Thren Valis's Arc

Chapter 16 of 18

The ship rested on the pad, bulbs dim, acid tank near empty. Zarah had admitted the living hull took orders. Thren expected her to leave. Instead the old engineer folded her arms and stared at the vine cuff on Sylvana's wrist. "I want to fly it," Zarah said. "Myself. Then I'll say if you were right." Thren's stomach turned. Zarah counted flaws for a living. She had chased a fuelless drive for thirty years while every engineer told her to quit. She would not concede to a plant ship on someone else's hands. She had to feel it obey her own. "The cuff teaches the ship your touch," Thren said. "It takes hours to learn a new pilot." "Then we start now." Sylvana climbed down on her mechanical legs, solar plates catching the light, and slid the cuff free. She pressed it onto Zarah's wrist. The vine tightened. Zarah didn't flinch. "Palm flat on the root wall," Thren said. "Feel for the pulse. Don't push. Ask." Zarah boarded. She set her hand against the living wood and waited. The hull shivered. For a long moment nothing answered her. Then the bulbs swelled and lifted the frame a few feet off the pad. "It reads me," Zarah said, surprised. "Turn it," Thren called. "Left. But feed the acid slow." Zarah pressed her palm. The sunflower dragged the nose toward the sun. She fought it. The magnetic ring fired. The ship swung left, obeying her hand, and the acid gauge dropped hard. She turned it once more, careful, and set the ship down. The hull settled. Zarah stayed inside a moment, hand still on the wall. When she stepped off the ramp she pulled the cuff loose and held it out. "It flies on my word," she said. "You were right. Plants take orders." She said it flat, no softening, and did not repeat it. Thren waited for the strike. It came. "Two turns," Zarah said. "The tank's empty. I felt it drink." She wiped her palm on her vest. "You built a ship that obeys and can't afford to. A pilot can steer this thing three times and then it's a corpse falling out of the sky." Thren had no answer. She had proven the hull would take any trained hand. She had also proven the flaw was not Sylvana's. It was the ship. Zarah looked at the sunflower stalk crowning the hull. "The flower fights the pilot every turn. That fight costs the acid." She dropped the cuff into Thren's hand. "Kill the fight, and you save the fuel. I don't know how. But that's your problem, not the pilot's." She walked out of the nursery without another word. Thren stood holding the warm cuff. The concession she had wanted for years meant nothing now. The ship obeyed. It just could not survive its own obedience. The sunflower had to stop fighting.