“Yes,” Dr. Brand said.
“How does it work? There are no keyboards. Is there a screen?”
The captain answered, “The surface can become either, if you wish. But typically we issue commands to the computer via touch and neural instruction.”
“You mean through thinking?” David said.
Reese joined them at the circular table as Sagal called up a display in the surface that showed a diagram of the ship. There were tiny blips in the nose of the triangle that Reese realized must represent the eight of them in the bridge.
“It is done through thought, yes,” Dr. Brand said, coming to stand beside Reese. “Voice commands may also be used, but of course, not in English.” She said something in Imrian and the windows darkened, returning to blank metallic walls.
“The thought commands—how are they relayed to the computer?” David’s father asked.
“It is similar to the way we share consciousness. The computer surface,” Dr. Brand said, indicating the table, “receives our instructions via touch.”
“If I touch the table can I make it do something?” Reese asked, leaning over the image of the ship.
Sagal stepped toward her and she withdrew her hand. “I would not recommend it,” he said.
“It does require a certain amount of control,” Dr. Brand said. “I don’t believe your thought processes are focused enough yet. Most humans have quite chaotic thought patterns because they’re not accustomed to sharing them with others. But even our children, when they are young, do not have control over their thoughts, and until they learn that control, they use voice commands. A confused thought pattern simply won’t work.”
“How do they learn to control their thought patterns?” Reese asked.
“We teach them,” Dr. Brand said. “And we would like to teach you as well. That is the reason we’ve invited you here today. After we finish our tour I’ll bring you to meet the teacher who can show you how to use your adaptation.”
Despite her distrust of the Imria, Reese was intrigued. As they followed Dr. Brand out of the bridge for the rest of the tour, David brushed against her.
She caught Dr. Brand’s eye, and she realized that Dr. Brand knew she and David were communicating with each other. She moved away from David, feeling as if she had been caught passing notes in class. “Where are we going now?” she asked out loud.
“I thought you’d like to see our living quarters,” Dr. Brand said.
The third level of the ship, beyond the bridge, had the same general layout as the first floor: long corridors lit with white lights along the seams, punctuated by the two triangular atriums. Reese reached out and touched the walls curiously; they looked like steel but felt like a dense, slightly warm plastic. The doors they passed had tiny glowing codes above them in symbols that Reese could not read. She guessed they were Imrian letters and numbers. Dr. Brand stopped outside one of those doors and pressed her fingertip to a nearly hidden latch that caused the door to open with a whoosh.
Only a few of them at a time could enter the small room. When it was Reese’s turn, she was captivated by the design of the compact space. She wanted to explore it slowly and figure out how each tiny shelf or folding object worked. There were panels in the wall that expanded at the touch of a finger into what appeared to be a desk. There was a bunk that descended like a Murphy bed, but Dr. Brand demonstrated that it could also be made into a couch. On the wall opposite the door, a screen displayed a view of the boarded-up buildings outside. “All the screens are calibrated to show the view as if it were seen through a real window,” Dr. Brand said.
David’s father was asking about the camera systems—where they were mounted, why they couldn’t be seen on the outside of the ship—but Reese was more fascinated by the devices that emerged from the wall over the desk. There were numerous cubbyholes and drawers that slid out like puzzle pieces. David smiled at her as she ran her fingers along the wall, opening and closing bins and drawers. “Having fun?” he said.
“You could be so well organized in this place,” she said, and then colored slightly when she heard what she’d said.
He laughed. “You’re a little OCD, aren’t you?”
She made a face at him.
Afterward, Dr. Brand took them down to the dining hall on the first level. In the center of the room, a floor- to-ceiling-length cylinder made of perforated clear plastic was full of plant life. Dr. Brand explained that this cylinder was one of several that existed to help filter the air in the ship. It ran all the way up to the third level; on the second level it was in the center of a research lab; on the third it was in the captain’s quarters. All around the cylinder were curved dining tables with benches affixed to the floor. Along one wall was a serving table that resembled a cafeteria-style buffet. There was no food laid out, but at one end Reese saw a coffee urn and a stack of cups, along with a sugar bowl and a carafe of what had to be cream.
“You drink coffee?” she said, surprised. It seemed so ordinary. She’d been expecting—or maybe hoping for—strange alien beverages.
Dr. Brand smiled. “I don’t, personally. It’s for our guests today. Would you like some?”
“Sure,” she said. The cups were a bit unusual—they were made of some kind of insulated plastic with ridged grips on the side rather than a handle—but the coffee tasted disappointingly normal.
Finally, Dr. Brand took them to the front of the triangular ship, directly below the bridge. When Reese stepped through the door at the end of the corridor, she understood that this was the whole point of the tour. The room was triangular in shape, and every wall was covered with a floor-to-ceiling screen like the ones that simulated windows, but these did not display the view. They were filled with graduated blue light, dark at the bottom and pale near the ceiling. It was like being in an aquarium. In the center of the room were three seats carved out of dark wood in a shape reminiscent of ocean waves, and the person who was seated in one of them rose when Reese and David entered.
“This is Eres Tilhar,” Dr. Brand said. “Eres is an
Eres was pale-skinned and had white hair cut close to the head, like a cap of feathers. At first Reese thought that Eres was male, but as Eres approached, Reese realized she couldn’t tell for sure. Eres wore a long dove-gray robe that looked like something a priest would wear, open down the front to reveal a suit similar to the captain’s, except in gray. There were no lines in Eres’s ageless face, but the gray eyes that studied Reese and David had a quality of experience that made it clear the teacher had not been born yesterday.
“Welcome,” Eres said. “Evelyn has told me so much about you.” Eres’s voice had the same slight accent that Akiya Deyir had; there was a softness on the
Eres reached out to take their hands. There was something commanding about the teacher’s gesture, and Reese could not refuse. When she touched Eres’s hand, all of Reese’s awareness seemed to sharpen, as if the lens of her own inner eye had focused. She inhaled in surprise as Eres’s consciousness directed what she could sense.
Eres’s mind was like a great oak tree, ancient and broad-reaching, and Reese understood that Eres had been alive for a long time. Centuries. Visions of time passing flitted through Reese’s mind: an ocean pulling grains of white sand away from an alien shore; wind scouring the surface of a mountain with stone the color of deep purple; roots burrowing through layer upon layer of moist, dark soil, shifting the earth with their slow, steady motion. And yet Reese did not feel overwhelmed by the vastness of Eres’s awareness; she felt safe. Eres was a strong pilot, and Reese would not become lost when Eres was guiding her.
It was instantly clear to Reese that she had barely scratched the surface of the adaptation that the Imria had given her. The connection she had with David was only in its infancy, and in order for her to understand how to use this ability, she had to allow Eres to teach her. There was no other way, and the simplicity of her decision was a relief.
Eres let her go gently, but Reese swayed on her feet as the contact ceased. The lingering trace of Eres’s touch still pulsed through her like a bright light. She saw things more clearly now. It was as if cobwebs she had never known existed had been swept from her brain. She watched a tremor pass through David’s body as Eres let go of his hand too.
