[A]“Moose. Food.”

  A strange word ‘food’. It seemed to be a bel, like many of the other words she had learned, but it was a bel shared by many things. She had yet to learn the extent to which the bel applied, but since the green stuff fell into that list, she wasn’t eager to learn just how far it went.

  It was still an effective word though. All she needed to do to eat was use the magic to call Moose’s attention then speak the word. She might not like what Moose conjured up, but it always filled her belly and saved her from having to eat more of her treats. Treats which were getting very low. As she slid off of Moose and waited for him to begin lumbering back to the food pce, she thought again about her pns to get back into her old home.

  It had been a great many sleeps since she had st been there. Moose called them ‘nights’, but that was just confusing to her. She didn’t know what a moon was and she had yet to see any armored people involved, or armor in general. Not that she really knew what that was either. Or any monsters as well. At this point she was quite sure Moose had pushed all the lesser monsters to the very outskirts. Only the light and dark still did battle where she and Moose could witness them.

  Even that battle had annoyed Moose in the end.

  He had banished the big lights. The big darkness as well. It had allowed her to see much farther than she ever had before, but it was much dimmer than it had been. A blow to both sides. It seemed that Moose had grown tired of the back-and-forth nature of the battle and pushed both sides to be equal, as the light no longer came suddenly or was beaten back just as quick. It was all a steady thing, the battle ever present.

  It could be why she had yet to see any small creatures like herself as well, at least not outside of the garden Moose still protected with the rge wall. That and the noises she sometimes heard were the only reason she had not assumed that Moose had completely destroyed all the other monsters. It was clear that Moose didn’t think they were alone. It seemed far too excessive for small creatures.

  She hoped she would finish turning into a moose before she got unlucky enough to stumble on one of those other monsters. She had yet to see any visible difference on herself yet, but she still expected them. As it stood, she only needed to think about Moose and the tingles would come back. Not as intense, but they would be there. A clear sign the magic was progressing. She didn’t know what changes she should expect first though. Other than the hair all over and the strange bits of himself that changed shape, seemingly at will, she felt the height would be the most obvious change. It would also be the most useful. She clearly didn’t have enough magic yet, Moose changed much faster than she did. The hair on his face nearly as much as the hair on his head. Something that she didn’t even have yet. It was almost disappointing, how slow things were progressing.

  It could be why she had so much trouble matching Moose. Perhaps the changes were happening on the inside first?

  Once Moose had forced the light and dark to fight steadily, he had begun to run up and down the rgest tunnel near his ir. She had been so frightened the first time, thinking that Moose had seen something and was running from it. She never wanted to see something that Moose would run from. No matter what happened during the encounter, she didn’t think she would ever be able to escape that kind of nightmare. It had been even more frightening when she couldn’t keep up with Moose. As she fell farther behind, she could feel the panic pushing her legs harder. Right up until Moose passed her going the other way.

  That had been so confusing she had fallen over. Between the confusion and sitting on the ground, she had a chance to look around. As she saw nothing and Moose seemed to not be running scared, at least from her perspective, she had to stop and re-think things. The second time Moose passed her, she could tell he had slowed down. He was still running, but he seemed to be running without hurry. It was bizarre to see anything being zy while running. She had to admit that the words fit Moose though.

  Once the lingering panic had faded and the confusion had turned into curiosity, she did have to face reality. She had been slower than Moose. Slower than a zy run, while she had been going as fast as she could in her panic. That… was unsettling. That would mean she had only survived as long as she had because of her stealth, not her ability to escape. Moose had simply never bothered to chase her. Not to mention all the other monsters she may have come across and not realized.

  Once the realization had settled in, she had decided to follow Moose and practice, both running and stealth. More things on her list to do so she didn’t have to worry anymore. It was nearly impossible at first, Moose simply kept going when she had colpsed from all the running. All the running made her belly compin much more as well, demanding more food than she had ever eaten. She continued despite all of that though. The safety being faster could provide too much to ignore. That was all the motivation she needed.

  That and the sheer pleasure she found in the rain room afterwards.

  Those thoughts and a full belly made her long for the nest, her body now focused on warmth and sleep. She felt it was te enough and was tired of the cool tunnels. While she never bothered to hurry Moose along, finding it an utter waste of energy, she did still try to find a comfortable way to steal his warmth without getting in the way of him going to the ir. She was to be disappointed though. Moose didn’t even bother to go in the right direction. When she made questioning noises at him, she didn’t much like the response.

  “Noises. Danger.”

  Obviously.

  She didn’t like that Moose had taken notice though.

  [B]He resigned himself to the fact that he was missing something important and he probably wouldn’t find it here.

  It had been a couple of months since he had opened the central command room and his transting had hit a wall. At least he assumed it was a ‘command’ room. It was a room with ‘central’ in the name and a bunch of monitors, he didn’t really know what else it could be. His efforts had sped up at first, having finally gotten access to a lot of disparate information that he could cross-reference. It helped him figure out some of the basic things he was having trouble with and gave him a great deal of data to note down. He now had an average for power use and water use, according to the screens in the room. He had cross-checked the power numbers and they seemed close, so he was willing to trust them for now. The command room also had a couple of consols that were in future english, numbers and all. That was a huge find, though they didn’t seem to be controls he was familiar with.

  It had taken nearly a month and the discovery of more rooms on both levels to really understand what they were showing him. Between discovering the cleaning facilities like undry and automated bots, which seemed to clean the floor when no one was present, and the living quarters on the deck level he had realized that this pce was completely self-sufficient. He still refused to see what was on the hold level, now with even more conviction, as he had discovered where everyone had gone.

  Something he would never tell the poor girl.

  He had found a group of decomposed bodies in what could only be described as an airlock. An airlock he promptly confirmed led to space.

  That had been a harrowing experience. He had stumbled his way through the panel with a makeshift mask on his face in an attempt to find what had killed the people. He could see the bodies and that they were mostly just piles of bone and a mess of biomass from the small window in the airlock, but that didn’t tell him why they were there or how the died. If they had been locked in, he wouldn’t find much, but if they had been killed elsewhere and dumped, he might need to know.

  He never would now though, his poor understanding and the strange wording had seen him vent the bodies. He stopped touching the panel after that. If he accidentally opened both doors and didn’t know how to close them, it wouldn’t really matter what had happened. Fortunately, the outer door seemed to be on a timer and closed by itself while he was still coming to terms with the fact that the outside pressure wasn’t going to be a problem. Er, wouldn’t be a problem so long as they didn’t step out of the door themselves at least.

  That, alongside the self-sufficiency and ck of other people, meant they were either on a ship or a station in deep space. That was the only other clue he needed to figure out the remaining panels. One panel was clearly automation of some kind for the outer hull. Or maybe just in general. With the size of the ship’s insides, there was no practical way that the number of bunks he had seen would hold enough people to keep up with repairs. There were robots inside, it only made sense that there were some outside as well. He knew it was a ship because of the second panel. Now that he knew what to look for, he somewhat recognized gravitation and orbital equations. The symbols for the math were a bit strange, but math was math, he could figure it out. There might be some definition he wasn’t aware of, but as far as he was concerned, if it could move enough on its own to change orbits, it was a ship.

  Even if it was the size of a small city.

  Which meant he was now in charge of a massive ship. Probably somewhere out in deep space.

  There was a map. Something he also didn’t recognize at first but made perfect sense now. He couldn’t read the thing, but it made sense. They seemed to be in some sort of dead zone between stars, but he only got that from looking at the graphics, he had no idea the distances or times involved in moving anywhere. It would take him a lot of time to figure things out.

  Time and attention.

  One he had in abundance, now that food and water weren’t going to dry up anytime soon. Attention, not so much. Once his erstwhile companion had discovered she enjoyed talking now that it didn’t hurt, she demanded attention quite often. She also only responded to ‘Kitty’ of all things. He had no idea how that had become a thing, but he was willing to accept it was probably his fault somehow, considering it was an English word. Not that he could really change things now.

  ‘There’s nothing to it but to hunker down and get to work I guess.’

  The ship seemed to have a great deal of automation. So much so that he wasn’t really comfortable saying he was flying it. Fly it he did though. After working out what the symbols were in the math, he could pretty easily follow the computer through the various calcutions it did for travel. It also helped him check his transtions for the future english numbers. A few stars ter and he had a pretty good idea of how to work what he was calling the ‘navigation’ panel, though it seemed to involve everything about moving the ship, not just FTL travel. Which was indeed happening, if the map was to be believed. He doubted stars were that close together, even in unknown parts of space. He didn’t do much flying, the panel doing most of the work. He had found maneuvering systems, but they only seemed to work close to a star.

  Considering the massive change in power he saw when they were in a system, that made a lot of sense. He practiced maneuvering while in each system, alongside the automated things the ship had on offer. It seemed to be able to take in and refine asteroids, a panel showing scans of things he targeted. He didn’t know what the scans found or if it was any good, but he liked the practice and it helped him figure out the repair and other automated systems outside the ship.

  Well, he figured it out so long as he wasn’t being fooled into a false sense of competence. It’s pretty easy to fly a pne if you don’t have to nd or interact with anything else. Anything… like the new ping the map system had picked up. The one that looked suspiciously like another ship.

  ‘Welp, time to put all that practice into, uh, practice.’