“I’ll… take a crack at it,” Dawn conceded.
By the time Dawn finished her workout, showered, and laid back down, it was six o’clock. She expected to pass more people on her way from the gym to her cabin. But reporting time for deck duties wasn’t until eight, and the crew of the Arcadia had nothing but time to kill. Aside from Captain Miller, she’d seen six people. Five of them were still in the gym. Dawn lay awake, counting the hairs on her head to keep from counting the minutes to deck duties. She had thought to work out some of the energy keeping her up, but she felt more awake than ever.
“Dawn,” the voice came in both a murmur and a rumble. Glassy trim lit blue around the room, as much a whisper as the word.
“Arcadia,” Dawn answered, arms flat at her sides.
“I take it you’re making me an outlet for your aggression, not genuinely misunderstanding me. As I hear, you’re very bright,” said Alice.
“You’re correct. And if you keep talking to me through the walls, I will rip that outlet wide open,” Dawn warned.
“I noticed you’re not sleeping, though you’re trying to,” said Alice. Dawn snapped up on the edge of her bed. If Alice had followed up any slower, Dawn might have screamed over her. “I think I know something that will help you sleep. Or at least take your mind off the waiting.”
“Oh yeah?” Dawn’s teeth clenched behind her lips. Miller’s words in her mind were all that held back the scream.
“Again, outlet for aggression. Come to the deck, if you tire of staring at the walls,” said Alice. Her invitation echoed out through the circuits, into silence so maddening, Dawn took it.
“Alright,” Dawn grumbled. She marched up the stairs to the SS Arcadia’s observation deck. “What’s up here that could be so… oh.” The raw blue glow of the SkyLine washed over her. Suddenly, her steps had no weight. Despite the pull of artificial gravity on her, Dawn felt like she was floating onto the deck. “This is…” but the feeble construct of language was no match for the cosmos unfolding around Dawn.
Starry diamond shards hung still in the darkness. It gave off the illusion that the Arcadia wasn’t moving at all. It seemed more like the SkyLine was a continuous beam firing past the ship. Dawn wandered a few cautious steps out onto the deck. She knew from academy classes that there was an invisible bubble of safety around the Arcadia, not unlike a built-in terradome. It made the experience of standing in the SkyLine, in the darkness of eternity, no less surreal.
“The real show is behind you,” Alice’s voice rose through shimmering cracks in the boards of the deck. Dawn hardly managed the motor function it took to turn around. Her pupils filled with red that she could see, but not understand. Not at a glance.
“Mars… that’s… Mars?” Dawn murmured, though she knew.
“Yes,” Alice told her, though she knew that Dawn knew.
Her feet slid forward with two wills of their own. Her unconscious mind had its own agenda that didn’t involve the desires of her conscious one. They brought her to the rails of the Arcadia, face blue, eyes red. Buildings inside satin shells of light. Sparse plots of emerald against the harsh crimson shell of the planet. Villages in craters around tiny watering holes. She could see it all from the deck of this ship she’d hated so much ten minutes ago. It’s all still there, Dawn thought. Her home.
“Did you ever go back?” Alice’s voice arose around her.
“Not since I was ten years old. I’d forgotten what it looked like,” Dawn answered, still in control of the girl underneath it all- before the isolation and fixation. What anchored her to reality was the pang of anger, when she realized, “How… did you know I was born here?”
“It’s in your file,” Alice answered. The innocence in her tone was all the more enraging. Dawn’s forehead wrinkled into a mass of fury. “You’re a WCC Admiral. It’s all in their records. I am equipped with files on every member of the ship’s crew.”
“So you thought… you’d just pry into my background and fish up something to what… bond?” Dawn lashed. The light flickered from blue to yellow around her shoes- a visual representation of the shift in Alice’s mind.
“I… thought it might give you some solace, to see your home,” Alice explained.
“Don’t think things like that anymore. Don’t think about me, understand? Pretend I’m not rattling around inside the ship. I might as well not be, since you can fly yourself just fine,” Dawn turned tail and headed right back for the steps.
“Dawn, I’m sorry. I only meant to help you.”
“I left that home and never looked back, so I didn’t have to work the mines till I was nuts like everyone else in my family! Did your records tell you that?” Dawn shouted into the dark and stars, “Human beings are more than just records in storage! The past is just what happens. What we do with it and why… that’s a person.”
“Dawn…” Alice’s light darkened to navy blue.
“Goodnight, Arcadia.” Dawn stomped down into the depths of the ship. She left her homeworld behind for a second time, again, without a glance back.
Chapter Seven: Higher Orders
“Home sweet home,” said Drogan while he flapped down to the mahogany surface of a colossal stony planet. He snapped his wings rigid to break flight. Drogan dropped a few feet for his talons to sink in the powdery clay. DA-Vos, in the form of a one-man drone, hovered down beside him. His body dissolved into a storm of nanomachines and reformed as a man-shaped frame beside Drogan. In each hand, DA-Vos clutched a huge wooden crate.
“Same as always,” DA-Vos murmured. His blank, ovular face glowed violet with each word. He and Drogan crossed the dusty wastes to a crumbling stone archway. On his first trip here, Drogan had marveled at the size of it, as big as a city building on Earth. Now, he crossed under it without batting a draconic eye. What lay beyond used to strike him breathless, but now brought him only a sigh. He and DA-Vos had been reporting here for sixty years- though neither of them would actually call it home. The planet Mukurus was a prison they could leave on a long leash, but never escape.
Drogan and DA-Vos sauntered through a tunnel of something neither of them fully understood, but perceived as a gateway of warped reality. From outside the barrier, the Dragon settlement of Fierghlass was entirely invisible. From inside, everything looked to waver like a mirage. DA-Vos’ form dissolved into a black cloud and condensed around Drogan’s arm as a dark gauntlet before anyone could see him. Drogan took the crates up himself. They left the distorted tunnel behind, and paced the ruins of the outer reaches.
On more than one occasion, Drogan had wondered what Fierghlass had looked like when it was a functioning city. The present saw it as a mound of shambles by comparison, or so Machaeus let on. Drogan led their procession past crumbled monuments of Dragons twice his size. They paced collapsed hallways of clay atriums and steel factories - all of it, empty. He and DA-Vos were alone. They rounded deep wells of steel, bored in the surface of the planet. Wisps of blue light curled up from them to remind Drogan of his homeworld sky. He twirled a talon through the luminous mist they created. Drogan shook off the nostalgia he hardly believed and forged ahead. If he wandered too much, his masters might tighten his leash. He put his scaly head down, away from stony alcoves and Chrysum wells. Drogan headed to meet with the being he wanted to see least - the one that held his life in her hands.