I bounce myself off of the roof-wall once again. My thoughts have honestly been spinning in circles without pause, and I cannot stop them. Do I keep on astrogating? If something else is more fulfilling, I should do that. But I have no strong suspicions for any good options, because I’ve been sitting under this unidentified debuff for who knows how long. So maybe I do just keep astrogating, but I might be missing out a real calling if I don’t explore options.

I take a deep, careful breath. I close my eyes, fold all of these thoughts into a little bundle, and push it off to join the stars, so cold and distant, out of reach but only for now.

Space is inherently contradictory. If you put your hand into space, it’ll act like you just froze it; but any ship needs to fight tooth and nail to stay cool. Orbits are incredibly fast; but to go anywhere beyond Luna takes us months if not years. The vast cloud of stars that form our view of the Milky Way is so permanent, so dense and vast in scope that it seems permanent, and yet, somehow, every single star is moving, some of them remarkably quickly across the sky. The Milky Way itself, so monstrously huge, is doomed to dance with Andromeda, and no mind knows what shall emerge from that dance.

All problems shall arise, and be solved, in time.

I just cannot get over how unbelievably lucky I have been to both stumble into and solve the core of my life’s problems to date, in one stroke.

It feels unfair?

But I remind myself that this problem wasn’t new. It was merely lurking, out of sight but ever hampering my heart’s journeying. Looking back, I can see fingers of it, hintings, behaviours I had, moments of clarity for so long lost to time.

I let the sorrow of these moments, and the loss of all of these moments of my life’s lost opportunities, soak for a moment and then these too I release to the calm of the stars.

Space is hopeful. Earth is a bounty, and unique, a perfect home for humanity. But each planet, each moon (apart from Deimos, that hilarious moonlet of disappointment and useless ideas), each speck of ice or rock or metal spinning about the star we call home... There is opportunity, and a beautiful future, lurking there. We may not be the ones a particular rock is waiting for, but each rock waits.

All errors will be eased, and corrected, in time.

Something in my brain trickles down into a decision: I am not Caleb. I need a different name from now on. And even while it was what really started this whole journey, I am not Ash either.

It is a question to ponder slowly, to leave in the back of my mind. I need no quick decision, since I am stuck on this ship alone for more than a year. A year is an extremely long time alone, I realise all over again for at least the fifth time in my life.

“Astrogationer Caleb; unbind name from identification.” I order the computer. Action is good. Sitting alone is good too, but when I can act, I should act with speed and precision.

“Acknowledged, Astrogationer,” comes the reply. “Name unbound.”

The computer will be stuck with only my title until I give it a name to call me, but I’m fine with that for now.

I’ve drifted into a corner of the room, so I take the moment to re-orient feet-first towards the Virtual Cryo chair, and push off gently.

The looming problems within the game are also stuck on my mind, though with a much less urgent quality about them. Though, since they are in fact the only problems that I have the ability to solve at the moment, that really just goes to show you that human brains are really bad at prioritising sometimes.

The aliens are clearly not doomed to be hostile, but I am uncertain how divergent the plot can become. I might even be on the divergent path already. I don’t want them to be hostile. I don’t want a warfare plot. Not with the characters it has provided.

Even with this looming threat of the story going sideways, though... I am having fun. This feeling I also bundle up, but I do not push it away into the starscape of my imagination. Instead I throw it outwards, like the splash of a nebula against a familiar constellation, brought out by a long exposure to show the wind of a thousand stars, tearing away the veils of their birth to finally be seen.

Each moment of joy cannot last forever, but your memory can place it in amber, a gem perhaps containing a valuable moment of a long-lost era of life. But if you hold onto the joy, it will slowly turn to ash and wisps of nothingness escaping between your desperate fingers. Let these moments, too, pass away in time.

I feel each inch of my skin again, an instinctual glimpse of who I am. I take another deep breath, and this too is a moment of joy.

Even as a stream flows, a spring may refresh each coursing trickle. I know I will not remember these breaths in five year’s time, but their joys will still be following me with each new breath all the same. I think I finally understand what it means to pursue lasting happiness, as I shiver involuntarily at the honestly toe-curling happiness of my new body.

I collapse my body as I reach the chair, absorbing all of my momentum, and wriggle into the now somewhat looser straps once again.

“Astrogationer, requesting identification,” I say. It sounds so different than last time I said those words, so recently. I pick it apart mentally, considering what I can hear of it. It is so clearly feminine and yet there are so many paths to that end. My voice seems to be somewhat thin, neither squeaky nor cushioned by hints of bass, but just having chosen its one spot on humanity’s soundscape. At the same time, one’s own ear is not the best tool to judge one's voice with, so maybe I’m overanalysing what I hear.

Even though I was not prepared for nor expecting this moment of respite, I am glad of it. Knowing that my body now matches me, knowing that this was actually expected given my choices at the start of the game, and simply having the time to float like dust upon the air... It is a comfort, and one I think might just help in the next few days in-game.

“Acknowledged, Astrogationer. Ready to sleep?”

“I am ready,” I nod. My eyes are already closed, and I don’t even notice the clouding of my senses when it begins.

“I wish you well in your dreams. Resuming alarm-broken game. Good night.”