Ari removed his head from the interface medium, removed the mouthpiece, ear and nose plugs and toweled away the last of the goop. He hated the
claustrophobia of the pool but he knew no-one else on board was a manipulator. Without him, no one would get home.
He ran his hand over his bald and studded head, shuddering slightly at what they had done. He knew the hair would grow back eventually but first they
needed him.
It normally took a while for him to get his act together after the disorientation of making his mind reach out and sense things far outside his
body.
As the shower poured away the nausea and tension Ari could still feel the roll and yaw of the great ship, tearing and folding onespace with its dark
matter engines, pulling them into bubbles of some alternate space.
That was the thing, scientists in previous centuries thought their understanding was so complete yet they knew of the dark matter and dark energy. How
could they be so arrogant when all their science only spoke of the tiniest sliver of reality and hyperspaces were the subject only of fiction.
In a way Ari was special amongst his peers but in another, they treated him like a component of the ship. The camaraderie and human touches had gone
and he was no longer a crew member but was now a manipulator, living and working in a world no one else would ever see.
The galley lights hurt his eyes but he suffered on just to be in the room with other people. But it was beginning, the dissociation from onespace that
took all manipulators. The crew were all phantoms, conversations were flat and distant, the very food no longer had any discernible taste. Ari knew
what was happening and was helpless to turn aside.
But there was always the longing. Overcoming the fear, the cramping, the awkward confines of a onespace body beginning to know allspace. When the
universe broke like waves over ones consciousness in light, colour, taste, smell, texture and sound far beyond what those senses could tell.
It left the brain washed out, exhausted, purged of the close confine of a onebody. This was the end of science, the place of magic, and little by
little the greater ones revealed their presence, teaching and loving away everything else.
Ari wept briefly as he finished his meal, a vague mix of proteins and carbohydrates. He would relieve himself again and his heart swelled that soon he
could enter the chamber, fix all the plugs and plunge once again into the warm, smothering goo.
edit on 23/3/2015 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)