* * *
Wandering aimlessly through the corridors, Voslari considered Villa’s words. She was scared, that was a fact. But was it a good reason to not pursue melding? Voslari thought that it probably wasn’t; her entire species did this all the time, usually without a second thought. That was not a comfort though; uncontrollably changing was scary. Romaso Vel, she had heard of him, but had never read about him, it was definitely something she would do later.
A muffled grinding sound disrupted the air, emanating from a door marked, ‘Diagnostic Hub 7B’. Deciding to investigate, she passed through the door. Immediately assaulted by a loud, shrill, noise, which was enhanced by the room size, she wished she could plug her ears.
All of the hubs were small, not usually much larger than a bed, but this was the smallest. Running from left to right, three coolant tubes were stacked vertically on the wall opposite the door. Each tube was halfway embedded into the wall, and their diameter just wide enough for a svelte person to fit inside. A smaller access hatch on each tube allowed entry for cleaning or repairs.
Diagnostic equipment with blinking lights and readouts filled the walls from floor to ceiling. Having been pieced together, like the rest of the ship, the room was host to many components from numerous cultures. As such, words from many languages labeled the buttons and devices. It was often a problem, because most people only knew Standard in addition to their home language.
The language issue was not just in the hubs; the construction method of the entire ship led to this occurring everywhere. One might assume that a linguist would be among the crew, with the task of translating the entire ship, but that would be an incorrect assumption. There wasn’t any one person in the whole universe that knew all of the languages represented on the ship. Regardless, many words had been translated by various Pan-Gate Commissions crew-members as the unknown words were encountered on a daily basis. The translations were commonly written on tape which was then stuck over the foreign word. The flaw with this was that sometimes they fell off and, when found, were later put back up--sometimes in the wrong place. Despite this, a fatal mistake had yet to occur because of a mislabeled switch or readout.
The highest access hatch was open, letting green sparks ricochet out of the tube. They rose to the ceiling before winking out. Voslari hovered higher and peeked into the tube. The top of a head, covered in long, flowing, bright blue hair, and a grinder was all she could see in the tight space. The hair was mirror-like, shimmering with each vibration.
“Take that! You entrenched hogspire!” Selarr Dorine yelled, over the sound of the machine. She brought the machine away and then jammed it at a bulbous mound on the top of the tube. A shower of sparks flew out of the hatch, through Voslari.
Selarr pulled the grinder away again, Voslari seized the quiet moment. “Selarr?”
Selarr jolted, banging her head on the top of the tube. “Gah!” She turned the grinder off and set it down with a deep clank. Craning her neck, she turned her head to look at the hatch. Selarr’s irises were white, which was common among the oradine. “Vos!” She smiled. “How are you today?” She frowned. “What is it? Am I in trouble, we aren’t moving. I mean, he...the captain...doesn’t want to move, or does he?”
“Uh,” Voslari wasn’t prepared for the rapid onslaught of questions. “Not that I am aware of.” Selarr reached up and began pulling herself up to the opening. Voslari moved away, giving her room. “I haven’t spoken to the Captain recently; I was just talking to Villa.”
Relief flooded Selarr’s face. “That’s good, ‘cause, we can’t move right now. I decided to clean the coolant tubes instead of, uh--” she took a quick breath and started over, “I’ve got crews cleaning the tubes, so it’s going to be a while.” There was an awkward silence for a moment. “Once they’re clean, we have to flush them out,” she said, as if that explained something. There was silence again while Selarr just stared at Voslari, but her eyes constantly darted, occasionally she tilted her head, lost in thought.
Searching for something to say, Voslari said, “Your hair is so beautiful; it’s so shimmery.”
“Oh, yeah,” Selarr said, unimpressed by what was normal for her. She smiled, remembering something, “That’s nothing compared to our blue hair when a red-haired oradine is near.”
“Your species sounds so fascinating and I still don’t know much about them.,” Voslari said. “We need to have tea like we talked about.”
“Someday, Vos. Someday.”
From the ceiling, the ship’s computer synthvoice interrupted their conversation. “CALCULATIONS cannot be COMPLETED.” The two-tone voice grated almost as badly as the grinding.
Selarr banged a fist against the side of the tube. “What more could you need? The minefield is right there! Analyze it!” The computer didn’t respond, of course.
In the first year after becoming stranded on Dri’oc, long before the Soul Fever took her, Voslari had read as much as she could as her only form of entertainment. Ship manuals were mostly what was available. The perfect recall of a healthy tangible soul was a benefit and a curse. She remembered all the time before the Soul Fever with crystal clarity--every second of it. Recalling what she had read, Voslari replied, “Maybe there’s too much information and not enough storage.”
“Oh, no, do you remember when we installed the computer processing unit? It’s an Authority-class computer! There is more than enough storage space to handle analyzing...” she faltered, trying to think of a large, yet plausible number, “ten, no, uh, twenty minefields this size. It shouldn’t even take a long time.”
Not wanting to argue with Selarr, Voslari didn’t say any more about it. “Hmm, well I’m going to let you have fun grinding out the, ‘hogspires.’” She snickered as she left.