[Steven Lyle Jordan]

By the way, do you know what Angel does with his nights?

"Sleeps, mostly. Why?"

No reason... so, Carolyn, this ship can travel faster than light! I gotta tell ya, I have a really hard time believing that actually works.

"Yes, it's a strange world. The whole process seems counter-intuitive... even counter-reality! But it seems to work for us."

What's the basic principle behind it?

"It's based on a construct called a 'tesser field'. It's essentially two time bubbles, one inside the other... a sort of time-thermos bottle. Inside the outer bubble, everything moves faster in time... so a ship traveling through space can exceed the speed of light inside the bubble. Of course, that would mean everything inside the bubble would age faster than outside the bubble, and we'd all arrive on a new planet as old men and women. So, the inner time-bubble slows the time in the ship itself down, to counteract the faster time inside the bubble, and equalize us with the rest of the world. Understand?"

If I tell you I do, will you refrain from going into more detail?

"Certainly."

Then I understand, one hundred percent!

"Thank you."

No... thank you. Ah, this must be engineering. Um...

"Not what you expected?"

Well, not really, I guess. I thought I'd see giant machinery, huge glowing tubes humming with energy, rotating crystals suspended in mid-air, and steam blowing out of regulators... but this looks like a combination workshop and concert control station.

"You were expecting an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator?"

"Steve, this is Sarander Fi, our ship's boss."

"Pleased to meet you, finally! Mark told me you two were coming up... by the way, how'd you say you got here?"

I was given a MQRBDTMOT by a strange visitor. See?

"Looks like a key fob."

Yes, well, the MQRBDTMOT sort of sits between branes, and I call it with the fob when I'm ready to go back.

"I... see."

No, really!

"And he thought my explanation of FTL was hard to believe."

Anyway... Sarander, you run all of the ship's engines from up here. Is it a lot to handle by yourself?

"Not usually. The nice thing about a Quicksilver-class freighter is, the control systems are really pretty comprehensive. It's like being on a cruise ship! If you know how, you can do almost anything from the control panels, without having to pop the hood on anything at all! And when you do, it's easy enough to secure things until you can do repairs."

What about repairs that have to be done on-the-run?

"Well, yeah, that's a lot trickier. Quicksilvers weren't designed for that kind of thing. Not like, say, a Ranger battle cruiser, which is designed for people to be able to reach in and do repairs while the damn thing's still running! Active maintenance and repair can be done, but it's pretty delicate stuff. I try to avoid it when I can!"

Is this all to control the time-thermos-thingy?

"The tesser fields?"

Thanks... much more realistic when you say it...

"No. The tesser field generators are controlled on this console."

The one that looks like God's synthesizer?

"Yup. These let me shape the time-fields to allow more efficient transition through space. A sort of teardrop shape is best, but it takes continuous effort to maintain the shape, depending on the characteristics of local spacetime."

I... see.

"No, really."

Okay... then what?

"Well, time-fields are great, but they don't actually propel us anywhere. For that, we have twin fractalmonic fusion reactors, which directly supply power to the ship’s batteries, the fuel-based drive engines, and finally the tesser-field generators."

What's 'fractalmonic'?

"Sounds waves modulated in frequencies shaped by fractal geometry equations, of course! What, you attended high school, didn't you?"

I may have been sick that day...

"Yeh. Anyway, the drives use fractalmonic fields to shape ionic plasma into a very tight stream. That propels the ship... it's got a lot of punch for its size."

How much punch?

"Enough to get us off a planet."

Impressive! But I hear your trip to Shura Dva put you in a spot.

"I'll say! We almost didn't make it through that one! I don't know what it is about that planet, but I hope I never have to take this ship back there again!"

Well, obviously, we're all glad you made it back in one piece.

"Only for the grace of the Gods, and the quality of the Mary. She spoils me... I'll never be able to work on another ship after this! Right, Carolyn?"

"And let's hope you don't have to! Well, Steve, you've met the crew, and you've seen most of the ship. Let's head back downstairs, and see what else we can talk about."

Sure. Sarander, thanks for the tour!

"No problem. I'm about ready for a break, anyway, so I'll follow you guys back downstairs."

Don't you need to leave someone behind to watch things, or secure all stations, or double-check the injectors, or something, when you leave here?

"Heck, no! Half of this is on automatic, and the ship knows how to reach me if something needs to be manually adjusted. See? This is my com. We all have one."

Looks a bit like my cellphone...

"Sure... it looks like your ancient phone! But in fact, this not only lets you make calls about the ship: It can access the ship's library or order it to coordinate queries with Oan databases; provide the ship with your location, on or off the ship; monitor your health, and alert the ship if someone is injured; access all of your personal library data and replay it on demand; you can use it to read, play games, record diary entries, check your schedule, update your bank accounts, take video, and exchange data with other people's coms."

My phone does all that, and it lets me customize the screen, too.

"Really? Cool..."