Epilogue
Gimishin Foug, breathless, late as usual, sizeably pregnant, and who just happened to be a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandniece
of
Perosteck Balveda (as well as a budding poet), arrived on board the General Systems Vehicle an hour after the rest of her
family. The vehicle
had picked them up from the remote planet in the greater Cloud where they’d been holidaying, and was due
to take them and a few hundred
other people to the vast new System class GSV
Determinist,
which would shortly be making the crossing from the Clouds to the main galaxy.
Foug was less interested in the journey itself than in the craft she would be traveling on. She hadn’t encountered a System
class before, and
secretly hoped the scale of the vessel, with its many separate components riding suspended inside a bubble
of air two hundred kilometers
long, and its complement of six billion souls, would provide her with some new inspiration.
She was excited at the idea, and preoccupied with
her new size and responsibility, but she remembered, if a little late, to
be polite as she arrived on board the much smaller Range class vehicle.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced," she said as she disembarked from the module in a gently lit Smallbay. She was talking
to a remote
drone which was helping her with her baggage. “I’m Foug. What are you called."
“I am the
Bora Horza Gobuchul,
" the ship said, through the drone.
“That’s a weird name. How did you end up calling yourself that."
The remote drone dipped one front corner slightly, its equivalent of a shrug. “It’s a long story…."
Gimishin Foug shrugged.
“I like long stories."