The daughter blinked at Yalnis. Everyone said a daughter always knew her mother from the beginning. Yalnis believed it, looking into the new being's eyes, though neither she nor anyone she knew could recall that first moment of life and consciousness.
By the time she returned to the living space at the top of the new ship, the connecting neck had separated, one end healing against the daughter ship in a faint navel pucker, the other slowly opening to the outside. Yalnis's ship shuddered again, pushing at the daughter ship. The transparent dome pressed out, to reveal space and the great surrounding web of stars.
Yalnis's breasts ached. She sank cross-legged on the warmmidnight floor and let her daughter suck, giving her a physical record of dangers and attractions as she and Bahadirgul had given her a mental record of the past.
"Karime," Yalnis whispered, as her daughter fell asleep. Above them the opening widened. The older ship groaned. The new ship quaked as it pressed out into the world.
"Karime, daughter, live well," Yalnis said.
She gave her daughter to her ship's daughter, placing the chubby sleeping creature in the soft nest. She petted the ship-silk surface.
"Take good care of her," she said.
"True," the new ship whispered.
Yalnis smiled, stood up, watched the new ship cuddle the new person for a moment, then hurried through the interior connection before it closed.
She slipped out, glanced back to be sure all was well, and returned to her living space to watch.
Yalnis's ship gave one last heavy shudder. The new ship slipped free.
It floated nearby, getting its bearings, observing its surroundings. Soon—staying near another ship always carried an element of danger, as well as opportunity—it whispered into motion, accelerating itself carefully toward a higher, more distant orbit.
Yalnis smiled at its audacity. Farther from the star, moving through the star's dust belt, it could collect mass and grow quickly. In a thousand, perhaps only half a thousand, orbits, Karime would emerge to take her place as a girl of her people.
"We could follow," Yalnis said. "Rest, recoup ..."
"False," her ship whispered, displaying its strength, and its desire, and its need. "False, false."
"We could go on our adventure."
"True," her ship replied, and turned outward toward the web of space, to travel forever, to feast on stardust.
The End
© 2005 by Vonda N. McIntyre and SCIFI.COM
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