Breaking the Cycle: Chapter 3

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THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

When Doina awoke, she had no idea where she was. It was obvious she
wasn't in her bed at home, for there was no traffic noise outside. Only
the murmur of a ventilation system disturbed the ethereal quiet.
Opening her eyes, she found herself in a dimly lit aircraft cabin,
strapped into a reclined seat. And she was fully dressed, in a
functional one-piece outfit - something she would never normally wear.
Across the gangway, identically clothed and also occupying a
flattened-out seat, a man lay sleeping. His hair was floating around as
if in a draught, although Doina could feel no air movement. What's
happened to me? she asked herself.

Then she remembered. The astonishing events of yesterday came rushing
back in an unstoppable torrent of images and feelings. The terror of
being abducted; the ambush that became a rescue; her sceptical attitude
to Sébastien; the unbelievability of being launched into space¦ Doina
closed her eyes tightly. It would be better if those things had all
been a bad dream and she was actually on a long-haul flight to
somewhere nice like Thailand for a long holiday. Lying on a beach had
never been high on her list of ways to spend time, as her permanently
pale skin testified, but now the idea seemed positively seductive. It
was no good pretending though - this was no holiday. When she opened
her eyes again, Sébastien would be asleep on the seat across the aisle,
his hair waving about gently in zero gravity. However unbelievable it
might seem, Sébastien and his spacecraft were her reality now. She
would have to deal with it.

Doina returned her seat to upright and swivelled it round to face
outwards. Through the cabin porthole, the Moon was now twice as big as
could be seen from Earth. She stared at it for several long minutes,
until her heartbeat had returned to normal.

'Good morning.' said Sébastien, floating into the seat next to hers.
'Did you manage to get some sleep?'

'Yes I did, thanks,' replied Doina. 'Sleep wasn't the problem. It was
waking up to find all this was real, not some crazy dream.'

'Yes, it will probably take you a while to get used to it.' He smiled
reassuringly. 'It could have been worse, though. At least you didn't
wake up in a hospital bed.'

True, thought Doina, but if she had been beaten up by those thugs, at
least she'd know why. Right now she hadn't a clue what was going on. It
would be ungrateful of her to say it, though. 'What now?' she asked
instead.

'Breakfast, if you fancy some.'

She smiled back at him, not out of politeness, but at the sheer
absurdity of her situation. It was odd how the mention of food brought
her back to the needs of everyday life. And she was hungry. 'Yes
please, waiter,' she replied airily. 'A pot of that excellent coffee
and a couple of croissants will do nicely.'

'No croissants allowed in zero gravity, Madame - sorry,' he shrugged.
'The little bits of pastry would all end up in the ventilation
system.'

'Oh, dear,' she sighed, glancing around with mock disdain. 'Then I
won't be flying with this airline again. Alright, whatever you're
having will be fine, thanks.'

After a bowl of yogurt and fruit, Doina headed for the bathroom to have
a wash and clean her teeth. She couldn't use the shower, but had to
sponge herself all over as best she could, and yesterday's underwear
had to go back on again. By the time she had struggled for fifteen
minutes to brush her hair properly, for Doina the novelty of space
travel was beginning to wear off.

Following her unsatisfactory wash, there was not much else for her to
do, except try to relax, admire the view - and think. That she had a
lot to think about was the understatement of the century! What had
happened to her already was amazing enough, and she was certain she
didn't know half of it yet; although she was grateful Sébastien had
deferred any further explanations. He must have realized that, in such
a completely unexpected situation, she needed to take things at her own
pace.

For a start, almost everything Doina knew about space travel had been
turned on its head. She had known manned spacecraft were big and
phenomenally expensive, the exclusive prerogative of superpowers. She
had known that for every launch of a space-suited astronaut, there had
to be weeks of meticulous preparation by thousands of people back on
the ground. Or she thought she had known these things. But now, unless
she really were hallucinating, here she indisputably was, out in space
and heading for the Moon. All without a moment's preparation,
accompanied only by one other person, who was piloting a vehicle that
had hardly attracted a second glance at the airport.

As they had taken off from England, could this be some secret British
space program? No way, thought Doina. Only the Americans could afford
technology of this order. But if that were so, why had they kept it a
secret, following the Space Shuttle disaster? When it meant relying on
the Russians to maintain the International Space Station? It was the
realm of conspiracy theories, but even if this really were part of some
vast secret plan, it still left the question of why they needed her, if
her purpose was meant to be publicity. Nothing made sense.

Even less believable was the idea of a single individual, no matter how
rich, developing a private spacecraft and a lunar space station. The
world's largest corporations would find the cost prohibitive. And
keeping them secret was simply ridiculous. Stopping them from making
the news media would be hard enough, but preventing the world's
security services from getting wind of them was something else
entirely. She had met a number of secret agents in the course of her
work, and was as certain as she could be that Sébastien was not one,
unless he was also a consummate actor. He had not mentioned anyone
else, and Doina wondered how many others were involved. As a
journalist, she knew from experience that once more than a few people
knew about anything really important, rumours were sure to leak
out.

'How many others back on Earth know about all this?' she asked.

'None,' confirmed Sébastien, with a shake of the head that made his
body twist in the opposite direction. 'The people I employ certainly
don't know the truth. They think I'm some rich eccentric, and I pay
them generously to contain their curiosity and not talk about my
work.'

'What about the people with you when you rescued me. What did you tell
them you were up to?'

'What other people? There was only me.'

'Eh? Then how did you manage to rescue me, all on your own? Hang on,
there must have been at least one, to drive the second car.'

'No, both cars are fully-automated robot vehicles.'

'What?' She looked at him blankly. 'Then who did the shooting?'

'The cars are armed with anaesthetic dart guns. They were originally
designed to protect me from kidnap attempts. When you were taken, I
already had the means to rescue you. I simply reprogrammed them to
incapacitate everyone but you.'

'How thoughtful of you,' she said, but remembering her disbelieving
attitude afterwards, mused aloud, 'But it would have saved a lot of
time and trouble if you'd knocked me out too.'

'How could you suggest such a thing?' he said, gripping the arms of his
seat. He looked genuinely offended by her suggestion - she could see it
in his stare and the set of his shoulders. 'Those men were engaged in a
criminal act,' he reminder her. 'In the circumstances, my actions were
completely justified! If I'd done the same to you, I'd be no better
than they were.'

'I'm sorry, Sébastien,' she apologized quickly. 'Forgive me. It was a
stupid thing to say.'

'That's okay,' he said, folding his arms again.

'And come to think of it, at the time, I didn't even thank you for
rescuing me.'

'It's not important,' he shrugged. 'You did have a lot on your mind
yesterday.'

'True, but it was still terribly bad manners. So thank you, Sébastien.
Thank you for rescuing me, and thank you for¦ well, the chance to see
all this, I suppose.'

'You're welcome. It's good to have you aboard.' His voice seemed
completely calm again.

'How did you find out so quickly I'd been kidnapped?' she asked
casually.

'As I said yesterday, I'd been keeping an eye on your investigations,
but I also followed some leads of my own. One of them led to an MI5
officer, who unwisely mentioned you by name when he was speaking to one
of the kidnappers on his mobile phone. My monitoring system alerted me,
but by the time I'd pieced together what was happening, it was too late
to warn you.'

'Yes - I suspected Five might be involved. But how did you find me so
quickly?'

'This is rocket science,' he said, indicating their transportation with
a wave of his hand. 'But that wasn't. All I did was track the locations
of the mobile phones involved. Theirs all converged on yours, and when
yours went off, I knew what must have happened. I followed their trail
until I found a suitable place for an ambush.'

'Very clever,' she acknowledged, but then swung around to face him. 'Do
you do a lot of snooping, Sébastien? How long had you been listening to
my phone calls for?'

'Only when necessary, and no, I never listened to your calls at all.
You hadn't done anything to forfeit your right to privacy. All I did
was track your phone's location.'

'Oh, right.' She wasn't completely convinced, but it would be pointless
pressing him further without evidence. 'Well thanks again - I'm glad
you did.'

Doina was starting to realize she might have a lot more to thank
Sébastien for, before this was over. Journalists like her could spend
an entire career hoping for a story one thousandth as big, never mind
becoming involved in it personally. Which was great, because it would
do more than revive her career. It would help her settle some scores.
With her father, for a start, because she strongly suspected he had
been behind her dismissal. His involvement could never be proved, but
she didn't need to prove anything. When he found out about this, he
would be more than livid, he would be apoplectic with rage at the
magnitude of her success. They had never got on well, and her recent
separation had made him virtually disown her, probably because he had
actively encouraged her husband to marry her in the first place. Maybe
he thought matrimony would encourage her to settle down and stay out of
trouble. How little he knew his own daughter! Her sole regret was she
had upset her mother, too¦ but that was much more painful, and she
simply didn't want to think about it. Not here, not now. She would have
to deal with it at some point, but she needed somewhere quiet,
somewhere peaceful, somewhere alone. The midst of this current
adventure simply wasn't the right place.

***

Late that afternoon, they were approaching the Moon and Doina joined
Sébastien in the cockpit for the flyby. He angled the plane, as she
still thought of it, until the Moon appeared as a gigantic crescent
through the windows on her side. It was an enthralling sight, even if
she had never been interested in astronomy. Every detail was sharp and
clear as they rushed ever faster towards the satellite's rugged edge,
until what had once appeared to be a world floating in space above her
was transformed into a landscape far below. It was strangely beautiful,
desolate and silent; a broken and bombarded surface that had once
witnessed the titanic forces responsible for creating the Solar System.
Then they were past and heading out into the depths of interplanetary
space.

Ahead of them, Doina could see a tiny point of light. It gleamed
differently from the surrounding stars, and moved slowly against their
bright unwinking background as the plane's orbit curved in towards it.
As they approached, it gradually resolved into a slender silver pencil
shape.

'Is that the space station?' she asked.

'Starship, yes. We'll be there in another hour or so.'

'An hour? It looks so close right now,' she gasped.

As the minutes passed and the starship grew to fill and then completely
overflow the plane's windscreen, Doina revised her impression of its
size upwards every few minutes until she had totally exhausted all
superlatives. For an artificial structure, it was simply enormous,
colossal beyond all comprehension. She could only stare at it in
awe.

'How big is it really?' she asked finally.

'Mother is about twenty kilometres long and over three in
diameter.'

'Mother?'

'Yes, short for Mothership,' said Sébastien.

'It's so big!' she exclaimed. In fact it was too big, she realized. Too
big to have possibly been built by human beings, never mind kept a
secret. The International Space Station was tiny by comparison, but had
already cost billions and wasn't finished yet. She looked round at him,
eyes narrowed. 'It wasn't built on Earth, was it?' She wanted
confirmation, even if she was already certain of the answer.

'No,' he answered simply, without looking at her.

An enormous alien starship, thought Doina, sinking down into her seat.
It was easily big enough to hold a huge invasion force. And there's
nothing I can do about it, except go along with Sébastien. She glanced
sidelong at him. He seemed relaxed as he monitored their approach, as
calmly as he might drive a car into a garage. Was he even human? She
had her doubts. He was too perfect. Like a machine, or an alien
impersonating a person without making any mistakes. But what did he
need her for? Lab specimen? Concubine? Those thoughts were awful, but
thankfully, they didn't fit the facts. If he was planning something
unpleasant, why was she still free to move around? Surely he would have
tied her up while she was asleep? Or drugged her? I'll just have to see
what happens, she decided. She had been in tight spots before, when the
chances of success or failure were evenly balanced, but nothing
remotely like this. She would have to trust her instincts and hope luck
was on her side. She was going to need it.

Sébastien must have noticed the apprehensive look on her face, for he
reached over and squeezed her shoulder. It was obviously meant as a
reassuring gesture, but Doina only just managed to stop herself from
flinching.

'I know what you must be thinking,' he said gently. 'That this ship is
too big to be anything other than an alien invasion force headed for
Earth. It's not though - take my word for it. The effort required to
invade another solar system would be so ridiculously expensive as to
make it not worth doing. Anything another race might want from Earth by
way of its natural resources could be found nearer home, or even
synthesized, much more quickly and at a millionth of the cost.'

'And what about Earth's people?' she whispered. Her mouth was
dry.

'What?' He released his grip on her shoulder. 'You think you're about
to become a slave, or a specimen in some celestial zoo?' He laughed and
held out both hands, palms upward, as if imploring her to believe him.
'Ignoring any ethical objections, it simply isn't practical. The
nearest alien civilization is two hundred and thirty light years away.
That equates to two thousand, three hundred years of interstellar
travel with forty-nine out of every fifty years spent in artificial
hibernation. To you, it would still mean a forty-six year voyage.
You're twenty-nine now. You would be seventy-five years old when you
got there. The human life span isn't long enough for us to reach them -
and they are our nearest neighbours!'

Doina's eyes opened wide. What he'd said was almost as astonishing as
the starship itself. Astronomers on Earth had spent decades fruitlessly
searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, but Sébastien clearly
knew where they were to be found. Even so, he hadn't fully answered her
question. 'Who said they only wanted live specimens?' she asked.

'Oh Doina, please! Don't be so melodramatic. It's quicker and easier to
scan anything of interest and transmit the data at the speed of
light.'

'Alright then, what is the ship here for?' It was close enough now to
make out details on the hull as it loomed above her: immense and
potentially full of unknown menace. The way he kept dismissing her
fears was beginning to irritate her. Space wasn't her area of
expertise, as he well knew. He should have expected her to be afraid of
the ship.

'Exploration, pure and simple,' answered Sébastien. 'Mother has been
investigating this spiral arm of the galaxy for the last ten thousand
years. Her builders also balked at crossing interstellar distances in
person - which is why they sent a robot. It's an obvious thing to do,
really. Even humanity has sent robot spacecraft to the stars.'

'Have we?' she frowned. 'When was that? Oh yes, of course - the Voyager
probes!'

'Exactly! A very good first effort, considering they were launched only
twenty years after the first Sputnik.'

'So I won't be meeting any aliens?' she said slowly, not knowing
whether to be relieved or disappointed.

'I'm afraid not - sorry. You're not here to save the world from alien
invasion - but you can help me save humanity from something
worse.'

'What's that?'

'Itself.'

'So you keep hinting,' she replied, hoping he wouldn't notice her hands
were clenched into fists in her lap. Couldn't he understand how tense
she was? He should be trying to reassure her, not patronize her with
glib remarks. Now wasn't the right time to tackle him about it, but she
would have to sometime. 'Alright, if this ship is only a robot, why is
it so big?' she asked.

'If you were a rocket scientist, you could work out how much energy was
needed to travel between stars at one tenth of Lightspeed. Then you
wouldn't be surprised by the ship's size - most of it's taken up by
fuel tanks.'

'I'll take your word on that for now.'

'You don't need to take my word for anything! Once we're aboard, you'll
be able to see for yourself. I was serious when I said you could ask
whatever you liked. Anyway, we're nearly there - it's time to
dock.'

After a braking manoeuvre, they were moving much more slowly as they
slipped below the nose of the starship. Above their heads, its
underside stretched away into the distance. It was so big that Doina
could hardly make out the curvature of the hull at all. She was
starting to feel dizzy. It was like flying upside down over a flat
metallic plain.

Ahead of them, the surface of the ship's middle section began to
distort, swelling downwards until a huge bulge lay directly in their
path. In its centre, an opening became visible, dilating outwards until
it had become an enormous distended aperture. It appeared as if it was
organic, rather than mechanical - a gigantic mouth, waiting to swallow
them whole. As it grew closer, Doina could make out long twisting
shapes inside the gaping maw. They resembled giant tentacles groping
blindly, feeling for her, like a titanic sea anemone intent on snaring
and devouring its prey. She wanted to turn the plane around and escape,
but there was nothing she could do as they were swallowed by the
starship. When she felt a series of clunks on the plane's fuselage, her
grip on the arms of her seat tightened, but the connecting hoses simply
brought them to a halt and lowered the plane gently to the deck of the
hangar. Behind them, the entrance irised to a close, shutting out both
sunlight and moonlight.

Automatically, Doina began to undo her harness, but Sébastien put a
hand on her arm. 'We're still weightless and it's a vacuum out there,'
he explained. 'After docking, this part of the ship needs to spin up to
speed and be re-pressurised before we can disembark.'

Doina nodded. Outside the plane's windows, in the brightly illuminated
interior of the docking bay, she could see what must be an array of
space travel paraphernalia. None of it made any sense to her.

'The living quarters are inside a rotating cylinder to provide
artificial gravity,' continued Sébastien. 'After being weightless,
you'll probably feel very heavy for a while. Don't worry though, the
sensation quickly wears off and you'll feel normal again pretty soon
without even noticing the change.'

'I think it will take a long time for me to feel normal here,' she
said, slowly shaking her head. 'Right now, I feel completely
unreal.'

Gradually, Doina could feel her weight increasing and hear a distant
hiss of returning atmosphere. After a few minutes they removed their
harnesses and made their way back through the cabin to the plane's
outer door. When Sébastien unsealed it, the air outside smelled moist
and clean, almost spring-like in its unexpected freshness. A little
unsteadily, she walked down the ramp, then stood and stretched for a
few moments. After the long journey, she felt stiff and stale, although
the fresh air was pleasantly reviving. Looking around, for the first
time she could see the entire plane, looming above her as it sat
embraced in its much larger booster unit. It looked oddly out of place
among all the unfamiliar alien artifacts.

Twenty metres away lay a short corridor with a door at its far end.
'This is the decontamination unit,' announced Sébastien. 'We need to
get rid of any Earth bugs, before they can run riot in the ship's
ecosystem. When you get through the door, take off your clothes, put on
a pair of goggles while you get a shower and blow dry, then go through
the far door and you'll find a fresh outfit.'

'Where will you be?'

'Waiting my turn, or would you like me to go through first?'

'You can't be serious!' exclaimed Doina, horrified by the very
suggestion. 'Here I am on the far side of the Moon in a gigantic alien
spacecraft and you expect me to jump in there and strip off, all on my
own?'

'You've been watching too many bad science fiction movies. I can assure
you there are no killer robots waiting to grab you.'

'I don't give a damn, Sébastien! I'm not going in there without you. I
don't care about modesty - I'm not letting you out of my sight!'

'I don't suppose you've considered that I might care about my
privacy?'

'What! Are you joking?'

'No.'

'Oh, Sébastien¦ I'm sorry, but I really don't want to go in there
alone.'

'It's only a shower.'

'Will you please remember who I am. It would make me nervous at the
best of times.'

Sébastien must have realized she really was serious, because after a
few moments of stalemate as they stood looking wordlessly at one
another, he agreed they could go through together.

'Would you like to hold my hand, Doina?' he enquired, as they stood
waiting for the water jets to start.

'You're making fun of me now, aren't you, Sébastien? No, I'll be fine
as long as I know you're there,' she replied, deliberately facing away
from him.

The shower succeeded admirably in washing away the stale feeling
resulting from the journey. They exited into a changing room. The
clothes waiting for them were less of a surprise. Doina had expected
something futuristic and she was not disappointed. There was a soft
comfortable one-piece undergarment and a pale grey overall of a
thicker, but still supple fabric. Ankle boots of a stiff shiny
material, looking like brushed aluminium, completed the outfit. What
most amazed her were the fastenings, or complete lack of them. To close
the front of her suit, she simply had to draw her fingertip gently
along the divide where a zip should have been for the fabric's edges to
join seamlessly together. Intrigued, she asked Sébastien how it was
done.

'Do you really want the technical details?' he smiled.

'No, I suppose not.' She probably wouldn't understand anyway. Science
had never been her favourite topic. Simply accepting what it could do
had made the world a far more interesting place. 'I do like this
outfit, it's real space cadet stuff,' she commented, looking at herself
in a mirror. 'Although it's a bit too figure-hugging for a bum like
mine. Is this what everyone wears here?'

'Everyone?'

'Yes, the crew of the ship.'

'What crew? I told you there were no aliens. Do you mean the
maintenance robots?'

'No, I mean other people.'

'Oh, didn't I make myself clear? There are only the three of us.'

'Three of us!' she gasped. 'In a ship this size? Wait a minute, who's
the third?'

'The starship, of course. It's just you, me and Mother.'

'You mean the ship itself is alive?'

'Yes of course,' he replied. 'Mother is a machine intelligence.'

Just three of us, thought Doina. She was human, and the ship was a
machine - but who or what was Sébastien? He behaved as if he belonged
here, but how could that be? He looked perfectly human, but was he? And
even if he were, how had he come to be involved with the starship? Her
head was starting to spin again. She told herself to calmly accept what
was coming without trying to guess what would happen next. That way,
she would not be so surprised when something strange did occur. It was
easier said than done, though. When the far door of the changing room
dilated open and Sébastien led her through, she halted as if she had
walked into an unopened patio door. What she could see in front of her
was completely shocking. Instead of more sleek metallic spacecraft
interior, with brightly-lit compartments full of strange machinery,
there was only an expanse of green grass, blue sky, and hills in the
distance. A fresh breeze was blowing and the late afternoon sun shone
brightly. She spun around to look back the way they had come. The door
to the changing room was set into a rocky outcrop, and when it winked
shut, she would not have been surprised to see it disappear completely.
It was as if she had stepped through some space-time portal into a
far-off alien world.

'Beautiful isn't it?' enthused Sébastien behind her. 'I've missed all
this. I haven't been up here for ten years.'

She turned back to face him. 'I'm¦ overwhelmed. This is all so
unexpected. It doesn't even look like the inside of a spacecraft.' She
sat down on the grass and drew her knees up under her chin. She felt
small and frightened again. She was a journalist, not a space explorer!
Nothing in her life had prepared her for anything like this.

'What did you expect?' asked Sébastien, sitting down beside her.

'I don't know really. More of what I saw in the airlock, I
suppose.'

'Or something from a science fiction film.'

'Yes.'

'Ah well, all those movie makers have a lot to learn. Believe it or
not, real space travellers prefer something that looks more like
home.'

'You must be laughing at my reactions all the time. Is that why you
wanted to bring a woman up here, so you could overawe me with all your
technology? I'm not sure you haven't drugged me and I'm hallucinating
all this.' Doina shook her head again. Despite Sébastien's presence,
she felt utterly alone and vulnerable.

'This is all real, believe me,' he said, looking into her eyes. 'Doina,
I know I employed a deception to get you here, for which I apologize.
But as I said, you would not have believed the truth if I had told you.
What I said about using the technology here to benefit all of humanity
was completely accurate, and is the sole reason for your being here.
The point you keep making about your sex is in your head, not mine. I
treat you as an equal not because it's politically correct, or someone
told me to, but because I have the evidence of my own senses.'

She returned his steady gaze. He really is trying to reassure me, she
thought, in his own rather pompous way. She couldn't decide whether he
was completely naïve or the best actor she'd ever met. She drew in a
deep breath and let it out slowly.

'Alright, you're forgiven,' she said, looking around her once more. If
she ignored what she actually knew about the place, it was quite
pleasant, sitting here on the grass in the warm afternoon sunshine. She
returned her attention to Sébastien. 'Anyway, thinking about it, it was
probably better things happened the way they did yesterday. If you, as
a total stranger, had called me and said, "Doina, you are about to be
kidnapped, but it's okay, I can take you to the Moon instead", I'd
never have come with you - I'd have run a mile!'

'Good point,' he nodded. 'I did wonder what I could possibly say to
convince you.'

'Well, we're here now; but I need some time to get used to all
this.'

'That's fine with me. It's Saturday evening. I wasn't planning to start
work straight away. I've been putting in too many hours myself
recently. I need a break as much as you do. I know you're apprehensive
right now, but I'll bet you that in a week, you'll feel as comfortable
here as I do. If you don't, you're not a prisoner, you can return to
Earth at the end of the month, as we agreed.'

Doina's eyes narrowed. 'You've obviously gone to a lot of trouble to
keep this secret from everyone on Earth. Would you really let me
go?'

'Yes, because at the end of the month it won't matter. This will all
become public knowledge whether you're here to help me or not.'

Frowning, Doina thought about the implications. If she returned to
Earth and he did not go public, what could she say? That there was an
enormous alien starship hidden behind the Moon? Who would believe her?
She had no proof. Even if they didn't lock her up, she would be a
laughing stock, which was worse. She could imagine what the tabloid
press would make of her claims. And if Sébastien went public without
her, she would have squandered the opportunity of a lifetime. From what
she had seen of him, he was not an impulsive type. He must have a good
reason for wanting her here, and unless it involved something she
fundamentally disagreed with, she would be crazy to turn her back on
it.

'Alright,' she said. 'So where are we exactly?'

'About five minutes walk from my house,' he smiled.

'You know what I mean,' she said, glaring at him.

'Shall we walk while I explain?'

Sébastien stood and offered his hand to help her up. Doina took it, but
did not let go immediately, once she was standing. His grasp was firm,
warm and reassuring, and she realized it was the first time she had
touched him. At least he felt like a human being, even if he didn't
quite behave like one.

'This is the centrifuge I mentioned earlier, containing the ecosystem,'
he said, as they walked along the path. 'You can see it curving away
upwards to either side of us. It's about two kilometres long and sits
in Mother's middle, between her fuel tanks.'

'You speak of the ship as if it were a person.'

'To me she is.'

They rounded a rocky knoll and before them, at the edge of a small
lake, stood a large whitewashed cottage with a slate roof, surrounded
by a neat garden. 'This is all very romantic,' Doina observed. 'It
reminds me of the Lake District or the Scottish Highlands.'

'Yes, I hoped you'd like it.'

'It all looks so neat and well kept. And you say you haven't been here
for years?'

'It's looked after by robots. You won't see them, though. They're
programmed to keep out of sight when we're around.'

'Why?'

'I, er¦ don't like them scuttling about under my nose all the time. It
disturbs me.' He paused for a few moments. 'I tell you what, let's save
further explanations until we've got ourselves settled in. We can have
a chat about everything over dinner.'

***

Lucien Romano, 2005