The Ice Warrior

Chapter 8

"You try. Careful, ship feel everything." Wir Eis said.

Having in mind that the connection was telepathic, Silv wasn't surprised by the warning, but she did feel a bit wary. She had never learned to fully control her emotions and was unsure of what might occur once she took over the controls.

She put her hands in the containers of green substance, trying to emulate the way she saw the alien doing it and was shocked how mushy and alive it felt. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before. The warm substance seemed to go through her pores, traveling through her whole body until reaching the brain.

The process wasn't painful, but it was very uncomfortable since the sensation was so unfamiliar to someone like Silv, who had never experienced anything similar to it.

There were goosebumps on her skin and a strange shivering sensation that traveled through her skin seeming to settle on her back never intending to go away, even after the other consciousness managed to enter her mind.

She expected to feel pain, but there was just the unfamiliarity of it all and Silv's fear of the unknown.

It didn't help that the texture of the green substance wasn't completely liquid but something in between that Silv was unfamiliar with. However, she could tell that whatever it might have been, the presence didn't mean her any harm.

Still, she could feel the ship's hesitation at the alien presence, and the strange creature that Silv must have been to the ship which was used to the extraterrestrial constitution.

Silv did her best to calm her mind and fill it with positive, encouraging thoughts that would ease the ship's mind. She remembered her grandmother's stories of approaching dangerous animals with caution, and she tried to do as her grandmother did, to go slowly and do her best to show her good intentions.

Since she was a child, Silv was fascinated with her grandmother's stories of pets that people used to keep and how strong of a bond they used to have. Ever since she heard the first story about Rose's dog, Rex, Silv wished that the possibility of owning a pet was still available in the world. Unfortunately for her, most of the pets who survived became wild and the connection was never reestablished.

However, while she was trying to connect with the sentient ship, Silv couldn't help but think that it was the same for the people from the past in trying to connect with their pets. It made her happy that she had the chance to feel something as unfamiliar as that, and it warmed her heart to see that the ship was accepting her, even though she was strange to it.

It could feel her emotions, see her thoughts, and the whole ship seemed to relax. Small hisses of air let out could be heard all around.

"She like you." Wir Eis said.

"She?" Silv asked.

"Evanescence," Silv added.

"Why did I say that?" She then asked.

"Ship name Evanescence." Wir Eis said.

It was such an odd realization for Silv that she was saying what the ship was thinking. With everything she had seen in her life, Silv thought nothing could shock her, but being in a telepathic connection with an alien ship was more terrifying and beautiful at the same time than anything she could have imagined.

Nevertheless, behind all the beauty of the complex organism that the ship was, she could feel the pain. The pain seemed to be in proportion with the ship's size and more than Silv's small heart could handle.

It was as if in the very soul of the ship was a hole left by the death of The Ice Warrior that was so big that Silv was unsure if any technology known to men would be able to fix it. More than that, it wasn't a mechanical malfunction that kept the ship grounded, but emotional pain and Silv was unsure if there was a cure for a broken heart anywhere in the universe.

While silently bidding the ship farewell, Silv slowly and cautiously pulled her hands out of the green substance, doing her best not to cause the ship any further pain.

"I am not sure if any technology can fix the problem. Evanescence isn't broken, she is heartbroken, and that's immensely worse and more difficult to fix." Silv said.

"Yes. But technology help. Maybe even bring home. Home doctor can cure heart." Wir Eis said.

What he was saying made sense to Silv. If they could boost the power of the mechanical parts of the ship, that could be enough to take them to their home planet, to a place where these problems were better understood and thus more easily fixed.

Still, it was confusing for Silv to see the ship as a living being that could be fixed with technology, it was an impossibility in her limited world. Thus, she decided to focus on what she did understand, the technical part of it all.

Living in the technologically advanced world, where one's life was dependent on technology most of the time, meant that everyone had to possess at least basic knowledge when it came to the mechanics of it all. Sometimes, even the soldiers were required to fix some of the smaller issues that occasionally arose.

Having grown up with Rose, helped as well. She always insisted that Silv had to know the technology inside and out. Depending completely on technology was considered to be idiocy by Rose and thus her granddaughter as well.

Of course, those beliefs were contained to their own home, since the government had different views of technology. It was close to religious devotion, although they knew better than anyone else how often the glitches happened and how costly they could be.

Still, with the fall of religion, there had to be something for people to put their faith in, and that is why the government put forward the miracle of technology. It was something they had full control over, and that way, they had complete control of people's lives as well. Something Silv only came to realize recently.

Shaking away the thoughts of home and trying to focus on the task at hand, Silv noticed that Wir Eis was looking at her intently.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Human odd. Face change a lot." He said.

She realized that he must have been talking about her facial expressions since they seemed to have none, and it wasn't surprising that he found it odd. Her mood had shifted many times since they reached the ship, and all the changes were noticeable on her face. That was the plight of humans, sometimes their emotions were written all over their faces, but other times they could hide behind the masks, the way Denis did.

"I was thinking, and my emotions were changing. Usually, when it comes to humans, our emotions are written on our faces." She explained.

Although Wir Eis didn't seem to fully understand her meaning, Silv decided to change the subject.

"Can I take a look at the mechanical parts of the ship, I mean the parts that are not alive?" Silv asked.

"Yes." Wir Eis said.

He led her towards the farther part of the control room, where a regular looking door led to what Silv would have described as an engine room although it wasn't anything like any engine rooms she had ever seen. There she lost herself in the intricate structure of the ship in utter delight for hours to come.