The ship has stopped pacing back and forth and is now bobbing up and down a bit. iClaud has been playing soundscapes of splashing water, waves and seagulls, and lonely singing whales over the intercoms. It’s soothingly nauseating.
In the corridors, while stumbling lightheaded and drunk towards sickbay, I overheard one of the Sergeants saying that the new Captain would be boarding soon. This reminded me of an old proverb used by ancient tribes I once had a vivid dream about, so you know it must be true. It goes like this: one has to arrive before one can leave. Somehow this felt relevant. Maybe because he (or she) will be the ninth Captain of Claudius One in a scant five Orion’s Years (that includes one Orion’s Belt Year). We’re hoping this one is going to be a keeper.
With new Captains come seemingly new mission statements. Mine is ‘make it to the weekend.’ Which is actually quite impossible when you think about it. A new Captain on board the Claudius One means that we will finally be able to leave our patch of space in this bloody ship. A ship that is one of a kind as it is the only one left that is over one hundred years old and still has the original (and first) self-conscious AI-model installed on the on-board computer. It has not been updated since.
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