9. Finely Tuned

  “You’re sure?” Captain Min-jae asked Mace.

  “I’ve triple checked. With these new drives, we’re three times faster than we were before,” Mace answered, spooning a bit of melted ice cream in his mouth. “So, that’s a good thing, right? Three times the speed means three times the jobs we can pull, so three times the pay.”

  “It’s more than that,” Tess pointed out. “People won’t believe us at first when they find out that an Artemis class is this fast, but once we have a reputation for arriving ahead of schedule consistently, we’ll be able to charge for it. People will think that Yoji is older than he is and further down the path, but that’s not a bad thing is it?”

  “It could be,” Sanjay said, turning serious. “Think about it. They might think that Yoji can defend himself. He can’t. We already saw that. If someone hires us thinking that he’s a mighty warrior and not just a kid with a fast bike, then we might run into the same trouble we ran into when we bumped into the Samonosuke.”

  “Yeah, fair point,” Tess said, leaning back in her chair. “Maybe we should just stick with jobs for the alliance. I mean, they’ll understand his abilities better than anyone else.”

  “Yes, but I’d prefer most of my salary to come in the form of cold hard credits, not spiritual insights,” Mace complained.

  They were arguing in the dining area of the crew’s quarters, and I tuned in to listen to them. “Hey guys. I don’t have to go this fast if it’s a problem,” I said. “I mean, I can slow down.”

  “No, Art-Yoji. It’s really great. We don’t mean to put a damper on your abilities at all, and at this point nobody except the alliance knows where we started out from and when, so it doesn’t matter when we arrive either,” Rebekah explained. “We’re just worrying about grownup stuff. That’s all.”

  “Okay, what are you worrying about?” I asked.

  “We’re worried that the government will try to take you away from us, for one,” Tess admitted.

  “Can they do that?” I asked.

  “Not legally, but that won’t stop them,” She answered, grumbling. “They want every cultivating ship they can get. It’s the same with cultivators, really. They’re trying to establish their own program without Atlian control. That’s why everyone who ignites their dantian is treated like a celebrity and given so many resources.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m going to go hang out with Aster.”

  “Goodbye Yoji,” They said in unison, and my holographic head vanished. I paid attention for just a second longer.

  “Have we figured out how he’s manifesting a hologram in rooms without a projector yet?” Captain Min-jae asked.

  “Not a clue,” Lukas answered. “Spooky soulship magic is the best answer we have so far.”

  “It’s not spooky, it’s useful,” Rebekah said. “It helps us know when he’s listening.”

  I popped up next to Aster as she was cultivating. She was sweating and I knew that she’d be getting stinky, but that doesn’t bother me like it does humans so I was happy to interrupt her. “Hey Aster. Guess what. I guess I’m three times faster than I used to be.”

  She blinked, coming out of her trance. “Oh. That’s good I guess.”

  “That’s what I thought, right? But I guess maybe not? Everyone else is saying that it might cause problems somehow,” I said. Then I pulled up the recording so that she could listen to what the crew said themselves.

  “Oh,” she said. She waved her hand away. “It shouldn’t matter unless you start taking jobs outside the alliance, and if you do get caught by the Imperials, the Alliance will rescue you. It would be one thing if you went with them willingly, but if they try to take you by force they’ll definitely regret it. It’s the same for cultivators, really. We don’t have room on Atla for all of the people who are igniting their dantians in the rest of this universe, but there are plenty of peach-tree worlds for them to live on, so the only reason they even need the resources that the empire provides would be if they didn’t want to do that.”

  “Oh. Hey, do that thing again,” I said.

  “What thing?”

  “The thing where you punch my walls without punching my walls,” I said.

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  “Oh,” she said. “Yes, okay. Since I can’t cultivate right now, I will practice my shenshislong technique,” she agreed.

  She tied up a pillow and walked ten feet away from it. She began punching the air. Every one strike in twenty or so, and the pillow was impacted, despite the distance between the girl and the pillow.

  I watched, fascinated, as she worked on the technique. I had read the passages on how to do it in her book, and I had listened to her talk about it and red her notes on the matter. I wondered if I could do that too, but the thing is that most of the technique was about how to manifest Qi outside of a human’s body.

  That’s why she was practicing it. It wasn’t really an attack technique, but a technique to build other techniques upon. She hadn’t attuned her Qi to any element yet, but when she did attune it to, say, fire, she would be able to turn it into a fireball instead of just a blank impact.

  I thought about the diagrams and images of how her technique worked, and I began to wonder how my own Qi flowed through my body. So I tried to focus on it and …

  I frowned.

  There was something there. Some sort of network that wasn’t part of my manufacturing, nor my post-market upgrades, but all of my ‘parts’ were connected to it.

  The Qi was being generated by my fusion core, and that’s where it was most concentrated. But its density varied throughout the rest of the ship, with things like my hyperdrive or my weapons and my various other parts having the next highest concentration. They were all connected by lines that weren’t wired into me. Focusing on those wires, I began to make a mental map of my meridians for the first time.

  I was so busy mapping them out that I didn’t realize that I had pulled up a hologram of myself with the map of my meridians inside it at every holoprojector in the ship. Aster was quietly watching me work rather than working on her Shenshislong technique, and when I realized that she was watching me cultivate I suddenly grew embarrassed and lost my trance.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you while you were cultivating.”

  I frowned. “Are you being cheeky?”

  She shook her head. “No. Well, maybe just a little, but honestly I didn’t mean to interrupt while you were having a breakthrough like that. I was just working on body purification and cleansing, so it wasn’t that big of a deal when you interrupted me. But mapping your meridians is a big deal. How complete is your map?”

  “I dunno,” I admitted, looking at the hologram. “I think I got most of the big ones.”

  “Okay. Well, don’t rush into it. Once you have the major meridians mapped, then later you can work on the smaller channels.”

  “Does every SoulShip have these?” I asked.

  “Yes, but they’re never the same. It’s strange because all Atlians have more or less the same pattern. All earth-descent humans have a pattern that’s more or less the same for them as well. Every race is different but the same. But SoulShips all have a different pattern.” She shrugged. “On the other hand, it’s easier for them to map them than it is for us.”

  “This is supposed to be easy?” I asked.

  “Oh no, it’s really hard,” she said. “That’s why I felt bad about interrupting. When you finish with that, you’ll be able to start cycling your Qi consciously, and hopefully start to increase your capacity. Hopefully we’ll be able to step onto the Bronze Path together, or at least at close to the same time.”

  “How long until I can fight like Samonosuke?” I asked.

  “I think he’s like … two hundred years old or so?” Aster answered. “So probably a while. But why do you want to fight? You’re already really fast. Just become fast enough to outrun all of your problems.”

  “I don’t want to be helpless,” I said. “I was so scared during the battle. I want to be able to defend myself if something like that happens again.”

  She nodded. “I guess I’ve never been in a real fight so I wouldn’t know what you felt back then. But okay. I’ll read up on soulship fighting techniques once you’ve mapped your major meridians and we’ll see if we can modify one to work with your layout.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Why am I so much faster than before, anyway?”

  “Hmm? Oh, your hyperdrive wasn’t designed or tuned for the use of your Qi. The new model was designed by an Atlian who learned the particle physics required to work your hyperdrive system, then when it was installed it was tuned to your particular harmonics. I don’t really understand it myself. It happens naturally to most soulships, that’s the reason that they’re faster than regular ships, but this moved your about fifty years forward.”

  “Oh. Okay, thanks,” I said. “Do you think my weapons are stronger too?”

  “I’m certain they are. But before you start blowing up asteroids to check, you should finish mapping your meridians. When you have a good idea how they flow, then it will be time to experiment,” she told me.

  “How do you know this stuff?” I asked.

  “I always wanted to be Dao partner to a SoulShip, so I’ve been reading up on it since I was young,” she answered. “I was really so happy that you chose me. I thought I’d have to wait until I was older, and that I’d have an older ship, but having you pick me was perfect.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then I turned my attention elsewhere.

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