When Rome was fifteen, she told her father she wanted to learn how to fly. Fridone agreed at once. Each afternoon after school, they rode an aircar to the flight corral near the spaceport and selected a flyer. The Vuduri had no sense of ownership, so every craft was communal. They chose the first one available and returned it when they were finished.
To enter a flyer, you stepped onto a pressure plate and the gull wing doors lifted, opening the cockpit. Once inside and secured in the X-harness, you touched an icon on the display screen and the doors lowered again, sealing the cabin around you.
The first few weeks were devoted to training Rome’s body rather than her mind. Her connection to the Overmind supplied every technical detail she could ever need, but her muscles still had to learn the motions. Day by day, Fridone gave her more control, and day by day, she grew smoother and more confident until she handled the flyer like a seasoned pilot. Those afternoons became a quiet ritual for the two of them, a small piece of time that belonged only to father and daughter. Fridone watched her progress with growing pride.
“Rome,” he said, “you are doing so well. You are a natural pilot. I would have thought that with the Overmind always whispering to you, it might have been more difficult.”
Rome turned toward him. “Do you remember the incident with the crisier ball I told you about?”
Fridone shrugged. “Vaguely.”
“One day, I was walking past the crisier field and somehow I knew a ball was coming straight for me. I believe the boys did it on purpose, though I did not hear their thoughts. I have a sense, I do not know what to call it, but I can see future possibilities before they happen. I bypassed the Overmind. I simply lifted my hand and caught the ball with no effort. I think they were disappointed they did not hit me.”
“I remember now.”
“So that is how I do it. I bypass the Overmind and use my extra sense to operate as needed. Watch.”
She checked the MIDAR display to make sure no other flyers were nearby. Satisfied, she said, “Tighten your harness.”
Fridone adjusted the X-harness and gave a small nod. “Ready,” he said. Unsure of what was coming next, he drew in a sharp breath.
Rome twisted the joysticks and the flyer snapped into a perfect barrel roll.
“That was excellent,” her father said with pride.
“I have something else to show you,” Rome said.
“What?”
Rome didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted for a moment, unfocused.
“Rome? Did you hear me?”
Her attention returned. “I was asking the Overmind how to perform this next maneuver.”
Rome pulled back on one joystick and twisted the other. The flyer executed a perfect loop.
Fridone let out a burst of air. “That was impressive.”
Rome cracked the tiniest smile. “I have one more. Hold on tight.”
Fridone grabbed the handle on his side.
Rome executed the cobra.
“Ah!” Fridone exclaimed. “I have never seen that before.”
Rome’s smile ticked up a bit more.
“That was amazing,” Fridone said. “I think you are ready to start training on spaceships.”
Rome nodded. “That would be a useful skill to acquire.”
Some family matters came up and Rome’s training was interrupted for a few days. When her father was finally available for her next lesson, they didn’t go to the flyer corral. Instead, they traveled to the spaceport on the southwest side of I-cimaci and stopped at the space skiff corral.
Rome’s eyes widened. “A skiff?” she asked.
“Yes,” Fridone replied. “You are ready.”
Rome didn't need to be told twice. She raced ahead to the nearest skiff and touched an activator. The rear ramp lowered smoothly, revealing a short passageway that led to the cockpit.
She and Fridone walked up the ramp and took their seats at the front of the craft. Fridone pressed an icon on the console. Behind them, the ramp lifted and sealed with a soft click. The main display lit up with a simple message: HATCH SECURED.
Once they were both buckled in, Fridone gave her a short orientation lecture. The Overmind could supply every mechanical detail, but it could not teach the physical feel of the controls or the instincts that came from practice. Fridone wanted her to learn those parts from him. He needed her to develop real muscle memory, the kind that came only from time in the seat and a steady hand guiding her through it.
“This is called a space skiff because obviously it can go into space. However, it has two modes of operation. Within the atmosphere, it operates just like a flyer. It uses the EG lifters to rise into the air. But once we get above the atmosphere, we toggle this switch here.”
Fridone reached down and tapped the small control beside his pair of joysticks. Rome glanced down and found the identical switch on her side.
“This takes us out of atmospheric mode, and the joysticks behave differently. The plasma thrusters and trim jets take over and push us through space. The left stick controls lift and thrust, and the right stick points the nose. Pitch, roll, yaw, just like a flyer, but in space the trim jets handle all the rotation. In the air it flies like a nimble aircraft, and in space it moves wherever you point it. EG to rise, plasma to travel, and the sticks to keep it steady. That is all there is to it.”
“I understand getting into space, but how do we return?”
Fridone smiled. “That is an excellent question. Returning from space is quite different. We would have a lot of velocity to shed, too much for the EG lifters to overcome at first. Under most circumstances, you would allow the nav-computer to perform the reentry, but I want to teach you how to do it manually, should the need ever arise.”
“I understand. Will you show me now?”
“No. We need to be in space. Let us take off. Make sure there is no traffic first.”
Rome checked the MIDAR display. The sky was clear. She eased the skiff into the air, testing the controls the way she had with the flyer. The craft responded more quickly, lighter on its lifters, almost eager to move. She banked left, then right, adjusting thrust with small, deliberate motions. Fridone watched her settle into the feel of the skiff, her hands steady, her posture relaxed. After a few minutes of gentle climbs and turns, she brought them back to level flight and glanced at him.
“How does it feel?” Fridone asked.
“Responsive,” Rome said. “More precise than a flyer.”
“Try a short burst,” he said. “Just the main thrusters.”
Rome tapped the main thruster control and the skiff surged forward, smooth and clean. She eased off immediately, letting the craft settle back into a steady glide.
“Good,” Fridone said. “You understand the balance. I think you are ready. Take us up.”
Rome pulled back both joysticks, lifting the nose, and soon they were above the atmosphere. At that point, she switched from atmospheric mode to space mode. She pressed down the thruster lock hard and the skiff’s plasma jets fired, pushing Rome and Fridone back into their seats.
Over the next hour, Fridone let Rome practice navigating the skiff. She adapted almost immediately, her hands moving with the same quiet confidence she had shown in the flyer. At his suggestion, she eased them into a low Earth orbit, and soon they were circling the planet every ninety minutes. Half the orbit carried them through sunlight, the Earth bright and blue beneath them; the other half dropped them into darkness, where the stars sharpened and the planet became a black silhouette. The view would have taken another person’s breath away. Rome observed it with her usual calm.
Every forty-five minutes, day became night, then night became day again, the horizon glowing with a thin band of gold as they crossed the terminator. Rome kept the skiff steady through each shift, adjusting trim jets and thrust with small, deliberate movements. Fridone watched her quietly, impressed by how quickly she made the unfamiliar feel natural.
The front console beeped and Binoda’s face appeared on the screen. “Mau emir, I need you and Rome to come home soon. I must go out later this evening and I wanted to have our meal together.”
“Of course,” Fridone said. “We will be there shortly.”
The image winked out.
“All right, you heard your mother. It is time to get back. Now I will teach you how to do the reentry. It is called a skip reentry. Some call it aerobraking. You turn the ship around and fire the thrusters to reduce our speed to suborbital. Then you turn around again, switch from space mode back to atmospheric mode, and begin the descent. The friction with the air will slow us, but it will also heat the hull. It must be managed carefully.”
Fridone switched the main display to show a series of indicators.
“When the temperature reaches this line…” He tapped the screen. “You increase the EG lifters to push us back up toward space. Because we have lost velocity, we will not climb nearly as high. At that point, you dip back down and go deeper, always watching the temperature gauge. We lift up again, go back down again, and continue the cycle.”
“How many times do we do this?” Rome asked.
“It is a matter of feel, but usually five or six arcs are sufficient. Are you ready to try?”
“Yes,” Rome said, caressing the mode switch.
“Before you start, know that if you do not pull up in time, we will burn up.”
“I will try to avoid that,” Rome said, her voice perfectly flat.
She turned the ship around and expertly fired the plasma thrusters, all the while keeping her eye on the velocity meter. Even though it was flying backward, the ship headed down. When it was time, Rome spun them around until they were facing forward again. She flipped the switch to put the skiff in atmospheric mode.
As the skiff dipped downward, the blue curve of Earth swelled beneath them. Rome’s hands settled on the joysticks with a calm that Fridone recognized but didn’t entirely understand. She wasn’t tense. She wasn’t guessing. She was listening, not to the Overmind, but to something deeper inside herself.
Before they crossed the boundary layer, Fridone reached over and activated a small control on his side of the console. “This is a stability lock,” he said. “It will nudge us upward if you miss the pull-up point. It will not take over, but it will keep us safe.”
Rome nodded once, her eyes never leaving the indicators.
The hull began to glow at the edges, a faint orange smear sliding across the canopy. A low vibration shuddered through the frame.
“Now,” Fridone said quietly. “Pull up.”
“Not yet,” she said in a firm voice. She waited, eyes half-focused.
Fridone tried to follow her gaze, but the instruments showed nothing that demanded action yet.
The glow brightened. The skiff trembled harder. A soft tone chirped from the console, the first warning that the stability lock was preparing to engage.
“Rome!”
She pulled back smoothly, precisely, and the skiff arced upward, the heat fading as they climbed. The vibration softened. For a moment, they floated in a thin, quiet layer of sky.
As soon as the temperature gauge dropped below the safety line, Rome dipped the nose again.
Fridone watched her hands. There was no hesitation, no guesswork. She was already settling into the rhythm of the maneuver, as if she had done it countless times before. The skiff slid back toward the atmosphere, the blue curve rising again to meet them.
The second descent was steeper. The hull lit up faster this time, the orange deepening toward red. Fridone felt sweat bead at his temples. Rome’s expression did not change. She was tracking something invisible; some curve or possibility only she could sense.
“Pull up,” he whispered.
A warning tone chirped, sharper than before, the kind of sound the stability lock made when it was seconds from taking control.
Rome pulled back on the joysticks and the skiff arced upward again. As before, the heat faded as they climbed. The vibration lessened. Then Rome dipped the nose again. The motion was fluid now, part of a rhythm she was beginning to understand.
She waited one heartbeat more, then lifted them cleanly into the next arc.
By the fourth skip, Fridone stopped giving instructions. He simply watched.
Rome flew the pattern like she had flown it a hundred times before, each arc deeper, each climb shorter, each descent more controlled. She wasn’t reacting to the heat gauge. She was anticipating it, moving before the numbers changed, before the hull groaned, before the skiff even knew it needed her.
Fridone felt the change. Rome was no longer learning the maneuver. She was inhabiting it.
On the final dip, the glow faded into a soft amber and the skiff settled into the thickening air, gliding toward the distant lights of I-cimaci.
Rome exhaled, just once, a tiny release of breath.
Fridone realized he had been holding his.
He looked at her, really looked at her, and felt something shift inside him. Pride, yes. But also, awe. His daughter was not merely talented. She was something rarer, something the Overmind couldn’t account for and the Vuduri could not manufacture.
“Rome,” he said softly, “that was extraordinary. And it was only your first time.”
Rome allowed herself the smallest smile. “I believe I can do it even better next time.”
Fridone laughed under his breath, shaking his head. “I have no doubt.”
The skiff descended toward the corral, the distant lights of I-cimaci swelling as the last heat of reentry faded behind them.