Chapter 3 #3
Iris bit back a startled yelp. The station security guard had snuck up on him, and when their voice came from right behind his left shoulder, he had nearly jumped. “Protocol,” the security officer added, almost apologetically.
“The trip there and back wastes nearly two hours,” Iris protested.
“Yeah,” Yan said, “that’s nearly as much time as you’ve wasted having tea and sandwiches.” Riyu elbowed him and muttered shut up under her breath.
Iris turned towards the security personnel and put on what he believed to be the best innocent face he could muster.
“I would simply prefer it if I could stay behind on the Nicaea. You see, Primary Temple sent me here for an important job, and I can’t be seen as slacking off, going to and from the station.
I’m not on your contracts. Even if something were to happen to me, you wouldn’t be held responsible.
I wouldn’t hold you responsible.” Iris gave them a practiced, timid smile.
The smaller he made himself, the bigger others felt.
The bigger they felt, the more inclined they were to be permissive.
Stroke an ego, get your way. “And anyway, I’ll mostly keep to the cargo bay.
I promise I won’t disturb anything while you’re gone. ”
If that’s not a lie, I don’t know what is, VIFAI laughed. With a micromotion of his eyes, Iris firmly sent the AI to the back of his mind. Still, the security guards didn’t budge.
“Protocol,” the other one said and motioned for the door.
Iris was losing ground, and he hated losing.
Very well. He could play dirty, get his way by any means necessary.
Taking a deep breath, Iris pressed his palms together and dropped to the floor.
He kneeled down and leaned forwards. With his forehead pressed against the metal of the floor, he muttered, “My friend, rejoice, for there is no you, and there is no me. The Light is your flesh as it is starlight. The Light is these words as it is the blood in your veins. Rejoice that in the touch of a lover you know the touch of the Divine. Rejoice that in your last breath you learn what it is to be the cosmos.”
One of the security personnel took a step towards him and reached for his shoulder when Ishtan stopped him. “You can’t touch him,” he said, biting back a laugh. “Those are the rules.”
The security guard froze, hand outstretched. He looked over to his partner, who gave him an indifferent shrug. Everyone watched in silence as Iris prayed, faces contorted in various degrees of discomfort. Tev was fighting back a nervous chuckle until Jesi pinched his arm, hard.
“My friend, rejoice, for there is no you, and there is no me. The Light is your flesh as it is starlight. The Light is these words as it is the blood in your veins,” Iris kept muttering, now adding the passing of the mala between his fingers to his performance.
More laden silence passed through the group, each person growing increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of a prostrated monk.
“All right, fine.” The security guard finally lowered his hand.
“Everyone except for the praying nutjob, head to the airlock.” He gave Iris one last disapproving look and walked away.
More footsteps shuffled out of hearing range as the academics filtered out, following their guards.
Iris remained on the ground, forehead pressed to the floor, now muttering a recipe for dinner stew that no one in his company could distinguish from prayer.
To the untrained ear, in the right cadence, anything in the Starlit tongue sounded like prayer.
On her way out, Riyu knelt beside Iris and whispered, “I’m leaving the cooler behind; there are three more sandwiches in there.
Oh, and the kettle too, so you can have some tea.
Bye.” Her light footsteps pattered towards the door and melted into the newfound silence.
When the muffled voices had faded from earshot, Iris rose with a self-satisfied grin.
You sure showed them.
Iris couldn’t help but allow himself an audible chuckle. Then he pulled the sandwich from his robes and devoured it in five bites. It was the best lab-grown ham he had ever tasted, and in his time, he had tasted a not insignificant amount.
Back to work then? VIFAI asked when the chewing had subsided.
Ignoring his electronic companion, Iris hopped to his feet and brushed the crumbs from the folds of his robes.
He threw the cooler open, grabbed the remaining three sandwiches, and shoved them into the various hidden pockets in his robes.
Someone had left behind their full mug of tea, and Iris gulped a few sips down to push the remains of the inhaled sandwich to their rightful place.
Finally, with a satisfied sigh, he finished the lukewarm tea and set the mug back down.
With a defiant tilt of the head, he declared, “Throw up the map, my incorporeal friend. We’re going exploring.”
What about the bones?
“They’ll be there tomorrow,” Iris said. “They do have a lovely tendency of remaining stationary.”
Here was a rare opportunity to venture out into the unknown without loud engineers or overly enthusiastic academics distracting him, to explore the winding corridors and sprawling halls the way he had intended—alone.
Come morning, Iris would dutifully return to assembling the skeletons and delivering the rites, he promised himself.
But tonight, he would no longer ignore the allure of the unexpected, potential snakes and crabs be damned.
Sensing his iron-clad determination, immune to any sort of reason, VIFAI summoned Nicaea’s map directly into Iris’s mind.
Its faintly glowing outlines pushed past the physical walls of the room and into unseen corridors.
It was the largest ship Iris had ever beheld.
A city more so than a ship. Before him, it lay lifeless and empty.
Yet, some ghost of the ship had guided it through the gate and safely placed it into orbit around Doshua Station.
As Iris took it all in, all of its nineteen stacked decks unfurling before him, he sensed a gently rising pulse through the balls of his feet.
“Pause,” Iris said, but the pulse had already vanished. He turned slowly, keeping his breath soft and level, only to see that he was still alone. Beads of condensation raced down tall, sloping walls, occasionally falling to the metal floor—a steady rhythm. Nothing more.
Human error. You’re not accustomed to being completely alone. It’s making you jumpy.
This much was true. Iris took another deep breath and wiped his palms dry on his robes. “Then we are safe?”
Safety is relative. There was a prickle of laughter to VIFAI’s response. If there had been any real danger, Iris’s companion would alert him in due time. The map, then. He allowed the thrill of exploration to bloom once more.
“There has to be a hydroponics here or maybe even a greenhouse, or an orchard, or something where they would have grown edible plants,” Iris mused out loud.
“If I were designing a ship, I would put it all on the middle floor, close to the centre. Safer that way. If there was ever a hull breach, the food source would remain protected. Then again, I don’t know anything about designing generation ships.
” As he walked about the room, Iris hummed to himself under his breath, flitting between his ideas about greenhouses and orchards.
“Meanwhile,” he asked VIFAI, “could you please find some information on our companions? I’d like to know more about who it is I’m sharing this space with.
” Continuing to study the map he saw several long rooms adjoined by thin corridors, sprawled cross the third floor.
A promising configuration. The oddly shaped rooms would do well as nurseries, but not much could be concluded from the map alone.
Reaching for another sandwich from within his robes, Iris asked VIFAI, “Please, switch this to an interactive map for the deck floor. I want to go explore these spaces here.” He pointed to the rectangular rooms on the map and took a ravenous bite from his sandwich.
Meat was one of several flavours that Iris often forgot he enjoyed until the delicacy was in front of him again.
Even lab grown, meat triggered some distant and primal part of him, stirring the drive to consume, to want.
It would do him good to exercise caution as to how much he indulged.
Sandwich in hand, Iris ducked into a previously unexplored corridor in the opposite direction of already known space.
Here, the floor lay lush and untouched. No heavy footprints had flattened the pillows of vibrant, emerald moss.
No engineers had come through here. No particular engineer, for certain.
The projected map was leading Iris towards the nearest staircase to the third deck.
All corridors on this side of the ship were wider, so wide that two Irises could walk side by side without touching the walls with their outstretched arms. The ceilings disappeared into the dark, with only twisting, naked air roots trailing downwards to suggest at their existence at all.
Beneath his feet, remnants of a moving walkway peered out from beneath the moss.
Iris nudged it with a bare toe a few times in an attempt to wake it, but the thing had been dead a long time, and he moved on.
From the long shadows cast by shattered lights along the walls, an open maw of a wide doorway beckoned Iris to explore farther in.
As he hesitated by the opening, a wave of cool air fluttered his robes, sending the small hairs on the back of his neck upright.
An ethereal flickering advanced from the pitch black towards him, painting a path of a faint blue glow.
Wrong way, VIFAI warned.
Iris ignored it. The floor below his right foot pulsed exactly once and sent a ripple down the glowing path, as if to affirm that he was to follow.