For nine Ceoflaed-minutes the Zeppole was the fastest moving object in the universe.

Ovie squinted through blood-teary eyes queuing micro-adjustments into the Zep’s path.

She’d blown capillaries in both eyes, it was only Quatre that kept her working. The rest of the crew were likely unconscious, pinned to their crash-saddles with stimulants maintaining their lives.

[Ovie, it’s time]

Quatre’s voice, even inside her head, was almost drowned out by the din of the cabin. Zeppole hurled like a stone thrown by a god, the visor a maddening collage of visually warped space.

[Ovie?]

[Okay, I love you, keep them safe] the captain said. Relinquishing control to the Al and allowed herself the crush of acceleration.

[Ditto, Captain] Quatre communicated and acknowledged the vital readings of it’s biologic counterpart. She was already gone. For 34 integrals the Al allowed itself to feel things: the tip of the Zeppole’s nose, the striding health readings from the biological crew, the vibration of heat around the hull of the ship.

It ran the diagnostic and path of their plan again and again, thousands of iterations simultaneously. All this for…Hemish…here it comes.. Hemish… HEMISH…

A monkey’s paw of space and matter curled around the SP-117, and its occupants were eviscerated in the cosmic transfer of light.

For a time, the ship drifted…

[Gods, you are gods]

Nostalgia greeted Ovie. She was formless and unafraid; within her mother’s womb she believed she’d heard an old friend.

[The cloning apparatus is undamaged, and your bank of information is uncorrupted. Congratulations Captain, you’ll be returning to your body in a few moments] Ovie didn’t respond, and the un-living one figured she wanted some time to collect herself.

Quatre visited each of the biological crew as their consciences were reassembled and their bodies regenerated.

Quatre informed them that they were safe, the passage was successful, and their beings were to be restored perfectly. Jomorko was crying and Icho shuddered violently, unable to speak. Quatre visited Pont, whose conscience was reassembled and transferred to the engineering bay, were his robotic body was being repaired,

[Pont, you are well] The AI sent.

[I am unwell, but alive] Pont’s script was clipped and brief. The robot was affected as much as the biologicals in the passage.

[Run diagnostics on yourself, machine] Pont sent.

[Don’t be cross with me, gunnery,] Quatre replied, and sent a glyph indicating Pont to expound.

[You referred to ‘us’ as gods, you mistake our identities]

[I didn’t, to achieve Total-Mass-Retention, to willingly cross the Daxis and be undone, with the trust to be remade… I cannot think of any lower-being to do such] Quatre sent, and there was silence.

[We compute, not think] Pont sent, an intentional moot point that made something within the Al flutter.