Waiting: Difference between revisions

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Aligning to the safe spot required the Retriever to orient itself almost directly toward the local star, so near it seemed that a jump would take it right through the corona. A K5, main sequence. Bright orange. A beautiful star when seen only by reflection and atmospheric diffusion. The beaches on the temperate planet in a nearby orbit would be fantastic. In space, the star had a harsher beauty. The viewshield polarized itself almost to opacity. ''Too bad'', thought the miner. He liked looking at the starfields with his own eyes, even going so far as to occasionally disable his perception implant. Now was not the time for that, of course.

Almost everything in space happens too quickly for the naked eye now. Once, he’d taken a quick look at a pirate Dominix, checking it’s loadout. The old battleship had seen better days, dark scars from pulse lasers and pitting from a hail of autocannon and railgun shells had given it the same sad honor he remembered from visiting the ancient battlefields on Luminaire VI, Gallente Prime, as a boy. Industrial-age war machines lying pristinely destroyed on the manicured lawns. He had wondered briefly, sadly, if the pirate battleship had seen action in the Caldari secession. If it still carried the souls of Gallentean sailors and marines. Time matters. In that instant the drones were on him, swarming. ~~Did~~ I lose a body that day? Now he always instructed the computer to turn down the settings, filter out the beauty. Convert it and compress it, take the eigenvector and ram it into his implant. Numbers only, please. Angular velocity, tactical overlay, squad comms, drone bay. He’d fight with his wallet open if had an excuse. Cover the whole screen to stop the beauty from leaking through, if that’s what it took.

Almost everything in space happens too quickly for the naked eye now. Once, he’d taken a quick look at a pirate Dominix, checking it’s loadout. The old battleship had seen better days, dark scars from pulse lasers and pitting from a hail of autocannon and railgun shells had given it the same sad honor he remembered from visiting the ancient battlefields on Luminaire VI, Gallente Prime, as a boy. Industrial-age war machines lying pristinely destroyed on the manicured lawns. He had wondered briefly, sadly, if the pirate battleship had seen action in the Caldari secession. If it still carried the souls of Gallentean sailors and marines. Time matters. In that instant the drones were on him, swarming. D''id I lose a body that day?'' Now he always instructed the computer to turn down the settings, filter out the beauty. Convert it and compress it, take the eigenvector and ram it into his implant. Numbers only, please. Angular velocity, tactical overlay, squad comms, drone bay. He’d fight with his wallet open if had an excuse. Cover the whole screen to stop the beauty from leaking through, if that’s what it took.

Hence the implants. The cloned brains didn’t come with warning labels anymore: ''ne pas utiliser un adaptateur, le non-respect de ces instructions peut causer un deces'', the ancients would have said on Tau Ceti. So much for the ancients. Modernity demanded beauty and grief yield to efficiency, but maybe less so while jet-canning.

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 Aligning to the safe spot required the Retriever to orient itself almost directly toward the local star, so near it seemed that a jump would take it right through the corona.  A K5, main sequence.  Bright orange.  A beautiful star when seen only by reflection and atmospheric diffusion.  The beaches on the temperate planet in a nearby orbit would be fantastic.  In space, the star had a harsher beauty.  The viewshield polarized itself almost to opacity.  ''Too bad'', thought the miner.  He liked looking at the starfields with his own eyes, even going so far as to occasionally disable his perception implant.  Now was not the time for that, of course.
-Almost everything in space happens too quickly for the naked eye now.  Once, he’d taken a quick look at a pirate Dominix, checking it’s loadout.  The old battleship had seen better days, dark scars from pulse lasers and pitting from a hail of autocannon and railgun shells had given it the same sad honor he remembered from visiting the ancient battlefields on  Luminaire VI, Gallente Prime, as a boy.  Industrial-age war machines lying pristinely destroyed on the manicured lawns.  He had wondered briefly, sadly, if the pirate battleship had seen action in the Caldari secession.  If it still carried the souls of Gallentean sailors and marines.  Time matters.  In that instant the drones were on him, swarming.  Did I lose a body that day?  Now he always instructed the computer to turn down the settings, filter out the beauty.  Convert it and compress it, take the eigenvector and ram it into his implant.  Numbers only, please.  Angular velocity, tactical overlay, squad comms, drone bay.  He’d fight with his wallet open if had an excuse.  Cover the whole screen to stop the beauty from leaking through, if that’s what it took.
+Almost everything in space happens too quickly for the naked eye now.  Once, he’d taken a quick look at a pirate Dominix, checking it’s loadout.  The old battleship had seen better days, dark scars from pulse lasers and pitting from a hail of autocannon and railgun shells had given it the same sad honor he remembered from visiting the ancient battlefields on  Luminaire VI, Gallente Prime, as a boy.  Industrial-age war machines lying pristinely destroyed on the manicured lawns.  He had wondered briefly, sadly, if the pirate battleship had seen action in the Caldari secession.  If it still carried the souls of Gallentean sailors and marines.  Time matters.  In that instant the drones were on him, swarming.  D''id I lose a body that day?''  Now he always instructed the computer to turn down the settings, filter out the beauty.  Convert it and compress it, take the eigenvector and ram it into his implant.  Numbers only, please.  Angular velocity, tactical overlay, squad comms, drone bay.  He’d fight with his wallet open if had an excuse.  Cover the whole screen to stop the beauty from leaking through, if that’s what it took.
 Hence the implants.  The cloned brains didn’t come with warning labels anymore: ''ne pas utiliser un adaptateur, le non-respect de ces instructions peut causer un deces'', the ancients would have said on Tau Ceti.  So much for the ancients.  Modernity demanded beauty and grief yield to efficiency, but maybe less so while jet-canning.