02

The Soul shook. The smear of colors brightened the pilot’s deck. Anias kept both fingertips and thoughts still, rejecting the impulse to correct the yacht’s imagined tumble. Only an illusion from the swirl. The Soul would pass through the slipring before he altered its path, anyway.

Coltee’s gasp broke the silence.

A heartbeat later, the smear dissipated, drops of colors evaporating in the cold void. The yacht’s subtle shaking subsided. The drive skirt’s mechanical whine kicked in, and the small vessel resumed its powered flight.

Two kilokenners ahead, the massive upper and lower shells of the Glorious Arrival reflected the brilliant spotlights playing across its uniform, slip-alloy-green surfaces.

Gerrick made a sound, a grunt but not, and fumbled with the buckles to the straps holding him in place. Coltee sucked in another breath.

“Is that—” she murmured, almost too soft to hear.

“A slipshell,” Anias said, struggling to contain his boiling excitement. “A second-ringer. Like nothing that’s ever been built before.” Warmth suffused his forehead, cheeks, and lips. “I call her the Glorious Arrival, as her advent in the sphere will herald a new dawn in slipring transit.”

Gerrick rasped, “Anias! Are you insane?”

Anias glanced over his shoulder as his old friend stumbled close, gripping the recliner’s backrest for support. Instead of the expected arched brows and slack jaw, though, Gerrick’s expression spoke of blossoming worry in the forehead wrinkles above wide eyes and lips parted enough for deep gasps sucked in with a surprising breathlessness. He’d seen that look once before, when news of Grandfather Eltricks’ stellar flu diagnosis spread across the outer orbit.

His old friend’s fingers trembled as he pointed. “Is— You coated it in slip-alloy? The whole thing?”

“Not coated. Built,” Anias replied, his burgeoning wave of celebration cresting on crags of hesitation rising in his thoughts. “I had to. For a vessel that large, slip-alloy’s the only way to keep the transit stresses from tearing it apart.”

“How?” Gerrick demanded. “Where? When? You never told me you were investing in slip-alloy manufacturing!”

Anias waved at the approaching green-hued slipshell. “I couldn’t. Not a single word of my intentions. You’d have beaten such ambitions right out of me. A fool’s errand, you’d’ve said.”

“And I’d have been right.” He swallowed. “Until—” He flapped fingers at the sight dominating the forward view.

Coltee’s buckles clicked open. She joined Gerrick at the recliner. “Looks like you met your ambitions. This is...” She sighed. “Amazing!”

Anias twisted around to her side. Now there’s the look I was expecting. Unbridled awe. What the Glorious Arrival deserves. “Yes, it is. See those gathered vessels? The barges, tugs, transports, and yachts?”

Her gaze remaining on the viewplates, she nodded. The slight movement of her eyes and the twitches in the corners of her lips exposed her delight.

He continued. “The most common slipshell customers. Combined they account for over sixty percent of slipring transits. Right now, the largest slipshells are third-ringers. That limitation is choking transit times and stifling commerce.”

“I- I’ve seen the datastreams,” she whispered.

Gerrick sucked a breath through clenched teeth. “The answer’s building more slipshells. Not this— this—” He flapped fingers again. “Monstrosity.”

Coltee’s head jerked. “Monstrosity? Gren Gerrick, do you understand what a work of sheer brilliance that is? What it represents?” She extended her arm, palm up. Cool. Controlled. “More slipshells would only congest traffic even further, to say nothing of reducing the wait times. Throw fifty of these beauties out there, and congestion disappears almost overnight.” She faced the viewplates again, shoulders rising and falling in deep, quiet contemplation. “Magnificent! The only real solution.”

“Solution?” Gerrick choked out. “Gods, neither of you see it, do you?”

Anias pivoted the recliner around as Gerrick retreated to his chair. He settled hard, breath leaving in a wroosh, before rubbing a hand down the side of his face.

“I thought you’d be proud,” Anias said, voice low, as he leaned forward. “Celebrate my accomplishment. ‘Think big,’ you always told me. You and Grandpa. Well, outside a first-ringer, this is about a big as I could think.” He struggled to prevent his shoulders from slumping, to keep his chin up. Though pockets of it remained, most of his anticipation had burbled away, leaving the hollow of deflation in its wake.

“Anias!” Coltee’s voice carried the excitement that escaped him, as though infecting her with its departure from him. “All those vessels—you plan to fit them into the slipshell? All of them?”

He pivoted around, turning his recliner’s back to his old friend. Now there’s the verbal tremble I hoped to hear. “Every single one. They’re all loaded with cargo and personnel meant for the After Party so this is an actual transit besides a final test of the Arrival’s core systems.”

“And we’re...” After a pause, she inhaled. “The Glorious Soul. We’re flying inside!”

“The Soul’s the brains and the heart of the Arrival. Those interfaces you spotted? That’s where her sentient core plugs into the shell’s systems.”

Coltee stepped around the recliner to press her thighs to the console’s front lip. She positioned her palms to the console surface, careful not to press any inputs. “So this is... is a sort of... detachable pilot’s yacht! Yes, of course. The shell’s way too large to berth at any station or habitat proper.” She glanced about again. “Way more advanced than a third-ringer slipshell’s yacht, too. Livable! Forget docking elsewhere.” She faced the viewplates again, eyes still wide, lips curled at the edges. “Yes, yes. Perfect sense.”

Anias pivoted back to Gerrick, who’d fallen silent. His friend’s gaze shifted from the viewplates to meet his, eyes wide still with more concern than congratulations. He opened his mouth, but an alarm pinged in his chord, cutting off his question. He pivoted back around.

“Excuse me, but we’re about to dock. Strap in if you don’t trust me or the Soul.”

By then, the glossy green slip-alloy filled the view. White and yellow strobes visible between the shell halves moved about in the vast interior. Along the exterior, machinery and support struts sat in recessed niches. Drive skirt components bulged from man-sized cubbies at regular intervals along both upper and lower shell rims, pimples on a polished skin. Blue, white, and amber lights winked in each.

The gap between the halves increased as the Soul coasted closer. And closer still. Four skeletons of thin cylindrical struts formed a scaffolding that bridged the open space, each claiming a sliver of the circumference. Plenty of room in between for the waiting vessels to thrust inside the slipshell, where they’d be anchored to the interior framework.

“I want to watch,” Coltee breathed.

Anias smiled at her enthusiasm. “Of course.”

His focus on the navigation datastreams, he guided the Soul inside, to the pilot yacht’s dock, carved into the upper shell at the 3 o’clock position, had this been a giant, old Earth clock face. When attached, the forward viewplates would face 12 o’clock, the expected direction of travel. Feeds from the shell would provide the exterior views. Smaller viewplates to the side would look out into the closed shell’s interior.

The Soul slowed, nudged sideways, slowed more, eased to starboard again, then ascended to the level of the upper shell’s rim. Final taps to the yacht’s thrust clusters, and the yacht settled into position with dull clunks that vibrated through the deck plating.

A series of mechanical thunks followed. Then the console configuration changed, screens shrinking or squeezing aside to accommodate displays feeding information about the shell itself. The same information streamed through his chord, bright with blues and whites, with a single amber announcing itself.

Anias paused the datastream to study it. A backup unit reporting insufficient power input.

He pulled a comm packet from his mental murk. It brightened to life, a white border around a squat blue rectangle. He filled it with the report before sending it into the Arrival’s comm streams with a flick of thought.

The reply came from the senior technician already on board. Aware of issue. Dispatching repair team now. This will not delay our departure. The blue letters flashed in another squat rectangle.

Anias pushed, Understood. I should’ve known you’d be on it. My appreciations. Begin the on-boarding process. He flicked the message away.

The exchange lasted all but a pair of breaths.

He turned to glance up at Coltee then around ot Gerrick. “Want to follow the on-boarding through your chords?” he offered. “It’s quite a dance.”

“Oh, definitely,” Coltee breathed.

“You’ve run the process before?” Gerrick asked before shaking his head. “Of course you have. Along with too many test transits to count. What’m I thinking?” He waved. “Yeah, link me in.”

Anias flicked the appropriate pings.

Coltee straightened. “Oh! I better sit down for this.” She stepped to her chair and strapped herself in.

Had the Soul’s pilot’s deck had actual view plates, allowing in the flashing strobes and navigational beacons of the boarding vessels and guiding tugs, the resulting tsunami of shadows would’ve proven nauseating. Anias tempered the shifting lights and shadows playing in his chord, the effects there almost as strong.

“So much movement,” Coltee whispered. Anias twisted to glance her way to find her eyes open but her gaze lifted to a point above the viewplates. Her lips twitched with unspoken words, but her smile remained.

Beside her, Gerrick closed his eyes and rested his hands in his lap. His head shifted and bobbed in slight movements in restrained glancing about.

No clearer sign he’d had his chord throughout his life while she earned hers probably at eight-years-old, the second and final window for chord implantation. Exhaling through puffed cheeks, he turned back to the forward viewplates.

Within ten minutes—according to the timer in the stream’s bottom right corner—the awaiting vessels were all anchored to the interior framework, linking bolts tight, power and data feeds slotted into place. Some rested level with the shell rims. Others hung at odd angles, even nose-down. He glanced at the on-boarding window. Twenty-four vessels tucked nice and tight, some with mere millikenner between their metallic hides. All pulsed with bright blue readiness. Around them, the interior tugs, specially designed by his sister Arcanessa, settled into their niches. More blue indicated their readiness, though white blinks on a trio spoke of lurking issues.

Enough time to tend to those during our transit to the After Party.

Unlike the Soul, the Arrival itself lacked the improved drive skirts he’d cobbled together, building off the existing technology.

“Another way the brethren throttle our society,” Grandfather Eltricks once complained.

“I’ll handle it,” Anias assured him. In mere weeks, he’d mapped out the improvements then built and installed the modified components, starting with his personal yacht, the Bertemo. Which housed his sentient core, Bertemo. In the years since, no one—not the transit authorities, the ever-vigilant Peacekeepers, nor Brethren Emallus itself—noticed anything.

At the end of the improved drive skirt’s maiden voyage from his outer orbit home station to his sister’s middle orbit base of operations, Eltricks laughed. “They think us incapable. When we brought the damn equipment here!”

“They see only what they expect to see,” Anias, fourteen at the time, replied.

Almost sixteen years later, and still no one noticed. The improvement was for smaller vessels, though, third-ringers and below. A massive sphere like the Glorious Arrival kicking along...

Like what I’ve built won’t already draw unwanted scrutiny. His gaze shifted to Gerrick, quiet and still in his chair. I bet that’s what worries him so. That I’m finally emerging from my protective shell. One coated with my own slip-alloy.

Well, this’ll certainly catch notice from the sphere’s authorities. At all levels.

Remains to be seen if my plans on how to deal with that hold up under the scrutiny.

Only one point of contention remained: how to explain the processing of the enormous quantity of slip-ore used.

He had seven days to think of a plausible solution. Despite having over a year already to script something even halfway plausible. Even his sentient core failed to help.

Of course, no regulation or law could compel him to reveal his secrets. Such was how business empires spanning generations came into being.

Chimes sounded. Windows formed in his chord. Messages scrolled. All around, equipment thumped. The fans humming behind vents spun harder.

“Technical team reporting readiness for shell closing,” the senior technician announced, speaking through the comm rather than across chords. “We are clear for departure.”

“Acknowledged, technical lead,” Anias replied, hoping to keep the tremble from his voice, his excitement bursting to life again. “Initiating shell closure. Departure in one minute.”

Amber strobes along both rims flashed. Interior lights blinked white. Others turned off, leaving the distant interior in shrouding darkness, save for blue twinkles. A moment later, the distance between the two halves shortened, then shortened more. Twenty seconds, and the halves came together into a seamless whole, squeezing the amber between them. Like fingertips pinching a bug.

“Exterior join reading complete,” the technical lead reported. “Exterior non-essentials sealing. Drive skirt powered up and at your command, sir.”

“Acknowledged. Initiating maneuvers. Transit in fifteen minutes.”

Only the viewplates conveyed any hint of motion. The great orb pivoted to face the way the Soul had come before gliding forward. Tugs and stationary support platforms falling past to either side exposed her gentle but increasing speed.

Coltee broke the silence. “I take it the Arrival’s drive skirt isn’t as fast as the Soul’s?”

Anias grunted. “You noticed?”

“Hard not to, the way you dove through the slipring cluster. Plus, it’s at least a fifteen-minute flight from the Endowed to that slipring cluster. You made it in ten.”

Gerrick scoffed. “It took her but a single trip in this clever little flitter of yours, boy. How soon before others notice?”

“My hope is the Arrival’s size and magnificence keeps everyone distracted,” Anias replied. “The Soul shouldn’t have to make any long jaunts like what brought us here. Shaving a minute or two off in-system flits reads as within expected ranges.”

“Fine,” Gerrick grumbled. “What about how you’re going to explain the slip-alloy? Come up with a vocal dance for that one?”

“It’s the last obstacle I’ve yet to figure out.” He spun further around to meet Coltee’s gaze—she’d lowered it from above the forward viewplates. “Hoping for help with that.”

Her eyebrows rose. She glanced at Gerrick, moving only her head, before facing him again. “What sort of explanation?”

“How he processed enough slip-ore to create a monstrosity the size of this ridiculous slipshell,” Gerrick answered. His words echoed. “Hard enough to grind it into powder. Damn near impossible to smelt it into a malleable liquid—”

“Not damn near,” Anias muttered. “Power cost makes it impossible from a business sense.”

“Stop interrupting me, boy,” Gerrick snapped. He paused to breathe deep. “As I was saying, no furnace currently in use lasts long under the stresses of melting slip-ore. So removing the impurities, pouring, and shaping it are out of the question for a vessel this large.” His brows dipped together and his eyes narrowed. “You’ll need a damn good explanation for this one.”

“I have seven days,” Anias said. “A few ideas close enough. Something’ll emerge from my mental murk.” As he tapped fingertips to his temple, his heart thumped beneath his friend’s steady glare.

“Ping me with everything you have,” Coltee said. “I’ll ruminate, see what I can come up with. Slip-ore’s really that hard to process?”

Both Anias and Gerrick raised eyebrows at her. “What vessels other than slipshells do you see coated or created with slip-alloy?” Gerrick asked, tone remaining sharp. “The cost the sliprings exert every time a vessel transits become ruinous over time. Whoever develops the technology to fabricate shells entirely of slip-alloy becomes the owner of humanity’s place in Brethren Space.”

“A slip-alloy core is the only way a shell this large can transit more than half a dozen times before the stresses rip it apart,” Anias added. “With an additional coating, though, the shell’s life expectancy can last... years. Look at how long some the brethren nodeships have been around. Most of them since humans arrived, and they transit through the slipring network all the time.”

“Years. Totally subverting the current way everything is done,” Gerrick threw out. His focus returned to Anias. “Which means everyone at every level of the status quo will be coming for you.” His scowl deepened. “You ready for that, boy?”

“I’m positioning assets accordingly. I’m not blind to the repercussions of introducing the Glorious Arrival to the sphere.”

“I hope not. Otherwise, when they come for you, they’ll have your head, and every precious little secret you’re hiding. And you know who’ll be leading the charge.”

A face formed in Anias’s thoughts.

No!

With tremendous mental effort, he slammed it away.

He turned to the forward viewplates again. “I’ll be ready.”

The lack of conviction in his voice suggested otherwise.

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