I'd only seen a few starships, but this one was bigger than any I'd seen. The boarding tube led into a common area with dining tables and vending machines. We were squeezed between nerds of all ages wearing lab coats or with tweed sweaters hung over their shoulders; a few were even dressed like me, but unlike me, they were for-real research assistants, not sneaky, punk-ass, impostors (or were they?). I shrunk close to Fern, hiding from the hard stares of legit citizens who could tell I didn't belong.

As we pushed past the common area, the walkway became much narrower. The corridor was closing in on me.

"What is that noise?" Fern said.

That noise was my teeth grinding. With a gentle hum, panels slid open, revealing private cabins; they were bigger than my bunk back at the warren. My jaw relaxed as citizens entered these, and our way became less crowded.

My gaze fell on Fern; she seemed preoccupied with trying to find our cabin number. Finally, she halted abruptly and practically shouted in my ear. "Here it is."

Her stop made me jump and hold my breath, but once we got settled into the cabin, my breathing started up again. My finger dragged along the back of a semicircular sofa at the center of the cabin as I took it all in. The sofa curved around a small brushed aluminum coffee table. The walls had inset shelves, except where the bunk beds were stacked; after a closer look, I saw that one of the shelves was actually a desk with a comm console, with a chair that slid out from the floor in front of it. Everything was silver and white; there wasn't a scuff or a scratch anywhere. It was like this ship had come straight from the synther, just like the starport ‘hood.

The cabin was small, about the size of a corner of The Hive, but with the luxury of some curtains around the bunk beds; my skin crawled thinking about spending so much time stuck here with a nerd. Fern was nice and all, but she wasn't fam, wasn't one of my buds. What the hell was I going to do? What would we talk about? But I had to get away and this was my only option.

As if sensing my thoughts, Fern turned to me. "You can use the comm desk as much as you like while we're in transit," she said, resting her hand on it. "I don't anticipate using it much myself. Also, there are personal vid consoles for entertainment in the bunks."

That was better than nothing. I could write letters to my buds, try to convince them not to hate me for ditching Bandersnatch; I could hide and watch old flicks. Ugh. For two months?

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"Is there anywhere on the ship I can move around more? This is a real tight space."

Fern nodded. "There's a lounge aft―we passed it on the way in―and a laserball court forward of here."

I shot her a skeptical look. "But I'd have to hang around other nerds, then. And laserball? That's kind of a lame-ass sport. I guess there's no place for bike racing on this tin can, huh?"

Fern raised an eyebrow. "Not even the Hajj-class cruisers have bike racing," she said, leaning back into the comm desk chair. “Some have fairly large gymnasiums, but―"

She was interrupted by a complex series of tones that ended with a synth voice telling us, "Dr. Fern Angstrom. You have an incoming message from Dr. Sybil Angstrom, marked urgent. Our apologies for the delay, but as departure is imminent, the comm desk will be disabled until we have established hyperdrive cruise velocity, which will be in fifteen minutes. Thank you."

Fern's eyes crinkled. She covered her worry with mock-exasperation. "Oh, what's Mom on about?" she huffed.

As if it had meant to say more, but forgotten, the synth voice came back on: "Please be seated on your cabin sofa, in preparation for take off."

After barely touching ass to seat, I flinched as straps slithered out and buckled me in. I sorta remembered the feeling of entering hyperspace from when I was on training wheels; my folks had a rare meeting with an allied gang from a distant star system, and I came along for the ride. It was still in the Bohr Cluster, so the trip was only ten days.

The vaguely familiar vibration of transition to hyperspace began. It felt like being splashed with chilly water over and under my skin while being tugged and shaken in directions that don't exist. You got used to it, I guess, but man, two months? I shivered as the ooze of hyperspace closed in around me.

I looked over at Fern; she seemed to be in a meditative trance. "You travel a lot, Fern?" My voice sounded echoey and tone-shifted.

She blinked, noticing me staring at her. My discomfort must have been obvious. "Yes. You won't even notice it after a few days."

"I hope you're right. So what's so special about this Tau Concordia, anyway?" I said, trying to ignore the miasma.

Fern nodded. "Concordia Station, a deep-space observatory, orbits Tau Concordia. It's not within any of the settled star clusters; that's why it's such a long trip. The stellar density in the intervening space between Bohr and Tau Concordia is lower, so it takes longer."

I nodded. Everyone knew that, for shiz: it was basic hyperspace theory― starship drives could go faster in star clusters of higher density. Maybe Fern assumed hipsters didn't get a basic education or something, but since everything was on the StarNet, we learned as much as we could to leverage modern tech to spread the True Culture.

"The way I learned it," I began, "The more wrinkles that the stars create in spacetime, the more there is for the drive to tug on and the faster it can surf the ripples."

Fern grinned. "Yes, precisely," she beamed.

I shook my head and sighed. The nerds really thought we were dumb.

A chime sounded and our seatbelts slithered off of us. Fern jumped up so quickly, I put my arms up in front of me.

When I realized she wasn't jumping at me, I put my arms down and saw that Fern was already tapping on the comm desk console, bringing up her mom's message.