15. Breakthrough

  I noticed the moment that the array was complete. It felt like someone had tied a rope to my cargo bay that was connected to an asteroid the size of texas.

  Except not really.

  I wasn’t using any more fuel than normal, but I did abruptly slow down to normal speed. Frowning, I went to investigate.

  “You didn’t say that this would slow me down,” I said, my holographic self looking about at the complicated array painted on the floor, ceiling and walls.

  “It slowed you down?”

  “I’m going at one-third of my usual speed,” I explained.

  “Curious,” he said. “So in other words, it’s canceling out your instinctual use of space-time Dao. Or at least I believe that is what is happening.”

  “Hold on, the captain is trying to get my attention,” I said, and I popped into the bridge, where the captain was waving his hands in front of the camera.

  “Yeah captain, sorry, but I can’t go any faster right now,” I said.

  “What do you mean, Yoji? Are you experiencing a mechanical malfunction?” he asked, his voice showing his concern.

  “I don’t think so. Ahm Rahn set up an array that’s canceling out whatever I do to make myself break the speed limit.”

  “Why did he do that?” the captain asked.

  “I kind of asked him to?”

  “You what?”

  “I didn’t know that it would have this effect, okay? But I think it’s a good thing. Now that I’m pushing up against it again I can sort of feel what I was doing before.”

  Captain Min-jae was silent for a moment. “This is a cultivation thing isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “And it’s a good thing for you?”

  “I think so. I’m going to go—”

  “Wait a damn minute, Yoji,” he scolded. I paused, surprised at how harsh he was to me. “We’re still under budget and ahead of schedule, but we’ll have a late fee if we don’t arrive in two weeks. At our current heading we’ll take three.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So this experiment, whatever it is, has to end in a few days so that we can arrive in time,” he continued once he saw that I understood.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  Then I went to bug Aster. But I’d already thought of another solution to the Captain’s dilemma.

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  I could just get faster and learn to fight against the drag that the array was causing.

  So I set out figuring out how to do that.

  For about ten minutes, then I went to bug Tess again, and then I went back to trying to figure out what was causing the drag, and then I really looked at my hyperdrives, then I went and bothered Mace a bit, and then I just sat and wondered ‘what is hyperspace anyway? I mean, really, what is it?”

  Anyway, after a few days, just around the time that the captain said that I was almost out of time and would have to ask Ahm Rahn to deactivate the array, I suddenly had a breakthrough. I didn’t figure out what was causing the drag, necessarily, but I figured out what I was doing subconsciously to cause my increased speed.

  I was folding my Qi in just this certain way, and the array was causing just a little bit of a deformation in that folding. So I spent a while experimenting with different ways to fold my Qi, since I wasn’t quite certain what it normally looked like. And Zoom! Then Woah. Then Zoom again! And then Woah

  I kept on slowing down between the normal speed of an Artemis class ship to between five and ten times that.

  I kept experimenting all the way to our destination, where we arrived six hours ahead of schedule.

  It was so much fun that I didn’t need the crew to distract me at all, and I’d really mastered how to increase my speed substantially. I was a happy, fast little ship.

  While I was having my breakthrough, however, Aster was growing increasingly frustrated with her lack of one. She sat in the cargo hold, meditating, trying to feel the drag that I felt so clearly, but she just didn’t have the perspective for it.

  Finally, on the day we arrived, she confronted master Ahm Rahn.

  “Your stupid array doesn’t work,” she cried. “It works for Yoji, but not for me at least. I can’t sense anything different at all.”

  “Nothing has changed since I completed the array?” he asked her.

  “Nothing! I mean, Yoji has gotten better at controlling his speed, I sense that, but—”

  “What exactly do you sense?” he asked, his eyes narrowing at her. “Describe it.”

  She frowned. “Well, I mean, I sense when he’s going fast, and when he slows down. When he’s going fast it feels like a thrumming wire in my bones I guess? What does it matter? It’s not useful.”

  “Do you know what I sense when Yoji accelerates?” Ahm Rahn asked.

  “No, what?”

  “Nothing. I’m not attuned to space-time magic,” he answered. He grinned at her. “Congratulations. The first step in moving something is to know that it is there. You’ve had a breakthrough. We should celebrate.”

  “Wait, you’re not attuned to space magic?” she asked.

  “Nope. I am a water cultivator. The array I set up treats the firmament as a massive pond and creates drag in it. I was only guessing that it would have the effect that it had on Yoji, but I am pleased to be proven correct. You, however, show much talent towards a very rare art. When you reach the golden path, I believe the trinkets you will make in your spare time will be very valuable.”

  At Ahm Rahn’s insistence, the crew threw a celebration for Aster. We docked with the station, which was an Atlian/imperial hybrid in the form of a giant asteroid with an atmosphere and spiritual plants growing out of it, as well as a mix of habitation modules attached to it. Then Master Ahm ordered massive amounts of Atlian food and laughed as everyone had their first spiritual encounter with Atlian cuisine.

  Unfortunately it was also Ahm Rahn’s last night with us. In the morning, he erased the array that he set up with us, said his farewells, including a tearful parting with Aster, and he disembarked at the platform. I’m not certain where he intended to go next. “Wherever the wind will take me” is a stupid expression in space.

  ?