Gurglebuddies The meeting couldn't be about the rumours. They couldn't be true! Couldn't! He chewed a bit on his mouthpiece, floating in his room. The only sound the gurglegurgle of the oxygenated perflurocarbon he was breathing as his chest heaved it in and out. In his mind echoed the oath they had all sworn as pilots. The oath of their guild. /GUIDE YOUR SHIP HOME/. "I see you've finally joined us, Skalni." The commandant spoke to all, but to the uplift squirrel in particular. He was human and had been a pilot. At least until he'd converted back to air breathing almost a decade ago. Skalni wanted to chitter back something, anything. He'd been asleep, he'd been busy. /Anything/ that kept his mind off what the meeting might be about. But, as if reading his mind, the commandant motioned him through the screen to silence. The squirrel just nibbled more on his mouthpiece, liquid gurgling up and down the tube. "As you've all probably heard, the /Pegasus/ has been overdue. The latest courier just arrived from /Faint Hope/ confirming she'd failed to arrive as of a week ago." Skalni felt his heart skip a beat, the liquid curdling thick in his lungs. No--no-- "We do not abandon our brothers and sisters! I have the /Pegasus/ jump entry details from Sol jump station. Given that, I'm asking for volunteers for an attempted tracking." Even as Skalni pressed the /aye/ button on his keyboard with a shaking paw, a counter flashed in the top left corner of the screen. Seventeen. The current pilot complement at Sol. "We will guide our ship home. Always. We swear by that, we live by that, and, sometimes, we /die/ by that. A rescue ship is being prepared, minimal crew, extra supplies. Skalni Jacobson has volunteered, and as Meynar's last apprentice, he has first right. I thank you all for your offer, and will keep you informed." The light on Skalni's display changed from green to blue, indicating a private channel. "Skalni?" Yes--or at least Skalni tried to say that. The breathing liquid gurgled in his throat, but no sound came out. Something to distract him. Anything to distract him. He'd forgotten the electrodes for his throat so he could speak. Skalni fished around for them floating in the liquid he lived in, he found them still plugged into the sealed laptop. Meanwhile the Commandant continued: "This can't have been easy for you." Skalni stuck the electrodes onto his bare skin, the hair follicles removed during his conversion operation. "You don't have to do this. Yes, honour asks it, but, you have to ask yourself, /are you the best one for the job/?" The commandant looked through the screen, staring at him with all the power of command. "You have to be sure. Absolutely sure. For Meynar. For your ship, for your crew." Skalni closed his eyes, forcing back tears, gnawing down on his mouthpiece. He would be strong. He /had/ to be strong! "I--I'm sure, sir." "This is only your third trip. I know you have the right. I know you have an attachment, a feeling, a recent contact. That may help--" His eyes flashed open. "Sir--!" "Skalni, I know. I /had/ to ask. But--" "I will bring his ship home, sir." "I know you will. A crew is ready to take you to a shuttle for immediate launch. Good hunting." "Thank you, sir." The screen faded to black and Skalni just floated there. Pulling the electrodes from his throat, he pinched his eyes shut. Days of hearing the rumours, days of denying them. And now--now confirmation. He curled up in a ball, naked rat-like tail wrapped around him. He missed his squirrel tail, missed curling up in its warm fur. But, the tail was the price. The price of a pilot. A pilot had to be strong, always. Confident, always. And, always /certain/. But now, in private, Skalni let the walls he'd erected fall. Weeks of worry, of fear, all that he'd held back, burst out. The squirrel uplift sobbed, a silent wracking sadness that shook his body, that made the regular gurgle of his breathing liquid a shaken rattle. *** Throughout the long boost past Neptune's orbit, Skalni threw himself into preparation. He studied what was known of the /Pegasus'/ planned trip. Of her delta-V and facing before she jumped. He pulled up the list of other ships that had vanished over the past century, but nothing made sense. But then, jump didn't make sense. And, at night, the dreams, the memories, tore into him. Normally he could sleep just floating in the breathing fluid, the mouthpiece sitting loosely in his muzzle. He didn't need it, but it ensured fresher liquid. Now throughout every night he thrashed and turned, churning through the liquid, as memories tumbled through him. Memories of Meynar. He had to use the muzzle he'd only needed for actual jump to keep the mouthpiece in, and to keep from slamming into the walls of his fishbowl. Meeting Meynar for the first time after he'd passed the entrance exams to the Academy. The first time he'd seen Meynar, seen the heavy Clydesdale, Skalni had still been an airbreather. He'd stood before the bubble, and looked at the naked flesh of the horse inside. No mane, a stubby tail fragment. Sleek skin treated and modified to survive in the perfluorocarbon. Eyes the glistened behind implanted lenses. Hooves that were coated in plastic to keep from gradually rotting off. Hesitantly, palms wet with sweat, he'd reached up and touched the clear plastic, and Meynar had paddled over and put his palm on the other side. His eyes had been warm, welcoming, full of confidence, and full of respect for the young charge considering whether to take the final step of /conversion/. He remembered Meynar standing by the operating table wearing the heavy liquid filled helmet, holding the squirrel's hand in his own as the doctors put him under. To implant the spinal socket, to remove all his hair, his glorious hair, and to change his body in a thousand tiny ways. He remembered waking up, still connected to the heart/lung machine, submerged in his new world with Meynar floating beside him. He'd blinked, looked up with trusting eyes. The horse had held him tight against his chest, held him as the doctors turned off the machine and Skalni had taken his first breath in his new world. A last few bits of air curdled up his throat and out, as the thick and viscous perfluorocarbon had gurgled down. It had curdled through his throat like dense syrup. He'd gulped and gasped, mouth gaping like a fish, lungs screaming in pain as they fought to breathe. The coughing and gagging as he'd switched over. And, all the time, the warm clasp of Meynar helping him by just being there. It took four weeks for the ship to reach the jump point, even as he studied the long route to /Faint Hope/, and what instructions other pilots could give. *** "Pilot Skalni, /Gift Card's/ vector matches best known data for /Pegasus/. Will reach matching jump point in eight minutes, fifteen seconds. Acknowledge readiness." Skalni felt his breathing liquid gurgling in his throat, the electrodes stuck to his neck itching. "Pilot Skalni acknowledging. Than you, Captain. Am switching over to pilot mode, and keyboard acknowledgment." Skalni gave a last glance across his displays ship's systems and jump engine readiness. "My board shows all green. Will click to let you know when to begin extension." "Understood pilot. Good luck." "Thanks, Captain. Switching off." For whatever reason, a pilot's jump vision was obscured, blocked by metal. Even non-biological electrical currents. The larger the mass of metal, the higher the voltage or amperage, the more extreme the effect was. A complex system had been developed to minimize the visual obstruction and thus maximize the pilot's effectiveness. Skalni swam out of his quarters and down a short tunnel to a transparent bubble barely big enough for him. It wasn't plastic, but a natural resin blown into a bubble. The squirrel wiggled in through the lock and sealed it behind him, pulling it tight against natural rubber gaskets. Curling up, he grabbed the natural rubber muzzle strapping it on, and then switched on the tiny resin pump inside. It was electric, but ran off batteries developed from electric eels, and every wire in it was vat grown nervous tissue. It clicked and whirred, pumping Skalni's lungs full of breathing fluid, and then pumping them out. The pump wasn't needed normally, but given the heavy fluid, it kept the pilot from being distracted whilst piloting. The /gurglegurgle/ as it functioned annoyed some pilots, but relaxed Skalni. It had relaxed Meynar too. In fact Meynar had helped him get used to it, used to the rhythm as it gurgled, the pressure moving his lungs in and out-- No! Don't think of Meynar. Concentrate-- No! Not now. /Now/ he had to remember Meynar. Feel him, sense him. His soft flesh, his warm liquid breath, his gently confident touch, the unique modulations of his voice even through the electronics. Closing his eyes, Skalni saw the horse floating before him, eyes wide and kindly. His equine body radiating confidence. The squirrel opened his eyes, relaxing to the gentle /gurglegurgle/ of the pump. He reached behind and pulled out the /Plug/. Carved of bone, wound with more vat grown nervous fibre. Twisting and reaching around to the base of his spine, just above the scrawny remnants of his tail, Skalni felt and found the capped socket. He popped it open, the rubber hanging off a thin string, and then clicked the /Plug/ in. In his subconscious, in his body, handshaking protocols worked through their routines. When all was agreed, the data feeds from the ship were fed up through the slow organic cables and into his mind, forming a virtual overlay showing ship's status, jump drive status, crew readiness. Everything was green, but Skalni had expected nothing less. He thought a command, twitched his tail, and told the ship systems behind him that he was ready and in command. Another acknowledgement and he felt a gently jerk as the arms started extending, moving the Pilot out before his ship. The bubble rattled and shook, his breath gurgled in and out, and the universe spread out before him. The sky was black, the black of nothingness, but scattered, painted, covered with endless sprinkles of stars. Below him, to the stern, was the bright spark of Sol. Before him was the void, nothingness. No sentient life other than man, and what man had created, had ever been found. But man and his children dreamed. The bubble jerked to a stop. Silence, but for the gurgle of his breath. The ship was a kilometer behind, and turning he looked at his charge. It was a long quadruple spindle. In the front was his quarters, behind that the jump drive now spinning up. A long connecting structure and then the main body of the ship. Another long connecting structure and the drive section run only by computer, and visited only by the soon to die in the gravest of crisi. A countdown appeared on Skalni's virtual HUD. Three minutes till planned jump point. It wasn't an exact match for the /Pegasus/, it couldn't be. The planets had moved, stars had moved, tiny, /tiny/ changes, but still a difference. Too much--? Skalni felt Meynar's warm hand on his shoulder, heard the regular gurglegurgle of his breathing pump. It /would/ be close enough! The squirrel sent a mental command and the jump drive spun up to full readiness. Already fields of gravitational existence were focusing around him. Unlike early dreams the physics did not allow the generated field to pull the ship, but it existed. It had force, squeezing and compressing the pilot as it swirled around him. That was why the fluid breathing had to be adopted. Fluid filled lungs, ear canals, a heavy pump to force what he needed to breathe, all allowed him to survive the gravitational potentials twisting and building around him. Invisible fingers tugged and pulled at the squirrel's flesh, moving him gently in the fluid, pulling the resin of the bubble in towards the centre to crush him, only the geometry and atomic structure keeping it from smashing inwards. A countdown appeared, a chart of the ship's position, and a mark showing where it had to be. Fields built, pressures grew, only the unbalanced ones pulling and kneading the squirrel's flesh. Almost there. He felt Meynar's hands on his shoulders, massaging him as after his first jump. His breath gurgled, gurgle in, gurgle out, gurgle in, gurgle out. A steady certainty. Five seconds, four, three, two, one-- Skalni jerked, twitched, sent a mental command to leap into the void, into the translight vastness that nobody understood, not even the mathematicians. With his entire body he screamed out, liquid gurgling across his vocal cords, out through the pump. /JUMP/ *** Different species perceived jump space in different ways. Humans saw it as an endless desert, each point an oasis they had to slowly trot to. They could do incredibly long range jumps, but /oh/ so slowly. Deer uplifts saw jump as a series of clearings, and the void between a dense spiny forest they had to bound through to get to the next point of safety. Wolf uplifts saw it as a series of hunts. Each leap chasing prey and concluding with a pounce to the throat. Horses, Meynar, saw it as a plain covered with dense grass, each jump a mad dash from one oasis to another. And squirrels, flying squirrels-- Skalni felt jumpspace knit itself around him in all directions but one. Behind was a void, a nothingness, a blind spot that drew the eye, pulling the sanity into its nothingness. That was the ship. In all other directions were trees, mighty trees of near endless height. Below them a tangled bramble of thorns and sharp rocks, certain death. The nothingness between the stars. Each tree was different. A few, so very few, were the glorious inviting green of life. Most were dense dry pine, needles orange and brown. Worthless but as a resting spot. And a few, here there, were a bloody red, dripping poison sap from their leaves and needles that smoked and hissed onto the ground below. The sky was a uniform gray, an endless /sameness/ that extended forever and ever and ever. Skalni looked around, clinging to a branch that creaked and groaned beneath him, straining to support an immense weight. Long practice let the squirrel pilot ignore everything but the vibrant green. There, Wonderland, Humankinds first colony. He could feel the countless echoes of others along the path, ready to guide him. Bunching his legs, Skalni lept out of the safety of his tree, into the gray sky, out towards the first point. He remembered being young in Anderson City. Playing in the great air storage caverns with his siblings. He'd been so light then, gliding had been effortless in the lunar gravity. Now--now it was as though a thousand birds clung to him, a million burrish seeds, the weight of a thousand tonnes of starship and all her contents. With his will, more than with his muscles, he /yanked/ /Gift Card/ out of reality, into the dreams of jump, pulling its mass behind him, surrounded by the fields of gravity its spinning jumpdrive twisted around him. With it, dragging the mass, he flew. Well, not flew, dragged, pulled, tugged with all his will, plowing the combined mass through the mindswept realms of jump, towards Wonderland. The jump was easy, for so many had gone before. Even the brambles and thorns on the ground were thin, trampled under the imaging of countless other pilots. If Meynar had left spore here, it was lost amongst so many others. Skalni felt the faint gurgle of his breath, distant, to some an annoyance, but to Skalni an anchor to what was real. Gurgle in, gurgle out. His real body kept alive by biological mechanisms as the twisted gravitation fields of the jump generators pulled and squeezed his body, crushing it beyond what was right, squeezing and pulling, even as Skalni used that solidness to drag the ship along. Then he was there, Wunderland. Grabbing a brancy, he clung as it swayed and dipped beneath him. Skalni could feel the mass of the ship pushing against him, wanting him to go on, and he wanted to use that push, that mass, but where--? He looked quickly, trying to sense the echoes of a horse, running, galloping, joying in life. Out further and further from Sol. There? Yes! The memory showed the direction was right, and Skalni /leapt/. It was easier, the ship lighter, but only its movement made it seem so. The world behind was erased, wiped out of existence, swept into the blinding /nothingness/ of the ship. Skalni remembered his first jump as a passenger. The solid steel, the constant reality. And yet, in his mind, he could feel something tearing. Dreams fading away into mists as one was jerked awake. An aching of loss. An image flashed in his mind of a horse galloping through an endless desert, the next oasis fleeing further and further away the faster he ran-- No! Meynar was alive! Skalni shoved the dream back into the haunted depths of his subconscious, forcing himself to pull his ship as he flew. The jump was a bit longer this time, his glide lower and lower. His target was a huge pine, ancient, knotted, dry brown needles everywhere. He angled his flight a bit for a gap low in its foliage. Crashing through the leaves, Skalni felt his passage blowing more aside than would have been possible with his own form. The trunk slammed into him, and he clawed and scrabbled, grabbing hold. His breath gurgled loudly in his soul, and he climbed the tree, climbing higher and higher, dragging the ship up behind him. The tree bent, dipping closer and closer to the ground, whether from the mass Skalni was dragging, or from the absorption of its existence by the blindness behind him, the squirrel couldn't say. With the tree bending more and more, Skalni reached as high as he could go. Digging in with his muscles, he clung. The dry bark was scrabbling and tearing beneath him. His breath gurgling faster and faster in his real lungs as the simple biological muscles read his mental call for more. Even as the tree fell, he /leapt/. His direction wasn't as planned, wasn't as carefully plotted, but it felt /right/. Skalni had tried describing the feeling to other pilots, and they to him. Always they'd failed. And this jump, Skalni /knew/ was /right/. He could feel the ghost of Meynar leading the way. The trees grew thicker, more and more being red. The stench of the woods grew dark. It smelled of the dead, of decay, of long abandoned things best never brought into the light. At the next waypoint, another brown pine, Skalni climbed high, as high as he could. Instead of using the trunk, he leapt up from branch to branch, dragging the ship as high as he could. He knew he was getting close to the /Gulf/, a long stretch of poison and bramble. Meynar had described it to him after his return from his first round trip. To the horse it was a vast desert, full of treacherous gulleys and twisting gorges through sharp-edged rock, many of which ended leading nowhere, or led only to a cliff hanging over a vast bottomless nothingness. He heard his breath gurgling rapidly in and out of his thin body. Based on travel estimates he /should/ have plenty of breathing O2, but time in jumpspace was always subjective, unique to each individual. His body shivered a bit as he remembered that the crew of the /Gift Card/ was entirely volunteer. Getting as high as he could, Skalni leapt even higher, stretching out his gliding flaps as far as he could. He could see a rapidly fading see of brown replaced by blood-dripping red as far as the eye could see. A horse, Meynar, was better at longer jumps, at finding a difficult route. Skalni was faster, but-- The dream filled ether whistled along his flaps, the blindness of the shipmass behind him pulling and yanking, jerking his course here and there. Each change made him adjust his path, costing him height. And, it made his return point, where he had no choice but to turn back if he could not see a resting spot, come quicker than he planned. There! A brown splotch! Skalni angled toward it, falling lower and lower. The red reached up to him, clutching grabbing; he felt the ship behind him dragging through the brush, and just hoped the hull shielding was sufficient. His claws dug into the tree. He had it! It wasn't a neat landing, just a frantic grab for the dried bark, and a quick jump higher as he felt something reaching for him. He started climbing, the faint gurgling of his breath louder in his ears, and more frantic. He should be close--one more hop. This one had been close, he had to get all he could from this waypoint. He climbed higher and higher, the tree thinning, the weight of the ship heavy behind him. His claws slipped, somehow he got back his grip. If the ship got away from him--don't think of that. He gasped, his frantic gurgling loud in his ears, he could feel the muzzle in reality pinching painfully against his skin. He needed a break, just a short break--no, already the tree was starting to creak. Meynar? He sniffed the ether, smelling the scent, feeling the horse's presence. A strong echo, a flickering image of a rocky badlands, of a gorge, endless. Memories of a frantic desperate leap out over the emptiness-- Skalni shook his head. Had Meynar made it? There was nothing else. He was high enough now, he /could/ return. /Could/ ensure the crew behind him survived. /Guide your ship home/. But Meynar--there was no death echo, no scream, no panic cry. He'd felt them once during a jump, the death wail of a pilot. The squirrel couldn't help but shudder, the breathing fluid cold in his lungs. Maybe he should have volunteered to be a courier, have gills instead of modified lungs. There were never passengers, even though the ranges were greater. For whatever reason, when a liquidbreather guided his ship back, his passengers where changed, losing lungs, gaining gills, rejecting any attempt to modify them back. Sure, he was a liquidbreather, but he used lungs. Somehow that helped. Don't think of that now. Focus, damn it, /focus/! Was he imagining the lack of death? Dreaming? Hoping? But--Meynar hadn't made it to /Faint Hope/. But-- Skalni clenched all his muscles and pushed off as hard as he ever had, as high as he had ever gone. The ship dragged behind him, the liquid gurgled in and out of his lungs. Bellow him was a sea of red, endless, in all directions. He could still turn around--where was the brown? He couldn't see it, couldn't sense it. He was committed. He heard the desperate gurgling of Meynar, an echo in his mind. Life? Dreams? It /had/ to be life. Had to be! He could feel the pump working faster and faster, but why? No-- To prevent connection damage the O2 was with his gravitationally focused bubble. It was limited. Could it be running low? Ignore that. Ignore! Nothing he could do about it. He could see Meynar, ghostly, in mid jump over a void that glimmered and glistened over the poisonous red languously drifting back and forth beneath him. Echoing his own, Meynar's breath gurgled in and out of his lungs, faster and faster. The red grew closer, reaching, growing. No brown anywhere, nothing but red. From the accounts he'd read, the /Gulf/ was only one leap across, one leap! So, where was the end? There had to be an end. There had to be! He felt echoes of Meynar's thoughts echoing his own. Had he taken a wrong turn, a wrong course? Was there no way out? The faint gurgling echoed and died. Was the battery powering the pump drained? Was the O2 gone? Don't think of that! The red was closer. Skalni did everything he could, turning as carefully as possible to keep on the course Meynar had followed. To his death--no, to his /life/. Red, red, everywhere red. Clinging red, grasping red. A strand tickled his chest and he felt it burn, tearing away flesh. How had it gotten so high? It was gone, destroyed by the blindness of the ship. The jerking behind him was less? Had the ship lost pieces? Had-- Green? Was that /green/ he saw? In the distance, far, so very, /very/ far. He could make it, he had to. Meynar had made it. Had Meynar--he had, /had/! Skalni was starting to feel weak, the gurgling--it was silent. Had been silent. He felt his chest quiver, nothing. Need, burning need. The green was close, so close. It was calling him, drawing him. All he had to do was drop what was weighing him down, fly high and safe and reach the greenness. He shook his head. No! /Guide your ship home/! The ship was there. It had to be. It /was/ there. Meynar was at the oasis, collapsed at the edge. /No!/ But there was no death echo. No-- Red burned at him, burned his flesh, tore into his muscles. He screamed, his breath silent in the water. Green, green, the ship, the ship. Save the ship, /Guide your ship home/! Guide, he had to guide. Guide the ship, the ship. He slammed into the trunk, the green trunk, it had to be. It had to be-- With the last of his will he forced himself up the tree-- /JUMP/ *** Skalni felt realspace forming around him, oozing into the dreams he'd been in. The breathing pump was silent, he was faint, faint. Pain screamed through his chest, along his tail. Pain, screaming stabbing /pain/. Screams tore out of his soul, burned down the link in his mind. He could scent blood in his muzzle. Screaming, screaming, as his lungs gasped and shuddered and everything faded to black-- *** Skalni stood in the hanger bay of the /Pegasus/. Other than members on critical duties, the survivors of both crews were there. /Pegasus/ had survived its jump with the loss of one, /only/ one. /Gift Card/, on the other hand, had lost half her crew, and a good third of the ship. They'd barely gotten him back to his module, and into oxygenated fluid, in time. As Skalni had thought, his pump's battery had run down. And, so too, had his supply of oxygen. The squirrel sagged in his travel chair. The uniform he rarely wore hung limply on his thin body. Plastic casts encased both legs, internal electronics guiding and aiding the nanites that swarmed inside, rebuilding him. A transparent helmet covered his head--the plastic so clear, the liquid inside so clear, it was like Skalni was actually breathing air. The squirrel uplift gnawed on the mouthpiece as his breathing medium gurgled in and out. He was too weak to breathe on his own, his body needing all its strength for the healing. He tried to laugh, but was defeated by pain. At least he was used to the machines. Coffins were lined up in front of him, shining labels of their contents stamped on their top. Most were full--some weren't, their occupant's bodies lost to jumpspace. Below the ships was a new world, a habitable world. A place of dreams, of--of. He swallowed. /Meynar's Dream/. He'd named it so, both crews giving him the honour for he'd led the rescue ship here, and brought the hope of returning home to the others. He gave a last look at Meynar's coffin. It was tradition for pilots to be sent to their fellow rest by pilots. They'd kept the horse's body as a hope of being rescued. His coffin was sealed as the rest, even though his tutor's body was unharmed, undamaged. Turning around, he faced the combined ship's companies. "We all know why we're here. Not really much more to say to that. We all know the risks of space, and we accept them willingly." His pumped breath gurgled in his throat. "We all knew the possible cost. None of us choose this fate. We fought it with all our training, all our will. We fought it with all our dreams--" He remembered listening to Meynar telling him of his dream. Of exploration, of finding that jewel of jewels, a new world. "We all came expecting to do our jobs, to carry our cargo, use our skills, and do what had to be done. Without glamour, without any expectation of reward. Pilot Meynar had the dream. The dream of discovery, of finding new worlds, of seeing what no-one else ever had. But, he did not meet the criteria, and our worlds have other needs." He remembered holding Meynar tight against him, the horse's and his breath's gurgling together, when Meynar had found out he'd been rejected for exploration duty. "I don't know what Pilot Meynar was thinking. I know he wasn't consciously aiming for a new world, a risky jump into mystery. I'm absolutely certain. I don't know what happened, what went wrong. Maybe his dreams pulled him another way-- "But he was a pilot. /Guide your ship home/ is hammered into us. It is our motto, it is our task, it is our /duty/. Routine trips to near worlds, less routine trips to the newer colonies. Pilot Meynar knew his job. He'd jumped many times." He remembered Meynar hugging him, and whispering in his ear the horse's pet name for him before his first jump. /Good luck little gurgle buddy/. "And, this time, like all the others, he knew what he had to do. He had to guide his ship home. In this case a new home. With his last breath he pulled the /Pegasus/ back into realspace, dying after fulfilling his mission. He left you lost, but he left you /alive/. I followed, bringing my ship to this new home, even though the cost was high. And I will take you home, all of you, along the trail that Pilot Meynar blazed, and that I blazed. Others will come. More and more. And each will remember that Pilot Meynar fulfilled his guild oath. Protected his ship, his crew. And each will remember the lives we honour today." With that the squirrel turned his chair around and pressed the main airlock control. He watched the heavy doors grinding upward from the deck. Even over the gurgling of his breath, he heard their grumbling, and the final /*clang*/ as they sealed shut. An image of the inside of the airlock, of the contents, appeared, projected where all could see it. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Unto almighty God we commend the souls of the departed, and we commit their remains to the eternal deep." The artificial gravity in the 'lock was turned off, and the coffins sat there. The outer door pulled open. Swirls of air pushed the coffins together in a tangle, and let each escape into the endless deeps. And the squirrel whispered in the calm electronically generated voice. "Good luck big gurgle buddy. You will be remembered." END