Thren Valis's Arc

Chapter 15 of 18

Sylvana could walk and fly the ship now. But walking and flying were not the same as commanding it under judgment. Thren wiped grease from her hands and looked across the shipyard. A message had come that morning, blunt as a dropped wrench. Zarah Voss was coming to see the plant ship fly. If Thren could not prove a living hull would take a pilot's orders, no one would ever call it a ship. Zarah arrived at noon. Thren knew her the way you know an old scar. Years ago a colleague had laughed at Thren and told her plants do not take orders. Zarah was the engineer who never laughed, only counted. She walked into the nursery in a grease-stained vest, eyes on the hull, ignoring the flowers and the light through the leafy walls. "Show me," Zarah said. "Not a speech. A flight." Thren led her to the ship. Sylvana stood at the ramp on her mechanical legs, solar plates catching the sun across her chest. Zarah looked at the vine cuff on Sylvana's wrist and said nothing. She waited. "The hull is alive," Thren said. "It obeys touch through the cuff. Watch her steer it." Sylvana climbed inside and set her hand on the root wall. The ship woke. Its bulbs swelled along the hull and lifted the frame off the pad. Thren's chest went tight. She had lost her firefly light source on the last descent and had just replaced it with a new one. Without a moving glow, the sunflower steering had only the sun to chase. The ship rose. Sylvana turned it hard left. The sunflower fought her, pulling toward the sun. The magnetic ring fired against her command. The hull shuddered and drifted the wrong way. "It steers itself," Zarah said flatly impressed. "Sylvana," she called. "Feed it hard. Override the flower. Push acid straight to the ring." Sylvana pressed her palm flat. The vine cuff carried the order down. The magnetic ring drank the acid and swung the ship against the sun's pull. The hull turned left. It turned because Sylvana told it to, not the light. The ship circled the yard twice under her hand, then settled on the pad. Living wood, flying on a pilot's word. Zarah watched it land. She was quiet a long moment. "It takes orders," she said. "I owe you that." Then, flat: "But it drank half its acid to make one turn." Thren's relief cracked. She had proven the ship obeyed. She had also shown its lungs. One command, and the acid tank ran near dry before they could replenish. A pilot could steer this hull.