FALAHA'S JOURNEY: A Spacegirl's Account in Three Movements

Episode #59

"Hair?" Father and Baro looked puzzled, when we all gathered in the Control Center after my emergency call. Again, no one detected any presence. Turned out it wasn't Father's mysterious support he had mentioned earlier either.

It certainly wasn't Baro's hair: he kept his ponytail inside the suit, and it had never been that radiantly white to begin with. Playing silly pranks didn't seem to be in his character either. Besides, the man was with Father all the time—they'd found plenty of usable suits and had been busy checking them. Those would be necessary for our people later.

Eyuran and I were somewhere halfway to the Control Center—this ship's data and plans in his Node came in handy—and this was where I saw that thing. Whoever or whatever it was, it didn't show itself to us anymore, and everything remained quiet. Bradoh was also fine, but Father asked Eyuran to bring the machine here to the Control Center. Our drones still hadn't found anything suspicious, though we used the full set this time.

"I'm sure it wasn't a Baal," I concluded my story.

"What makes you think so?" Father scratched his beard. He was wearing an old-style combat pressure suit. This model was discontinued more than two hundred and fifty years ago, and until today I'd only ever seen this one in pictures. The reason it still existed on Tjrnenagh was that the ship went on a long-term mission before major fleet inventory upgrades. Resource management and time had their own flows here for more than three hundred years, until they finally stopped. He never made it home.

"The hair structure. The Baali have wonderful manes, thick, slick and shiny, and heavy, and worth of envy. But that was on completely another level."

"You could tell from that far?" Ooh? Astonishment in Baro's voice? It was nice to see more emotions emerging from icy slumber.

I nodded. "I know quality when I see it. Of course, it doesn't mean that thing is friendly." I looked at Father. "Besides, have any of you seen a Baal with a mane long enough that it dragged on the floor? The longest I saw was somewhere near the length of Baro's hair."

Father nodded, agreeing.

Was something living in this ship or in the scrap of the Boneyard? Or was it specifically stalking us? Had it come here with Tjrnenagh? Father knew nothing about it, and so far we saw no traces of someone dwelling here; at least nothing pointed at the use of local objects, but we hadn't explored the whole ship in greater detail yet. Was it a recent guest? Was it dangerous? An unknown enemy? Biological or artificial? What were its strength? Did Shaamta know about this thing? Did he send it after us? After Tagai? But if it was evading Shaamta's eye, was this creature on the level of a Sangu? Was it the same being whose presence I noticed on our way to Tjrnenagh? And maybe Tagai actually knew something about this thing?

The Hair Incident was a mystery on its own. So after discussion we decided to treat it as something to watch out for, but not to do anything about yet and proceed with our work. The only change was not to separate and stay in full group.

A spy sent by Shaamta would be troublesome.

Father used Bradoh to power Tjrnenagh. Ship's Core was long gone and the exomachine now served as his Control Terminal to run and check the surviving systems. Because Bradoh was a DIVE system, its Core was powerful enough for this huge ship. Just as Father expected, Arcai Backup Systems remained in working condition, and Baro finally got some serious work to do to prepare the ship for takeoff. If a simulation dive proved successful, the first test was supposed to be a short dive in the Boneyard.

Bradoh's cockpit was open and Tagai silently observed us. Well, mostly me. Sometimes he would close his eyes, maybe even sleep, tired, but eventually his life was returning to him, and, with bruises healing, so did his regular appearance.