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LENA THOUGHT THE SHIP seemed less ‘glowy’ than when she’d seen it last. Still a beautiful pearlescent work of art, but something was different. Uncle Richard had stomped off in search of the Chief Engineer, having left Lena in his cabin with multi-coloured threats of the consequences of wandering before he got back.
The cabin was beautiful. No surface met another at right angles. The walls had a faint blue tinge, fading to white in the corners. There was a table in the centre of the room, like a waist-high mushroom with a fine flat top like the stem of an upturned wine glass. She placed her package carefully on it, and her hands on her hips. The oval door she’d come through closed like a wound, with a soft bong. It bonged again and a faint outline in pink marked where the door had been. Did that mean it was locked now? She’d have to take a chance.
She folded her jeans and placed them on the table next to the box, putting her pumps on the floor next to them. She looked down at her rather sad retro green and white tennis shoes. If this new dress were half as good in real life, she’d need to consider new footwear to go with it. Perhaps Mum would spring for a new pair of boots. She lifted the lid of the box and removed a layer of beautiful pink nanofiber packing with an animated note with a floating icon that she collected with a swipe of her arm pad, which beeped. She shrugged the dress over her head and then she checked her pad to see what instructions the icon had loaded. There were quite a lot. That could wait for another time, another day. There was a flashing notice saying demo. She made the click in her mouth she’d trained her pad to listen for when her hands were full. It seemed to be the cycle of images from the shop window, which she stopped on forest. That would do, this evening, she would be a forest. She stood and the whole wall next to the door had turned into a mirror. The dress was astonishing. She was sure it had a faint scent of pine too. If she didn’t walk too fast, she could get about without her tennis shoes showing. At least they had green stripes. She turned back to the screen and had the oddest feeling she was being watched. No, not being watched exactly. No-one was looking at her but rather a presence was aware of her. The ship. The ship was pleased she was enjoying herself.
She shook her head. This was odd in so many ways. Was she making all this up? Her mother and her Uncle Richard would certainly think so. A piece of tech couldn’t talk to her, not really. “You’re a big girl now...” was becoming an old favourite in their apartment, followed by entreaties to do or stop doing or believing something. She blinked at her reflection. How had the ship known to do that? She must have muttered something. She sighed, gathered up her frock and headed to the door. It opened as she approached. Lena shook her head and stomped out into the corridor. She searched her pad for a schematic of where she was, to find her Uncle. The pad presented nothing except the dots representing each person, no walls, nothing. Perhaps there was some crazy security lockdown on military vessels. There was a broad outline of the outer edges of the ship, but nothing inside except the twenty or so dots representing the people comprising the commissioning crew. She stared at the walls, then down again at the pad. Walls or not, Uncle Richard wasn’t far away, and her stomach had started to rumble. She strode off to find him.
