That, or you’re all here early because it’s Dr. R’s last shift on this rotation. Congratulations, my dear friend. Attention! Station alert level has been set to white!
The station is suffering dangerously high levels of glimmer, there are several active psionic threats, or there is another significant epistemic emergency. Turn off all glimmer probers. Seek psionic insulation. Psychics should report to the Mantis for mindbreaking.
Abby clutched at the armrests of her seat as the evac shuttle, still docked to the station, jolted with an explosion. Crates slammed against the wall. Lockers in the med bay, not yet bolted securely, wobbled and rattled in place, threatening to tip over. Everyone jounced in their seats, glasses and hats — many of them the insulated headgear the Mantes had passed out — clattered to the floor. She shrieked, though so did several others aboard.
The captain, still standing outside the airlocks, was shouting down the hall, voice weirdly distorted by the very strangeness of the air. It sounded sparkly. It looked too loud. Something about everything was just slightly off, as though two universes slipped and juddered against each other, sending flares of one reality through the other.
“815!” the captain hollered from the hall. “No, don’t treat them here, treat them in the shuttle med bay!”
Attention! Station alert level has been set to white!
The station is suffering dangerously high levels of glimmer, there are several active psionic threats, or there is another significant epistemic emergency. Turn off all glimmer probers. Seek psionic insulation. Psychics should report to the Mantis for mindbreaking.
“Mama, what’s–”
“Hush, baby,” her mother said, tucking Abby as close as she could across the safe distance between the flight chairs. It was at least enough for her mother to hug around her head, damping out the sound with one of her paws. “Hush. It just means things are going to feel really weird for a bit.”
From across the aisle, her father’s face, always so calm, crinkled into a smile. “It’s alright, little Soot. The boom was just the prober going, which means that things will level out.”
She nodded, watching as the captain chased the last of the paramedics aboard and dashed up to the cockpit. Her father’s explanation soothed her in a way her mother’s reassurances didn’t. They worked together to settle her nerves, each coming from two different angles.
“We’re still leaving, though?”
He nodded. “They’ll have the advanced crew come through and get everything all straightened up, not us everyday ordinary chumps,” he said, a chuckle rumbling beneath his words. “We couldn’t get drainers done in time. Safest to just head out.”
“Okay,” she said, doing her best to embody that confidence. Settling back in her seat and tugging away from her mother’s awkward embrace, Abby ran a paw through the unruly mop of white headfur — the only break in the otherwise all black coat she’d had since birth — to try and straighten it.
“Abigail?! Where’s your hat? Where’s the–”
Attention! Station alert level has been set to—
There was no discontinuity.
That was the worst part, they would often think when they woke from yet another nightmare of that day a decade and a half ago. There was no discontinuity. There should have been some break in their — or her, as they thought of themselves back then — perception of time, some blacking out, some fading to white that presaged the shift.
There had not even been a perceivable decrease in the unnerving tang of glimmer in the air.
She had been there, sitting in her flight chair, running her paw through her headfur, just this twelve-year-old mouse her dad always called ‘little Soot’, and then she was at the cockpit in a wildly different body, sitting in front of unfamiliar controls.
She/he/this body cried out in shock and agony, for the captain, whose body she now inhabited, had been well and truly singed by the explosion of the prober, to the point where the CMO, the young and kindly Dr. R, was caught in the act of slathering ointment on the side of her/his/this body’s face. They both — these two bodies no longer inhabited by the correct minds — stared at each other in shock and horror.
“No no no–” Dr. R/not Dr. R was saying.
Abby/the captain/this body wailed and clutched at the console, mashing buttons in a panicked attempt to find something, anything solid and known, something to anchor herself/himself/this body. The shuttle slewed sideways, back in toward the station and away from the FTL jump point.
None of the rest of that otherwise prosaic afternoon made it into their dream. It always ended in silence, a warm rush of air to the face that blended seamlessly into the move into wakefulness.
The dream clung to Soot like the whispers of spiderwebs caught in fur, little streaks of memory that would tickle a whisker here, the rounded rim of an ear there. Days like these, more than most, the long-healed scar of their reconstructed muzzle would itch and the lisp that came with it, one they bore proudly, would be all the more pronounced.
They would make their way through the day with all the same practiced ease as ever, and yet just below the surface, simmering uncomfortably, would be the dream. There, just beneath their skin, would be–
“Captain on deck,” the automated system announced as soon as their ID was recognized. The faint chime that followed, a thing doubtless engineered to sound soothing and reassuring, always sounded inquisitive, as though the station was curious to hear their thoughts on the matter.
“Yes, yes,” they muttered under their breath, though with their lisp, with the dream still dogging them, it came out a breathy yeth, yeth. “I’m here now.”
The seats in the board room were, thankfully, all full already — or had been, as the rest of the command staff rose to their feat. Soot waved them off with a smile. “Thit, thit. Thorry I’m late. Couldn’t dethide between the five identical outfit-th they give me,Sit, sit. Sorry I’m late. Couldn’t decide between the five identical outfits they give me,
” they said breezily. They let their expression warm into a lopsided smile — though all smiles are lopsided when only half of your snout works. “That, or you’re all here early becauthe it’th Dr. R’th last thift on thith rotathion. Congratulathionth, my dear friend.That, or you’re all here early because it’s Dr. R’s last shift on this rotation. Congratulations, my dear friend.
“
Applause around the room. Earnest applause, too, Soot was pleased to notice. Dr. R’s reputation as one of the kindest, most competent CMOs in the Delta sector was well-earned. The old man was positively beaming, the wrinkles on his face showing how truly, deeply he inhabited all his own smiles.
There were short speeches from all of the rest of command, all veterans. The head of security praised his efficiency in getting the crew back up and moving when they were injured. The chief justice praised his commitment to treating everyone, not just the ‘good ones’ on board. The logistics officer jokingly grumbled about just how much of a stickler he was about turning on suit coordinates, which so often degraded during cryosleep.
When attention finally turned to Soot, they smiled and stood, paws clasped behind their back, and said, “I’ve known Dr. R thinthe I wath a thild, and mutht thay that there are few who are ath cool under prethure ath he ith. I thertainly do my betht, but…well.I’ve known Dr. R since I was a child, and must say that there are few who are as cool under pressure as he is. I certainly do my best, but…well.
“
Chuckles around the table. Soot knew they had a bit of a temper.
“I will not thay ‘thank you for your thervithe to Nanotrathen’ or anything tho crathly capitalitht, but I will thay thank you for your thervithe to uth. We wouldn’t be quite ath whole ath we are without you.I will not say ‘thank you for your service to Nanotrasen’ or anything so crassly capitalist, but I will say thank you for your service to us. We wouldn’t be quite as whole as we are without you.
” They leaned forward and offered a paw to the old CMO to shake. “Earnethtly, thank you, Doctor. Congrat-th on being kicked up the ladder to Thentral.Earnestly, thank you, Doctor. Congrats on being kicked up the ladder to Central.
“
Applause around the table. An extra few boxes of donuts were set out, as well as an extra carafe of coffee for some and Kira’s Special for others — it would probably not be a great start to the shift if half of command was sick from caffeine poisoning.
After a few more minutes of amiable chatter and yet more handshakes, Soot called the rest of the meeting to order. It was simply a sharing of tasks for the day, a report on the status of the station as left by the previous shift (new windows outside evac indicating a meteor strike, grime and wrappers everywhere indicating a lack of a janitor, and so on).
They always kept such brief. There was little need for more bureaucracy, when many of them would also be dealing with paperwork throughout the day, and only a few of them found such enjoyable.
It was all part of their ethos, when they worked a command role such as this. They were a leader in some ways, yes, but they were most of all a support. They were an older sibling to the whole of the crew — or so they imagined, as they had been an only surviving child. One of the kind ones. One who might offer gentle ribbing, yes, but one who wanted nothing more than to see them succeed. Soot was one who helped buoy them up, helping engi with the thermo-electric generator here, helping med with chems there.
Of all the departments, though, they paid attention to epistemics, the department that tracked the intersection of anomalous events with this world, the one in which they inhabited. Trauma will ever do as it does, and they had no desire to ever let happen what had had happened to them so long ago, that accident that tore at their face and tore at their identity, leaving them ever in two, ever as Soot and Abby, command and kid. They’d credit it with being the driving motivation for who they were as Soot, and at the same time, they would credit it just as much for the childish immaturity that remained in their other self.
Not that they did not also love Abby.
It was just that now, ey was Soot. Soot had work to do. Soot was the one who got a job at Nanotrasen, had studied hard and passed all the qualifications, had wormed their way into the ranks of command.
Abby had her own work to do, and that was work of comfort and processing.
Thankfully, today, epistemics was well-staffed, and by some very bright researchers at that. Of note, the mystagogue was someone Soot trusted would be nearly as paranoid about glimmer as they were.
Such was not always the case, as they had found out so long ago.
Epistemics was itself a curious department. These two universes, slip-sliding against each other did so differently across space. When, it turns out, you are a corporation spanning the larger part of an arm of the galaxy, that has real, knock-on effects, for what worked in one location may not in another. Worse, this changed over time, rendering some research moot even from one shift to the next. You learn less about how best to make a universal micro-reactor fusion cell and more about how to most efficiently research micro-reactor fusion cells.
Other sectors even named it the science department rather than epistemics. They named the lead the Research Director rather than Mystagogue. They named the person in charge of investigating psionics users something far more plain that the Psionic Mantis.
The Delta sector, however, was something else. Here, the veil was far thinner. Here, whole religions sprung up around this very fact, to the point where many stations had a chaplain, as well.
Here, glimmer was a problem.
That simple measurement of the friction between planes, a number that started at zero and yet which had no upper bound, became a way to tell just how bad things might get because of that friction. At 500Ψ, auditory hallucinations became possible, as did seeing spectres of the dead. As glimmer climbed, so too did the effects. Those with psionics would succumb to headaches and nosebleeds, new psionics users would appear, and, as Soot had witnessed firsthand, wide-spread psionic chaos might ensue, such as the mass swapping of consciousnesses.
Several things might raise glimmer. Using psionics. Researching anomalies or artifacts. Glimmer mites and wisps, pests that they were. Even just running the glimmer prober, a device which conducted small-scale research within its shell, generating some of the knowledge required to accomplish tasks around the station, would up glimmer.
Soot, conservative as they were, instructed that the prober to be turned off at 300Ψ and that psionics users stop relying on their “powers” at 350Ψ except in case of an emergency.
(Command ethos: older sibling, wants to support the station)
(Glimmer keeps rising)
(Mantis critted, but revived, talks of hearing lots of mites)
(Throughout, memories of Abby, plurality becoming more evident)
(Finally, near the end of the shift, botanist caught trying to anchor a second prober, found by telegnosis)
(After shift, on shuttle, sits out in the common area rather than bridge to talk, Abby starts to take front, the usual moment of confusion, then talking with Dr. R)