Runaway

6,700 words

Runaway

By Eli Uszacki

Archive Manager: [Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.]

Subject: Of course.

AM: [Are you comfortable? Will you need anything before we begin?]

Subject: I am comfortable.

AM: [Good. As you know, this is our first official interview, feel free to repeat details of your life and culture that you mentioned during your translation sessions. This interview will be your definitive entry into the archive, so don’t be afraid to elaborate. There is no time limit to our conversation.]

Subject: I understand.

AM: [Wonderful. Do you have a name?]

Subject: My name is Irku.   

AM: [Urkoo?]

Subject: ear-kchoo

AM: [ear-kchoo. Irku.]

Subject: yes. Irku.

AM: [Is this what you prefer to be called?]

Subject: yes. I have no other name.

AM: [Thank you. Where are you from, Irku?]

Irku: I am from the mountains between two seas, south of the ice.

AM: [Irku is referencing a geographic feature of his home planet, sol-3. How did you get here Irku?]

Irku: That is a long story.

AM: [We have ample time.]

Irku:  Good. I am not sure what this place is, and I’m not sure exactly how I arrived here, but I know that I chose to come. It was a hard choice, and I’m not sure if it was the correct one. To understand this I must first give you some context.

         I was born to a mother from the south and a father from the mountains between seas. Where I come from, there are three kinds of people. There are those from the lands in the west, those from the lands in the east and those from the warm lands in the south. Each group is different in how they look, how they speak and how they see the world. My people are westerners. We have loud voices, light skin and light hair. Our thumbs are long compared to the others. My mother’s people were southerners, They are tall and skinny and have dark skin and dark hair like mine. My mother and father met in a valley in the summer, when our people would go to the high mountains in search of elk and aurochs. Not all couples are in love, but they were. They married on a high mountain pass at sunset.

         When two people from different groups have a child, it rarely survives. Some said it was because we were made of different materials that did not mix, others said it was because we were meant to stay apart. I do not believe this. I was born healthy, in our fish camp by the ocean. It was spring.  My father said that on the day I was born he walked west, towards the sea. To his surprise, he found the antler of a large elk on the beach. It had been worn smooth by the water, like a stone in a stream. He brought it to my mother, and together they buried it with my umbilical cord. This is where I am tied to the earth.

AM: [Tied to the earth?]

Irku: Yes. It is where my soul is bonded to the world.

AM: [And you still chose to leave, even though your soul is bound elsewhere?]

Irku: Souls and bodies do different things for different reasons. My body and soul are friends, and friends do not always agree. 

AM: [Interesting. You may continue with your story.]

Irku: Thank you.

As a child I learned to live like all the others. I made tools from stone and wood, hunted and made leather, learned the names and uses of the plants and dug for clams in the winter. Like most boys, I grew strong before I grew smart. I nearly lost my life to a cave lion as an adolescent but escaped by climbing a tree and stabbing it in the eye. This is where I received my name. Irku means “runaway”. Since then, I have learned that names are both records of the past and predictions of the future.

         It was not always easy. We had many hard winters. Food was not always abundant and when it was there were always large beasts to worry about. The land I come from has many predators, cave bears, lions, hyenas, wolves. We saw other people from time to time. If times were good, they were always friendly. If times were bad, they rarely shared unless we had close kin. Other people were always strange and exciting, especially the southerners. I met my grandfather and one of my uncles once when I was young. I mostly remember how well they could sing; they spoke in the language of the sun and moon.

         We travelled from place to place. We never spent a whole season in a camp unless the food was good or the snow was heavy. Much of my memories are of walking. We were always walking, that was how we lived. I saw many things, and as I grew older I found myself seeing the mountains from every perspective, recognizing places everywhere I went. I learned where the animals were and when they would come or go. I do not know if you have ever experienced a forest or a grassland, but I can only describe them as being alive, as one being, one animal. As I grew older, I began to see the connections between all things.   

AM: [ So your people were nomadic?]

Irku: Is there another way to be?

AM: [Yes, many. Did the people of the east or south live as nomads?]

Irku: Yes. We all lived our lives by walking.

AM: [So it is true that your home was an entire mountain range?]

Irku: And two beaches.

AM: [Interesting. You say you were different, how so?]  

Irku: I was dark like my mother. Nobody else was.

AM: [Were you accepted in your group?]

Irku: Yes. It was strange sometimes. I grew slow as a child but was taller than everyone else. Sometimes I grew sick and had to sleep for days. My voice was not so loud as the others. I had help from everyone around me and I excelled at certain things.

AM: [Like what?] 

Irku: I told stories. I was a great singer and could mimic the calls of birds. I could throw a spear farther than most.  

AM: [Is this why you were chosen to board the wave rail?]

Irku: I was not chosen to leave. I made the choice on my own.

AM: [Why?]

Irku: Good question. May I continue with my story?

AM: [Yes, you may.]

Irku: It was late spring. We were preparing to move into the deep mountains, waiting for the snow to melt. We had been walking for days and had camped by a river. It was night and we were all by our fires, eating a calf we had killed, roasting and cracking the bones for marrow. We were eating when we noticed a light in the sky, close and bright over our heads. It burned a trail of smoke through the sky and caused the loudest sound. It fell north, over a ridge near our last camp. Everyone saw it. It was a dark night, moonless, and no one wanted to investigate until dawn. I did my best to sleep but was full of thoughts.

We rose in gray-light, before dawn. half of us leaving to investigate the fallen star, half of us staying. We brought two spears each, knives and throwing sticks as well, like we were leaving to hunt aurochs. The ground was soft, still wet from snow which lay about in piles and patches where shadows were cast through the day. The trees were budding but not full of leaves, still bitten by the cold night air that runs off the flanks of the mountains like a stream. There was a chill, all were silent. When we crested the ridge, we laid down to stay out of sight. I climbed an old pine tree with the help of the others, hiding in the branches and peaking down into the valley below. I saw what I had hoped to see, but did not expect.

We had crossed this valley before. It had little water and did not attract many animals, except when they were on their way elsewhere. I could see the faint path we had made, winding through tan grasses and dirt, across patches of snow. Nothing had changed since I had last seen the place, except for one thing. Where we had stopped to rest by a trickle-stream, there was now a deep pool of muddy water, across the water’s path. As the sun rose higher, I saw clearly a deep furrow, as long as from here to that thing-

AM: [Irku points at an individual walking across the atrium of the archive behind our recording booth, roughly fifteen meters away]

It was deep. As deep as a person is tall. At one end there was a tall black stone, standing upright. I told the others and we moved fast down the slope, spears in hand.

When made it to the edge of the clearing, everyone stopped. We talked quietly about what to do. My father was the oldest and it was his decision to make. I sat with my cousins in silence, speaking only with our hands.

AM: [You can speak with sign language?] 

Irku: Yes. But hand-language is different than mouth language. You cannot say the same things. Some things are best spoken with hands, other things are best spoken with mouths.

AM: [How so? Do you have an example?] 

Irku: Hands can say how you feel, but not why. Mouths can talk about specific things, things that are not there or have already happened. Hands can tell you exactly how much you fear or exactly how you are happy and mouths can explain why you feel this way. Hands can show directions and objects. Mouths can lie.

AM: [Is this why you have been moving your hands?]

Irku: Yes. If I did not move my hands I would look like a liar. I am telling the truth, so I must use my hands.

AM: [Interesting. You may continue with the story]

Irku: Yes.  We deliberated for a long while. It was obvious to everyone that this was a new thing, a thing that obviously had great power and could be very dangerous. The discussion was practical, but long winded and we were growing impatient. Some people were worried that we had angered a spirit and were coming up with reasons to justify their argument. Alba, my second cousin, was convinced that it had something to do with menstruation, but the connections he made were loose at best. Others were convinced it was a sign that we should remain in our camp and wait longer to travel into the mountains, but no one could guess where the sign had come from. There were few stories like this, and the only one I had heard pertaining to falling stars had come from my mother, spoken in the magic tongue of the sun and moon. But even this story gave no explanation.

AM: [What story?] 

Irku: It is the story of Karo and the sky-song.

AM: [Could you tell it? or at least give a synopsis?]

Irku: I will give a synopsis. Long ago in the deep south, a boy named Karo was born. On the day his mother gave birth, a shooting star burned over head, all the way across the sky. This was how he earned his name. Karo means shooting star in the language of the sun and moon. When Karo grew to be a man, his people faced a great famine. He and his family began to starve. One night, Karo walked off alone into the land and began to sing.  These were the days when the people of the south only spoke one language, so he sung with the words he knew. He sung about hunger and sadness. Then, he heard another voice coming from above. It came from the constellation Okapi. The voice sang back to him in reassurance, soft and low. In return, Karo sang a request: he wished for plants to grow, for herds to appear and prosperity to return to his people. Okapi said to him that he could ask for these things but would not be understood because the sun and moon did not speak the language of his people. Karo despaired but sang on. He sang all night and through the next day until he heard the sun talking softly and the responses from the moon across the sky. Slowly, he began to learn their language. He mimicked them for twenty days until he was fluent in the language of the sun and moon. Then, he made his request. The sun and moon were surprised to hear a boy speak int their language and granted him everything he wished. When he returned home, there were herds and fruit like he had never seen before, and as he ate he told his story. This is how the people of the south learned the language of the sun and moon and why they never sing in another language.

AM:[thank you.]

Irku: Like I said. We did not know what to do, but in the end my father decided that because the star had fallen so close to us that we must go to it. He decided that only three should go with him to do this. He chose himself, Alba and me to this because we were all big and good with spears. Nobody disagreed.

We walked out into the valley and I saw that the black stone was larger than it looked, as much of it had been buried. We moved slowly, close together until we made it to the furrow the star made as it landed. We all slid down the bank and walked through the mud towards the thing. It was strange. It was not an animal, but I had the sense that it could see me, that we were being watched. In addition, it was huge. It stood taller than any tree I had ever seen and as wide as a river. As we walked closer, we felt warmth coming from it, like the black coals of a dying fire. I don’t think any of us were scared. I felt the feeling I feel when watching lightning in the distance, a sense of … awe. I don’t know if that is the right word, but if there was a word like this it would be one that describes how light sparkles on the surface of water, or how snowstorms keep their silence even as they close the world into a shell no wider than a stone’s throw across. It was beautiful. My father and cousin felt the same.

AM: [What did you think it was?]

Irku: I don’t know. I still don’t know what it was, even after arriving here.

AM: [Did you have a guess? What did the others think it was?]

Irku: I had many guesses, But no true knowledge. It was the same with the others. Most of us thought it was a star of some kind, come from the sky to deliver a message. But we had no proof of this.

AM: [so most of your people sought a supernatural explanation?]

Irku: No. It was obviously natural in some way. We just didn’t have enough information about it to know how it was natural, why it was there. There is no such thing as supernatural, just misunderstood.

AM: [interesting. Did your people have a religion or a spiritual practice?]

Irku: I don’t know what religion is. We did have ceremonies and we communicated with spirits, which is probably what you mean when you say ‘spiritual practice’.  We did these things because they are the truth, and they are necessary to existence. They were part of the circle, because everything follows a circular path and eventually finds itself where it began. Maybe that is what you mean by religion?

AM: [Possibly. Did you see the fallen star as the beginning of a circle?]

Irku: yes and no. Beginnings and endings are the same.  

AM: [Interesting. What did you do when you made it to the fallen star? Did you touch it?]

Irku: No. It was very hot. Also, we had no idea if it would harm us. My father was a man of caution.  We examined it and then went to tell the others. When we made it back to camp, I stood with my father and told the others what we had found. There was a long discussion, where my mother offered much wisdom and opinions were offered by everyone. We stayed around the fire long, until everyone was heard. By the end, the decision was clear. We would not touch the thing and would keep watch from the ridge in case the star decided to move again.  I was placed on watch that night, and so I made my way to the top of the ridge alone in the darkness, this time with extra furs, food and water. I set up against the trunk of a tall tree and built a small fire. I did what anyone does when faced with a long night alone, I mended clothes and made a new knife from a piece of good stone I had found the previous month. My thoughts began to drift.

As a child, I had many fantasies of heroism. I think it is a common thing to imagine yourself in an epic tale, to design a myth around yourself. Of course, I was not a very myth-worthy person; aside from the lion incident and one or two well timed spear throws I hadn’t been a particularly heroic person. I was no Karo. As I sat there under the tree I imagined walking to the star alone, touching it, hearing its voice. The situation was surreal as is- people would talk of the fallen star for generations-but maybe they would speak my name as well. By my fire, doing my menial tasks, these thoughts began to smolder. First a spark, then an ember, and finally a flame. Within a few hours, I had put out my fire and bundled my things by the base of the tree. I traveled light, carrying only my knife and belt-tools. I would come to regret leaving the majority of the food I had behind. I walked down into the small valley by the light of the half-moon, crunching through patches of old snow and the brown stalks of last year’s undergrowth. A light breeze blew as I entered the clearing, shaking the grasses and dead leaves, tearing at the neck of the peaceful night.  

The fallen star seemed so much larger at night, a smooth tower of shadow. I felt that same feeling as I approached it the second time, that wonder of sparkling light, as well as a tense and heightened fear- I was going to act against the wishes of my elders, and more than that, I was going to something that had never been done before. I was going to touch a fallen star.

AM: [What did you think was going to happen? Did you have expectations?]

Irku: No. I suppose I made the decision because I did not know what to expect. It was the unexpected that attracted me.

AM: [But you saw no danger in the act]

Irku: No. Of course there was danger, but there was also the potential for great reward.

AM: [What kind of reward?]

Irku: I wanted to experience magic, to become part of a legend.  

AM: [I see. And did you?]

Irku: That remains to be seen.

AM: [Interesting. What happened when you touched the star?]

Irku: Nothing, at first. The heat we had felt the day before was still there, warm like dying coals, but when I reached to touch the surface it dissipated. It was like I had reached through the heat. I hesitated for a moment, questioning my decision. I had no idea what I was doing besides following the attraction of this strange object, a thing that was in every way unknown. I thought of the danger, of what my family would think if something were to go wrong. I held my hand in that strange cold space, almost touching that mottled dark surface. As children we were warned of these things, doors into worlds unknown. I cannot fully explain what I felt, but in my mind’s eye I saw many things. I saw the roar of the lion as it stared me down, herds of elk and aurochs, blood spilling on the ground. Thunderstorms raged in my mind, spring flowers, the crash of ocean waves, the sound of laughter, all to a beat that was as familiar as the beat of my heart. Scale, power, light and Darkness repeating. It was the rhythm of inspiration, I think, the constant beat of the heart’s desire. I leaned in and placed my palm flat against the fallen star.

AM: [And?]

Irku: and it began to hum.

#

Irku took in the experience with a degree grace not often found among those who are lost in the stars. He was slightly uncomfortable in the kiosk. The seating was fine, but it forced him to turn his back to the center of the room where strange beings roamed and conversed. He felt exposed. He had experienced no hostility in this place, only kindness or indifference. Despite this, he remained on edge. It seemed as though nothing in this liminal world could be understood, this place of other-beings and other-things. Because of this, he was almost thankful for the interview. Conversation, however broken it may be, was something he had not experienced in more than a month. Somehow, in this great vaulted room full of people in a world where people and animals lived together so close they almost always touched, he was more alone than he had ever been. He often found himself distracted, watching the creatures move about, sitting in kiosks or examining strange objects on tables. The shining tablet in front of him blinked again, showing lines of symbols whose meaning was impossible for Irku to understand. He focused, turning his attention back to the half-moon booth and the disembodied voice that wished to understand every part of his life. It spoke in its strange monotone tongue, one that repeated his words back to him (devoid of form) and asked him a question for the second time. This time, he listened.

“Did a door open? Or some kind of entry?”  

“Yes.” Irku answered, then, anticipating a barrage of follow up questions, continued in detail, “just moments after I began to hear it. It was wide, large enough for three people to walk in at once. The door did not raise or lower, it just… ceased to exist. One moment it was there, and the next it was not. My hand was left hanging in the air.”

“How did you react? It must have been surprising.”

Irku thought for a moment, the voice giving him space to gather his thoughts. Somehow it could tell when he was formulating a thought versus when he was simply distracted. It was an interesting question. It was not so long ago that he had been standing in front of that fallen star, ignorant of the worlds it held. In many ways, he was still reacting. He had been in a state of constant bewilderment for weeks, one that had begun the moment the door appeared and brought with it a portal to this strange place, a world in-between.  It was reminiscent of a story, something he had heard as a child, a cautionary tale he refenced from time to time as he grew older.  It fit his predicament well.

“At first I felt a powerful wave of awe. Then I began to second guess myself.” Irku paused, gathering his thoughts, adjusting the pressure suit he wore in the shared spaces, “There is a story my people tell. The story of the child and the badger. It was told to us as children, not a cautionary tale but a story whose meaning is interpretive. When I saw the door, I thought of the badgers’ den and it gave me pause.” The tablet populated with symbols as Irku spoke, then stopped briefly while the voice gathered its wits.

“Could you repeat it? the story?”  

Anticipating this, Irku had prepared his version of the story, hearing his fathers voice as he did so, the sounds of that summer fire replacing the whirring of ventilation fans, familiar as birdsong. His hands hovered in their positions, in the places of Love and Past, indicating a positive memory, the mark of a story beginning.

“Of course. Long ago, in the mountains between seas, there was a family camped by a river. It was autumn and they were preparing to move to the coast for winter. They scraped skins and mended clothes, gathered stone and wood to cache for the next year. They had with them a child who was not old enough to be named but was known to cause trouble. The night before they were set to leave, as mother and father and all their kin slept, the child woke and felt the need to explore. She left her family and walked into the biting cold, moving upriver to see what she could see. Stars buzzed like clouds of flies overhead.” That was his father’s line. Irku thought of it often. He continued. “Soon the child reached a hole in the bank, tall with stringy roots hanging down, and felt a draft of warm air from within. She was cold and did not wish to return home. Against the warnings of her mother and father, who always said to never enter a cave alone, she went inside.

The air grew warmer as she walked, the ground soft and inviting. Ahead she saw flickering light, like that of a campfire, and could smell cooking meat. She soon came to a room and peeked inside. She saw a family of badgers, going about their lives. It wasn’t long before they noticed her.” Irku stopped and breathed, considering for a moment before speaking again. “It is important you understand something about my people. It is thought that children are animals until they are given a name. It is a child’s name that gives them humanity, which is not necessarily separate from the animal realm. All creatures exist in parallel. Names are given by a person outside the family and this person becomes a parent of the child, in a way. Not the mother or father, but the name giver, something different and also the same. I recognize this may not be the way you were raised.” There was a twinge of apprehension as he said this, he wasn’t sure if the voice was a person or had any idea what it was like to grow up. It would be a long time before he learned how computers worked, and even longer before he would understand the… entity that embodied the archives of the wave rail. Every time he tried to consider the reality of his situation, Irku grew dizzy. Things like this had to be taken one step at a time.

“Thank you,” the voice replied, with a surprising amount of inflection. It was learning to speak. “You may continue with the story.”

Irku took another breath, feeling the creak of the strange red leather that encased him, smelling his own breath trapped in the clear dome that encased his head. He had not washed in weeks, as far as he could tell there were no streams in this place, nor bodies of open water. He put this out of his mind and raised his hands in anticipation of speech.

“The badgers saw the child and took pity on her. They offered food and kindness, respite from the cold of the night. The child was given a seat at the fire, a place among the family for the night. The mother badger asked the child for her name, but she had none to give. When this was discovered, a hush fell around the fire, the badgers were warm and lost in thought. Then a child spoke. ‘I will name you runaway’ it said. And so the child was named.” The matchstick man paused, indicating the end of the story with his hands resting in his lap. Then, realizing that the story may be incomplete in the eyes of the recorder, he added an addendum.

“The story is usually told as an explanation for my clan-name. The people of mountains between seas are made of many families, each one with it’s own specific name. I am from the badger family.”

“I see. And you share a name with the first of your clan. Does this carry a special significance?”

Irku thought before speaking.

“Yes and no. Like the first Irku, I also earned my name by running away and entering the den of a cave lion expecting to find a welcoming family. This was not the case, I nearly died. The name was seen as somewhat ironic, a reminder of the reality of our lives and the danger in belief. I suppose it was also a reminder of duality, the welcoming and dangerous natures of existence.”

“And this is what you thought of when you stood in front of that humming door? did you see badgers or lions?”

“Both. As I said, names are records of the past and predictions of the future.”

“Interesting. You chose to enter despite the knowledge that it could be dangerous, against the best wishes of your kin. What happened when you stepped inside?”

“I found myself in a cavern, as tall as the height of the fallen star. There was a soft light from above, like daylight through overcast clouds. The ground was flat. I was just making sense of the place when the door shut.”

“Did this scare you?”

“Of course. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do or what to think. Then I felt the thing begin to rise. I thought all sorts of things. Mostly I thought of my family, what they would think if I left and never returned. I was panicking, then the floor began to change. At first it was dark stone, then in moments it was clear like ice on a lake before the snow falls. What I saw was incredible.”

“What did you see?”

Irku could feel the wave of emotion before he spoke. How could one describe such an experience? Was there a word that could fit the whole of the earth, the land and the oceans, the storms and mountains? A word for the raw power of the blistering sun? the unseen face of the moon? No, but he would have to try. Irku cleared his throat.

“I saw first the small valley, with the long scar where the fallen star had met the earth. I was rising faster by the moment. Soon I saw the plain we had planned to cross when the snow melted, looking small and insignificant for a whole days’ walk. There was a bison herd there, and I wished I could tell my father. I rose faster and faster. The whole of the mountains and both of the seas flew away, cloaked in veils of mist and knots of thunderclouds. Then I saw a sea greater than any I had ever seen, a forest to one side and a great desert to another. Soon the desert was small and I saw great islands wrapped in a blanket of ocean. The world was round. We had guessed but nobody had ever thought this would be possible to know. The world was round and larger than I had ever believed possible, the ice held it in a two-handed grip, half cloaked in the shadow of night. Night. There was night everywhere, all around. I was floating the way one floats in water, squirming, and trying to focus my gaze on that marvelous view. The world grew small, so small I could cover it with one hand. I saw the moon, half light and half dark, an unimaginable distance from my home, but there, floating, still and placid as the reflections of starlight on pond water, perfect in every way. I tried to remember the words my mother would say in the language of the sun and moon, because now they were real and I was in their home. I sung to myself and cried. Time passed like a stream, cold and fast and powerful and the bodies of the sky-beings rotated and I sat within it all, the kingdom of the heavens. It was un-real, a thing of myth. It feels as though it happened to someone outside of me, some other person, but I know it was me because I am here. I am here and I do not know why.” His hands hovered in position, one held high and one held low, the places of Large and Small. Irku hadn’t noticed, but he was crying, his tears made a gentle pool on the metal ring surrounding his neck. It was all so strange. So very strange.

“And then you arrived here. I am sorry. It must have been terrifying.”

Irku’s hands slowly moved back to his lap. His eyes were distant, staring into the immensity of the archives. The tall domed ceiling loomed overhead like a dark and angry cloud. The recorder waited patiently.

“Yes. It was terrifying. I felt a fear I had never known.”

“What fear?”

“The fear of the unknown, the fear of being lost completely. Disappearance. That is the word, disappearance.”

#

The Wave Rail. It is immense. Something beyond true comprehension. Its’ age is unknown to any person, though its’ baffling size is measurable: nearly twenty kilometers long and five kilometers across. It is dark black, though reflective like polished stone. It is encircled by a ring in the middle, thin and ten kilometers in diameter. Its’ image is a symbol among the people of the Orion spur and beyond-proof of connection between the inhabitants of the stars. For Irku, the sight of it was more disorienting than it is for most- he didn’t know about space or ships, much less space-ships. When he was let into a nearly empty room, dirty, terrified and freshly heavy with the pull of gravity, he was wholly unprepared for what lay beyond. It was hard for him to talk about. The learning curve was steep. With each new question, he found himself gravitating towards a single answer: I don’t know.  He did his best to describe the parts of the experience he could understand, like his time in the language sampler, where some hidden entity used shapes and symbols, images and recordings of his own voice in order to learn his language. It was exhausting but entirely necessary, days and days of patient explanation and pronunciation, information he could barely understand. He was hungry and tired, the only thing he could receive being cold water. Eventually, the translator learned enough to ask for a sample of his food, tiny strips of dried meat he had been rationing carefully. The next day he woke, tired and hungry, to a spread of unfamiliar foods, all of them edible.

Irku explained all of this, though it seemed unnecessary. As far as he could tell, the voice he spoke to was the same being he had communicated with for the previous month. He knew there was no real evidence for this, but he had a feeling. There was an ever-present curiosity to the thing, paired with a strange tenderness. Sometimes, while conversing with the translator, he felt like an injured animal in the hands of a caring child. There was some soft over-arching sensitivity that pervaded in the attitude of the things Irku had spoken with in the archives, the translator and the main terminal.  So, he continued to answer its’ questions, as patiently as possible.

Irku described his encounter with the suit fitter, a large animal in a one-piece suit that carefully measured his body before asking for an item of value in trade. Irku hadn’t carried much when he went to visit the fallen star, though he did have his flint knapping kit, out of which he pulled a partially finished knife blade of glossy green chert, something he had planned on giving to his father on the solstice. The animal accepted the object without pause, and in return, handed Irku a pressure suit and small backpack. The translating terminal explained how he would need to wear the suit to leave the room he was in and how to put it on. The whole thing had been mystifying. Irku wasn’t sure if he needed the garment for protection, or for some cultural reason he couldn’t fathom. Either way, he carefully followed the instructions, and double checked the hard metal ring around his neck to make sure the seal was tight. Metal. It was one of the many things new to Irku as he entered the body of the wave rail for the first time. 

As he opened the final door out of his quarters, Irku felt a tingling sensation, some combination of fear and excitement. He waited until the door was closed to look up, both overwhelmed and overwhelmingly curious. Rightly so. Above him stretched a city unlike any other, the hollow interior of the wave rail, brimming with a patchwork cities, towers, domes and tents, streets and flashing lights. Dull stone, Shining metal, Arsenic white. It was all encompassing, a view of a world beyond limitations, strange in it’s entirety, like a thunderstorm. A whole world crashing over the top of itself like a wave, a cave where every surface was the floor. Irku did not know how long he stood and watched. He held a question, it slowly rotated, moving from is this real? to this is real as he turned in circles and let the experience of place unbound wash over him in waves.  

“It must have been amazing.” The voice stated, pulling Irku out of reminiscence. It had been. It was the most amazing things he had ever seen. He turned to the console and responded, finally prepared to ask the question he had been pondering since that moment.

“What is this place?” he said, a twinge of fear filtering through his words. The tablet in front of him was still, the incomprehensible symbols stationary for the moment. It was the Voice’s turn to consider. After a while, it answered tentatively.

“This place is a place that moves. It moves between stars and brings people from one world to the next. People use this place to meet one another, and trade objects and information. This is why some call this place the grand bazar, one of the many names it has acquired. Officially, this place is called the Wave Rail, and it is one of many in a wide network of identical ships. The wave rail is a shared space for the inhabitants of this galaxy, and a form of public transportation.”  

The answer stirred in Irku’s mind, partially understood and screaming for explanation. He could have asked a thousand questions, but instead, he followed with a practical inquiry. As he did so he felt that sensation, the rolling thunder and silence of snow, blood and heat of high summer, the potency of a moment condensed. He measured his words carefully.

“Where are we going?” he asked. “And what will I need?”