2 – Whities Holy Water Spa and the most important things to know about Ferinian ships

Sandragon put her hand to her head, exasperated at the news that there was someone dead in the dousing chamber she was attending and wishing for the simplicity of yesterday’s, when she could push and pull her lever without interruption. She scooped her communication device, the CommStat 380 XP, off her belt and pushed a button.

“Code 6 in tank 3. I repeat, I have a code 6 in tank 3.”

“Code 6 tank 3 acknowledged,” a voice returned. “Go home. Decon will take the rest of the day.”

“Acknowledged. See you tomorrow.”

She hooked the CommStat 380 XP to her belt and turned it off. Leaning down next to the tank, she picked up her bag, a rucksack that was bigger on the inside than it looked, and shoved her hand into one of the side pockets, which were all smaller on the inside than they looked. She pulled out a timecard, threw her bag onto her back, and made her way away from the tank.

“Every day these people come to Przkellion colony and hit up the Whities Holy Water spa. Thousands of people a day, and somehow I get the ones who die before they’re blessed,” Sandragon sighed. “That’s the third one this season.”

“I’m sure you aren’t the only one,” the disembodied voice replied.

“Maybe, but it’s definitely getting worse. It was rare up until last Galactic Standard Year.”

“When Whities bought the place, right?”

She nodded in agreement.

“Just gone downhill since then,” she said. “Now I’m not even convinced we’re using bona fide holy water from the Przkellion spring.”

She waved to a fellow lever puller, called a douser.

“Heard you got another blessing gone wrong,” they said.

“Yeah,” she replied as she flipped her timecard in her fingers.

“The wait times are getting crazy out there,” her coworker said as they swiped their timecard. “People getting sicker as they wait for the holy water baths.”

“I’m just focused on the job,” Sandragon replied. “Get them doused. Get them out. The faster we do it, the more people we can help.”

“That’s why you’re top douser for the tenth season in a row, I guess,” the coworker laughed.

“Hey, you keep up the great work,” Sandragon said as she swiped her timecard, “and maybe you’ll get someone dying in your tank.”

They waved goodbye to each other and Sandragon headed through the employee exit and into the back alley that ran parallel to the Row, the busiest marketplace on the Przkellion colony.

“The mines of the Shindig,” Sandragon guessed. “The thing you needed to tell me. Is it about the mines?”

“Oh, man, you remember that one?” her friendly voice laughed. “Those crazy party animals!”

“An oldie but goodie.”

“Good guess, but no.”

She thought harder as she weaved around trash cans, employees on their breaks, and unstable grates.

“Want a hint?” the voice asked.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to give hints,” she accused.

“Okay, so it’s not a hint. Just a reminder that I HEARD it.”

She stopped in her tracks.

“Wait, you don’t mean you heard a Ferinian ship?”

“That’s it exactly,” the voice said proudly.

“So then, is that the last one? It’s got to be the last one, right?” she asked.

“That’s the thing,” the voice said. “You know I usually hear the voices as they die. But this one isn’t dying, not quite, anyway.”

“Not quite?”

“If anything, it’s dying of loneliness.”

“Well,” Sandragon said, “I suppose I’d feel that way if I was the last of my kind.”

“So I was thinking. You have all that vacation time saved up that you’ve never taken.”

“You are not sending me on a wild goose chase,” she argued.

“For a Ferinian ship, Sandragon! A living ship!”

She bit the inside of her cheek. She started walking again, turning at the next corner and merging into the bustle of the Row. Waving at shop owners as she passed, she couldn’t shake the excitement.

A real live Ferinian ship. Before she had come to the Przkellion colony on Varkovic 4, she’d been obsessed with them. Sure, as an archaeologist specializing in Ferinian history and technology, it had been her job to be obsessed with them, but she never imagined that there was still one living somewhere.

She turned down an alleyway and finally reached the door to her apartment, which she shared with her spirit partner.

“Castri,” she said as she took a look in the mirror by the door and ran her finger through an out-of-place ringlet of hair.

A figure slowly faded into existence with long braided hair, delicate features, and arms too long for its already long body.

“About time,” Castri moaned. “I thought you’d never manifest me.”

“Ha,” she laughed.

“What ha?” it asked.

“I got off early today, so it’s not like you were incorporeal all day. And you don’t even like to be manifested when you’re outside the apartment,” she said knowingly. 

Her companion shrugged in reluctant agreement with her assessment.

“How far is the Ferinian ship?” she asked.

“Well, that’s a bit less straightforward,” Castri said, leaning down to Sandragon.

She put her hand to its face and gave it a few loving strokes, then lay a kiss on its nose.

“An approximation is fine,” she said.

“It’ll take 10 GSDs if we try to use commercial lines,” Castri said, referencing Galactic Standard Days, “and the last leg probably will end up being on a shuttle from the nearest hub. And that’s assuming that I’ve got my bearings right.”

“Yes, of course,” she replied absently.

She opened the food cooler and pulled out a drink. Opening it with a snap, she ran the numbers in her head: how long it would take, supplies she would need, the amount of accumulated vacation time available. She folded all the details into a well-organized mind folder called The Last Living Ferinian Ship, put a mental stamp on it that said ‘$$$$$’, and tucked it away in her mental file cabinet for later. 

“Let me think about it,” she said. “Let’s watch a movie.”

There are 3 important things to know about Ferinian spaceships.

First, just because one may be inside the ship doesn’t mean one has necessarily been eaten by it. There are two ways that a Ferinian ship eats, through engulfing sources of nutrients from its surroundings or through an intricate cascade of enzymatic mechanisms that begins with waste products from organisms living within it. When Ferinian ships were more common, it wasn’t rare to see first-time passengers caught fearfully pausing at the docking bay doors. Many ships kept crew nearby to explain that only their poop was in danger of being digested, though this is highly oversimplified and not entirely true.

Next, one should never confuse the onboard computer with the ship itself. Most ships were equipped with a computer to allow tactile input into the ship’s systems. That didn’t mean that the crew could necessarily control the ships. The reality was that the interface was mainly a security blanket that improved communications between those aboard as well as between the ship and the crew.

And the last thing that’s important to know about Ferinian ships is…well, we’ll get to that soon enough.