#springworldserial

[freeced]

Hailing Frequencies (Part 1)

[art by @pockamune]

Lylack fiddled with the controls. There wasn't really anything to do with them right then, so the fiddling was redundant. Like playing an electric fiddle that wasn't plugged in. Electric fiddle, Lylack thought. Electric griddle. Mm...

The lanky springhare stretched both legs out onto the control panel and looked to their left, where a monument of empty Zapfood boxes regarded them balefully. It had been too long since the last stop, Lylack decided. Stocking up on packaged food didn't mean stocking up on proper meals, and the sooner they got to where they were going, the better. Back home, they would have simply stopped off at whatever highway diner happened along, confident that, wherever you are in the world, a pancake is more or less flat and edible.

Only, they weren't in the world anymore. They were in space, and whatever its charms, the vastness of the interstellar universe meant it wasn't just lacking in diners, it was lacking in everything. Between the little life-preserving systems ringed around their favorite life-sustaining stars, you weren't looking for friendly rest stop billboards so much as for two full atoms to rub together. There was nothing. And...

No one.

Lylack wouldn't have told you they were an introvert. You never would have had the chance to ask. For as long as they could remember, they had been burrowed away working on their little pet projects and flights of fancy, taking in society as a snorkel takes in air: a regrettable necessity that prevents its wearer from diving even further out of sight. It wasn't a question of how often they felt the need to be around other people, but how often their presence was required. In fact, it was one of the main reasons they had taken this job as an intergalactic bar delivery driver—the solitude, they assumed, would be comforting. And as it turned out, it was.

Yet, thought Lylack, as they checked the scanners for the millionth pointless time. Yet.

There was a difference between solitude and being all alone. It didn't set in right away, and it had a habit of fading from your mind when you were back on solid ground again. But these times, these long hauls, halfway between somewhere and somewhere else, just as far from anything as anything could be—this wasn't just a quiet place to think, it was a silence so intense it laid a blanket on your brain. Dimensions lost their shape, time became confused and seemed to go on only when you looked the other way. The clear sense of identity that tended to emerge from contemplation lost its balance way out here, unsure of the borders between the fathomless recesses of your mind and the beckoning infinity of space. At least, it did without a couple decent meals to spice things up.

Lylack glanced back over at the stack of Zapfood boxes over there on the floor. The portside cabin deck, they tried to glue into their brain. Not for the first time this trip, they considered going back into the cargo area to liberate a case of what this whole workaday voyage was supposed to be about.

Any decently advanced outpost had a food substantiator capable of synthesizing anything a bar or club might need—everything, that is, except the alcohol it made its money on. It was true that some quaint little places here and there still brewed their drinks the old fashioned way, but by and large, an operation of that kind relied on too many moving parts when you considered that most planets didn't even have an atmosphere thick enough to support traditional agriculture, never mind a business-minded person who might be carrying such antiquated expertise. To synthesize alcoholic drinks, then, as was standard practice, you needed a Wine, Beer, and Spirits Substantiator (WBSS) and a license to operate it, both items prohibitively expensive for any average establishment to bear up on its own. (There were also similar machines and licenses for other controlled substances—Lylack didn't concern themselves with these because it was enough headache remembering their own employer's ones.)

In fact, there was no actual difference in hardware between a regular food substantiator and one labeled as a WBSS, but manufacturers were required to lock unauthorized features safely away from consumer use. Tampering with a food substantiator with the intent to create illegal goods was punishable by severe fines, or, if done with intent to sell, imprisonment. The law, as is typical, ended up as a matter of cost, and it was far easier for most bar owners to turn a profit ordering their stock from light years away than to invest in legal manufacture locally or risk getting caught up in the aftermath of a smuggling operation gone bad.

It was a long way of convincing themselves that this delivery job was necessary, Lylack decided. They didn't decide whether their job actually was necessary, though. Not now. That was too much to think about out here where a vague sense of purpose could be the only line towing you along. Here where navigating scattered asteroids would feel like walking happily among a crowded room. Here where you'd give anything to see the screen light up with anything you hadn't entered in yourself. Here where—

It was lighting up.

Lylack scrambled to pull their legs back off the panel, and in so doing, lost their balance completely, tumbling backwards over the captain's chair and accidentally mashing keys as their long feet bounced off the controls. A comm link opened.

Lylack bounded back up behind the chair, their black-tipped ears making the first appearance, followed by a mess of purple hair and deep brown eyes that looked inquisitively up at the viewing screen. "Hello?" they said, squinting at the fuzzy image wavering in front of them until it resolved into a fuzzy face that squinted back before opening its own eyes wide.

The face opened its mouth as the comm speaker chattered to life. "Lylack?" it asked hesitantly, in a voice that cracked like sweet milk tea poured over lots of ice.

"Lylack, is that you?"