The leaf had not decayed, not yet anyway. In the thirty days it had sat in Des’s inventory there had been no change at all. It looked as fresh now as it did the day he had picked it up. When He compared it to the second leaf he had picked up a few days later the difference was obvious. That one was far from rotting away, however the signs of decay were undeniable. His inventory seemed to preserve anything he put in it.

  Thirty days was a good start but it was not conclusive, maybe it preserved things indefinitely or maybe it just slowed the process down. He would keep the test going for now, he wasn’t using any inventory slots for anything else.

  The soft swish of his door sliding open drew his attention, Shofos familiar antennad face crossing the threshold.

  “You ready gramps?”

  He was still getting used to the nickname. He had been surprised when she had first used it, curious, he had asked why that name. Her response was simple, “you’re old”. Not wanting to pry at that particular can of worms he let it be.

  “You sure you know the way?” In truth, he would risk it even if she wasn’t sure, he was looking forward to this.

  She just nodded, waiting for him.

  He joined her at the door, looked around, then asked “the others?”

  “Ships are boring,” she shrugged.

  That was hard for Des to wrap his mind around, none of the others found spaceships exciting, or even interesting. It made a kind of sense, in his last life not everyone had found cars interesting. He had worked with his dad on their camper van, but that had been more about having it available than any great love for the vehicles.

  “Are you sure you still want to do this?” If she was going to be bored the whole time Des would not force her to come. He would make sure she gave him directions though.

  “If I get bored I can leave, besides this was my Idea”.

  That was true. Today was the second day of the festival of life, a five day celebration with parties, gifts and get-togethers. Initiates of course were free to celebrate so long as it was in their spare time. The previous night Shofo had convinced him to come watch the fireworks, while there she had asked if there was anything he wanted to do. His answer was spaceships, he wanted to see one up close. Shofo claimed she knew the location of one of the hangers, she could take him there. Now they were about to head out and Des was wasting time.

  “Lead the way”

  She did. As they walked through the grey stone halls of the temple, Des tried to rain in his excitement. He knew they would not take an initiate for a joyride, still he couldn’t help but imagine it. He tried to distract himself by thinking about today's meditation. He had only failed four times, in the last session he hadn’t failed once, he was getting close. Unfortunately he was also falling behind, talks with the others had revealed that while he had been working on his issue, they had been moving past him.

  Clan Salamander had begun with meditating in order to sense the force, then they moved onto Sensing the force outside of meditation. Now they were learning to control the force by moving small objects.

  Finding that out was a blow. Admittedly this was only true for the strongest, most of them were still in the earlier stages.

  Des wasn’t worried, he would catch up. With his meditation power he knew the force, or knew the feel of it at least. He was certain he would sense it outside of meditation just as soon as he was allowed to meditate properly. No more dipping his toes in and out all the time.

  Emerging from that thought he noticed a change, the red carpets and grey stone halls had been replaced with brown carpets and grey stone halls. ‘How am I supposed to learn my way around when everything looks the same’ he lamented. He wondered at Shofos ability to navigate, ‘maybe those antenna help somehow’ he thought, he chose not to ask.

  Not having arrived at their destination yet, Des thought instead on his studies. They were getting harder, not difficult yet but he was actually having to think now. At this rate it would not be long till he caught up with his first life, then his advantage would be gone. He would still be more than a decade ahead but his rate of progress would return to a normal pace.

  He wasn’t any smarter than before, if anything he worried he was dumber. He kept missing things that in hindsight should have been obvious. Like only collecting one leaf for his test, it had taken two days to occur to him that he needed a second for comparison.

  Not wanting to dwell on that he let his excitement for where he was going creep back in. A few minutes later they passed through a large set of double doors into a cylindrical room that Des realised was an elevator. Shofo moved to a control panel, examined it for a moment then punched in the command.

  As they began their ascent, Shofo, no longer focused on guiding them, asked a question that wasn’t a question.

  “the force?”

  Used to this kind of fractured question Des just replied “yes?” He was good at understanding what she was asking, usually. This time however he was clueless.

  “It's big,” she paused. Des waited as she gathered her thoughts.”So big. Really really big, it just goes on and on, and on. How can it be so Big?”

  Des thought back to his first experience with the force, the sheer scale of it. A vastness beyond any sapient minds ability to comprehend, it should have been terrifying, sanity destroying even. All of that had drifted off into the force along with the rest of his emotions. For him it had not been a problem, consequently he had no insight to offer.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “You’re right, its big” he started slowly, giving her time to digest each word and himself time to think. “And powerful”. That too stood out in his memories from his one proper meditation session. “But it’s not evil, or bad”. There was a chime as the doors to the elevator swung open, Des paid it no mind. “It doesn’t want to hurt you”. That was true, so long as you don’t count the darkside. “It will help you, even with this”. It was the best he could come up with, trying to help a four year old through an existential crisis was not something he was equipped for.

  He kept his focus on Shofo, he would not be distracted by a hanger filled with ships right now. He waited while she worked her way through her thoughts. In the end she just nodded and moved to the exit, Des was hot on her heels.

  The space they entered was again rectangular and boxy but nothing about the sight was boring to Des. There were six bays on both the left side and right that ran the full length of the hanger, between them was a runway leading to the exit on the far end. Each bay was an open face room that shared its walls with its neighbours, running above them was a second floor that Des could easily see into, its glass panelled walls no barrier to sight.

  Des’s eyes however were on the ships. Eight of the hangar bays were empty, four were not. The two on the right looked like cargo transports to Des. Both had enclosed cabs at the front attached by pole frames in a horizontal ladder like structure. Each strut of the ladder housed a good sized metallic box presumably for transporting cargo. They reminded Des of train cars but squashed together.

  The two on the left were smaller, both looked like single man craft. The first had a bullet like quality, its cylindrical body ending in a glass dome face that made Des think of world war two bombers. On each side of the body was a vestigial wing tipped with triangular plates that gave off a soft glow.

  The shape of the last put Des in mind of a mouse's head. There were two dishes on top just the right shape and sized to form ears, a glass dome covering the cockpit completed the look forming a single beady eye. In his head he named it ‘Mouse-clops’.

  “Hey, can you help, my friend wanted to see spaceships”. While Des had been staring, Shofo had walked up to a man in a maintenance uniform and was trying to get his attention.

  “Starships,” the man remained facing away, “they’re called starships, never heard of a spaceship before”. The man was distracted, clearly working on something.

  “He calls them spaceships, can you help?” Des was moving towards them, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to stop her from talking or if he wanted to join her and beg the mans help.

  The man turned, taking in Shofo and a quickly closing in Des. “ah, hello initiates”. He seemed mildly panicked for a second before he said “wait here, I’ll fetch someone”. He was gone before Des could finish closing the distance.

  Shofo turned to face Des as he drew up next to her. “Ok I’m bored, have fun Gramps”, she spun and began moving towards the elevator to leave.

  “Wait, you’re not sticking around?” he asked, slightly bemused by her behaviour. She had been the one to suggest this.

  She paused just long enough to turn and say, “told you, ships are boring”. Then she carried on, barely missing a beat.

  Des was left standing alone, while he waited his eyes moved towards the bullet shaped ship a little in front of him. Resisting the urge he waited, it took only a few minutes, but to Des it felt much longer.

  A grey haired old man, looking strong and fit for his age approached. He wore the same uniform as the man from earlier, Des noticed an expression of puzzlement on his face. “Jane said there were two of you?”

  “Ah, yeh, my friend left, she isn’t really interested in ships”

  “Not to worry, not to worry. I am Chief Atreyus Booth, it's a pleasure to meet you, initiate?” The last word was said as a question.

  “Cain sir, initiate Desmond Cain.”

  “Well Desmond, Jane said you wanted to see some ‘Spaceships’ ” there was a tone of amusement in his voice.

  “Des is fine sir and yes, I’d like to see some, err, starships”, it was a small mistake, he wasn’t going to worry about using the wrong name.

  “Well, let's start with the two Harmoniums”. Despite being almost next to the two single man craft the chief led them to the other side of the hangar. When they stopped in front of the two cargo haulers, he continued. “These are H-38 Harmonium cargo haulers. Not truely starships”.

  Des was grateful, this time the man had not called them ‘spaceships’. Booth continued his speech, “No, these are repulsor craft, basically airspeeders, do you understand the difference?”

  Des nodded but the chief waited for more. “It can’t travel outside the atmosphere,” with a title like airspeeder that seemed like the logical answer to Des.

  “Exactly. Though it might not look like much it is one of the most versatile haulers on the market, capable of safely transporting hundreds of tons of any form of matter.”

  Des was sceptical, he couldn’t see how this small vessel could carry so much. Booth seemed to expect the reaction, Smiling he led Des to the tail end of the ship. They stopped beside the last cargo pod and the chief punched out a few commands on a control attached to one of the poles. The pod and the poles that housed it began to expand backwards growing in size, it didn’t stop til it was a foot from the wall.

  Des turned from the sight to a still smiling Booth “impressive, what is it used for”

  The question appeared to deflate the chief, his smile dimming. “They’re mostly used for waste removal”.

  ‘They’re sewage trucks’ Des realised. He kept his laughter inside, not wanting to upset the man that ran this hanger. Chief Booth had seemed to be enjoying this impromptu tour as much as Des was. Trying to regain the momentum he asked “what about those two” he indicated the two unique craft on the opposite side of the hanger.

  The mans smile brightened once more, his discomfort regarding the sewage truck forgotten. They crossed the runway for the second time, stopping in front of the cylindrical ship,

  “Unfortunately I can tell you almost nothing about this vessel,” despite his words the chiefs joy was still evident. “It was brought in by master Teek, I have no idea where he found it but I do not recognise the make or model. It is a mystery to me”. This fact seemed to please him greatly.

  Both stared at the ship, a comfortable silence filling the space between them.

  Des was still wondering at the mysteries the craft might hold when chief Booth spoke again. “Anyway, Onto the next”, they walked the short distance to the next bay in line. “This last one is a P-45 Razorbeak, or it was, it’s been rather heavily modified. It’s an old scout ship, horribly outdated but the hyperdrive was fast for its day and still comparable now. You can see how the nose has been modified, it looks like they jury rigged a ram-scoop into it”.

  Booth began leading him around the ship, pointing out the various ways it had been altered from its original design. As they rounded the aft Des noticed an open panel, when he looked at the insides of the ship he felt an itching sensation in his mind and reflexively pushed it away. The sensation did not leave, it was only this fact that made Des aware of what he had done, what he had tried to do. He froze.

  The itching continued, he tried looking away from the panel and it stopped.

  ‘I've felt this before. Not just the itching but pushing it away’.

  He searched within, wracking his memories for the last time he had felt this. There was nothing to find in his recent days, so he looked farther, going all the way back to his first day in the temple. He remembered the first test of his inventory, he had stored his holopad and while viewing it in his minds eye, he had felt an itching and pushed it away. Exactly the same as he had tried to do just now.

  When next using his inventory he had felt nothing, nor had he felt it anytime since. At the time he had put it down to the complexity of the holopad but now he realised that could not be the case.

  He considered what connected these two events and the answer came to him. Just now he had been looking inside the Razorbeak, that first time he had been looking inside of the holopad.

  Hoping he was correct he turned his sight back to the open panel. The itching returned, this time instead of pushing it away he pulled on it. It was overwhelming, an encyclopaedia of understanding smacked into Des’s brain as if wielded by a giant nursing a grudge. It was too much. Even if he had tried he would not be able to hold a fraction of it, as the understanding began slipping away Des became aware of two things.

  First, he was on the ground. At some point during his attempt his knees had given way. The second thing was chief Booth steadying him.

  “You alright son?”

  Des blinked up at him, his mind was still reeling from what had just happened. “Ye. Yes sir. I think so”. He could feel the last of what he had gained slip away, left in its wake were two pieces of information.

  “There’s a crack in that thing there” he pointed to the component. ”And that thing is out of tune? Misaligned? Maybe out of phase? I'm not sure”.

  The chief didn’t look at the parts he indicated, no his eyes were firmly on Des.