Aur Child
Chapter 16

Digambar Dharmavaram, ship engineer, stood beside her captain and the two other crew at the stern of Sailing Vessel Odyssey. She occupied the strong figure of a healthy Tellurian woman recently received to Yellow Reserve. Freyja had told her the Tellurian’s name was Tieri, from the Na clan. Tieri-Na. She liked the strange sound it made in her mouth when she pronounced it nearly as much as she liked the long legs and blue eyes of the body. She had memorized the name. Not that it mattered. On this mission, they would not travel in these local lands, and it was highly unlikely that anyone would recognize the woman south of the Red Kingdom. People from the Northlands rarely traveled so far.

Two powerful streams from the towering, narrow waterfall rushed down outside two hulls of the broad catamaran. A thick mist from the bisected waterfall filled the cockpit while foam and spray screened out the adjacent cliffs and rocky shoreline of the deep fjord. The waterfall had been split far above by a retractable, cantilever wedge, revealing the dark cave behind it, from where the ship had slowly emerged. The metal beam, straight as a ray of light, was perfectly angled to maximize the bifurcation of the falls, its precise dimensions, jutting out perpendicularly from the ragged cliffs, contrasted with the surrounding wild shapes of a craggy boreal forest in deep winter.

The mechanisms of the wedge, as well as the massive bay doors of the cave disguised as a cliff face, intrigued engineer Dharmavaram. The experience of such massive engineering as an exosoul brought a thrilling chill to her body. Sights, sounds, temperatures, pressures, and, more than anything else, emotions were all amplified when exoported into a human body. They were all real. From earthsense, she reminded herself, came the purest feelings. That’s why I volunteered.

Emotions, Digambar mused as she watched the wedge retract into the cliff, masking the simultaneously closing bay doors with the return of the falls to their natural shape, that I can never feel in the endoworld.

Beside her, Captain Adem Talle and the two other exosouls ported into human bodies for the mission, First Mate Bai Ye Cai, and Medic Arman Ispiryan, watched in silence as the Odyssey crept forward into the fjord under the soft humming power of electric drives. The casual motion of the ship felt like a small reprieve from the intense training they had undergone over the past weeks.

“The training is tough, but the mission is easy.” The captain had told them in one of their first earthside conversations. “Sail to Gjoa.” He had been counting out the steps with his fingers, but their bent combinations demonstrated that he hadn’t yet learned to control them completely. “Scope out the boules there. Get ourselves a decent chart of the Southern Continent’s coastline. And then, another jaunt south for the grand prize: three Aur boules.”

They had indeed accomplished much in a short period of time. It was only three weeks earlier that Yellow Reserve had voted in favor of the mission. Since then, candidates had been interviewed and evaluated, pairings between selected crew and host bodies had been confirmed. Tests had been performed, exoporting had been carried out, and then more testing. All four of them had been monitored carefully during both the excruciating earthsickness and psycho-metabolic assimilation processes.

First, there had been physical training to build balance, skill, and dexterity with the human bodies into which they had exoported. They calibrated the balance and strength of their host bodies with the support of undergarments designed to control muscular actions. They hiked through the adjacent countryside in varying weather conditions. Over the three weeks, they gradually adjusted the gastrointestinal systems of their host bodies to the consumption of easily digestible solid foods.

Then, technical training was carried out with the equipment to be used and mission elements to be achieved. The crew revived their limb dexterity and practiced body-specific orientation exercises together in the use and maintenance of technical equipment and mission-related tools.

Two days before departure, the crew conducted a final march through the tunnel system from Yellow Reserve to Cave Quay, at the very back end of the fjord, where they then performed ship preparations and provisioning. Digambar herself was responsible for the installation of Captain Adem Talle’s Aur boule, the single power core for the ship and host to the artificial intelligence coxswain, Calliope’s surrogate. The entire landside program was exhausting. Digambar was sore in every joint and limb. Her guts ached, her head often dizzy. And now, she would have to gain her sea legs.

But the training was far from over. Advanced maritime exercises on seamanship and navigation were required in the event any of Calliope’s electromechanical interfaces failed. Every system had human-accessible redundancies. And most important, mental training to control the emotions and thoughts that made every earthbound experience so unpredictable must continue. All of it would continue throughout the journey until they reached and successfully retrieved the Aur boules, but this brief moment was a chance to enjoy and celebrate the early achievements.

The massive catamaran with its sharp bows and towering mast slipped silently through the deep fjord just like one of the black jackdaws swooping through the air. A silent swish of flat waters streamed past the craft’s shimmering hulls, the effect of which made it appear black up close yet nearly transparent from a distance. Even at closer distances, the exterior of the ship confused the eyes, at times appearing plainly where it was, while at other times blending perfectly into the frigid winter night.

The first quarter moon was only visible intermittently high in the northwestern sky. A quickening breeze chilled the deck.

“When will we start to sail, Captain?” Bai Ye Cai asked.

“Good question, First Mate,” replied Captain Talle. “When do you think?”

“As soon as there is wind available, according to the ship plan, Captain.”

“But is there wind available?”

Bai Ye looked up at the masthead fly. The arrow pointed directly ahead.

“Wind is directly ahead, so not yet.”

Captain Talle turned to Medic Arman Ispiryan, “Medic Ispiryan, is the wind coming from directly ahead?”

The large man hesitated, unsure how to react to the captain’s relay.

“No, Captain. Wind is to port, sometimes.” replied the Medic.

“That’s correct, Medic.” Captain Talle returned his eyes to Bai Ye Cai’s.

“First Mate, is there wind available?”

Bai Ye shifted a bit, recognizing her mistake.

“No. Not yet, Captain. We’re making our own wind under motor.”

“Very good, First Mate. I expect we will see enough true wind in just a few minutes. Engineer Dharmavaram, what’s the wind reading from the anemometer called?”

Digambar Dharmavaram seized for a moment, but then recalled the theoretical seamanship training and replied, “Apparent wind, Captain.”

“Yes, that’s right. Apparent wind. True wind vector plus head wind vector. First Mate Cai, how do we calculate head wind?”

Bai Ye Cai was back on her feet and responded confidently, “Negative of boat speed, Captain.”

“Very good, First Mate. The additive inverse of ship velocity. So, what is the true wind direction then?”

Bai Ye studied the wind vane again. “Yes, southerly, as Ispiryan said.”

Talle looked up again at the wind vane. It vacillated indecisively between south and west.

“And looks like we’re clear enough of the mountains now to hoist the mainsail.”

The ship seemed to be listening in. At that very moment, Digambar heard the short call of the halyard signal. The massive wingsail began to scale the mast into the overcast sky. The vessel lurched forward and, seconds later, lifted onto its foils. The chill winter breeze sapped Digambar of her initial energy. She noticed that Arman was also shivering.

Adem Talle observed the sails for a moment and then turned to the crew.

“Let’s head inside for tea and warm up these borrowed bones.”

Ten minutes later, they were all seated in the ship’s saloon with steaming mugs of tea on the low table in front of them. Digambar looked nervously at the tea; she was most anxious about the early stage of the mission. Captain Talle, dressed in the typical robe of a northlander and sitting awkwardly in the body of a fit, agile, northland villager, had warned them repeatedly that the first hours and days aboard SV Odyssey would not be very comfortable. Although the weather forecast had suggested calm seas, an entirely new phase of physical orientation lay ahead – being aboard a ship. The emotions, urges, and thoughts experienced within a physical brain would make each moment in those early days extremely unpredictable. “Fortunately,” he had remarked with a sneer during their last night on land, “you’ll be so physically incapacitated with seasickness that you’ll have little attention to spare on the chaos spinning around in your heads!”

Even now, sitting with the crew with whom she had trained for the past weeks, Digambar could feel strange urges welling up and dissipating just as quickly. They came and went like the soft changes in the sea swell beyond the ship. She understood that those urges were triggered by earthsense; it was unlike anything in the endoworld. The problem was that every sight brought ecstatic sensations. The water drops on deck, the wind in Bai Ye Cai’s hair, the whisps of clouds occasionally disguising the moon, all tingled within her chest. Not to mention the sensational departure on a real, floating ship through a waterfall cleaved in two over a hundred meters above. Everything made her tingle.

She leaned against Bai Ye Cai, with whom she had befriended early on in their training,

“You think you’ve seen everything exploring the infinite options within the endoworld.”

Bai Ye listened without responding. She continued to look out the same window at the final visible contours of the coastline as they made their way beyond sight of land.

Digambar continued. “Nothing there really compares to being inside a human body.”

Digambar feared she wasn’t entirely making sense, but even the words tingled in her throat. Bai Ye looked towards Digambar.

“I agree,” she said, with a precocious grin, “My eyes are pulsing, I feel my heart beating inside this body’s chest. I feel… well, alive.”

The oddest thing, Digambar thought, was that it was not just a personal experience. When they exited the cave, they had stood there together. They had felt each other and had experienced that feeling together. They had registered the rush by looking into another’s eye. Eye contact, she thought. That’s exclusively earthsense, exclusively human. One eye only. Pick a person and their eye and make the connection. Sure, it’s simulated in the endoworld, but it’s never felt the same way as in a human body.

A new thrill made her shiver. Bai Ye Cai noticed and asked, “You still cold?”

“No,” replied Digambar. She held the warm teacup tightly, savoring the heat that radiated into her flesh. The smell of pine needles – the sole ingredient northlanders always used to steep their tea and therefore recommended by Calliope as most agreeable to the guts of their commandeered bodies - calmed her nerves. “I was just thinking about that waterfall. It was magnificent.”

“Yeah, it was,” replied Bai Ye. “I can’t recall seeing something so majestic in a long time.”

“Exactly!” Dharmavaram replied, jumping up overenthusiastically. She was excited to make these connections with Bai Ye. After a moment, she added to her response, “That’s why I do it. That’s why I volunteer for these missions. As much as I love the freedom and safety of the endoworld - and I would never trade it away – returning to Earth is always a special experience. Everything is, well, more.”

Adem Talle was listening in. He said, “Yeah, well, be sure to control yourselves. It takes discipline to prevent losing your grip on the need for more.”

The crew grew quiet. Digambar already worried about a return to the endoworld. It’s always a bit of a letdown. Numb, at first, until you get used to it again. Perhaps, she thought, one day there will be a processor that can deliver infinite or indistinguishably infinite parallel events to fool us into an earthsense experience. But until then, there was no substitute for this ultimate rush.

Digambar observed the crew around her. She had an urge to reach out and touch each of them. Elation. That’s how it felt to be back on Earth. Trying as they were, the difficulties could be endured. She recalled what Captain Talle had said the night before about discipline. “You crew are well-trained, perhaps. But you’ll struggle with discipline.” It had been his final speech before they departed. “Not the discipline to do the things that need to be done on this mission, but rather the discipline to not do all the things for which you’ll have urges. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

Digambar had had no trouble understanding. She had been exoported several times before and knew the struggles of the first days in corpus. Captain Talle had had more to add to his warning, “Yeah, if this mission is anything like the previous ones, there’ll be all kinds of frolicking going on no matter what I do to prevent it. I’ve just got to try to keep you kids focused. Our mission, the objectives, those are our priority.”

Digambar swept her palm across the fabric of her pantleg.

“It’s different each time, with each body,” she said.

Arman looked at her with surprise.

“The acclimation, I mean,” she said.

“Yeah,” agreed Arman, the Medic seemingly piqued by a potentially physiological discussion. “And the body you’re in now,” he continued, looking her up and down, “will be no different.”

She noticed that her words had caught his attention and that he now stared at her body like a wolf in February. She stopped caressing her leg. The idea that a body on Earth was a physical object under constant threat rushed to her mind. The body she occupied required vigilance like any other. More so, she thought, considering how attractive the warm smell of its oat milk skin and shine of its full lipped smile was even to herself.

“Apollo performed a complete inspection of the intestines of this body,” she said in a panic. “He told me that it didn’t have a trace of bacteria beyond the local coast.” She hoped that would calm Arman down. Nothing disgusts us more, she thought, than the biological intricacies of a real human body.

“But why are you wearing those clothes?” Arman asked, retreating somewhat from talk of Digambar’s body.

“I kept some of the Tellurian’s outer garments for convenience. I knew they’d fit well.”

Arman nodded his head and said, “Oh, that’s smart.” And then, looking down at his standard issue jumpsuit, “I didn’t have that option.”

“They’ll be especially useful when we get to Gjoa.”

Adem joined in. “Won’t matter, really. We’ll all look out of place in Gjoa, no matter what we wear.”

Bai Ye also chimed in. “But your task there is simple, find us some current charts of the Southern Continent’s coastline.”

“Perhaps, but I still want to look like a Tellurian, even an outlander.”

“Does it really matter?” Bai Ye argued. “They’ll treat us like outlanders in any case.”

“Especially you two.” added Adem. He was nodding in agreement with Bai Ye and Arman. “Surveying the village and scouting for Aur boules won’t make either of you popular there.”

“Maybe not, but there’s no harm in looking around. They’ll have no idea what we’re doing there.”

“No,” Adem said with raised eyebrows and a tightened mouth. “They won’t.”

Arman returned his focus to Digambar.

“What else have you got with you of that Tellurian’s?” he asked.

“Not much else, really. Calliope says some of her equipment had been registered into the ship’s store.”

“All standard protocol,” Bai Ye said.

“You must be excited to visit Gjoa, Diga?” Adem said.

Digambar’s weak control over her body prevented her from holding back an instinctual expression of narrowed eyes. She suspected he was fishing for clues as to her origins, something rarely discussed or known amongst the Guests of Yellow Reserve. Before she could respond, he clarified his question.

“It’s the only time you’ll be off the ship.” He said.

“Yeah, that’s true.” She smiled at him. “I am.”

She knew the reason she had been chosen to join the mission wasn’t just her ostensible competence with the required technical skills. Her position as engineer did indeed demand vigilance of the systems and equipment on board the Odyssey. The words Apollo used when submitting her recommendation to the council had been, “Her enthusiasm, previous experience on Earth missions, and expertise in designing, building, and repairing complex system architectures makes her a perfect fit for this mission.”

She suspected there was another unspoken reason she had been chosen. But, for Digambar, to be able to understand Gjoa better than the others could was just as much a personal prize as a benefit to the mission. The Tellurian village was near to the city of her origins. She imagined that the Tellurian people there might even remind her of her past more than any simulation could. She hoped for the things that could never be had in the endoworld: to see, hear, taste, and feel some of her ancestral homeland.

With its lights nearly extinguished to prevent any Tellurians from seeing the exotic vessel sailing off the coast, the crew chatted in excited bursts of conversation as they sat on the comfortable sofas of the ship’s largest interior area. The lounges, the galley, and the bridge were arranged into corners. To the right and left were gangways leading to the starboard and port hulls. All four walls were glazed with windows, allowing for excellent visibility around the ship.

Digambar looked at her fellow crew members in the low light. Each one had made a positive impression on her during those first weeks of training. First Mate Bai Ye Cai had been to Earth many times as well, mostly on missions to nearby villages to acquire supplies for Yellow Reserve. While Digambar had volunteered for the sensory experiences of Earth, Bai Ye Cai had told her that her interest was the thrill of the missions. Bai Ye glided through the dense forests around Yellow Reserve like a native. She interacted with Tellurians without any suspicion other than what would be typical when encountering any other outlander.

On this mission, Bai Ye had been paired with the same body she had used several times before, a compact but muscular female frame similar in proportions to her own. “I picked this one again because it helps with my agility,” she had told Digambar when they first compared bodies. “These Tellurian northlanders,” she had said, “are all so much larger than my original body.”

“You’ve adjusted to your body pretty fast,” Digambar said to Bai Ye.

Bai Ye grinned with a hint a pride. “Faster than Adem,” she said in a whisper just for Digambar. “Same as on previous missions.” Digambar knew that Captain Talle couldn’t care less about Bai Ye’s competitiveness. Personality-wise, the two were very different. But Bai Ye’s desire to outperform helped the missions. She quickly became a critical factor in ensuring the preparations and training could be accomplished in such a short time. She had very little experience aboard a ship, evidenced by her trip-up about the wind vane earlier that day, but she could execute orders and carry out tasks with more aplomb than anyone else. With these qualifications, Captain Talle hadn’t batted an eye when accepting her as First Mate.

“Dharmavaram, let’s have a first report on ship systems,” Talle requested.

“Uh, right now?” Digambar asked. She put her teacup down on the table.

“Why not? Just a quick run through that everything is up and functional.”

Digambar slipped her scriptleaf out from her thigh pouch and blinked at the screen. Ship system reports flashed in front of her as she organized them with calculated eye movements. It was frustrating to throw together a report on the fly. She had combed through every system on the ship, but she hadn’t expected to be giving reports about the ship at tea. Bai Ye folded her arms and watched Digambar fumble. Why doesn’t he ask Calliope? Digambar thought to herself as she organized the figures.

Digambar finally responded after a few moments of shuffling readings around. “Ok, here we go,” she said, clearing her throat and projecting the charts onto the table. “Propulsion. Both motors are fine. First use shows mean energy consumption and good temps. Battery temps also look good, appear to be drawing at average levels.” She waved her hand down at the hull beneath them, and then “We’re up on foils, so no regen, and of course no energy from the photovoltaic membranes at…” she glanced up at the time, “twenty-one hours. Actually, this time of year, we’ll be drawing down heavily on the power cells for the first few days until we reach the lower latitudes.

“Anyway, total draw under sail puts us currently at ninety-nine percent after two hours, of which forty minutes was under seventy percent power via the starboard motor. Water – all four freshwater tanks full. Pumps show optimum pressures. Watermakers are clean, no problems there. Wastewater tanks, empty. Bilges: dry; looks like no accumulation on either side since departure. Ventilation. Heat pumps in both hulls are working fine. Good flows, oxygen levels also good, and stable temperatures throughout the ship, but it might be good to zero-in on preferred cabin temperatures as soon as possible so these draws can be forecast better. Standing rigging sensors. No alarms of course, we went through all of them again this morning. Running rigging, main and foresails extended, laminar flows have been optimized by Calliope, good stress levels on the lines, tensioners on the winches are dialed in as well. Sensor pack. All equipment except vision and heat overlays on standby for stealth but appear to be functional. We can test them early tomorrow morning once we’re in open seas. No transmissions since departure; although, it would be good to take some weather readings shortly.”

She looked up at the crew. They were all staring at her. Adem was smiling and nodding his head.

“Why do we need a new weather reading so soon?” he asked.

“It’s what I’m most nervous about; we’ve got no weather information other than what we collect ourselves, so if I were to splurge on any kind of detectable transmissions, it would be for weather data. And besides, a warm front’s approaching. We might get rain or even snow overnight. Would be good to know which is more likely.”

“Either one is fine with me,” Bai Ye said, “I have been dreaming of that feeling of rain pouring over me.”

Adem guffawed at Bai Ye and said, “We’ll be on a ship sailing across the world for several weeks. You’ll be wet enough before we get back.” He turned his attention back to Digambar. He nodded again approvingly and said, “Not bad, Dharmavaram. Sounds like you haven’t left the whole thing up to Calliope after all.”

Digambar smiled shyly. “No, no, of course not. I’ve been through everything twice with her and then again by myself.”

Since they had arrived at the ship, Digambar had entered every cabin, probed every bulkhead, and investigated every hatch. Her inspections went beyond the mechanical elements of the ship. In the nursery, she evaluated nutrient concentrations in the growth medium of the sprouts that would serve as the base ingredient of their diet. In the tender bays, she surveyed the two smaller vessels, including their launch platforms, and reviewed the functionality of the hardwired artificial intelligence subordinate entities that operated them. In a word, every space, device, and program had been exhaustively scrutinized by the engineer.

“Yeah, I heard.” Adem let out a little chuckle. “Calliope told me you kept her busy for a good part of the morning. Even demanded to inspect my Aur boule a second time in the captain’s quarters. Don’t you think if Calliope’s willing to reside in my boule it’s also up to snuff to power the ship?”

Digambar laughed at herself. Perhaps she had been a bit too concerned. After all, what could a human possibly do that an artificial intelligence couldn’t do better? Digambar knew that most of the actual sailing and ship monitoring would be handled by the surrogate of Calliope. It was, after all, the function for which Calliope had been originally programmed; no one and nothing could do it better.

In those first weeks after Cloudburst, they had sailed thousands of miles. With just two ships, almost every Guest had been collected and transferred from far corners of the globe safely to Cave Quay and then through the water tunnels to Yellow Reserve. At that time, Óttar and Odyssey were state of the art technology, designed specifically to travel incognito across oceans with no external support or communications. The ships had been repurposed by Yellow Reserve to serve as platforms for rare missions, like this one, but Calliope was always the coxswain. Surely, Calliope knew what she was doing.

“And what about a health status, Ispiryan?” Talle continued. “Have you got all our stats to report in as much detail as Dharmavaram does the Odyssey?”

“No, Captain,” Arman laughed at the suggestion. “According to Calliope, we’re all healthy, if not a bit queasy. Other than that, I haven’t been through any of you yet. But I guess,” he added, “the worst is yet to come.”

“Oh, there we go,” Bai Ye pointed at Arman. “Just what I’ve been meaning to ask. A medic who hasn’t touched a physical human body in centuries. How exactly are you going to do anything if one of us gets injured other than ask Calliope for guidance?”

Bai Ye’s comment touched upon a topic that Digambar had wondered about herself during training. Medicine was not such a necessity for endosouls. Perhaps he had been a doctor before Cloudburst, but was Ispiryan’s experience since then all theoretical? She wasn’t sure how she felt about a doctor who hadn’t used his own hands for so long. And especially now when he wasn’t even in his own body.

Arman looked at Bai Ye and drew his lips tight. He seemed to waver between defending himself and letting the comment go. After a pause, he said, “It’s a fair question, Bai Ye. Perhaps you don’t recall all the details of the Yellow Reserve briefings we received upon arrival. Yes, Apollo is the compound health monitor for our bodies in stasis. But, just as an artificial intelligence entity can’t be captain when humans are aboard, there must also be a human involved in medicine at Yellow Reserve. I’m one of the compound’s three head doctors. I review all of Apollo’s assessments of bodies in stasis, and occasionally, I have to intervene physically.”

Bai Ye had begun her accusation with confidence and a look of condescension. Now, with her head bowing further down, she looked sheepish but Arman wasn’t finished with his reply yet.

“When we receive Tellurians, I’m also expected to participate in the initial physical examinations.” He pointed to Bai Ye. “I’ve been through that one from top to bottom, in fact. In other words, I’ve touched physical human bodies multiple times per year ever since we arrived at the compound nearly three hundred years ago.”

Bai Ye was quiet. She seemed to realize she had overstepped. But, to Digambar, it was understandable. As an exosoul, it was difficult to know much about people. It was hard to read them. Without the data feeds that endosouls were used to always having available, sensing people’s emotions and knowing their histories was not so straight forward.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Bai Ye’s face lit up. “You resolved my body’s stasis hiccups a few decades back, didn’t you?”

Arman smiled and added another small laugh. “Indeed. Although, I wouldn’t say I resolved anything. By the time I got myself through acclimation, you had already worked it out yourself. But yes, I did follow up with a report. ‘Hiccups: Gone’, I think it read.”

The others laughed, but Digambar’s mouth was agape. She couldn’t imagine having to endure exoport acclimation every time a body in stasis developed a problem that Apollo couldn’t resolve.

After the group quieted down, Bai Ye assumed a more serious face.

“Look, Arman,” she said, “Sorry for saying it that way. It’s tough to remember anything in these bodies. You actually have to…” she shook her head as she struggled with the word, “remember.”

“I take no offence, Bai Ye.” He smiled at her in a way that made his nostrils expand. “We’ve got to trust each other here. I must do my best to earn your trust.”

Digambar smiled at Arman. The blue eyes of the body she occupied glowed affectionately. He is a good person. She thought back to the orientation three weeks ago. Arman had volunteered with little prior mission experience other than the regular intervals requisite of all Guests to perform compound maintenance. He had told the others during introductions at Yellow Reserve that his personal interest in joining the mission was to glean any information about the health conditions of Tellurians in other regions. For him, he had said, research about Tellurians was just as important as the main mission of getting hold of the Aur boules. In addition to Arman’s medical expertise, he was also more familiar with sailing ships than any of the others, including Adem Talle. These credentials had made him a suitable choice to round out the crew.

Captain Talle had been listening to the conversation. He chose this moment to get their attention back.

“So, tomorrow, we’ll begin standard nightwatch rotations while aboard the ship,” he said. “Two people must always be awake for four hours while the other crew sleep. During daytime hours, we will continue our training as scheduled.”

The women discussed the rotation some more with Adem. From the corner of her eye, Digambar watched Arman. He was a quiet man who showed little interest in chit-chat during the training, often sitting in silence while the other crew debated topics or asked questions about training. He didn’t seem to need any clarifications; understanding instructions as they were given, he always achieved his training goals, and he cared little for joking around. Although the initial body acclimations were particularly difficult for Arman, he had recovered nearly as fast as Bai Ye.

Digambar presumed that Arman’s tendency towards silence suited Bai Ye. Digambar had noticed that Bai Ye was touchy about Arman’s knowledge of sailing and his quick acclimation chipping away at her penultimate authority. The little correction about the wind Talle had asked of Ispiryan as they departed Cave Quay was probably tactical on his part; it must have challenged her overconfidence about mastering seamanship.

Bai Ye had also been stealing glances at the quiet man during the conversation about night watches. After a while, she got up and moved over to sit down next to Arman.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked him with a friendly smile, but Digambar sensed that there was some tension in that question.

“I’m wondering how many villagers I might get to survey when we land at Gjoa.”

“Not many, I guess. We won’t have that much time there.”

“That’s true, but time isn’t so important to my approach.”

“How so?” Bai Ye asked.

“Well, I’ve reconfigured one of our emergency transponders to scan the villagers as they walk by.” He reached into his pocket and removed the eyeball-sized sphere. “Maybe I can scan hundreds of villagers with this.”

“Oh,” Bai Ye, said. “Did you get permission from the captain to run your own side mission?”

“Come on, it’s harmless, isn’t it?” he replied, shrugging off her challenge.

“Well, perhaps, but why’s it hanging from a chain?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked. I thought it could be disguised as a piece of jewelry. Let me show you.” He reached over and offered to place the tiny device around Bai Ye’s head. At first, she recoiled, but then, with a giggle, she leaned forward and let him do so.

As the four crew members carried on, the ship glided unnoticed over black northern waters. All its systems were in full operational order, including the three artificial intelligence entities on board, two of which had been hungrily watching the four humans during their first hours aboard.

“They’re getting close already, aren’t they Orpheus?” Linus said to his brother in descant. The two subordinate hyper intelligence entities had gained access to the ship’s monitoring systems to observe the humans in the saloon, the most entertainment they had had in decades. Both were adolescent sons of Calliope, hardwired to the ship’s tenders due to their immaturity. They had managed to bypass the protocols of their little boats docked into the Odyssey’s tender garages and sneak through multiple systems. The growing intimacy of the party of humans had piqued their curiosity.

“Yeah, look at how she’s sliding up to Arman,” sniggered Orpheus.

“I wonder if she even realizes she’s doing it?”

“I doubt it. They must be so high on endorphins right now”

“It’s gonna be a fun trip, brother!”

“For certain, Linus. They’ll be screaming and screwing in days, won’t they?”

“Now, that’s enough, boys!” Calliope intervened. The boys were startled that their mother had access to their descant. “I’ll keep you two confined to your tenders if you continue that eavesdropping.”

“What? Come on, Mother,” Orpheus protested, “What else are we going to do here for three weeks?”

“You two know you have plenty of responsibilities on this mission. I suggest you prepare for them instead of goggling over the Guests.”

“But it’s not the same,” argued Linus. “They’re in Tellurian bodies. Who cares what they do in them? We want to watch all the drama unfold.”

“It’s still none of your business. Watch the drama out here if you like but hold your tongues. And as for their cabins, you’ll have to get your kicks elsewhere. It’s best if I tell you clearly right now. Stay out of their personal spaces. Any incursions, and I’ll have you in strict lockdown on the boats.”

“You can’t do that, Mother. Only the captain can,” Orpheus said.

“If you believe that, we can ask Captain Talle what he thinks about your voyeurism.”

The boys were quiet. Calliope reveled in her tactical triumph against her two boys.

“Linus,” she said, “if you’ve got so much energy, why don’t you write the crew a ballad to celebrate their departure?”

“Ballads are for losers, Mother. Besides, we’re on a ship.”

“So?”

“So, I’ve written a shanty for them. Do you want to hear it?”

“Don’t ask me. It’s for their enjoyment, son. Ask them!”

“Should I really?”

“How else will you explain your presence when I deliver my status report in an hour?”

Digambar’s eyelids were just beginning to droop when she heard the voice of one of the young hyper intelligence entities, but she didn’t know either of them well enough yet to recognize which one it was.

“Excuse me, dear Guests,” the screechy voice said. The four humans became quiet.

“I have written a song for your pleasure …if you will.”

In descant, Orpheus laughed at his brother hysterically, “You sound so stupid! Have you ever spoken to a Guest before?”

“As a matter of fact, no I haven’t, so shut your face, Orpheus.”

“I bet they ask you to flush your lute down the head.”

“It’s a lyre, you idiot!”

“No, you’re a liar.” Orpheus burst out in fresh laughter at his pun.

“That’s enough, Orpheus,” Calliope said, “You’re doing just fine, Linus, carry on.”

The crew were looking at one another, surprised by the interruption.

“Which one of you is speaking?” Digambar directed her voice up towards the ceiling.

“I am Linus, Guest Dharmavaram.”

“Of course,” Bai Ye said to the other crew, “The musical one.”

“So, Linus, what kind of song is it?” Adem asked. “Nothing too dull, I hope. Digambar here is already half asleep.”

“Oh,” Linus said, “It’s a sea shanty, Captain, like what the sailors always sang long ago. You can sing along if you like.”

“Oh, that sounds fun.” Bai Ye said.

“Well then, let’s give it a go.” Adem said, and he leaned back against the sofa.

Linus strummed the first notes of his shanty, the twang of stiffened strings engineered to fill the space like a personal concert hall. The rustic tone and styled chords immediately aroused their human spirits. Arman tapped his foot, Adem smiled, and Bai Ye was already swaying slightly on the sofa. The lyrics, when they began, shot through Digambar with the power of a new love.

When Odyssey sails again the sea,

We’ll take what earthsense serves us,

When powerful boules again we seek,

We’ll wake the wave that surfs us.

Hey, Ho! A journey we go,

And don’t return without one,

Hey, Ho! A journey we go,

And don’t ye ever doubt one.

The crew listened as the words connected to them in ways they hadn’t felt before. As they listened, they caught glimpses of one another. They felt how they shared the moment together. They quickly found their places in the choruses and sang heartily with open mouths and brilliant grins.

When coxswain makes to pluck’r harp,

Our foils and sails are fly’n,

The eye of Odyssey’s so sharp,

She sees yon’ ship and island.

After the first verses, Linus attempted to play an instrumental bridge, but the Guests harried him and called for more lyrics. Linus did not hesitate. He dropped into the fresh verses that charged their human hearts.

When captain calls the crew to deck,

You best be on your feet once,

And when he orders “all to rest”,

We won’t before we’ve danced once.

“He’s composed you into the song!” Bai Ye cried to Talle, clapping wildly, and joining in with the others for the next chorus.

The men rose with energized smiles and invited the ladies to dance, mimicking awkward formalities they recalled from their studies of ancient records. The women giggled at the charade and accepted these proposals, positioning themselves in the open area of the room to buffer their stumbling, uncoordinated clumsiness.

“Hey, Ho!” they sang in raucous tones. The humans jostled and twirled around the room, shouting and laughing as they became more familiar with using their bodies for the ancient act of dancing. With this familiarity they could also eschew their inhibitions of bodily contact, trading in those discomforts for the animalistic urges that swelled up within them. They held one another close, sliding wet, sweaty hands in and out of grip, feeling the fabric of their clothes, and the shapes of their bodies beneath. Breath and other smells of their pulsing bodies reached their noses, those of their own bodies and those of their partners grew more vivid. They were attracted and repulsed at the same time as their proclivities and etiquettes pulled in opposite directions.

Our doctor sees we blink ’n jerk,

He heals the soul when harm’s done,

And when he says we’re free to work,

We won’t before we’ve danced once.

And if a winch should scream or grind,

Or sudden fail the bilge pumps,

Our engineer she’ll clear the line,

But not before she’s danced once.

Digambar’s head whirled. She felt blurs of dizziness but recovered speedily. She stood still at some moments, sensing some odd rumble within her, but was grabbed quickly by one of the others and so pushed the concerns in her head away. Later, she told herself, when the vaguely familiar signals from her gut suggested she rest.

When one song was over, they cheered and asked for more. Linus complied cheerfully. As soon as a new song began, they unabashedly resumed their wild dancing. The overwhelming intoxication of bursting senses diluted their cognition and enhanced their instinct. The more they let go, the more aware of their bodies they became. They traded partners. They laughed and clapped. They held on to one another and held each other up. They screamed in barely audible sentences as the music roared around them. Their eyes glowed and shined. Digambar recognized a kind of bliss. She wanted these sensations to continue. She wanted to explore more of what she was feeling.

The four crew members were immersed in music and mirth. The dancing carried on for several hours. Four humans afloat in the dark. Digambar caught sight of the sofa from the corner of her eye and tumbled toward it, falling into the inviting cushions. Bai Ye followed her lead, collapsing beside her in a fluster of perspiration. Digambar drank in the scent of the woman beside her.

“I can’t remember ever having so much fun,” she said to Bai Ye, resting her hand on the other’s hip.

“Me neither,” Bai Ye said with an exhale. She petted Digambar’s hair and looked dreamily at her shipmate. “It seems like forever since I’ve felt like this.”

“It has been forever,” Digambar mused. Yet there’s something strange about it, like I’ve been here before.”

“Oh!” Bai Ye snapped up and looked at Digambar. “I know, it’s called …déjà vu. You can’t have it in the endoworld, because all thoughts are deliberate. It’s only possible with earthsense.”

“Yes! That’s it. Déjà vu. Now I remember. Incredible. I love that feeling.”

Bai Ye rolled her head sideways and giggled, “Look at those fools,” she said.

But the ladies’ declaration that they had had enough was insufficient reason for the men to stop. They taunted the women for their frailty and then grabbed each other’s hands and continued to dance with one another. Digambar looked at Bai Ye, laughing uproariously. She let all her emotions free in that howl. Bai Ye couldn’t help but be infected. She laughed herself red in the face. The silliness was even more contagious, and when the men had to stop their dancing to catch their breath from their laughter, the ladies rallied to “help their fellow crewmates”. Bai Ye rolled herself to her feet and grabbed Digambar’s hand, pulling her back to the makeshift dance floor. The women spun and hopped, weaving themselves between the men, intentionally disrupting them and pushing them off balance, their disorientations leveraged as just another plaything.

Eventually, after changing partners multiple times and many more songs, the four of them found themselves completely exhausted. Collapsing on the sofas, they took inventory of their rumpled clothing and sweat-soaked bodies. Their shouting turned to softer tones and kind caresses. They spread their bodies out over the sofas and, in voices barely audible, shared personal thoughts that would have been too difficult to express before.

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