White Falcon
Reminders to self: limitations include folding only places he’s been and within reach of his ship senses when he’d been there.
Tell the story of how his transformation saved him initially and then he ended up needing taking, as a human, to another station, whilst hiding what he could do. Show, live it in the story don’t just tell it.
Gawain - White Falcon
*****
From a lightyear away, he folded space and poked his nose through, entered the dock then landed in a quiet secure part of the station in silence, without notice. At twenty five meters from nose to tail—tiny compared to most ships at his home station—his slim sleek pearlescent shape was lost amongst the bustle, the hint of fractal rainbow shades not revealing his presence. A presence missed by most, save for the station cat his sensors spotted, a little tortoiseshell who always caught him landing.
Chuckling to himself, he pulled on the feeling in his mind causing his ship self to shift and retract, enfolding back into the myriad atoms that in turn shifted into the the molecules making up his dna, proteins and more, until his body was its ordinary human self. Reaching into a space fold and pulling out a shipsuit, he slipped it on and wandered back into the station. Landing in a cleared part of the dock let him skip Processing and Customs.
It never failed to give him a thrill, to unfold and transform into the Falcon, his Ship self. The ship was him, and he was the ship and had been so for a decade now and no one was the wiser. A few close calls but so far he’d been lucky. Known as the Messenger by his clients, his business as a discrete courier had grown steadily over the years. Never taking passengers, only parcels and letters—always guaranteed to arrive at the fastest possible speed. People expected, at best, a two week trip to the next nearest Waystation and leaving him plenty of time to take more work.
His best time to Cluso Clark Station, if he factored in time to change, a rushed meal and drink, was maybe half an hour. Usually substantially less. The fun part? Time did not expand with distance.
It took him a long time to come to terms with the sensation of folding space: each fold, executed with precision by his starship self, sent a shiver through his mind, yet the ship part of his psyche didn’t waver. His sensors would flicker as the void pulsed with a cold, unyielding darkness, and for one long, electrified moment, even his mechanized limbs would hesitate. Gradually, this folding became routine— over time, shifting from terror, through anxiety then eventually acceptance—until space became the sky to his falcon, his natural second home.
Walking through the station, he approached the Yoko bar to meet his next drop off. The lead lined slim box in his hand contained doses of an antiviral medication for Tharion Mosaic virus. Once considered incurable, the synthetic dna virus was one hundred percent fatal unless treated within a month. The client’s daughter was dying and they’d paid a king’s ransom to get this cure within a week. They’d found and contacted him with bare days to go.
He just hoped his own need to help didn’t bite his ass. He’d done the run within the day.
His clients were sitting at a discrete booth at the back of the dim lit bar, the twilight shaded space a little murky and muffled—though completely transparent to Gawain, just like the treatment vials in the lead lined pouch. Folding space as a ship involved a sense that did not turn off easily. Even now he had to ignore the automatic analysis his ship self was running on the world around him and the active ingredients in the vials.
His mind was filled with an electronic orchestra of signals and noise, scans and returns with tiny flashes of sensor readings and digital whispers shimmering and sparking at the edge of his consciousness, merging with his thoughts in a constant symphony describing the world around him. Even as his human form moved through the world, he could still sense that inner music—an ever-present reminder of his starship self, enfolded within his very being..
He approached the booth where he’d arranged the drop off. A milk run, his favourite kind—doing some good. He smiled slightly at the thought. They weren’t all like this but he took what he could.
The clients sat, waiting for him—she with her Kalashi mink fur, he in an old fashioned somber gentleman’s suit, a throwback to earlier centuries. He placed the package on the table and slipped into the opposite seat, across from them.
“Here it is,” he said.
The mother fumbled at the package, unable to open it at first, her fingers clumsy.
He waited calmly. An easy job, this time. Save a little girl, get paid.
It was simple and the credits came through in moments.
The father stopped and stared at Gawain, his confusion warring with hope. He started to leave, yet turned to him as he rose. “Just how…?”
“Trade secret my friend, but do pass it on. As ever, Falcon Fast Couriers are at your service, light speed despatch, by day, by night, even by twilight.” Reeling off his honest spiel was automatic now.
Waystations are huge, and he’d learned the layouts of hundreds of them. Ten years, he thought to himself, ten years folding station to station and no-one the wiser. Oh he heard the rumors of the ghost ship, the fighter sized craft that was spotted, briefly but never caught or even answered a hail. He grinned thinking about it. What would he even say?
His breath hitched as he remembered his first fold, born of fire and shock, terror and rush and fury of air escaping their family home, vital air sacrificed along with their lives to the station raiders—the low-life pirates who refused no civilization, no laws, who just took and took. They took alright—he clenched his fist at the memory—they took them all from him.
Yet he escaped. Oh escape he did, the cold and the thunder of the air as it left his home, taking him with it; then the freeze, the awful freeze and endless void and then as the cold invaded, stealing his life, his blood freezing, his limbs thickening and losing sensation, his breath agonising then stopped as he tried and tried to suck air and life and getting nothing, just nothing. The panic built, he thrashed numbly, barely feeling his limbs until a spark, a deep tingle, a burning soul twisting sensation in every fibre, in his skin, his muscles, his bones, even his eyes—a twisty turning aching sparking arcing awful ecstasy of change ripping and branching through him, lighting even his bones on fire, a fire pushing back the cold and the void.
And then, more, so much more, space became deep and raw and detailed—awful endless detail, so much, masses and particles and rays and beams and many things he couldn’t name; space itself turning in-upside-throughside down in and out and geometry scattering and mixing and churning, mind burning he screamed as reality rippled and warped. And then, his body expanded, shifted, click-snapping so right, perfect, easy.
And then he could feel more, sense more; vanes and plates and circuits and infinitesimally small relays and wings and limbs below and yet more limbs in front—in fact so many little and large limbs that for a moment he got lost trying to follow them all.
And yet, he still did not understand. Why was he alive? What was happening? What could he feel? Why was space so much, so complex, so many things all at once.
His mind, fractured between terror and confusion, the attack, his parents—he screamed soundlessly, and then this, floating not dying, confused not dying, terrified yet still not dying: what is happening?
Endlessly, the complex black and oddity of space surrounded him. Radio waves tickling him, parts of himself already translating the signals. What was that? May-day? Then voices all angry and yelling, orders snapping out, panic reigning across the station.
Wait, those are radio signals. What? How?
He shook himself from the memory. He’d never forget but he wasn’t going to live in his memory right now. Next job, now William had something to go to Avural Station. Spares for one of their freighters as I recall. He made his way to William’s Tech Emporium. A sizable chunk of the man’s trade came from Falcon Deliveries facilitating epic delivery times. He offered his clients a next day despatch but only on condition they didn’t question how. Amazing how simple convenience gets around many people’s curiosity.
Knocking on the counter, he looked around the space piled high with spares: plasma coils, quantum relays, recycling filters, tanks of every shape and size, circuit boards, fuses and endless coils of pipes. It was a front, he could scan clear to the back of the shop—he couldn’t not really, the scans never stopped, his shipself was never dormant. It sure makes sleep an adventure. Just once I’d like to go to sleep in pure blackness, without having to leave all civilization behind.
William came from the pristine, obsessively clean rear of the shop with a cart load of spares in his hands. Too much for a man to carry, he nevertheless pushed them round to Gawain with routine expectation. It was their little secret. William paid well and always got perfect service but in return ignored, utterly, how Gawain achieved his routine tasks. Ever since he’d saved him from being blown up by a badly malfunctioning power core years ago, William’s blind eye was as mythical as literal, even now as he turned away just in time to miss how the cart load of merchandise disappeared into a space fold. Yet the one remaining pearly orb would never miss a thing, Gawain knew, as he was the one to deliver the prosthetic eye after the events of that day.
How would I cope without carrying a little pocket space with me? He’d tried to deliver, once, through a fold without actually travelling to the destination. It didn’t work but the contents looped in place and stayed accessible. This practice became so normal that most of his life was kept in his own permanent space fold.
“Hessia Run Station, customer by the name of Karel, the starship Karel—a half and half scoutship, ex-military. These are upgrades and replacements for the ship navigation and some AI updates.” William said, his left eye blinking, a little watery, the right forever frozen in cold vigilance.
One of his delivery terms was full disclosure of contents. Whilst he was discrete, he demanded honesty from his clients as he could see everything within their packages. After what happened with his folks, he’d vowed to never serve anyone aligned with piracy—to him freebooters were scum, only out to kill for gain—or those who flat out lied about anything truly problematic. Some tried to pass off one kind of drug for another but the first one that lost their entire shipment to an unfortunate space fold blacklisted him from the entire underground. That was all they could do, as oddly, contracts to catch him and take his ship never seemed to go anywhere. He grinned to himself as he thought about this. Good luck.
“Thanks Will. Usual fee?” The money was already in his account—ShipMind accessing the info automatically. He left the store and wondered about the Plaza considering his options. He could pick up a few more deliveries for Hessia, then maybe actually go home and cook. The odd paradox of being the owner and the ship at once didn’t relieve him of the desire to settle down at night in his apartment, a desire at odds with his ship self. Stopping by the store, he picked up a pile of vat grown peppers, onions and a few other alien veg along with synth protein in the rough shape of some kind of steak. Stir fry it was tonight, and, grabbing some local beers, something to go with it.
His body was weird, yet still felt like an older version of how he felt before he ever shifted into the Falcon. Such a strange feeling, even now. Thinking about it, I want to fly right now. That itch would come back if he hung about a planet or a station for just a bit too long. That knowledge he could just fold and go anytime he wanted was a constant temptation. Landing was more awkward. His range of folding was sharply limited whilst unshifted, just a few hundreds of meters at best—enough to single hop outside of a station and shift. Food first, maybe I’ll have to sleep out in the stars. He thought to himself, reflecting on his contradictory feelings. He wanted to eat, drink and sleep; he wanted to fold and fly and investigate space, it never got old. Ahhh am I really happier as a starship dammit?
That was the problem. He was both, and he didn’t have a spare mind, it was just him. Lots of sub processes running all the time, a background hum of massive awareness that he learned to tune out. He could see the couple fucking wildly a few apartments away, and the guy doing something very questionable with, yeah lets not pay any attention to that, other apartments he could see routine life, contraband, a lot of bored or sleeping or fighting or fucking people, a party, a murder—dammit—reaching out to the station security, he dropped a tip and a video on the emergency despatch—yeah, there were a few downsides.
He reached his apartment taking note of the emergency drones that clustered around the apartment where the attempted murder was still in progress. Phew, I think they got there just in time. Playing the hero wasn’t his deal. He was a courier. Fast deliveries, not fast saves, folding in there wouldn’t guarantee saving anyone and draw far more attention than he ever wanted. Attention wasn’t his deal either. People are fine, in small doses, deal sized doses. Sometimes decisions like that made him feel bad, but even poor folks had nanites that would patch up most things other than death.
In his apartment he stopped to cook. Whilst the wok warmed up, he set to work chopping onions and bell peppers into fine precise chunks, dicing the synth meat. The activity was one of the few things that made him feel like a human and not something eldritch.
He’d more than accepted his nature by now, but it was nice to just—he popped the beer cap, a design unchanged for millenia, with a casual flip of his thumb—chug a beer and eat. *Oh the spice is just right…*very hot, ghost chillies and Salvorian hot patch powder: perfection. He sat, tuning out as much of his shipself omniscient senses as he could, he focussed just on the simple, huge, flat TV showing space war films. Reenactments of an imagined past, miles long fantastical ships fighting even bigger alien ships of often improbable design.
It’s funny that I’m shaped to fly ridiculously well in a thick atmosphere when I fly in space. Most human ships were functional in shape—compression drive head at the front, antimatter/matter reaction thrusters at the back, antigravity pods placed strategically for landing. No truly large interstellar craft would survive a planetary reentry, so didn’t have the elegance that atmosphere would grace a ship with.
But he did.
He thought about his first flight through a gas giant, deliberately tagging and teasing a pirate fleet, intentionally goading them to try and catch him. The flight through the thick atmosphere was glorious, he could feel every aspect of the lift dynamics and energy interplay between his body and the energy of the planet. The local giant had a solid helium core—his scans picked it up. The gas giant had a lot of electrical activity, something that should have concerned him, but didn’t—every lightning strike seemed to, in fact, fill up some kind of capacity within him. The one time he struck out directly with a weapon in ship form, he simply encouraged this energy flow to strike the pirate capital ship.
That fleet didn’t exist any more.
He finished his food, sat back, and closed his eyes, still watching the TV. I can go anywhere, just anywhere, right now. He could feel, in ghostly higher dimensional form, various kinds of control surfaces and other things twitching restlessly, he was the ship and man all at once, the language of body occurring all the time; his shipself wasn’t biological though it was just as restless. So hard to understand, why both are me and I am both all the time, seeing, feeling, grokking, knowing so much constantly, feeling through reality, inner and outer dimensions constantly folding and colliding, hyper dimensional branes we are all embedded in stately slowly passing through and within and without each other, things able to turn outside inside through each other restlessly endlessly, the truth of infinite reality enfolding and refolding in myriad ways forever. For a moment, he had an awful sense of human vertigo, the feeling of forever falling and never stopping. Yeah, let’s stop doing that. Proof, if I needed it, that human minds were not intended to fold space.
He remembered trying to find someone to discuss it with many years ago but on a Waystation, folks were either trading or fighting or drinking or avoiding work. The finer aspects of human living were found on planets and he never got around to it. His seventeen year old self never had the time, never felt it important, had just about got a handle on living in some fashion. He was lucky the apartment insurance was real and paid out. It would have felt weird to be homeless.
Fine, enough maudlin about, I can tell I ain’t gonna sleep. Let’s go and play. Focussing his scans up to the nearest station wall and the void beyond, he felt the shape of reality between there and here and made here/there be one in mind, he shifted, feeling the harmonies holding reality together singing in many dimensions in his ShipMind as he felt/shifted, rapidly, in the vacuum of space, the entry to his fold already vanished from his apartment. He flexed his wings and vanes, each movement pulling on the reality of space, an almost velvet sensual feeling as eldritch senses felt deeper beyond quantum foam, below planck length scales, into the grain, warp and weft of what humans call reality; somehow, his ShipMind handled the near infinite deluge of data without straining his human mentality. This was the real gift, the direct access to everything that reality was, wherever he happened to be.
A tingle ran through his very soul as he accessed everything that existed within a light second of his position, filtering out all the irrelevancies and began to pull on the matrix of his local space, accelerating his form from rest to just beyond lightspeed in an instant, causing a flare of tachyons to spray out from his passage. Nothing like a little casual FTL to warm the wings. Myriad forms of matter should impact him but somehow never did, a mechanic of his shipself that made him, quite literally, untouchable in FTL motion. It was a different experience to his space folding, the latter technique gaining him instance access to anywhere he knew. He’d been slowly expanding his fold territory for years, ever since discovering how to do it.
He downshifted to sub-light speeds with another fantastic peacock tail lightshow of tachyons and chased around the entire solar system, weaving and dodging around asteroids and small moons with the expertise of endless play. He’d get closer and closer to each, zipping by them at speeds measuring hundreds of miles per second, fast enough to cause a light show of ordinary photons from striking dust clouds.
He cored one asteroid, quite deliberately releasing a sizable kiloton of platinum from within it. The first crash he ever had, he’d learn one vital fact, the one that set him on the course of just being a courier and nothing more: for all practical purposes he was indestructible, at least to things like smashing into planets and asteroids.
He slammed around in a tight curve at impossible speeds, pulling thousands of gravities without a murmur, feeling deep satisfaction at the feeling of completion in the move. Finally coming to a half at the floating nugget of platinum.
He unfolded his ship arms from under his nose and began to clean off the rock, exposing the nugget in its entirety. Another one for the collection, I have so many of these things now. He stored it in a space fold, letting the material slide into his own personal carry sack universe.
I suppose I really could change the tide of a war eh? I ain’t never gonna be sorting out the moral rights and wrongs of that crap though.
He reflected on the first time he folded space. A quiet discovery, a step that felt as natural as breathing, as terrifying as falling, like coming home if home was a many folded abyss, an awful infinity that was beguiling, inviting and never ending. It always drew him, moth to an infinite flame—a flame that hid myriad infinities within its depths. Each fold the same and yet different: he could feel exactly where to go, how to go, yet so much was just there within his awareness when he reached through and through and into the outside and through the depths of reality. Language is so crippled for explaining folding space he thought to himself shivering.
He landed on a huge cold craggy asteroid, various dendrites and one major limb reaching out to fiddle with the surface. Sometimes he would stop and find an asteroid like this one and fiddle with it. Right now, he took his major forward limbs, the ones he always used for landing, and began to scoop out hard rock with ease, hundreds of kilos at a time, crushing it and using force fields to reinforce the shape he wanted. Smaller dendrites would cut, carve, chip and shape the rock. Slowly a small scene emerged as he placed human sized figures playing a game in an arena on the worked out surface of the asteroid.
The dendrites, he had six of them up front right now but could control an arbitrary number of them, they responded to his thoughts: tools, length and so on. The major limbs didn’t reshape and were more structured, large elegant three fingered oversized hands that more than held his weight—having landed on an earth sized world before, he knew he could run on them, all fours, a sight he thought would look quite ridiculous.
Using small mining lasers he’d had custom made for him, he glazed the rocks carefully, making shiny eyes and even clothes for the stone figures. Someday someone would find these and have no idea of their origins. Mentally smiling to himself Someone will have an episode if they ever find these. He added random runes, sigils, diagrams and other fake mystery symbols to the various stone players before taking off to continue with his errands.
The rock figures were something he got used to doing a few years ago. Control was a problem when he first discovered his ship self, he didn’t dare land or be around people—even shifting form was an issue. There was no one to guide him and his strength was prodigious but his dexterity, well, the less said about that the better. It was luck really, finding the Potter. He thought about Luria for a while: she took him in, when he’d hit rock bottom, no parents, homeless until the insurance finally paid out—a year later.
His clumsiness and shyness drew her out. Day after day she created her pottery, spinning wet clay, shaping it into fantastical forms. He’d watch entranced until eventually she let him try for himself. It was a disaster but she found it hilarious, not caring about the mess, “Art is a mess, unruly, wild, until someone persuades it into a little less of a mess.” She’d say. Mentally snorting to himself, Well, she certainly lived that ideal. Never saw such a messy apartment!
He took off, gripping onto reality with harmonic quantum resonance and pulling, accelerating gently, dodging and wheeling round asteroids, looking for another suitable candidate for either mining or art. The mining wasn’t necessary but sometimes he’d find something good: platinum, rare earths, gems, even artifacts from lost alien civilisations. He traded these in a low key way to small brokers across many Waystations, though occasionally he’d land on a more colonial planet to do so. It was enough money to pay bills, eat out etc.
Looping and rolling round the asteroid field he meditated on what his future should look like. Fighting didn’t appeal still, even though his shipself was extremely well suited to it other than possessing no actual weapons. Who needs a weapon? He swooped and picked up a small asteroid and threw it at a large asteroid—both promptly turned into pure energy. Er, yeah, I think I hit 0.3 c that time. Kinetic kill missiles for the win. The strength was a joke, some consequence of the n-dimensional aspect of the shipself he was gifted with. That’s nope city, we ain’t joining no wars. He shuddered, picking up rocks no more during his flight. What if I caused the same shit those assholes did who took my family? Yeah, so maybe let’s tone it down.
Focussing his eldritch senses on where Hessia was, several hundred light years distant, a distance inconceivable to his human mentality, yet barely next door for his shipself, he decided to continue with his errands and, pushing, folded through the infinite abyss underneath all reality and arrived, quietly, subtly, merely hundreds of meters from the Station.
***
Interlude: Inspector Gavron
“He’s here again.” I watched the slim shipsuited boy appear in the main thoroughfare to the Plaza. Three times this individual appeared without any clear path as to where from. Gawain McCanter of Gabon Station, the Messenger and owner of Falcon Fast Couriers. The mystery was he never appeared on any ship manifests yet as far as I could tell he’d visited dozens of stations in the past three months alone. There was no explanation. No laws had been broken, I wish they had been. I’d tried to catch up to him a couple of times now but somehow he was never where I expected to be.
I sighed. Without a clear crime, mystery alone wouldn’t justify more investigation time. I knew there was a mystery to be solved there. Maybe I could simply give him some work?
Settling on that thought, I sent a message to Falcon Fast Couriers.
***
Gawain - Present:
There are times where I wish I DID own a ship, one I could cook in, sleep in, watch movies in. It was rare he entertained these thoughts, but right now he could murder a curry but had no kitchen to work in here. Oh well, it’ll wait I guess. He headed through to the Ship Exchange—each station had one, intended for pilots, crew and associates to meet and trade without having to crowd the docking bay. His contact for the scoutship drop off waited, the chips in a backpack ready. Normally retrieving cargo from space folds was kept strictly on the downlow, but William was the rare exception—even he had no idea how this was done.
Making his way to the exchange desk, entering the contact details, a call went out. The page system would tell his contact he was here, so he waited. It was a huge place, it would have taken far too long to find them even with his gifts, he’d no idea who they were. His ship senses picked up several people heading his way with slow purpose, all in ship suits, one dressed as a scout pilot, the additional padding and techno augments very clear to his perception. A scout ship would pull far more gravities than most gravity dampers could fully cover, a pilot could still pass out without assistance. Military or ex-military perhaps. I don’t usually see that many of these ships. Must be mercenaries.
The larger guy reached him first, fitted out with tool pouches and other gear, a ship’s mechanic. “Hi, I’m Brock, I’m guessing you’re Falcon Fast Courier’s guy?” He eyed the logo on Gawain’s own shipsuit, the white and silver shaded falcon diving against a dark starry sky.
“That’s me, Gawain at your service. Ship chips?” He handed over the package, having already established the ID’s remotely, a small smile of satisfaction when the scout mech startled at the speed of hand off. His shipmind had already done the electronic verification and sign-off with the biochip of the ship engineer. A bad habit, I need to rein that in a bit, someone will suspect something one day.
“That’s impressive biotech you have there, normally I’ve time to order a drink before a courier confirms.” Brock said.
Gawain smiled hesitantly, then retreated to spiel “That’s Falcon Fast Couriers for you,at your service, light speed dispatch, by day, by night, by twilight.”
Brock laughed at the awkward spiel, “I think you need a drink or three to make that natural Gawain! Thank you for this.” He waved the packet. “Karel, our ship will be glad of these.”
Curiosity piqued, knowing that ships with minds were insanely rare, he had to ask. “Forgive me, given how you refer to your ship, does it have a mind?”
“Don’t let her catch you using it to refer to her, and yes she does.” He said, a mocking severity to his tone. “She’s been in service a century now, a dimension runner, and very particular about her identity.”
“Oh I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure.” Slightly embarrassed by his slip, he turned to leave. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Brock. Do remember us if you ever need fast couriering in future.”
The pilot spoke up, a sturdy young lady, dressed in dark reinforcement weave giving her a more muscular aspect than usual. “Please wait a moment, I’m curious about something, Courier. How did you get here so fast?” She said, eyes sharp watching him.
Uh oh..hmmm what to say…oh wait He decided to rely on his youth belying any ownership status. “It’s a trade secret Pilot, I’m sorry, I can’t divulge that.”
Her eyes grew sharper, “So there is something to tell after all hmm? We sent the order out three days ago, the nearest station is at least two weeks away, three days if you have a dimension runner—and we know all of those.”
He let himself blush with awkwardness, an easy act as it was awkward. However, his youth would save him, it wasn’t the first time someone asked such nosy questions.
“I’m sorry lady, I couldn’t possibly say.” He gave an easy smile, playing up the obedient eager employee for all he was worth. “Please excuse me.” He watched the ship mechanic give the pilot a subtle look.
“Don’t worry about it.” Brock said, “Madison here is competitive, she always wants to go faster, beat the next pilot. She just wants to race you. How about you come visit Karel? Have you ever seen a dimension runner before?”
Oh damn, now that was awkward. It didn’t help the pilot lady, whilst sharp eyed was kinda easy on the eyes. He never really noticed people in quite that way, too preoccupied with his shipself and the speed of his odd life. Still he was also quite sure her only interest was any secret he had for faster flight. Actually I would love to meet this Karel. Just gotta be careful.
He looked at Brock, playing up the eager seventeen year old angle. “Sure, er, I’d love to actually, and nope, I never met a dimension runner or any ship with a mind before.”
Madison led the way, “Well come on then, maybe you can show us your company ship after.” He coughed, thinking fast, “Sure, if they’re there, they may have run on ahead.” He said.
Frowning, she continued to lead. “You have a weird employer. You got somewhere to stay overnight till they come back?”
He could see she was still curious about our ship. Still, maybe they had a kitchen? “Ah I usually just go to an inn here.”
Following them out to the dock, passing security with a handwave, theyapproached an angular, sleek ship. Much prettier than just about everything else around it, she had the look of a mech predator, perhaps a shark if it was flatter with wings and guns. He watched as several of the ship’s external sensors followed us. His own shipsense saw through and through her, but he deliberately ignored the detail, trying to give some sense of privacy though he couldn’t miss the dense quantum optic synaptic entangled particle neural net cluster that was the Mind of the ship nor its myriad connection throughout the structure.
It was fascinating, and about the most sophisticated tech he’d ever seen, other than his own which he wasn’t capable of even beginning to trace. Gawain waved to the ship as he could sense her personality.
Brock looked at him one eyebrow raised, “I thought you’d never met a ship with a Mind before?”
“I haven’t but it only seems polite to say hi before climbing aboard someone’s body.” He said, mentally snickering at the inadvertent entendre, whilst keeping a straight face. Of course, I’d rather not have anyone just climb aboard either! He could empathise with a sapient ship just fine.
They climbed aboard, a silky cultured voice spoke as they did so. “You must be Gawain, how interesting.” The Ship spoke, “I’m Karel, nice to meet you.”
“Hi Karel, it’s nice to meet you. You’re the first ship I’ve spoken to, you are very beautiful.” He said, telling the truth.
“Oh my, little white falcon, you are a flatterer.” She said, laughing, “You do know that is what your name means, oh of course you do, your company is named after it. Though I wonder, are you the son of the owner?”
He paused, a moment of sadness striking him, as he imagined being the son, if Dad had made it. He shook it off, focussing on the here and now. “It’s just coincidence, I just liked the company and the opportunity was there.”
“Or the logo.“ She said quietly.
“Yes, “ Quickly, thinking, ShipMind working hard now, not always adept at the human things “Yes, uh well, it was my idea, though it was a bit embarrassing, I was thirteen at the time and thought it would be cool to get the local courier use it.”
“Hmmm it is.. Cool. Well, it is nice to meet you. And I thank you for the very fast arrival of my nav chips. An entire bank was taken out in my last scuffle and it’s been hell trying to get anywhere faster than 0.9 c” She huffed and grumbled slightly, focussed on her own concerns now, thankfully.
“Well, now that was interesting. Karel here doesn’t usually talk to strangers on the first date. Scoutsize Warship really, so you are honored.” He said, looking at him. “How long before your boss will pick you up?”
“Oh I have to call for pick-up—he’s got business planetside and it will be a few days.” He lied fluently, practiced at it now.
Madison spoke up then, “Why don’t you hang out with us till we have to move on then? We get bored of just our own company.”
Oh there was no easy way out really. He’d been very careful for years never to cross swords or have any issues with anyway, stations were large but not that large. No good folding space if you get known everywhere as someone with problems. Gossip had its own speed, and it far surpassed lightspeed.
Reluctantly, he accepted. “Tell me, do you have a kitchen I can use?” He said, “I, er, miss cooking….” He barely finished speaking before being hustled through to a small but well appointed galley. Madison and Brock stared at him, “You cook…” “So bored with military rations…whatever ingredients you need…” Breathlessly the both of them speaking at once.
Gawain laughed, “Yes, I love to cook. Old earth cuisine, Mexican, Asian, all sorts.”
Madison passed over a pad, “Write…we buy, you cook, we good yes?” Her ability to articulate clearly taking a nose dive in her eagerness to secure a cooked meal.
Laughing again, he wrote down a bunch of ingredients sufficient for a few different dishes. For a few days, we could try a few things. I ain’t in a rush and honestly, who couldn’t do with more friends? And it’s a great excuse to cook!
They went off to shop and Gawain stayed to chat to Karel who spent the time discussing navigation or rather he listened as she described navigation. “Dimension running is unlike anything else any human has ever seen.” She said, “Reality is partly inside out, weird fractal worlds even I can barely fully see as I skim. I just have to skim and feel for where I have to go.”
She went on to describe near misses, and the fate that lay in wait for those that missed their entry or exits to the dimensional rifts they skimmed along. It seemed that reality had rift points, places that were somehow thinner than others, places that were easy to tease into a higher dimensional rift.
Something he was somewhat intimately familiar with, except his folds were deeper, more instinctive and he always knew where the end was. Still, he kept his opinions to himself—I couldn’t teach anyone to fold even if I wanted to.
They arrived an hour later with all the ingredients, and he went into the kitchen to plan his assault.
Tonight would be Thai, a green curry, pad thai—plenty of synth prawns and synth chicken but mixed with real ginger, water chestnuts, spices,coriander, coconut and crushed peanuts. Chopping the veg and the synth proteins, heating the pans, he took pleasure in the methodical work, tasting as he went. The coconut was a pleasant surprise—it’s hard to get or synthesize. The result was a creamy curry with just enough spice to heat up the mouth without it being overpowering. Ideal.
It went down a treat.
“How did you learn to cook this Gawain? You’re so young?” He thought back to Luria, she didn’t just teach him to throw pots, she was an artist, her whole life was art, and food was another art for her. Even now she would give him a lesson, as long as he took her something new to cook with. The thought reminded me, he was due to visit her soon. Maybe when I was done here perhaps?
“A dear friend made it her mission to make sure I could,” he said quietly reflecting on his time with Luria. At fifty years his senior, she took the place of grandparent, parent and friend all at once. The only one who knew the secret of the White Falcon. And the only one who’d ever travelled aboard him.
***
Interlude: Luria and Gawain, two years ago.
“So you have a ship young man? Are you going to share? “ Luria said, still kneading the dough for the tiger bread. It was nearly ready now, so she cut it into even lumps, carefully kneading them into elongated buns, then setting aside the sesame oil and rice flour mix for the topping, she placed the buns in the oven. The crusty topping would be caused by the oily paste brushed over them. .
Gawain looked at the bun hungrily, they were a personal favourite. “Well, I don’t have a ship Luria, I um, look I’ve got a bit of a secret. One I can’t share with anyone until I understand it. Except, well, with you.” He stumbled over his words. “Look, the only way to explain is to show you. Come with me to the dock and I’ll reveal all.” He said, sighing, not wanting to keep this secret from her any more. His frequent absences were hard to explain if he didn’t say something, and he owed her everything.
“Unless you want charcoal, you better wait till the bread is done then mystery guy.” She smiled at him, the crows feet and a few small lines only showing on her face as she did so. Not a day over forty she looked, despite being a few decades beyond that. Except in those moments, where the map of her life, drawn in a few faint, spare wrinkles highlighted the journey she’d travelled. She was a native of old earth but saw many stations and worlds in her travels before settling here, at Gawain’s home station a decade ago.
That was all she ever told him of her past, other than her art and her food. That and the scar on her wrist, the removal of a tattoo clear to his shipself senses.
They made their way to the dock, her identity clearing her to enter a quiet area, little used as it was too small for the main freighter craft, usually it was used for the odd scout ship.
He checked constantly for watchers, his ship senses were never off, even if his attention was. “Please stand back, and don’t worry, what you’ll see I’ve done lots of times now.” He said, a little tremor to his voice, betraying his nerves at showing someone for real. I’ve no idea what this looks like from outside!
Measuring the clearance needed, he added a few more meters, unsure of the effects, he stood in the clear space of the dock and willed his transformation.
Luria gasped at the sight, watching her ward of several years warp and shift, the space fragmenting and blurring, reality quietly rearranging itself before her eyes, unfolding in brain searing shapes, befuddling her mind as the human became something else. Something gleaming, almost ghostly silver and pearl white, shaded deep with infinite fractals faintly layered on each surface. In Gawain’s place was a ship, small, merely twenty five meters in length, less than ten wide, a sleek arrowhead with wings, two per side but stacked one above the other, no clear engine ports. The thing sat on four rather structured elegant looking limbs. A ramp lowered at the rear and his voice rang out. “Um Luria, this is me, so uh welcome aboard.” He said.
In a daze she did as he suggested, walking onto the ramp, eyes taking in everything. The interior was a little sparse, no visible controls or readouts, openings visible either side of the hallway leading to the front of the ship. Where she expected a cockpit, she could see some seats, arising from the deck, clearly part of the ship, and a huge screen wrapping round the space. But, no controls, no control panels of any kind.
“Gawain, I have so many questions.” She began. “No controls?” in her amazement, she focussed on the mundane, something to hang onto whilst she processed what she was witnessing. Her ward shape shifted, into this? “Just how Gawain? Who are you? I knew your parents, I’ve known you for years! Are you an alien?” her voice rose, catching. She stopped, gaining control rapidly.
“I don’t think I am, I still feel like me, just with a bit extra.” He said, a little defensive. “I am the ship, so there is no way to give anyone control.”
Listening to him, his voice, at once familiar yet laced with almost ethereal distance overtones, smoothed out and deeper than his usual young man’s timbre, she shivered at the haunting familiarity and distant otherness.
He paused, thinking. “I’m sorry I’ve never told you but I didn’t know how.” His whole frame shifted a little as he shuffled on the deck slightly, wings flexing, various fine vanes shimmering and shifting in response to his emotion. “Luria, do you want to come out and fly with me? “ he waited, hopeful she’d accept him, not be freaked out any more. Please say yes, please.
Quietly sitting down, she looked round the cockpit, looking at the screen, noting just how clear the view really was. “It’s a lot to take in Gawain, a lot. If I’d not seen you change, I could never believe it.” She signed, thinking, hearing the edge to his voice. “Alright, show me what you can do. But Gawain, how do you get permission to leave?”
His voice stuttered slightly, “I uh don’t. They can’t seem to tell I’m here due to how I arrive. Watch.” He said, his tone lightening. The space in front of the screen warped, fractured, folded, then awful black beyond black greeted her eyes, a subtle shift she could feel in her very soul, then there were stars, and a ringed azure planet filling the viewscreen. “Welcome to Taros 9.” He said.
“Wait, that’s a dozen light minutes from the station. How?” She exclaimed, standing in shock.
She could hear a small proud laugh in his voice. “I fold space, the distance is zero, the travel time is instant.” He said.
Staring out the screen, she was silent, trying to understand what he was saying. “Gawain.” She whispered, “You folded space? That’s….impossible.”
“What do you mean? We just did it.” He said, puzzled.
“I wasn’t always an artist young man. I knew some people and they would tell you that it was impossible to fold space.” She whispered, shuddering, remembering. “Never mind that. How far have you travelled?” She said, focussing on the present.
“Just to Cassa Clark and Hessia Waystations, a couple of other systems.” He said.
Looking up sharply at him, “The nearest of those is two weeks away by the fastest ships I’ve ever seen. You’ve not been out of my sight for more than a day at most.”
“The time remains the same, Luria.” He insisted, whilst out the port, his smaller dendrites grabbed and fiddled with a small stray asteroid, breaking it apart as he fidgeted awkwardly.
Distracted by the ship dendrites, she went silent. “Why do you have those…tentacles?” she said.
“I’ve no idea, but they’re useful. Same as my landing arms, they’re prehensile too. I can chuck rocks pretty hard with them.” He said, not mentioning just how hard Perhaps mentioning the kinetic railgun of a throw I can might be a bad move.
Soaring away, he pulled on the fabric of the universe and began to fly, dodging around asteroids and space junk at a swift pace, occasionally grabbing a rock, challenging himself to move faster and grab delicately without destroying whatever he grabbed. Luria swayed in her seat, inner ear reacting to the vivid imagery of his motion, despite the ship remaining perfectly still inside.
“Gawain, how many G’s are you pulling?” She said,
His shipmind already gave him the answer, “I just breached five thousand gravities, we are doing nearly five hundred miles per second. We’ll be three times that in another twenty seconds.” He said, a touch of pride in his voice.
Watching the impossible accelerations, sat in the calm still space of his cockpit, as if what was on the screen was just a recording. “Impossibilities on impossibilities. Do you not intend to obey any particular physical laws today young man?”
He giggled, “If possible, maybe not.” then stooped, a literal lightspeed falcon onto a larger asteroid, trying to grab it with all four major limbs, succeeding, and continued to accelerate flinging it away to bash into another, obliterating both.
She just watched, quietly, seeing the young ship, that’s what he was, playing. “Gawain, so, tell me, how can you work everything out so well? Do you have computers or something in here?”
“It’s all just me, I can sense that many things are my ShipMind, but it’s not separate to me, just other parts of me all woven together.” He said.
“So when we spoke at home, when you learnt to cook, even when you went to school, you had this ShipMind the whole time?” She asked, pointedly.
“Well, yes, but I really didn’t want to discuss it with anyone, so I just kept it on the downlow.” He said, a little guilty.
“Hence average marks, never quite standing out.” She said, thinking, “When clearly, judging by your flight, you really could.”
“Honestly, being a ship is enough, what more do I need?” He said, “So far I’m faster than anything else I’ve seen, I’m in little danger from pirates, I just need enough money to have an ordinary life somewhere.”
“With all this potential, you want to settle for a normal life?” She said, staring, startled really.
“Luria, what else could I want anyway? Look, two days ago, I pointed my nose at the Andromeda galaxy, nearly two and a half million light years away. Do you know how long it took me to get there?” He said, quietly, contemplating, remembering. “The same time it took to get here. Luria, everywhere is the same distance for me.”
He paused, flipping, rolling, pulling even more G’s now, them having no more effect on her body than the previous five thousand, his velocity climbing way into the thousands of miles per second, the near obstacles already blurring with a touch of blue shift.
“All I wanted was to explore anyway, and, um well, cook. Somehow, when I am back as a human I still love cooking the things you showed me. Oh wait, I have some surprises for you still.” He said, his slightly excited tone contrasting with the epic spins and loops of his wild asteroid dodging semi relativistic flight.
“More surprises?” She said, eyebrows arching, “Can you top the ones you’ve given me so far? Perhaps you have a starship girlfriend out there somewhere?”
“Luria!! I don’t think it works that way.” His embarrassed tone turned a little sad, “I don’t think there are others actually, even if it did. I’ve never seen one. Anyway, surprises…” There was movement in his cabin, a small subtle portal opening a few meters behind her seat, and half a dozen packages came neatly out into a pile on his deck. “So, a side effect of space folds is extra dimension cargo space. I went shopping a little while ago. As far as I can tell, time moves super slow, or maybe not even at all in these little spaces and, well, I bought you a pile of ingredients from all over. Even stuff from old Earth.”
She accepted his rather effective deflection with grace, eyes wide at yet another handy revelation. “So, you really can shop till you drop? And thank you, that is so thoughtful of you.”
“Well,” His tone suggested he’d be scratching his head in human form, “I don’t think I can exactly drop any more.”
“What do you mean?”
“My shipself doesn’t get tired, and even as a human, that doesn’t seem to change really.” He said. “Anyway, we can shop anywhere you want.”
She sat back, looking at the packages, contemplating.
***
Gawain, Present:
He slept over on board Karel and agreed to come out on a trip with them in return for some cooking. An easy trade, and honestly he was a little excited to see what independent scout ships got up to. New friends, new contacts would always be helpful.
Listening as they made ready to leave, they were heading back to his home station, a trip of two weeks. He’d picked up some low priority packages hidden away in his extra dimensional storage, nothing important, other than an odd one from an Inspector Gavron, a small memory chip that appeared blank to him other than a number etched into it. Still it was a paying job, though the deadline was three weeks, a standard post time. He’d been contacted directly rather than through the Ship Exchange, which usually only occurred on his home station. This Inspector had clearly sought him out personally. He shrugged, who knows, at least it was to my destination.
Karel lifted off, and for the first time in his life, he felt the thrust and g forces of a starship. Completely different to his own advanced abilities, but fun just the same. She felt fast, even though she was crawling compared to the White Falcon. I think maybe I won’t tell her that!
His ship senses gave him a surreal view of the surrounding space and detail of Karel’s workings. He had to work to ignore much of the input just to feel less of a voyeur.
As she accelerated he could feel a hint of the eldritch, the edge of reality bleeding away where she began to engage her dimension skimming drive, an itch in his mind that he wanted to resolve, a harmony never quite finishing, not quite meshing. Instinctively he felt himself nudging the harmony, reaching into reality to pull and steady it. The effect was instant, snapping them through the skimming rift within moments. He heard the ShipMind swear, pulling herself along, “What the frick!” before their entry overtook her processors leaving her no spare time to cuss or wonder. Ooops
Several hours later, still skimming, the ship was quiet as he began cooking the next meal, the ship was busy navigating the half dimensions of the skim rift space, whilst her crew played cards in the dinette. “Did you hear Karel cursing earlier,” Brock said to Madison, “Something took her by surprise, adding significant delta v to her skim. She thinks the journey will just be a week now.”
“Really? That’s unheard of.” Madison replied. “I wonder what could cause that.”
“She was muttering about harmonies and such like. I’ve no idea really.” He said.
Tonight was fajitas with extra spice. This time he got some real chicken too, a big surprise for his new friends. Or at least he hoped it would be.
“These are wonderful, where, just where did you find chicken?” Madison said, bits of chicken flying from her lips as she waxed lyrical about the food.
“Trade secret Maddy, “ he said, daring to be familiar now he’d cooked for them more than once. She frowned a little at him but chose to eat rather than speak, the lure of the spicy chicken in his special home made wraps just too much for her.
She pointed a fork at him, but didn’t stop eating, conflicted between challenging his secret and just finishing the good before Brock got his hands on it.
Karel’s disembodied voice spoke up “you have quite a talent for procurement, young man, maybe you should consider a new career with us?” she ventured.
“Thank you for your kind words, but I’ve got work, and well , I like my independence” He said as he tackled his own meal, savouring the rare chicken treat. It was hard to acquire but another crew owed him a favour some time back, and he’d kept their payment, the stock of chicken breasts in a fold ever since.
“Damn shame, I like your cooking.” Madison looked at him with a sorrowful frown.
He grinned, “I’m here now and not rushing off just yet. How about this, at the end of this run, if you’d like me to join you for short periods, I’d like that too.” He said, thinking that the friendship with this crew could prove beneficial and most of his current delivery clients still operated on mail taking weeks not minutes.
The ship spoke up again, “That might work, but be aware, some of our runs will involve combat risk. If you can handle that, then, well you’ll be welcome.”
The last thing he was worried about was combat, though he wasn’t sure if he’d feel the same if his new friends were in danger. “I would like that, Karel, as long as I could intersperse my delivery jobs.” He said.
“Just how are you achieving the delivery times? Surely you can’t be waiting on your family all the time?” Madison said.
“We just have a fast ship, and good organisation,” he said.
“That’s quite some organisation.”
He didn’t elaborate, choosing to focus on his food rather than try to overcomplicate his story.
Their arrival at Gabon was his first time, as an adult, doing things conventionally. It took a lot of effort to conceal some of his unfamiliarity, earning him some odd looks as they passed through Processing to gain clearance. The identity bioscanners recognised him as a resident however, so their arrival was trouble free.
They parted company so he could make his drop off and they could sort out their next job. They promised to contact him if their next run was good for him too. I hope they’re going somewhere where I can make drop offs. It was nice just to have some friends.
Heading to the Ship Exchange, he deposited his client’s package, receiving his fee automatically and taking two other minor deliveries. There was little going out that hadn’t been picked up already, his absence opening space for other couriers to fill. He frowned, he’d have to balance his trips out if he wanted to spend time on Karel.
***
Interlude: Gavron
The coded package arrived at Gabon Station, just a week after he’d sent it. He scratched his head, thinking. Even a dimension skimmer takes two weeks on that run, how did he do that? The mystery deepened, there was something majorly off about this courier. He spent several hours researching drive technology, looking for clues, but dimension skimming was the only answer he could find. Higher efficiency drives could cut the time, but to the degree of halving a two week trip was beyond the bounds of what was publicly known.
Is he an agent of some kind? He decided to set a few more tests, lucrative courier requests with impossible deadlines and a small penalty for each day’s delay. He distributed them through the Ship Exchange network, revising the deadline to be dependent on pick up time. Maybe I’ll learn something useful. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, just his gut telling him there was something to find.
***
Gawain:
He found a quiet place, at the back of the shop exchange, the bathroom, where he folded outside the station, shifting and changing once more. Then, setting his sights on Hasel Station through his fold sense, he felt into reality, reaching and twisting, the infinite fractal abyss opening, he poked his nose through and entered. An instant later he was a few miles from Hasel, a short trip, a quick fold to their dock, a discreet shift and he was through. Dropping off his packages quietly, getting paid, he took away a few more to bring back home.
He was home within the hour.
That evening he was set to meet up with Karel for their next voyage. He smiled to himself thinking about the three week journey, each way, he’d just completed in an hour. Though one of those packages was odd, so similar to the one that he delivered the other day. He shrugged, as long as it wasn’t illegal, he didn’t much care, he got paid.
“Hello Gawain” Karel’s soft tones greeted him as he made his way aboard that evening. “How are you?”
“I’m fine Karel, just a little tired. Glad to be back on board. It’s nice to see you again. I’ve got some nice new ingredients for the others,” he said as he made his way up the ramp, through the corridor, into his cabin, dropping off the ingredients in the kitchen on the way.
Under the iceberg, personal notes for the story
Gawain, :Wain, white falcon.
Enfolded space: creating worlds by unfolding higher dimensions, engraving reality upon the then repacking them. A fabled technology by a species lost to time.
Enfolded Seed: an ultra rare remnant of the Lost people, the only known example: A golden crystal world that was owned by group of colonists who managed to master it’s ability to enfold. It was self supporting, needing only the light of any star to support itself. If attacked it’s people Enfolded it from view and carried its anchor, smaller than an atom, in a scattering of ftl ships too well armed and manoeuvrable to be captured.
Acuberrie drive - standard ftl operated by compressed space such that light speed limits were surpassed in ordinary space.
Fold space: a mythical idea speculated to be available to the species that created Enfolded seeds.
Waystations: humanity spread rapidly in the millenia post ftl travel. Thanks to constant warring, the population is widely spread on many types of space station as well as asteroids and anything possessing sufficient gravity and distance from a star not to be an immediate crushing or furnace hazard.
The MC was born in the depths of space, at our most distant waystation to parents who were ordinary mercenaries who had little time for him. However, unbeknownst to them, the moment of his conception coincided with a never seen before fold event that dumped another Seed directly into his genome. This seed was also the size of an atom and replicated itself through the host dna, replacing all its individual atoms with identical ones that were shells, hiding its immense complexity in myriad inner dimensions.
The result was an embryo that look and even scanned no different from human, yet its entire atomic structure was actually a copy of this seed. Each was entangled to all others such that they were still a single seed. Gawain’s very life was woven of atoms who were all one Seed of a lost race.
The consequences didn’t show up in early childhood. For all intents and purposes he was as average and ordinary as any other kid. He took combat lessons from his parents, auto lessons front he station Ai tutors, played with other kids in the station and was an average kid amongst many who inhabited the mercenary ran waystation.
This changed when he got spaced during an attack on his station. It was then he discovered a disturbing ability, a confusing one too. He transformed into a small, alien space craft whilst his mind altered to cope with his new senses and body. This ship accidently drew the attackers but proved to be impossible for them to destroy despite Gawain’s inability to fly or fight competently. Rail gun rounds disappeared into its body and energy weapons were deflected or absorbed.
Fortunately for his sanity, he rapidly learnt how to change back before he was discovered and was able to position himself to be rescued. The hectic nature of the attack and the odd way it concluded left him avoiding the more difficult questions his change would otherwise attract.
He was thirteen at the time.
It was a few years before he experienced the change again as he’d been unable to discover just what made it happen the first time. At 13 it had been a shock, but his ship body self didn’t experience adrenaline or fear the same way. He never confessed to anyone what he could do at the time.
It was years later when he found out how to shift on purpose.
Discovering his ship self, losing his parents
Getting by
First mention of Gavron the inspector
Flashback to his guardian
Meeting Karel and the mercenaries
Flashback to showing his guardian his ship
Making for his home station on Karel, the job offer
Places:
Cluso Clark Station
Cassa Clark Station
Gabon Station - Gawain McCanter’s Home station and Inspector Gavron’s first package destination from
Hasel Station
Hessia Run Waystation -Where he meets Karel and her crew
Avural Station - incidental, mentioned as a destination for a job
Taros 9 - Planet nearest to his home station (Gabon Station ) where he lived with Luria the artist.
***
“Did that ship just sprout a tentacle and scratch itself? Wtf.” I stared at the pretty little courier craft. I’d never seen one like her before so I admit I was already staring when it absolutely scratched itself. “Nope, that ain’t right. When do ships have the ability or need to scratch themselves. That’s insane Jerry. “ So was talking to myself but I gave myself a pass, I’m certain that starship just scratched its nose.
Rules: He can’t fold straight to a destination he hasn’t been to - he’d be guessing. Unless he spends days randomly folding. In human form he has a few hundred metres of fold ability - but he is already changed form to his ship self when he does so. 2 bodies, one unified mind, overlapped senses.
We don’t know anything about the effects of human sexual/romantic sensations on his ship form- at this time we assume all of this aspect only occurs in terms of sensation etc in human form.
His human form requires nutrition as a human even though his ship self is enfolded in the core atoms of his human self.