She's in a hot jungle-

No, a greenhouse. That's glass walls and roof. It's very fantastical, though. Blue and grey sky is visible past the condensation-covered glass.

—it's beautiful. (And she's indoors. Should she be worried about being on someone's property? ...no, a greenhouse this large and elaborate and – the presentation – it's clearly meant for visitors. Probably one of those public gardens set up like a museum or an aquarium. She can blend in with the other visitors.)

She wanders.

...there's no one else here. Maybe she should get out.

She looks for a discreet side exit.

It's not that big. And on second glance, most of the plants she can recognize are some sort of edible or medicinal.

There's a door at the front, a door at the back, and a stairwell going down.

...There's quite a lot of sky around. This place is somewhere very high apparently.

...yeah, she should be getting out of here.

Being this high up is – a little unsettling. (But cool.)

Down it is. Carefully.

The first landing of the stairs lets out to a very utlilitarian room with narrow walkways and ladders. Giant - bags? -Puffed up as if they were balloons crowd what would be a very large open space, if empty. Industrial looking framework, pipes, and bundles of equipment dot the area. The stairs continue down past it.

She needs to get to the ground floor. She continues downward.

The stairs lead to a hall that branches in two directions.

There's a window.

She's... Very high up. There is no ground visible. Come to think of it, might that low rumbling be an engine? What about the subtle swaying under her feet? Is this an airship?

...

She's not getting out of here, is she.

Okay. Options. She can try to find somewhere to hide, stow away until the ship reaches port. That's... not likely to work.

Or she can take the scary option, announce herself right away, explain what happened. Maybe it'll count for something that she didn't try to hide. If she's very lucky, maybe they won't throw her overboard.

Or... can she just abandon this world, push herself on to a new one?

She clasps her hands together and tries to – no, maybe if – no. No, that's not going to work. Leaving only the first two options.

Hide or not?

...if she was going to play it safe today, she should have started a lot sooner than this. She goes looking for someone to talk to. Down the hall to the left.

She finds a neatly arranged kitchen and dining room, and a lounge area and a glass-walled room with lots of complicated looking controls.

Hearing her walk up, the man in there says, "Hey Walta, you finished the- Wait, who the fuck are you? Stowaway?"

"I – uh. Should have thought this out first. I wasn't on this – ship? an hour ago. ...Not that you're likely to believe that. I sort of. Landed here. At random. I, uh," she waves her hands vaguely. "I didn't mean to? I mean, I knew I'd be going somewhere, just not where, and... I'm making a mess of this, aren't I.

I'm sorry?"

"...Leaving aside whether or not I believe your story, please back out of the bridge. Don't try and touch the controls. You say you landed here? Hmm..." He taps a little intercom thing. "Walta, come up front please. We're going to do a weight calibration."

A woman's voice comes though, tinny, "Didn't we do one yesterday, boss?"

"Yes. We're doing one again."

"Okay then... Be right up."

She looks over her shoulder to make sure she doesn't bump anything as she backs out of the room. And waits quietly in the hall for further instructions.

"You can understand why I'm suspicious, right? We're almost certainly not going to throw you overboard, but the precise details of what I plan to do depend on if we're about a hundred-two hundred pounds heavier than we ought to be, due to the extra soul on board."

"Yeah it honestly sounds pretty unlikely, I realize. Uh. I guess if you can tell you're heavier than you were yesterday that'll at least prove I just got here so I'm not a normal stowaway? Sorry if I'm, uh, causing problems with the weight. I didn't mean – I already said that."

She twines her fingers together fidgetily.

"I can, uh, swab the deck or something? If that helps. ...That's probably a different question than the weight. Sorry."

"The weight is not the concern. If you weighed a couple of tons it might have been. I am really quite upset right now and trying to stay calm."

"...Yeah now I get why we're doing a weight check. Uh. Hi. You think she maybe fell on us, Captain?"

"Sorry. ...Iiii'll just shut up now until you tell me what to do. sorry."

Fidget.

"Hey now, no need to be afraid. We're not gonna hurt you." She glances at the captain in slight annoyance and pats their guest on the shoulder. "I'm Walta, that's Captain Vauners."

She relaxes, fractionally. Tries to smile. It sort of works.

"Lilith.

Thanks."

"That's the ticket. Just try to relax until we finish the weight check. We all take a deep breath and deal with this reasonably."

The captain gives a slight huff. "Right. Elevator to neutral. Engines to idle. Make pumps for 1 bar... I'll fetch the logbook..." They know their ship's business, apparently.

It will be a few minutes running this check.

She closes her eyes and tries to relax.

Breathe. Breathe. It's gonna be okay.

Awkward as hell.

But she's gonna get through it. It's gonna be okay.

Breathe.

"...We are a bit over weight. Not a stowaway, technically, then. Huh. So you just... Landed here?"

"Yeah. Appeared, not, like, dropped from above. In the greenhouse. I didn't mess with anything.

The guy told me it would send me to another world. I, uh, didn't really think about what it would mean to show up somewhere at random. ...sorry about that.

Allegedly I can do the same thing for other people too now, but I haven't tried it. Well. Tried sending myself on once I realized I was on a ship, but that didn't work."

"Do... Wait another world? Do you mean another planet or another universe?"

"And do you need anything? Food, water, a bed?"

"...That's. A good question. I didn't stop to ask.

Idiomatically I'd expect him to say planet if he meant planet, but he was probably from another world, so maybe I shouldn't count on that.

Does it matter? I don't know of a good way to test it...

I don't need any of those things immediately, but my species does need food and water and sleep regularly. Are there kinds of people here that don't? You two look human to me."

"Humans are... The only sentient species we know of. Have you heard of the Stargate? There used to be tech to cross between planets. If you haven't heard of it, you're probably from a different universe, which is a rather incredulous idea."

"I have indeed not heard of it. We've managed to send people on short trips to our moon, and robots one-way to one other planet in our solar system, and probes on flybys near the other planets in the system, but nothing like – colonization.

And... honestly they both sound equally magic to me. FTL is supposed to be theoretically impossible, like reversing entropy.

...Can you reverse entropy. That would be so cool. ...No pun intended."

"I don't actually know. The Stargate broke and nobody has come from Earth or the rest of the galaxy in a century. There are still a few old men alive who saw it working, once, but not for much longer."

"Wait a minute you mentioned magic do you have magic?"

"Just what brought me here. And as far as I know, the only thing I can do with it is send other people off to random worlds. And share it, those go together. Allegedly."

"...You know that would have been really appealing about two years ago. Before I started the whole apprenticeship thing with Captain Vauners. Ah well."

She makes a face that's almost like a smile. "Sorry."

"Hey now, that's the past. So, what lies in the future, o Captain?"

"We're probably going to let you off at a nearby port. Your getting here was an accident, but I still don't want to support a non-paying passenger forever. I suppose if you know tech, or have tech, then it might be a different story...?"

"I don't know what your tech level is. I'm not an engineer but I have a background level kind of knowledge of some stuff, like, cultural osmosis..." She goes through her pockets. "...I have a cell phone? There's no service here - uh, it normally connects to a wireless communications network - probably not all that useful, dunno if it's even all that reverse-engineerable, all that miniaturization - I probably should turn this off, actually, save the battery - unless you want to look at it?" She hands it over.

"If it's one of the kinds with a computer in it, that could be worth quite a lot, actually. Treasure hunting is a thing, we still find stuff left over from the good old days a fair bit. I'll take a look and give it back later."

"Should I go finish working on the starboard elevator now, boss?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, yes. And then I'll come check it and that will be all for today until your watch at the helm."

"Sure. I'll talk to you later, Lilith?"

"It has a computer chip in it, yes."

She nods to Walta. "Talk to you later."

"We do have electricity. And I have some practice working with lost technology. I can probably figure out how to charge it, at minimum."

"All right. Probably gonna take me a bit to get the sense of where your tech level's at, but." She shrugs.

"Thanks for, uh, being so accommodating. And I'm also willing to do chores or something, if there's anything for me to do."

"I will take you up on that. Anyone can use a broom. Do you know how to cook? How does helping to water the plants sound?"

"I have ever used a stove. And a broom, and a watering can. ...I'd need to be shown around on the last one, I don't know how to tell how much water different kinds of plants need."

"Yeah, I can show you. Not while I'm at the helm though. Oh, and, please don't go into the cargo bay or machinery areas."

"All right. Is it obvious which places those are? ...is the cargo bay the place I came through when I took the stairs down from the greenhouse? It looked kind of storage-y. I didn't touch anything."

"Ah, that's the gas chamber. It holds all our hydrogen balloons. Need to keep in the air somehow, right?"

"...huh. I'm used to balloon-based airships having just one big balloon with everything else slung underneath it. That doesn't make the ship top-heavy and tip over? ...I guess if you have a greenhouse that really has to be on top, though, huh.

Iii should stop keeping you from flying the ship."

"I can chat. Look around, we're not about to hit anything."

He is glancing over dials and gauges and writing things in a little book every once in a while though.

"All right, I'll trust you to tell me to shut up if you suddenly need to concentrate.

She's a beautiful ship."

"If you're talking about the greenhouse, that was mostly Walta. And we keep the weight right by putting all the ballast dead at the bottom."

She thinks about this for a few seconds. "...Yeah, that makes sense."

"What's in the log book? Are wind currents stable enough that you can chart out reliable routes?"

"Air pressure, airspeed, bearing, and time. And fuel and weight estimation. It's getting harder to know exactly where everyone else is - only big towns have radio beacons anymore. But there's enough small farming villages in the upper altitudes that one is much like any other if you've a mind to visit a small farming village."

"Has the knowledge of how to build radios been lost? I think it has something to do with rapidly changing electrical current – moving electricity makes magnetism, moving magnetism makes electricity – something like that – this feels like the sort of thing you probably know if you can build a charger.

I have no particular opinion about small farming villages."

"Yep, we know radio, but it's expensive. Fancy metals like silicon are too rare and expensive and good solid Lost Tech tools get harder to find every year."

"Ah. Inconvenient."

Pause.

"I'm trying to think of ways to make beacons that don't involve metal... what kind of distances are you talking about here? Miles? Tens of miles?"

"Depends on what you want your radio beacon for. I think this is something to explore when I can devote full attention to it, though. And perhaps you ought to get to know what we do have in spades on Cloudbank."

"All right then, what is abundant around here?"

"Hydrogen. Water. Floatstone. Plants. Sunlight, at higher altitudes. I'm not sure what all is actually in surface smoke, but in some places they gather up dust from the great plumes that well up and get more raw material that way."

"Signal fires? Flags? ...no, those probably can't be made big enough before they tear off in the wind.

What's floatstone?"

"It's the stuff islands are made out of! It floats. Despite this, it is nowhere near as fragile as a balloon - some sort of crystalline structure with hydrogen. It's not tough like wood or metal, but it holds up well enough to most things. And it floats. It's what my ship's hull is made of, too, I don't need as much gas bag compared to the rest of the ship's size."

Some things click together.

"Floating islands? Like, floating in the air?"

"...Yes. Hold on..."

He pulls up a telescope from a hidden stand and adjusts it and points it. "Have a gander. Er, carefully."

She looks through the telescope. Carefully.

Yeah that sure looks like a floating island. It looks big enough for a smallish neighborhood, and there is at least one house there. Craggy rock that ends, plants, grass, and a few trees on top. A nest of jellyfish-things is hanging around near the underside of the island.

eeee this is so cool—

Kind of unsettling, too.

She steps back from the telescope. "Is there – ground – under us at all? Or is it just... sky, all the way down? ...I guess you said it's a planet, but is it a gas planet?"

"You can't go into the deeps. It's too hot down there, too much pressure. And acid. So up in the air is what we have to live with." He shrugs.

Yeah that's. A thing.

"Unsettling. On Earth you're almost always on solid ground.

I suppose I'll learn to adapt. Get used to it in time."

"I suppose it probably is unnerving. Fact of life, for us."

"You have a telescope... how expensive is glass? Mirrors? Signal mirrors could be pretty useful."

"Glass is cheap. Mirrors are a bit more pricey, but not too bad. Yeah, that's a decent idea. I think a few places do something like that. But it's not standardized at all, so it's not all that useful, so nobody does it, so there's no incentive to standardize..."

"Well, the most basic signal is 'I'm here', that doesn't take any coordination or setup. Maybe with moving mirrors an island could set up something like a lighthouse, shine a rotating beam in all directions... I'm not sure how to adapt that to three dimensions, though. Maybe something with a curved mirror...?"

"A lighthouse being a house with a very, very bright light? ...A curved mirror to fire it out in a narrow crescent wouldn't kill the range too much to be useful. If you can see it a mile or two out that's enough to avoid a collision."

"A lighthouse is – a tower, with a rotating spotlight. With a curved mirror, to shine out in a narrow cone, that moves around in a circle. So the light is concentrated enough to be visible, but can be seen from a lot of different angles. Trades off space and time, sort of.

I was thinking of reflected sunlight, for signal mirrors, but lighthouses are mostly useful at night. I guess you might want two different systems for day and night.

I'm not sure I'm visualizing what you have in mind by the crescent."

"A narrow cone could work well enough, too, I'll drop the crescent. Maybe they can sweep it up and down to catch other altitudes... Perhaps we'll suggest it to a town that looks like it could use a lighthouse."

"A cone is probably better for the two-dimensional case; the lighthouse was mostly just a metaphor. An ill-considered metaphor. in retrospect. If by crescent you meant something like a wide narrow arc, that could be better for the three-dimensional case at work here. I'm just not sure what arrangement of mirrors you'd use to get that. But I'm sure someone with more knowledge and expertise in optics than me could figure it out."

"Possibly. I mostly know shipcraft but I might be able to poke about with optics, too."

Nod.

"So where're we headed, anyway? I assume you haven't changed whatever plans you had before I showed up."

"We are headed to some random high-altitude farming village with a belly full of shinies. We will pick up lots of cheap food and then head back down towards towns and cities - probably Ernald's Dodge, weather is clear in that direction."

"...Well, now I'm wondering about the ecology of this place. I've just barely heard of a nitrogen cycle, but – if food tends to get exported from the high altitudes and imported to the low, which would make sense because of sunlight, how do the nutrients get back up to replenish the soil? Is someone running a freighter full of dung up from the lower levels?

Does your world irreversibly shrink a little every time someone throws anything overboard? Or off the edge of their island, I guess."

"Maybe we'll see a smog plume sooner or later. But these massive columns of dust and such from the surface get kicked up into the air and eventually settle over everything."

"...huh. So there's a cycle to it. All right.

That's good.

I wonder what I'm gonna do here. Do you think there's anything for an outworlder to do, the way there's people interested in my stuff? Scholars who'd want to ask me about stuff? That's probably not really a career, is it.

Maybe I can be a bookbinder. I bet you don't have a lot of industrial infrastructure around here. Tends to be large and heavy. And involve a— no, I suppose it can be made out of wood instead of metal. But still large and heavy."

"I mean, there is industry here and there. Glassmakers and things. Books are kind of expensive. There's always farming if you can't find something better."

"They would be, wouldn't they. All the more reason it needs doing. Maybe I can figure out how to build a printing press."

"Nah, there's printing presses. It's because paper's expensive."

"...oh. Well. Maybe I can make paper, then.

Or is the problem that all the arable farmland is used for food crops?"

"I'm not actually sure. Probably not all farmland is used optimally, anyway. Trees are rare enough that paper is hard, though. I think there was some kind of fake paper craze a while ago, made of plastic, but it was junk."

"Hm. I wonder if you could make paper out of the inedible parts of food crops. Stems and leaves and such. Might be already used as animal feed, I guess."

"That's an interesting idea. I'll do chemistry at it later, probably."

"I know how to make real paper. Plant fibers. Doing it with floatgrass leavings should be possible."

"...Floatgrass?"

"Where do you think we get our hydrogen? Floatgrass and other Cloudbank life makes it."

"Huh.

Well. That sounds useful. What are floatgrass leavings used for now? Feed, ballast, mulch... probably not ballast, grass isn't very dense I bet. Fuel for fires?"

"Feed, mulch. Fertilizer."

She nods. "Probably not gonna be a problem then, especially if people mulch old paper. ...I guess the economics probably aren't gonna work out for that, paper being too expensive to use for anything you're gonna throw out.

...uh. Where can I find the bathroom?"

"It's next to the galley - down this hall, right down the other hall, second door on the left."

"Thanks." She goes.

Now to see if she can figure out the alien facilities.

Not really alien, just kind of mediocre. The flush is weak. The sink spigot is some kind of glass, not metal. The toilet paper and toothbrushes and razors are all strange but recognizable. (That jar of paste might be toothpaste?)

Shit. Shaving. That's a thing. Right.

She really did not think this through.

She can probably get permission to borrow a razor. At least they have safety razors; she has no idea how to use a straight razor safely.

(She wonders, vaguely, what the toilet paper is made of.)

...there's no way she's gonna be able to continue her pills, is there.

Breathe. Breathe. She's gonna get through this. She's gonna figure something out. She's gonna get through.

She finishes, and washes her hands, and heads back to the bridge.

"Hi."

"Welcome back, o not-stowaway."

"I'm gonna wanna shave, in the mornings. Is it okay if I borrow a razor for that? Or is there some way I could get my own?"

"Ah... Huh. I will sell you a razor from our cargo at a reasonable price, to be paid when you sell that phone thing. Or if you ask Walta she might let you use hers."

"I think I'm gonna want my own in the long run, might as well be sooner than later."

"Well there you go. I think we're going to set down for the day soon. We'll clear out the spare cabin for you."

"Thanks."

"I'm not entirely happy with this situation but I expect neither are you, so there's no reason to be nasty about it."

"You've been very understanding."

"Don't get me wrong, I want you off my ship. But still, no reason to be nasty about it. And I bet Walta will be actively friendly and not just understanding. It's in her nature."

"Well. Thanks."

"I'll. Go find something to sweep."

"No need, not yet. Though if you have something to eat, I'd be glad if you made enough for three."

"Sure. I can do that."

She goes to investigate the kitchen.

It's a kitchen. There are counters, there are cabinets with plates and bowls and forks and things, there is a sink, and an oven and a stove that look like electric versions. Or something. There is a pantry and a big freezer - no fridge though. There are various raw foods, not much meat.

She's in the mood for comfort food right now. Potatoes, onions, cabbage, maybe some carrots... what is there in the way of spices? Salt, pepper, garlic?

Yes yes and yes - and a bunch of others besides.

Excellent.

The cabbage seems to be cooking slower than normal. She checks that the stove is on and at maximum heat; it is.

...Looks like this is gonna be a bit more of a stew than she was intending. She pulls out a couple of tomatoes, chops everything up into the pot, adds her spices and a little extra oil, puts on the lid, and waits for it to slowly stew. At, apparently, maximum heat.

She meant to leave the lid on, but she can't quite bring herself to stop stirring and checking every minute or two. She doesn't entirely understand or trust this stove.

...it'll probably turn out okay. Not her finest work, but the potatoes and cabbage are coming along and nothing's burning. That's good, right?

It smells nice.

Walta pops in at some point. "Aww, you're cooking for us! Sweet. Smells good. I've got to go tie the ship down though back in a few!"

...And disappears again.

She flashes Walta a smile.

She ladles the stew out into bowls. And grates a little of this hard cheese over each one, why not.

(The tomatoes didn't cook down as far as she'd hoped. Oh well.)

"Oh come on, Captain, that can wait until after we eat, it's just sitting there and I need to meet Lilith properly now."

Nick and Walta come in.

"How did you like the stove? Very light and efficient since it pulls waste steam from the boilers..."

She blinks. "Oh, that's why it cooked slower than I expected. That's clever, I like that. I think I'll get the hang of it."

"Hi," she adds.

"Anyway, I made a thing, I hope you like it." She sets out bowls and forks.

"Ah, stew. Simple. Classy. Easy to store leftovers."

Walta tastes it. "Yeah, not bad at all. Especially since neither of us had to cook it!"

Lilith laughs, a little. "I'm glad you like it."

"I can tell you gave even this quickly tossed together stew more thought than either of us do for cooking. We're both airheads. As in, our heads are always thinking about flying the ship."

Walta nods, smiling.

"Heh."

She should not be settling into a niche, here, he wants her off his ship, this is temporary.

Still, no reason not to fit comfortably as long as she's here. Right?

She turns to Walta. "I was gonna ask what you do all day, since you said about wanting to meet me properly. But I guess the captain –" she nods to him – "just answered that question."

"Yeah. This is actually a small ship - comparatively speaking. Only a hundred and twenty feet or so. Most ships are, like, two hundred feet long and sixty wide and high, but have at least ten crew. So it's a lot of work for just two of us. We can manage it because Nick is three quarters of a genius and built tons of automatic things."

"Three quarters of a genius. I like that. Just enough human left in you to talk to us regular folk, huh?"

"I'm not that smart. Just quite determined to find ways to make things work."

"If you say so.

Did he tell you we were talking about making paper out of floatgrass?"

"He mentioned. I think it will make bad paper. But bad, cheap paper will still sell."

"Fair enough. And there are uses for cheap paper. I wonder if there's a niche for newspapers..."

"That sounds like some paper you put news on. I'm assuming there's more to it?"

"Heh. A newspaper is a periodical, usually published daily but sometimes weekly or twice-daily, usually printed on cheap paper with cheap ink. Regular mass distribution of recent news.

The problem would be if you don't have the population density to support a lot of subscribers. You need a lot of people all interested in hearing the same news, and enough such news that they can't just hear it through the grapevine."

"Maybe a big city could support that. I doubt I'll go into the newspaper business myself though."

"Right, not you personally. Your world.

How big do your cities – how big do cities here get?"

"I think most have, like... Thirty thousand or so people? And even that supports itself through trading craft stuff for food and recycling everything. It's just so hard to get huge because getting enough water, moving things around the city, getting enough food all gets harder and harder."

"Huh. I'm pretty sure that's big enough to support a local newspaper."

She's kinda been dominating the conversation here, hasn't she. She tries to remember how small talk works.

"Anyway. Uh. What do you like to do in your spare time?" Is that too presuming, she wasn't invited here, but Walta said she wanted to get to know her, it's probably fine?

aaaah

"When I'm not learning cool things about mechanics and electricity, or relaxing in the greenhouse, I draw. I don't fancy that I'm much good at it."

"-You're better than most, though not a wonder of the art world," Nick interrupts.

"Thanks, boss. Well, I enjoy it. I did the name on the side of the ship. I guess you haven't seen that yet."

"I look forward to seeing it.

...after we land."

"We landed ten minutes ago! Just goes to show you what a fine ship and captain we have here that you didn't notice." She laughs. "I'll show you after dinner."

She relaxes fractionally. "Hah, right. You mentioned, didn't you.

I'd like that. Thanks."

"We'll all three go and gather floatgrass while we're down there. We're running a bit heavy because of the extra weight, need to make up for it."

Right. That's a thing.

She nods. "Sounds like a plan."

She's about done eating.

Nick and Walta finish up soon after. "It's not a huge concern and you're not putting us at risk, but I can't afford to forget to keep the ship running smoothly. That's literally a captain's job."

Nod. "Well. I'm happy to do what I can to help."

Does it look like they're going right out, or does she have time to wash the dishes first?

"I'll go get the bags."

Walta moves to help with the dishes. "Maybe I'll show you how to tend the greenhouse later? But that might be a waste if you're going to leave sooner or later."

"I think the captain's planning to kick me off at the next port. I was planning to help in the greenhouse, but if you think you'll lose more time teaching me than I can save you," she shrugs. "It's your call."

"Yeah. He probably is going to kick you off when we get down to a big city - not at the small farming village we wanna find, I don't think. But if I give you useful skills or knowledge that will probably help!"

"Yeah, that would help, wouldn't it. I'd be glad to learn."

"Yep, can't let you out into the wide world without a little help. Wouldn't be neighborly."

Gosh. She likes this girl.

There's not that many dishes. Between the two of them, they're soon done.

And then Walta goes to the rope room and shows Lilith how to use the safety harness. It's not that hard. There are plastic buckles and such. "There's a ladder, but better safe than sorry."

Lilith errs on the side of conscientious and thorough with the safety procedures. (She's tempted to pull the straps a bit tighter than necessary, but decides it's better not to improvise.)

"You nervous? I'd help you down, but there's not really room on the ladder for two. I'll give out slack slowly from up here?"

"I think I can handle it. Just, being careful."

Down they go, nice and easy. The ladder sways, there's a breeze. But she's not in any danger as the slightly snug rope reminds her.

Nice and easy. She might be a little slower than Walta, but soon enough they're on the ground.

The ground reassuringly declines to sway under her feet.

From here she can see The Grumpy Whale painted in red flowy cursive script all across the side of the ship. "I wanted to draw a picture too but Nick shot that down."

She laughs. "That's adorable. Did he name her? ...Do you guys have flying whales here. Is that a thing."

"Captain Vauners named her, yep! We have things they call whales. They probably have no resemblance to ocean whales."

"Are they big? That's the main thing I'd expect from anything named after ocean whales."

"They've been known to get mistaken for islands."

"That's amazing. Ocean whales... small islands, maybe.

What happens if you try to land on one?"

"Whalequake. It roars and shakes you off. Maybe tentacles help shoo you away too."

"That's so cool. And tentacles! Alien tentacle whale!

...We were gonna gather floatgrass, right."

"Yeah. And here's how you do it..."

Hold the special floatgrass bag over a big stand of the stuff. Whack the grass with a stick. Most of the ripe seeds come off just fine, don't let it float away! Simple.

It takes her a couple of fumbling tries to get the hang of it, but she manages not to spill any of the seeds.

Whack whack.

It's kind of meditative. She could keep doing this for a while. ...or until her bag fills up, that's a thing.

"And now we send the bag into the hold! It all floats up, we can process it later." She lets hers go into a hole that's been opened on the ship bottom, extending a thread up until it's inside and letting go.

Lilith follows suit, cautiously.

Is that it, or are there more bags to fill?

"We keep going until we run out of bags, or grass. It's not that hard work, though, so it's not bad."

"Yeah. It's kind of nice, actually."

Whack whack. She's gradually getting faster. ...almost spilled some, there. Slow down a bit.

Steady but efficient. A nice controlled pace. Whack whack whack.

Whack whack whack. Walta quietly sings a cheery little work song.

"Gather, hold, carry, fold, ev'ry thing to its place, cut and pull and shred and shake, island's bounty once you wake..."

She hums along after her breath, once she's picked up the tune. A few rounds later she has the words as well.

Another bag.

And another, and another, another, and-

Nick waves at them, carrying a basket full of wild potatoes and onions and berries and things. "You two want to help me fell and trim a tree? There's a nice tall birch here, it'd make good timbers for spares on our maneuvering fins."

"Sure, just lemme finish up this bag, it should only be a minute or two."

"Sure thing boss! Also wow, we filled like twenty bags. Good work."

"Thanks."

Right then. Are there... hatchets? Saws? She hasn't actually done this before.

Nick directs them! Ropes and hatchets and saws all three. They mostly de-branch it before even felling it. It takes a while, but with three people working on it, it's not too daunting a task.

Excellent. Saw saw.

Saw, saw, saw.

...

whoof. She might be starting to slow down.

saw. saw. saw. saw.

"You don't need to keep this up if you're tired. Take some of the seeds and go plant them around the island, perhaps? May as well, so someone else will have a tree to cut down later. You too if you want, Walta."

"Nah, I'm still good, I'll finish up with you."

"Thanks, I'll do that."

She takes a trowel and a handful of seeds, and goes off to do that.

(Still tired. But at least this is a job she can do sitting down. And not working to Walta's rhythm. Even though the tune's still stuck in her head.)

Nick and Walta both look tired too by the time they're done and the new timbers are loaded up. "We'd better all settle into sleep soon, I want to get moving again at sunrise."

Oh good.

She's a little slower up the ladder than she was on the way down.

...where's she sleeping again?

"Spare cabin. Had to convince him to put it in - so it mostly gets used to stash stuff. I'll clear it out for you."

"Thanks." She follows; she'll try to help if she can, but it's more important not to get in the way.

Moving boxes of things to the pantry, or to the leisure room, or to the cargo bay's many shelves - "Oh I still need to run all that grass through the processor." She sighs slightly. "I'll do it later."

Yep, she can help with some of those things.

And soon enough they're done. She bids Walta goodnight, shuts the door, and – after only a brief hesitation – strips for bed.

Zzz.

The bed is mediocre. The ship sways some, not rhythmically, shifting in breezes.

It's raining when she wakes up, and the wind is much stronger than yesterday. Not quite a storm but close.

She dresses in... the clothes she wore yesterday. They smell of sweat and grass and dirt. Sigh.

She heads to the bathroom, hand brushing self-consciously over her cheek.

Walta left a note outside her door. 

Hey. Just realized you probably don't have replacement clothes. Here are some - might not fit though. I unpacked a razor from the cargo like Nick mentioned, that's here too.

Also, there is an actual bath room that we also do laundry in. You can get to it by-

And there are brief directions.

Oh thank fuck.

Half an hour later she's clean and shaven and changed.

She goes to investigate breakfast. She doesn't remember how to make pancakes... are eggs scarce like meat? Butter?

There are clanking and tool sounds from the back section of the ship during this.

There are a few eggs. Butter is a 'no', but they must have something that takes butter's place? One of these oils?

Anything that still looks like oil is fine for frying things, but not for putting on toast. Margarine would work (that's made from vegetable oil or something, right?) but if they have that she hasn't found it yet.

There are few enough eggs that she probably shouldn't assume they're okay to use without asking.

Plan B it is: porridge. With raisins, ideally. And cinnamon. (Hopefully she'll be confident enough in this kitchen to do better tomorrow.)

Nick rolls through, half-asleep, and makes tea, taking hot water straight from a tap. "Oh, cooking again. Thanks. Back later."

And soon enough, there's porridge.

Assuming that clanking was Walta, she'll probably want to know breakfast is ready. (Lilith isn't allowed in the engine room, but she can stand in the doorway and talk, right?)

There she is, in the workshop, working with a... Metal thing. "Ah, good morning. Ya need anything?"

"Morning. I made porridge."

"Oh sweet. I was going to nom on fruit or something real quick after this, but porridge is much better."

She arranges tools back to their holding spots briefly. "I'll just go wash my hands then. And thanks!"

She grins. "No problem!"

And heads back to the kitchen to serve it out into bowls.

"Captain Vauners! Lilith made fooood if you want it!"

The response is too muffled to understand. "Sure thing!"

"I'll bring him a bowl when we're done... How are you, uh, coping?"

"..."

Wow, that's a question. That she had not considered.

"...I think I'm doing okay? It's kind of refreshing. A clean start. Like cold water, a shock to the system, you know? I was sort of... stagnating... and, well, adventure called and I jumped at the chance.

I think this might turn out to be just what I needed.

Or it might be one of those things where it feels great at first and then –" She makes a helpless gesture. "I don't really know what the thing is that happens. Run out of energy, maybe.

But right now, I feel good."

"Yeah. If it feels good now, keep going, right?" She looks nervous. "Stagnating. How do you tell you're stagnating?"

"It's... pretty obvious." But – that didn't sound like a question about Lilith. Hmm.

"I guess... Are you the same person you were a year ago, or five? Have you stopped getting enthusiastic about things? Did you give up on your dreams? Do you notice yourself forgetting what it was like to have dreams?

Does it feel like you're already dead?

...That was overly melodramatic, I think. It wasn't that – severe. But that's more or less the – the shape of it, if not quite to scale. If that makes sense."

"I don't think. Uh. It's not that bad for me. I think there's some of that. It's not quite the right thing though. I want something I can't have and it gets a little more bitter every day, I think. I still enjoy things here and I'm learning useful stuff and getting paid. It just... It's getting there, and I'm kind of worried about that. What I'll do when it does get there. You know?"

Nod. "Yeah.

...do you wanna talk about it?"

"Probably be good to get it off my chest. We hang out in towns sometimes, but it's not the same, somehow. Even though I only met you last night just the same."

...she can't tell if that's a yes or a no.

She nods. "Mm."

A thought occurs to her, belatedly. "I suppose I know something about wanting something one can't have," she adds softly.

"Yeah. I just... I guess I have to work up to saying it?"

She nods. And has some porridge.

Walta has some porridge too. With a few blueberries mixed in.

"...I want a romantic relationship with Captain Vauners. He, uh, doesn't. I actually, er, tried a couple of months ago. I wanted to run off in shame at the next port at first and I almost did but. I came back. And we've been pretending that didn't happen and went back to just sailing the ship and me learning things."

She winces a little, sympathetically. "Well. I'm glad I got to meet you, at least.

Is it your first – romantic disappointment? It does get better. And if you still get along – that's better than it could've been."

She smiles. "He is cute, isn't he?"

"It's the second time technically but the first doesn't really count? And he is, plus he's smart and actually kind underneath all the gruff."

She grins for a moment, before she remembers and her smile is sad again.

Sigh.

"When there's something I don't like and can't do anything about, I mostly try to avoid thinking about it. Not necessarily a good approach, but," shrug.

"Sorry I don't have better advice."

Porridge.

"I'l probably leave eventually. Find another ship maybe. It's just... Not sure when would be best, I guess. And talking about it helps, yeah?"

Smile. "Yeah.

One thing you might do is sort of, keep an ear out for places you might want to go next. See if anything catches your interest. It's easier to think about if you know where you're going to, not just going from."

"It can be hard to plan ahead more than a couple of weeks. You can't tell where were going next half the time. But, yeah. And thanks again for cooking. Should I show you around the greenhouse soon?"

Walta finishes her porridge and brings some for the captain.

"Sure. – Oh, and thanks for the change of clothes, I didn't even think of it till this morning."

She gives their bowls a quick rinse and leaves them in the sink; she can wash them properly later.

The captain wanders in a minute or two after Walta leaves. "I think it will actually be very easy to make a charger for your phone thing. Having an oscilloscope is occasionally useful. But there's a chance I'll just destroy it instead if I do it wrong - does that sound like a thing that happens regularly where you're from? Do you want to risk it given the alternative is to let the battery die forever?"

"...hmm. If you give it too much power that might fry it. It's not really common, it comes with a charger that connects to a standard power supply and gives it the right whatever, but I left that at home... I'm pretty sure it takes more power than you'd get from a potato, and starting low and ramping up should be safe.

I think you'd know better than I would whether the risk is worth it. It's useless anyway for its original primary purpose, and I don't know how valuable it is for reverse engineering versus for like games and music and stuff on it. Camera app.

...The more I think about it the more I think a charger is a good idea. It's – versatile, even without the network, and I think it'd be sad if that was lost."

"Starting with a trickle of power definitely works. It'll be fiddly. How long does it usually take to charge- It had a label for battery size, I can figure out how much power the charger should at most use."

"I'm not actually sure. I usually just leave it plugged in overnight... so, not more than like eight hours, I guess. Probably closer to one or two."

"Yeah, I can work with that. Especially for a finder's fee. Ten to twenty per cent is the usual range, how does fifteen sound?"

"That sounds reasonable enough. Sure."

"And now I have a vested interest in not setting your phone on fire."

She laughs. "Glad to hear it."

"Yeah. Oh and I poked around with chemistry some. My findings are that making something paper-ish out of floatgrass leavings will be more than a day's project."

"Makes sense. If it were easy, someone'd probably already be doing it." She shrugs. "Or maybe not, I dunno. Someone has to be the first to think of something."

"D'you know any chemistry? ...Well, I can get a gooey mass fine, might make decent clay-goo-stuff... Separating the fibers and bleaching them is going to be the annoying part."

"I... technically know any chemistry. But not enough to really do anything at all useful with. Unless the concept of the periodic table of elements is a major breakthrough for you. Which I doubt."

"I've heard of them! Do you have one? With all the missing information and implications we've forgotten, perhaps?"

"Ah...no. I might be able to sketch out a little bit, but... not all the crunchy details.

You've heard of molecules, atoms, molarity? Protons, neutrons, electrons?"

"Yes, for the most part. I don't know a lot about the specific compounds and reactions in most things, but the basic idea of balancing molars of things... There's a thing called a molar mass that we only have decent guesses for..."

"I don't recognize the term molar mass, and I only know a couple of molecles – water is one oxygen and two hydrogen; salt is chlorine and, uhh... sodium; organic molecules tend to be complex but sometimes contain a benzene ring which is six carbon in a loop... carbon likes to bond four times, oxygen twice... does any of this sound not like basic stuff that everyone knows? Aside from benzene. –Silicon bonds four times like carbon, it's right below it in the same column."

"It sounds like intermediate stuff that people who study it know. The bit about silicon is interesting. Hmm, alright, you don't need to keep trying if you don't want to."

"...maybe I should try to draw out what I can remember, then. Might not be anything new, but... if there is, could be worthwhile."

"Quite so. And for other sciences, as well, though it's hard to know where to start on any of this. Shall I fetch up paper and a charcoal stick for you then?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Nick arranges paper and a writing stick and the desk in the study-like room. "I should probably be working, but in half an hour I can come look over what you have and see what's most promising."

And she works.

(She ends up using both sides of the paper. Maybe she should have drawn the table smaller, to leave room in the margins? Oh well.)

Nick puzzles over her diagrams.

"...Noble gases are a thing, right. Huh, there's more than Helium? And I think water has angles but carbon dioxide - combustion and respiration byproduct, we know carbon dioxide - doesn't."

He nudges around the table some. "I'm going to need to do more experiments to make sure of things. I think your carbon row is off... This'll probably come in handy though."

"Definitely more noble gases than helium, yep. Whole column.

Entirely possible I made a mistake. I'd be surprised if carbon was in the wrong place, but I've been surprised before.

I'm glad I could help."

"This 'K' is some kind of reactive metal, isn't it? Hmm, I'll do some research and experiments later. If you want to help you're welcome to."

Nick will quiz her on astronomy, electricity, and some other things too if she'll tolerate it.

She will answer as best she can. She knows about as much about electricity as about chemistry, and even less about astronomy.

She's heard of electromagnetism, electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen (maybe too dangerous to try on the ship?), AC and DC, and vacuum tubes and transistors; but doesn't know how to make anything more sophisticated than an electromagnet and maybe a simple generator or voltaic pile. She's heard of parallax, redshift, and spectral lines; but hardly remembers any stars or constellations. She thinks aluminum comes from... probably feldspar... using electricity somehow? ...They probably don't have much feldspar on Cloudbank.

"No we do not. Ah well, it would be too much to ask for to get an aerospace engineer in our random world-hopping visitor."

"Sorry.

...I have a vague idea of the shape of the cross-section of an airplane wing, but heavier-than-air flight probably isn't workable without petroleum fuels, for energy density. Gasoline and stuff. We get that out of the ground.

I've... heard of biodiesel, but I have no idea how to make it, and you probably want to keep the farmland for food anyway... might be another floatgrass-leavings application, I guess. Still no idea how to actually make it, though."

"Floatgrass leavings aren't good for much because they're mostly inert plant strands. If they had more carbs, we'd make alcohol and we can burn that, if they had oils we could render it but they just don't. Goats and pigs and cows like them okay, chickens don't. Paper still might work though."

"Hm. Inconvenient.

I don't know how the energy density of alcohol compares to gasoline, but... I'd expect that planes would use alcohol as fuel if it was efficient, and I think they don't. Might still be possible, but weight is a big deal for heavier-than-air flight."

"Weight is a big deal for anything around here. We're used to low weight. Heavier-than-air flight might just be a 'no', though. We do use wings for maneuvering and such though."

"Net weight matters, but the theory behind heavy flight is that the right wing shape generates lift if you can maintain airspeed. So you need the wings and the engine and the fuel and everything to all weigh less than what the wings alone can support. A balloon would slow you down, too much drag. I don't think I've ever heard of a heavy plane as big as this ship. Airboats, not airships, if you will."

"And you'd need somewhere to take off from and land... And lots of expensive mechanical parts for light high-performance engines..."

"Yep. Lotsa metal in planes. Probably just not gonna work here."

"We're making do. Hmm, what else could be useful... Ooh, do you know how solar panels work?"

"Nnnnot in any detail. I think they involve silicon wafers? Maybe? And they're dark blue or black, with silvery lines – probably thin wires – in a grid sort of shape. I know there's a color threshold for the photoelectric effect, only the bluer frequencies work. That's only of theoretical interest, it works just fine in sunlight, but if that gives a clue to how things work."

"Hm. That's probably not enough to figure it out. Do you know if it's DC - it's probably DC. Hmmmmm. Never mind."

"Probably DC, yeah, but I don't actually know. Sorry.

I do know the photoelectric effect was discovered relatively late in the study of electricity, if that helps."

"Hmmmm... Well, I shouldn't monopolize your time and make you write out everything you remember."

"I don't really remember things in order, anyway. No matter how much I tried to write out, there'd still be something else I'd forgot but that could be brought out with the right question."

"Yeah, that's probably true. Walta's flying the ship for now so I have nothing to do, is all."

"Aha.

...I should wash the dishes, porridge gets gluey and hard to scrub if it's left. I can keep talking, though."

"I should teach you skills. You'll need them. Has Walta shown you how to work the greenhouse?"

"...yeah, I will. She has not. I think maybe we were gonna do that today?"

"Well if she's planning to do that later, I won't take it away from her. I'll show you some weather and navigation and other ship stuff instead. Won't make a captain of you in a day, but maybe enough that some other ship could take you on."

"Thanks. I'd like that."

So Nick helps with the dishes and then teaches her some things. He has books to read from and examples to give by metaphorically dragging her into the ship's innards. This is how to check ballast and lift balance and how to judge wind and this and the other thing...

...she's not gonna remember all of this.

She does at least manage to ask intelligent questions, though.

Nick is not particularly skilled as a teacher. And probably won't notice her not remembering all of it unless she says something. The questions get intelligent answers though!

"Is that—"

As she reaches to point, her hand brushes against Nick's.

There's a... sensation to it. Unfamiliar, but more than that; distinctly other. Like standing at a precipice, tasting the color of midnight, high and deep.

"—did you feel that?"

"Yes. Yes. Was that - your pushing magic?"

"...I don't know. It – felt like magic. You're still here, though, and when I got pushed it was instantaneous... I don't know."

"...You might have magic. This is an extremely promising opportunity. You should try it on something else. Not me."

She touches her hand. Nothing.

Touches her sleeve. Nothing.

Starts to reach out to touch the wall, and hesitates.

"...I'm not feeling anything. I'm gonna go look for meat in the kitchen to poke, and then try the greenhouse in case it's only living things.

Unless you have a better idea."

Nick hands her something random from his toolbelt - a hammer. "Try this first?"

She takes the hammer.

"Nothing."

"Hmm."

"...Kitchen then greenhouse it is. I'll fetch some stuff to try too. And maybe it's just... Slow?"

"...Maybe. But I've been touching my clothes all day."

Still, she puts a hand on her sleeve and leaves it there as she heads out to the kitchen.

"Obviously there's something missing, something strange going on. We just have to investigate."

"Agreed." And they part.

The meat does nothing.

The plants... almost feel like there's something there. Not like falling, but maybe like leaning, just a little.

Or maybe it's just her imagination? She tries poking and removing her hand repeatedly; no, she's pretty sure there's something different when she's touching the plant than when she isn't.

Maybe it's slow. She holds the leaf and pays attention to the sensation. Does it change noticeably over time?

...not before Nick or Walta shows up, anyway.

After a few minutes Nick comes back with a variety of tools, mechanical bits and bobs, a section of rope, and similar things. "Some more stuff for you to try."

She turns to face him, one hand still holding the leaf.

"Thanks. I think I can feel something with the plants, but it's not really clear. Do you wanna try?"

She starts going through the miscellaneous objects with her free hand. (Nothing seems to happen, but she'll try again later when she's not still touching the plant.)

"Try... What, exactly? To do it myself?"

"Uh. Touching a plant, I guess?"

...Nick touches a plant skeptically. Nothing seems to happen.

"Can you feel anything? It's pretty subtle, for me, I had to touch and let go a couple of times to be sure I wasn't imagining it."

"I'm... Not sure. I don't think so. Wouldn't it be you who can do it if anyone?"

"I don't know how it works! Maybe it is just me. But there isn't magic where I came from, and I got it somehow... maybe it only happens once you get pushed? I guess there's not really a good way to test that."

...Nick touches the plant again, looking nervous. "Maybe there's something." Shiver.

"...you don't have to if you don't want to. It might be helpful, but – if you really hate it –"

(Her own plant still feels the same as ever.)

"I am afraid of it. I don't know the rules and I am not a curious scientist is endlessly excited to poke, poke, poke at something that might turn out to be dangerous."

"...fair enough.

I don't think this is doing anything, or else it's too slow for me to notice any progress."

...hmm. Can she try to push the plant, magically? Send it to another world? ...no, apparently not.

"Was there anything else we were going to try?"

"Whatever this is there's a reasonable possibility that it takes a while. To go into effect, to show once it's done..."

"I guess. I just..."

Even having more or less decided to, she still doesn't quite want to let go of the plant.

"This feels – like the same flavor as the other thing earlier, if that makes sense. Like only just being able to hear something, where you can tell it's there but can't make it out. This is – the other thing was –"

– falling, turning, darkness and silence, vibration and warmth, a silver ringing –

Her voice is soft. "– beautiful."

This makes him grimace again. "...Well, that weird feeling... If I touch Walta's hand, after telling her about this of course, and she feels it too... I probably got whatever you got. I don't like this but it's not being immediately hazardous at least."

"Oooh. That's a good test.

But yes, informed consent, ethics, very important.

Thanks."

"And looking at it the other way, if it turns out to be harmless, this is liable to be profitable somehow."

"Yes. I can't imagine it wouldn't be, magic – comparative advantage! There's got to be something."

"So, yes, I think I will ignore my discomfiture and go up front and explain. Be back in a few minutes."

He's back in a few minutes. "It happened again. She felt it too. Very abstract sort of feeling isn't it? She said it was 'like touching a star'."

She smiles. "It is. What a great phrase for it. Tall night and the burning heart –"

– roots, stone, mountain, drums, the endless sea –

– she blinks. "...was I... out of it, just now? It's... huh.

It's a very strong – idea."

"At the risk of being a broken recording, I'm not entirely sure I like the idea. Or at least the strength it came on with. Here's hoping for the best."

"Here's hoping."

"Any change so far? It really could take hours to. Do anything. That might be what we ought to do - not worry about it for hours and move on for now."

"I don't think I can feel any difference. And, yeah, moving on sounds like a good idea."

"Yep. So, I'll show you around the greenhouse?"

"Yeah."

Conveniently, they are already in the greenhouse. She is attentive and repeats things back to him in different words.

Nick is much more knowledgable about the watering systems than the actual plants.

"I'm especially proud of how I can send turbine backflow up here, and to the kitchen. Lots of delicious, useful warmth basically for free as long as we're running the engines anyway."

"Very efficient.

How much manual oversight does the watering system need? Do I have to know how much water each plant wants, or is that handled automatically?"

"You have to know how much they each want. I've been meaning to do a - drainage type thing so it just drains away if you give them too much, or an automatic waterer, but none of my attempts work very well."

Nod. "Hm. I've heard of – sprinkle hoses, for watering slowly, I think they're made of a sort of spongy material maybe? You might be able to get it down to 'turn on the water for a certain amount of time' with different plants being watered at different rates. Or maybe you already tried that and it didn't work."

"The timing part is the hard part. I do not have anything resembling an actually accurate clock. Also I haven't put that much effort into this, if the plants are suboptimally watered, so it goes. Ah, a few more tomatoes are ripe today! Good stuff." He starts picking them.

"Oh, nice, I'll have to use those. Sandwiches for lunch, d'you think?"

"Sure, why not. Hmm... Well, perhaps if I use a level meter... But the ship's sway would throw that off..." Nick is now thinking about tinkering with the watering system, apparently.

"Wound springs? ...might be too expensive, with the price of metal.

Maybe you could do something with measuring the level of the water in a reservoir tank, so you're measuring out an amount of water, regardless of how long it takes... oh. That's what you meant by a level meter, isn't it.

Maybe a tank with a narrow taper near the level you're trying to measure? So any slosh stays in the lower tank, mostly."

"That has possibilities! But it would be limited to a fixed set of lengths. Maybe a small secondary tank that fills from the main tanks and then is fed to the sprinkers a set number of times. Still rough, but potentially workable."

"Yeah, that could work. And with two or three tanks of different sizes, you could get pretty precise with not too many refills."

"It'll turn into a bit of a valve nightmare, but I bet I can keep that down."

Tomatoes are picked. They head back downstairs.

It's getting to be time for lunch. Lilith plans out sandwiches. Tomatoes, hummus, olives, a little salt, spinach...

She needs a protein. Which reminds her – "By the way, how scarce are eggs? Should I be treating them like meat?" (Eggs probably wouldn't go well on this, but he's here and she remembered that she wanted to ask.)

"No, eggs are fine. I can get eggs pretty cheap. They just don't freeze well and go bad relatively easy so I don't keep a lot at once."

"Excellent. I assume milk's the same way, then?" She can make two kinds of sandwiches. Egg salad and tomato-hummus, on toast. (The hot-water stove can make toast, right? She doesn't actually know how much heat that takes.)

"Yep. If you're worrying about protein, roya beans are good for that. They're the small brown ones. I appreciate your cooking."

She grins. "Thanks." (he likes her cooking! – down, girl.)

"I don't think I'm familiar with roya beans, at least by that name; I'll probably make them for dinner, so I can get an idea of what they're like, how to use them.

...ooh, I bet cheese is a good protein, keeps better than milk. I love cheese." Is there a cheese here that will go well in the tomato-hummus sandwiches? She bets there is, it's such a well-stocked kitchen.

"I'll fetch and crack open one of the waxed wheels in my hold, why not. We just have to make sure to use it all in the next few days."

He goes to do just that.

...huh. Okay then.

She's just finishing up the egg salad when he gets back.

Behold: cheese. A solid, heavy wheel of it half the size of a head, covered in wax. Nick peels away the wax coating. Looks like something analogous to cheddar.

"The ways of cooking are mysterious... I bet Walta is getting bored up at the helm. Want to help us set down somewhere so we can do a nice, extended lunch?"

"Sure." Time to see how much she remembers, she guesses.

...she'll probably want to check that she remembers stuff right before she tries to actually work any controls. Just in case.

"I'll have you work with Walta while I actually go out with the ropes." Nick leads her to the bridge at the front and explains the plan.

"Been having a good morning? Alright, let's slow down and show off how steady we can be for the captain. How about you take the rudder control... Pushing left will actually turn us left, it's not flipped like some ships, but be gentle about it or we'll try to roll. I'll handle elevators and ballast."

Okay. She can do this. Probably.

"All right. You gonna tell me which way to go, or am I looking out the window to figure it out?"

don't panic, she's got this, it's okay, calm calm calm not gonna crash the ship it's gonna be okay she's gonna be okay. okay. okay.

"I'll tell you, don't worry. It's just easier to keep things steady if we break it up a bit. We're aiming for that one," she points, "It's nice and flat and there's a knobbly area to tie the ropes to. You know how to use the compass, I think I showed you yesterday. So, come left gently to a bearing of... One seventy five. I'm adjusting the elevators to one degree down and turning on the forward gas pumps."

It's much easier to stay calm once she's actually doing it. She can do this, she has got it. "Left to one seven five, check."

The ship starts to turn.

(she's doing it! she's really doing it! this is so cool)

"Good, good. Nice and easy does it..." Walta doesn't seem to think it's so cool, she's calm and professional as she carefully guides them in toward the island. 

"...One seven seven. Engines are spinning down from one quarter to dead slow now, it'll get less sensitive..."

Holding steady above the island as Nick runs around below, tying ropes to convenient perches, is a challenge in itself. But soon enough he give them a thumbs up from below. Walta cuts the engines entirely and gives Lilith a grin and a high-five. "It was dodgy for a moment with that crosswind, but I think we did good! Nick was testing me as much as you with this, usually he pilots while I do the ropes. I'm maturing from scrubbie seed to a pilot stem, eventually I'll bloom as a full captain."

High five! "Congratulations, then."

(She feels a little wobbly, with the adrenaline draining out of her system, but she mostly manages not to let it show.)

And presently: picnic sandwiches!

"What's the deal with the - weird feeling thing Nick talked about earlier? You figure that out at all yet?"

"Not really. There might be a thing when I touch the plants, but it's pretty subtle and I'm only mostly sure I'm not imagining it."

"I don't think you're imagining it. I think there's something more to the world, that's obvious enough, you're here. So why not more more?"

"Oh, sure, I agree it's plausible. But... it happened when I was looking for something to happen, and the thing you've felt was –"

– swaying, upside down, vastness abovebelow –

"– much more overt. That wasn't imagined. The plant feeling... I don't think I'm imagining it. But if I did imagine something, it might be kind of like that. ...Am I making any sense?"

"...Sounds like drugs, honestly. I have some experience with drugs. Not, uh, personally, but..."

"...It does, doesn't it. I hadn't thought of that." She looks down at her hands. "Do you have enough experience to – know how to tell if there's a problem?"

"I think so. If you find yourself thinking about it too much, or making big sacrifices to try and get more, or being a less pleasant person when you don't have it, that's when you're really in trouble. I don't think it's like drugs. Unless this repeats. It just kind of sounds like it."

"All right. I'll – try to keep an eye on it, I guess.

Thanks."

Sandwiches.

Sandwiches. "I'd only worry if it happens again. We can imagine all the cool things magic might do for now and worry about the rest later."

Grin. "Yeah." (Magic!)

– lucid blue, tall among the sky, heart of glass and vine, strawberry roots deep below, a warm resonant hum –

Lilith fails to notice herself staring off into space.

Walta might be lost in thought too? She's humming something. Slower and more thoughtful than the work song from earlier.

– the sky above, the sky below, hearts of earth adrift, the vast untouchable ground beneath –

– the solidity of the island, the touch of the wind, the texture of her clothes, the sound of her heartbeat, the shape of her eyeballs –

– her heartbeat. her hands. the texture of the grass through the blanket. her breath. the blanket's soft fibers, twisted and woven around each other, over and under and through –

The blanket ripples slightly under her fingers.

Suddenly Walta shakes her head, ending her reverie. "I mean I think it's a safe bet that whatever this is it's slow? We can let it lie for a day or two, pay attention, see if we notice anything out of the ordinary."

She takes a second for her eyes to focus again, momentarily disoriented as she's pulled back to reality.

"yeah.

Sounds like a plan."

She looks around at the picnic things. They seem to be mostly finished. She takes the last few bites of her sandwich, and starts to see about cleaning up.

"I can get all this, you don't have to. Cap'n is the one who's going all, grrr, get some use out of her."

"I mean. I like being useful. So it's not just him, it's me too."