I jolted. “W-what?”

That had been my voice.

Oh. The sound came from the translation chip. Of course.

“You’ve got the wrong ship,” my otherworldly interlocutor clarified.

Some of their tentacles tensed whenever they spoke, which did nothing to quiet my unease. I could not see their mouth, but I judged that might have been for the best.

“O-oh.” I took a long breath. I could do this. “Listen, uh...” The experience still felt too surreal. “I’m looking for passage to Douar.”

My inability to interpret their mood compounded by their appearance had my fur puff up uncontrollably. Was that fear really unjustified, though? I was floating, isolated in an admittedly fairly large airlock, within easy reach of a being completely alien to me.

“Yeah? Not sure we’re headed over there, but I can ask. How much are you paying?”

I hated hearing my voice played back this way, but I could not afford to let it bother me. In fact,there was pretty much nothing I could afford.

“I don’t have money right now, but I should have plenty to pay you back once we get there.” I just hoped that was true. The bank may have closed my account if the crew had reported me dead. Plus, I was not clear on how jurisdiction handled cryogenic sleep.

A few tentacles made abrupt swiping gestures, which thankfully did not hit me. “You’re kidding, right? Get lost!” Not an attack, really, but such signs of their growing frustration proved enough to make me back away.

I stopped myself from fleeing, but they had to have noticed my reaction, because the movement slowed down.

“But I need transport!” I pleaded. “I’ve just come out of cryosleep and I don’t have anything here!”

“Not my problem.”

I took a long breath to calm myself down. No need to panic just yet. I had one last resort. I could try to play the Watcher’s Chosen card. That was only reserved for emergencies, as the Order would have to give a generous recompense in return. But that might be warranted at this point. I simply had to limit my request to the easiest task possible, to avoid owing too much.

“Fine,” I said. “I am asking, as a Chosen, for transport to the nearest Temple.”

Having said that, I hoped the Temple in question was not on this station. I had not sensed any, but if it was, I did not look forward to having to explain such a frivolous demand.

“What?”

Huh? What was the confusion about? This sort of request, despite being rare, ought to be well understood. The system would not work otherwise. Perhaps they had different types of temple? Diverse civilizations might mean diverging faiths. I had better be more specific.

“The nearest Watcher’s Temple?” I tried.

That got a reaction, the tentacles becoming frantic again.

“Watcher Temples? You’re a fanatic? You don’t look like an Ekoteng.” The speed of their movement kept increasing, and I backed away once more. “Now leave, or I’ll call security.”

That... That could cause issues.

“Alright, alright, I’ll go. No need to get security involved.”

I left myself drift backward out of the airlock, not daring to have the flurry of tentacles out of my sight until the latch was closed again.

I pushed on it with my legs to initiate a slow crossing of the corridor back to the water fountain.

As frustrating as being turned down felt, I understood why they would not take the risk. Accepting a complete stranger aboard, especially with no guaranteed compensation? Not likely to happen. That was a considerable danger given the fragile nature of ships, and they could not keep me under constant surveillance for the years such a journey might take. Unless cryogenics were commonplace nowadays? Or perhaps ship propulsion had made so much progress that travel times were no longer an issue? Perhaps. I hoped so, actually. That would explain the aliens’ presence in the system. I had to admit, despite how irrational I knew my fear to be, I was somewhat relieved at not having to spend too long with someone I could not at all interpret the emotions of. I was used to feelings being shared mentally, and this translation unit did nothing in that department. In fact, it did not even reflect all intonations, if the disconnect between the calm voice and the tentacles’ movements was any indication.

Movement up the corridor took me out of my reveries

On the intersection module, a crate was being slowed down, sandwiched between two complex-looking platforms. From the sound they made and the slight distortion around them, they had to be maneuvering by ejecting gas. Hopefully something breathable, given the enclosed environment we were in. Maybe they were simply compressing air into canisters for such a purpose. Huh. We had not thought of that back at Supplicant Station. Too bad. That would have been useful. I almost made a mental note to suggest it to the crew later, but my mood fell as I recalled my situation.

The crate moved rather fast, despite the platforms’ efforts. I remembered initially thinking that hauling heavy objects would pose no challenge in microgravity. After all, were they not virtually weightless then? It helped a lot, true, since you had less friction to deal with, but mass still mattered. Stopping this box, as those sprays were desperately trying to do, would be beyond my abilities. Not fancying getting crushed against a wall, I was thankful the package was not moving this way.

Interested by the attitude control mechanism, I pushed on a bulkhead to accelerate toward the intersection

Without warning, one of the nozzles facing me suddenly sprayed a burst of gas. I yelped in surprise. As the expelled product reached me, my momentum stopped and reversed, sending me backward at a faster rate than was comfortable. The effect might even have been dangerous, had I been any closer. At this distance, the atmosphere had thankfully dispersed most of the force before it got to me. Still, I had been taken by surprise and only prevented an unfortunate collision by clawing at the nearest wall. That tore some of the padding off. Oh well. That was what it was here for, right?

“Hey, you alright over there?” I heard my voice say.

This voice thing had to stop.

I saw a huge, bird-like alien at the end of the tunnel. I noted they were holding a remote controller. The crate’s operator, then. I had never seen birds with claws at the edge of their wings before, but then again, there was nothing surprising about life having evolved on a different solar system to not exactly match with my expectations.

“Sorry about that, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” they said by clacking their beak. I supposed their own translation device had to be transcribing all of that and communicating with mine. As far as I knew, it still did not communicate emotions, but to my surprise, I could actually sense their worry and guilt. There was a sliver of wrongness about it. Foreignness, I corrected myself mentally. Nothing wrong. In fact, these almost familiar sensations made addressing them considerably less stressful than it had been with the tentacle being.

“No worries,” I assured them. “I should have realized the danger.”

I pushed myself to slowly float toward the crate operator.

They were pretty agitated, exhibiting distress at having caused an accident. “The alarm on that thing’s busted,” they explained. “That got me quite the disc- Woah, you’re bleeding!”

Was I?

I checked myself for wounds and found what had produced such a spike of concern. My left arm was stained with blood. It had slipped my mind, not hurting in the least. I judged it unlikely to cause any serious complications. Still, a bandage might be warranted, if only for aesthetic purposes. I looked back and saw it had indeed painted a small constellation on the wall during the commotion.

They really felt guilty about it, too.

“It’s fine,” I said reassuringly. “That’s from an earlier incident.”

I noticed the markings on the crate and forgot about everything else.

“Wait… is that food?”

I had not meant to speak out loud, but the hunger could not be denied.

“Oh. Yeah… Haven’t you heard? There’s some security alert going on, and all ships are forbidden from leaving. But guess what: Prevel told me they’d let ours go if we hurry, so I have to get this aboard as soon as possible. I don’t know what’s going on exactly. Actually, neither do they. They got their orders from up top after reporting an altercation, and are waiting for reinforcement. Must have been some serious stuff, but nobody I asked seemed to have seen anything.”

That had to be related to me knocking out whoever was controlling the mechanical armor, but why the extensive security measures? Did they think I had gone feral or something? I had not completely lost my mind. Their reaction seemed ridiculously excessive to me. Still, I had no desire to face whatever reinforcement was coming. If that ship was indeed the only one able to leave the station, I had to get on it.

I did not have time for more thoughts: the bird went on.

“Why, did you want some?” Did they mean the food? Likely so. The flow of the conversation had made a rather abrupt shift. So had their emotions, now beaming with cheerfulness. “I don’t know exactly what we got, but the captain made the order, so it’s probably good. Though I guess that doesn’t mean it’s good when eaten raw. Made that mistake once, a while back. There was this salad-thing. It was huge - they used their wings to show it had indeed been ludicrously large - and I tried some. Just to see. It smelled good, so I thought it was worth the risk. Let me tell you, that thing was awful! And we had enough for an entire month! But yeah, Luan is a genius. Made it taste good, somehow. I wonder where he learned to cook like that? Couldn’t be from Liesson. I’ve been there once on holidays, and the restaurant I went to had terrible cuisine. Like, you’d fear being sick afterwards. Oh, but you might not be able to eat that, though.” I suspected that last sentence to be another deviation having brought us back to the food crate, but I could not fully be sure. “What nutrition profile do you follow? I have some basic food bars from the refugee supplies in my bag. And bandages! I can treat your wound! Oh, it’s not very nutritious, and they have no taste, just that weird texture, but most species can eat them.” Probably not talking about the bandages there.

Their enthusiasm was contagious.

“Yes, please!” I said. “I don’t even know how long it’s been since my last meal.”

Centuries, it seemed.

“Alright, just a minute…” They tried to grab something on their right side using their left hand. I’m Thurian, by the way. What’s yo-“ They froze, dread splashing over their good mood.

Had they made the connection between my tattered EVA suit and the security incident? Damn. Should I flee before they reported my location? Knock them out?

“My bag!” they exclaimed. “I forgot my bag!”

It appeared I was safe. At least for a while longer.

“I need to go get my bag, but that will take forever. Hey, uh, can you get this to the ship at S-2-5 for me? Please? I’ll be right back.”

I did not even have time to answer before they detached the remote controller from whatever straps kept it secured.

“Uh... sure, I guess?” I replied.

“Great!” They pushed the controller so it would float my way, then used their wings to perform a mid-air spin and propel themself through the long corridor that led to elevators.

Damn. Those wings sure came in handy.

I caught the remote and studied its interfaces. It had a single thick yet short stick surrounded by small switches. Unfortunately, all their inscriptions were worn off, so I did not dare touch them. That thing was unwieldy without its straps. I placed myself so that I would have a good view of the crate, and wisely used my tail to remain secured to the walls. One burst to the face had been enough to make me wary. Properly maintaining the controller in place with one hand, I used the other to manipulate the stick. Applying a bit of force revealed that everything was still powered on: the box started to float away. Releasing the stick did not cancel the momentum. Damn. I tried pushing the opposite direction, only to discover that the stick was not limited to two dimensions. It rotated and translated, offering control in all six axes, although the range was severely restricted. Getting the container to completely stop moving was going to be difficult.

A shamefully large amount of crashes later, I finally got the hang of it. I was glad no one else was using those corridors. No one to mock me, and no one to find themselves on the receiving end of an unintended projectile. The lack of people might have been related to security not allowing any ship to leave. Well, none except one.

I located the correct dock and drove the crate along. The padding had done its job, and nothing appeared to have broken from my poor piloting skills.

There was no one to greet me at the airlock, but I could sense a handful of people on the ship itself. I opened the hatch, piloted the food in, halted the container, then closed the hatch before having to repeat the exercise. As expected, the interface between ship and station was made of two airlocks connected to each other. Crossing required going through four doors, all of which would only work if the previous one was closed. One to enter the station’s airlock, one to go in the connection tube, one to go to the ship’s airlock, and then one to get into the ship itself. Two doors and a tube could suffice, of course, but that required more trust, offered less safety, and meant one of the two ends would not work as an airlock for EVA.

By the end of it, I no longer considered those control systems to be fun and intriguing. No, even with the novelty factor, transferring cargo was tedious and irritating.

Now inside the ship’s airlock, I revised my judgement about the station being dirty and poorly maintained. Yes, it was indeed in need of a good cleaning and could use to have some deteriorated wall pieces replaced. And I may or may not have been responsible for some of those. Comparatively, this ship might not actually be able to leave, regardless of whether it was allowed to or not. Something had exploded in this room, and no efforts had been made to remove the burn marks. Black soot covered the hatch’s control panel, making it unreadable. Thankfully, I saw that it used the same topology as the station’s, allowing me to close the gate behind me. The place was otherwise as empty as one would expect. It was meant to handle sudden depressurization, so storing anything in there would be foolish.

No one onboard seemed to have reacted when I entered the ship, and they were far away enough that I could open the door to the ship proper without having to explain myself. Unsurprisingly, it led to a corridor, allowing easy access to all parts of the ship, I assumed. No signage. Not even any padding on the walls. Just a mess of tubes and cables, which at least looked to be properly secured. I had better not rely on my claws to slow myself down. Cutting into one of these could prove fatal. It stank of damp air, and the ventilation system made an annoying squeaky sound. Still, I was impressed by how spacious the passage was. Ships could ill afford extra mass, and one in such a state of disrepair hinted at a lack of finance, not something compatible with such excesses. Or perhaps someone had invented some revolutionary propulsion system, and this proved to no longer be a concern.

Not wanting to risk Thurian coming back before I was done, I stopped my daydreaming and drove the box in. I parked it on a wall, attaching it with straps barely visible among all that mess. Then I looked for ways to open the treasure. I wanted food, damn it.

A few minutes later, I had it figured out. The platforms surrounding it could be detached through a handful of latches, which revealed that the top of the crate was entirely missing. Thankfully, this also implied the content was not intended to be kept refrigerated. I had no desire to spoil these people’s food.

Inside was a collection of packets with opaque reflective wrapping on which stickers were glued. Vacuumed food, then. I hoped it would not need to be re-hydrated before consumption. I looked at labels, trying to find something I could safely eat, and do so without causing too much trouble for the crew. There were no names I could recognize, however. As I reached the bottom, I found an assortment of bags covered in warning labels. “Danger”, “Do Not Open”, “Volatile Substance”, “Authorized Personnel Only”, and quite a few more. Not cookies, I deduced. Why was this in a food container?

I recalled Thurian’s mention of food that could be eaten by any species. With that in mind, I perused the collection once again. “Talavus - Neutrapaste” sounded promising. It had no stickers indicating amazing flavors or claiming the absence of certain ingredients unknown to me. No, this was what I was looking for. Some food meant for emergencies, safe and easily stored. There were three packs of this. Combined, they did not account for even half a percent of the box’s content. But still, I paused. I did not have any way to compensate those people for the food I was taking. No way to leave a note, either. Was I really about to steal from them? I could wait for Thurian to come back. They had all but promised to give me one of those, anyway.

But food was only one of the many issues I faced. I needed to get myself back in Adouar society and to find out whatever had happened to our ship after it left for Nieven. And to our home planet. It had reappeared, right? I would think about it later. Once I was safe. And this station was definitely not safe. If stowing away aboard this ship was the only way to escape it, then I would do so. This might even earn the crew a ludicrously large compensation from the Order. I was sure the Order would be glad to welcome me, no matter the cost. Still, I could not afford to risk being denied transport, so waiting for Thurian to return was not an option.

I took the small package and closed the container, feeling guilty at not being able to even leave a message. I would do penitence for it later, I promised the Watcher.

Concentrating on the ship’s crew, I sensed five people. All of them were on my left, so I went to hide in the opposite direction. A few twists and turns later, completely out of view from where the crate laid, I opened and started eating the neutrapaste.

As Thurian had warned me, there was no taste. It was not a pleasant meal, even as hungry as I was. Still, having something in my stomach helped me settle down somewhat. My mind concurred and, no longer being distracted by more urgent needs, unleashed all the worries that had hitherto been kept at bay. Hints of terrible truths I had refused to acknowledge. The aliens, for one. I could easily accept that other species may have come to live in our solar system. To be near the Watcher, perhaps. But what about the egregores? The only one I had sensed since waking up was the EVA’s. That was simply unthinkable. So many components to control, and none made use of an ascended’s expertise? That could not be a coincidence. Maybe the faith had evolved, following a better understanding of the Watcher’s edicts. But surely egregores would not have been affected. Though never explained in detail, they were plenty of allusions to them in the Scriptures. A way for those who had shone bright in life to let the light of their knowledge guide future generations forevermore. And yet, none were present at the station. Nor on the ship. Unthinkable.

No. There was an explanation. I just refused to see it. It was clear now that only aliens lived around here. Yet they used the Scriptures’ language. In their writings, at least. How come?

Had... Had the worst happened? Had they found our solar system empty and just learned the language from the Watcher, as we had? What about my friends? Had they failed to reach Nieven?

Emotions were running freely now, and my vision blurred.

Had I failed them? Had the ritual not worked? I should have written it down. Damn it. Why did I not write it down? Who cared about keeping it a secret at this point, anyway? What if something had happened to Leri on the way, and the knowledge had perished with him?

What about Douar? I had initially taken what the tentacle alien had told me to mean they knew the name. Now? Faced with all these doubts? I was no longer so certain they did.

I brooded for a while, taking bites between moments of despair.

At some point, I realized this meltdown ought to have made my presence onboard obvious to the crew, yet they still had not appeared. In fact, they were seemingly as unaware of me as they had been before. That was strange, but perhaps it offered some answers. Either they truly did not care, or they could not sense me. Yes, that would explain Thurian having been surprised earlier. Although it admittedly could also simply have been the result of inattention.

As if summoned by their name, I sensed Thurian coming back.

They were going through the airlocks, so I still had some time.

Did I reveal myself now and faced whatever charges were brought against me for having attacked security earlier? Or did I take a leap of faith, staying on an unknown ship that would take an unknown amount of time to reach an unknown destination?

What ultimately made up my decision was the complete absence of egregore on the station. The Order, if it still existed, had no presence here and thus no authority to protect me. The aliens’ devotion to the Watcher was uncertain. Having announced myself as a Chosen had been met with confusion, which was not encouraging. Even if the other civilizations followed a different interpretation of the Scriptures, the Watcher’s Chosen were not something the sacred texts described ambiguously. We were referred to quite directly in many parts, with instructions about both our rights and duties. True, the Order had extrapolated on some points, to make our role more in line with our existing cultures and avoid misinterpretations, but the fact that helping a Chosen in need led to great rewards was a prominent truth in the Scriptures. We were the guides, to both the mundane and the ascended. To help us was to help all, in a way.

And now I was cut off from it all. The only “ascended” left to my charge was a blasphemous creation. This small creature with no expertise to share. I had not woken it up from the torpor its stay in cryosleep had induced. There would be damage from the unprepared period of complete isolation, and I did not have the tools or hunvre to deal with it. Still, it was under my responsibility now. I would not fail it as I had failed everyone else. And so I could not risk capture by security. They would no doubt strip me of my last link to home, as tenuous as it was.

Unsurprisingly, Thurian joined the others, never heading toward my hideout.

Maybe ten minutes later, the sound of an alarm wheezed. It had to be in just as bad a state as the rest. I could barely hear it over the whining of the ventilation systems.

Concentrating on the crew to make sure this did had not been signaling an intruder, I failed to realize the obvious until the wall on my left came to slam into me.

That hurt, but mostly because it caught me completely unaware.

We were moving. And I could guess what was about to follow: a few maneuvers to position ourselves away from the station and in the right direction, then a strong and long acceleration. But the room I had hid in was not suitable for the latter. I had to move. Fast.

From its direction, I assumed this first burst had indeed split us from the station. We were thankfully not staying under constant acceleration, so I was able to reach the corridor. Logically, there ought to be signs pointing to the nearest safe room, so people could take refuge in case of emergency changes of trajectory. No such luck here.

In a rush, I visited about ten rooms before finding what I needed. A bed-like contraption with straps. It was dirty, and the stuffing was leaking in some places, but it would do.

Another sound of the alarm. Damn, already?

Did I bolt for the bed or was grabbing on to the wall the better option? Too little time for the former, but the latter would not suffice if the ship engaged its main thrusters.

I clung on tubes contained in the wall and gritted my teeth as the ship started to rotate.

By the time the movement stopped, I was breathing hard. But I did not wait to fully recover before launching myself at speed toward the bed. That thing was meant to absorb shocks, after all. And it did. Grabbing on the straps, I secured myself to the bed and waited for the inevitable.

Bzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzt.

Oh, right, they would use a different signal for the main thrusters. That made sense. One short buzz to indicate a short attitude adjustment, three long for a long burn. Noted.

My weight suddenly magnified beyond what I could withstand. The bed did its job. Breathing was uncomfortable, but not too difficult. These accelerations had always been among of the most unpleasant aspects of space travel. So much for centuries of progress.

Unable to move, I tried to relax as a force entirely beyond my control propelled toward the unknown.

A futile effort.