka, Ray, and, surprisingly, Lai slept soundly, but Kayden was still wide awake, just staring into the ‘ceiling’. He thought a lot about this extraordinarily inconvenient start of the journey, and hoped the remainder of it won’t be as unpleasant. Gradually, he drifted off to sleep.

A TIMESKIP MONTAGE…

19 Jan 2230

The day was uneventful. Much of it was spent having fun on the ship, from normal, non-zero-g dance parties and concerts to showings of movies. There was no obvious trace of artifact thief activity. Kayden was careful around the area where he almost got caught. Nheka slipped and shattered a sink while trying to refill her water bottle from it, thankfully nobody found out who it was. Lai was surprisingly sober for most of the day. Ray was mysteriously absent for much of it, until evening, when they came back and were not talkative at all.

20 Jan 2230

The group spent hours in Simulacrum, a VR world simulator combined with a story generator. The story, ostensibly a fantasy one, became increasingly nonsensical towards the end, with a psychedelic ending. Nheka needed to be convinced for half an hour straight that no, the program responsible for this was not a ‘thinking machine’ and, in fact, did not actually understand anything it said. Tiik came back towards evening and he and Lai yelled at each other for what felt like an hour, in the corridor. Realizing that crackers and chocolate started running out, Kayden decided to ration his supplies… he still didn’t rely on the shipboard algae noodles. For now. Ray, again, was away…

21 Jan 2230

Kayden heard noises in the walls while going to the entertainment room again, but did not investigate. Otherwise the day was similarly uneventful. Saera’s emails did not arrive for some reason… Outside, the star Flamerider became much dimmer, appearing less like a circle and more as a very bright orange dot. Ray was still missing, and was similarly non-talkative during the evening when they came back. The rest of the group had no idea what they were doing…