A Vessel to be Filled; A Fire to be Kindled

September 9, 2026

by P.A. Cornell

The outer airlock door irised opened, and Ira eased himself through it, thrusters pushing him in the direction of the stars—a sight he never tired of. The familiar sounds of the shipyard’s living quarters were gone, replaced by his own breathing inside the spacesuit’s helmet. He drifted down toward the new passenger liner—to be christened Starlight Dream—and the robotic arms building it that gave the shipyard the appearance of a jellyfish.

Most of the arms were working, each one moving according to programming, adding to the ship piece-by-piece as they had for months. But toward the ship’s front starboard side, one of the arms stood immobile and that part of construction had come to a standstill. This was why AstroCraft had posted Ira here. The sole human on this deep space shipyard, he was charged with keeping the operation running smoothly.

He floated to the damaged arm, slowing his thrusters on approach. When he was within reach, he tethered his spacesuit to the machine, taking a moment to adjust to this new position. Some people got all turned-around in zero-G, but Ira had been out in space long enough he could adapt quickly. He examined the length of the arm, paying particular attention to the manipulating tools at the end closest to the ship. These seemed okay, which meant the problem was likely a seized articulating joint. This wasn’t unexpected. The center joint on this arm had jammed before. He’d known it was a matter of time before it broke down altogether. The people back at AstroCraft headquarters had denied the request for new parts he’d made over a year ago, saying the diagnostic readings from their end showed the arm was fine. Fine was relative. Now he’d have to order the part and wait weeks, if not months, to get it.

He turned to look at what the arm had been working on, only to confirm his worst fear. It was part of the electrical system. He could see cables that still required routing and connecting. There were open spaces where regulators or batteries should be. HQ wasn’t going to like that.

The comm pinged in his ear, sounding so loud in the utter silence of space that he flinched inside his suit. He tilted his arm to better see the wrist display. Broad message from a private ship. Whatever it was, someone else would deal with it.

Ira turned back to the problem at hand. The completion of the ship would inevitably be pushed far beyond deadline. If it had just been missing hull plating or even something like oxygen scrubbers, it wouldn’t have been so bad. That would’ve delayed the launch, maybe, but that sort of thing happened all the time. Without even just part of the electrical system though, there were no electronics. Which meant no computer for HQ to beam the mind to.

That was the trouble with these modern ships that relied on the uploaded consciousness of once-living human beings to run them. It took time to prepare a mind to accept a ship and, once ready, there was only a short window of time to safely transfer it into the computer system. By this stage of construction, the mind meant for Starlight Dream was ready, probably eager to take on this new role. It wouldn’t be able to wait for a ship this far behind schedule. Not only would current law prevent it, but attempting to do so could seriously damage the delicate mind. As per the contract the person had signed prior to death, AstroCraft would have to upload it to a virtual construct instead, at great expense to the company, and start training a replacement mind for Starlight Dream.

The comm pinged again. Ira glanced at the display. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone besides HQ had contacted him, and now twice in one morning. He silenced comm notifications to his suit.

Pushing the thruster buttons, he drifted to the arm’s controls and shut it down so the shipyard’s computer wouldn’t continue trying to move it and cause further damage. Then he untethered and drifted over the ship, examining the remaining construction. The other arms moved across it, attaching panels, running cables, testing equipment—getting everything ready for the human crew that would one day fill its corridors, and keep it running long after it was out of Ira’s hands.

He then floated back to the underside of the shipyard’s living space where the open airlock awaited his return. As he drifted in, the door irised closed behind him. Ira grabbed a handhold to reposition himself, then felt his boots make gentle contact with the floor as gravity came on. He waited a moment longer for the atmosphere to regulate, then the inner airlock door opened.

Once he’d removed and stored his spacesuit, he made his way through the stark white corridors to the control room that formed half of the disc-shaped living quarters, with windows overlooking the ship’s construction. He liked to keep the lights dim in here, so as not to drown out the stars.

With his helmet off, the sounds that had been absent during his time in space returned. The loudest of these, as usual, came from what he thought of as his “captain’s chair” as its ancient metal joints squeaked under his weight when he sat at the console. Never mind his time here had made him downright skinny. The chair, with its upholstery taped over countless times, was showing its age, but good luck getting a new one from HQ.

Ira leaned over the console and typed out a quick message to HQ, informing them of the problem and reiterating his request for parts, this time flagging the request as “urgent” before hitting SEND.

That done, he turned his attention to the comm and saw the blinking light indicating it was still receiving the transmission. He tapped the audio.

“Please, is anyone there? If you can hear this, my designation is 07-577-AY. I’m a hauler owned by Mikkon Mining Co. I’m damaged and in need of rescue. My pilot is…dead.”

Ira leaned back in his seat. A distress call, and it was coming from a mind. He knew Mikkon. AstroCraft built their ships. He’d personally overseen the construction of dozens of their haulers. But the nearest asteroid mine was at least thirty astro-units from there. What was this ship doing out in deep space, so far from a mine—and what had happened to its pilot?

He waited. No one else was responding to the call. There had to be someone else in range; someone better with people than he was. Ira considered ignoring the message, but the mind seemed desperate—clearly uploaded recently enough to still sound human and afraid.

Reaching across the console, Ira tapped the reply button, but when he tried to speak only a strained croak escaped his mouth. Taking his finger off the button, he cleared his throat, then reached for one of the water packs he kept in the small cooler next to his seat. After a few sips, he cleared his throat again, and tested his voice before trying the comm a second time.

“Hello?”

It had been so long since he’d used his voice it sounded foreign to his ears. Despite the water, his throat felt dry, and he struggled to form each word.

“Mikkon hauler 07-577-AY, this is deep space shipyard Nova receiving.”

“Oh, thank God!”

This mind couldn’t have been uploaded to the hauler any more than a year or two ago if it was still using expressions like that.

“There was an explosion,” it continued. “My propulsion system was damaged, and I’ve been drifting for one-hundred-thirty-two hours. My pilot was seriously injured in the explosion, and sensors indicate he succumbed to his injuries roughly eighteen hours ago.”

“Can you transmit your coordinates, hauler?”

“Neil.”

Ira hesitated before responding. “Say again, hauler?”

“My name,” it said. “It’s Neil. At least it was when I was alive. My pilot—Arturo—he always called me Neil.”

Ira didn’t know what to say. He occasionally had to speak to uploaded minds to ensure the beam had worked and they were functioning in concert with the systems of whatever ship they’d been uploaded to, but none had ever asked to be called by their corporeal name.

“Uh…you can call me Ira,” he said, finally.

“Ira. That’s great. I’ll transmit those coordinates, Ira.”

A series of numbers appeared on one of the console displays. Ira dragged them over to the box on the right and it opened to a star chart showing the distance from the shipyard to the stranded hauler. It was close and drifting closer.

“I see you, hau—Neil. All I have is a small utility vehicle here, so it’s going to take a while to reach you, but once I do, I should be able to tow you back and see if we can’t repair your damage.”

He didn’t mention a plan for the pilot’s body—an issue he’d never had to face. That was a problem for later.

“Please hurry,” said Neil. “I can feel the damage. It’s…it’s like pain.”

Ira switched off the comm and rose from his seat, considering what Neil had said. He’d never heard of a spaceship feeling pain. All these years watching the shipyard build ship after ship, and he’d never considered the minds that would fly them would feel things—least of all, pain. As he got into the pilot’s seat on the utility vehicle, and started the launch sequence, he thought of his late sister, Leah. AstroCraft had offered her the chance to upload too, but she’d declined. At the time he’d thought she was wrong to turn the company down. She’d been in so much pain, and to Ira it had seemed like a way to end that pain forever. Had he been wrong all this time?

The journey took a little over two hours and used up a good portion of the UV’s fuel, but Ira didn’t mind since he rarely used it. Where was he going to go? AstroCraft had really only included it as an easy means of transferring between the large interstellar ships and shipyard—which Ira had only done when he’d first arrived. The handful of other times he used it had been out of a need for a break in routine. A joyride now and then, nothing more.

Through the viewscreen, he could now make out the hauler. It looked intact from this angle—boxy in design to accommodate cargo, with a tapered nose toward the cockpit. As it spun toward him though, he spotted the damaged side. The explosion hadn’t breached the hull, but it had caused this side of the hauler to expand outward. It was a testament to good shipbuilding that it had held together at all.

The comm pinged and Ira tapped the audio.

“Ira, is that you?”

“It’s me, Neil. I’m going to launch the tow cable.”

He turned the UV around, then hit the cable switch, the console light turning green to indicate a good lock a moment later.

“I’ve got you. Taking you back now.”

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” Neil said. “I thought I might drift out here alone and in pain forever.”

“What were you doing out in the middle of nowhere, anyway?”

“We were heading back to our assigned asteroid belt after dropping off a shipment of platinum for processing. The explosion came without warning. Arturo could still speak, at first. Later, he was in and out. I tried to get him help—get us both help—but there was no response until you.”

Ira thought about how he’d almost ignored the distress call. What would Leah have thought if she’d known after she was gone, he’d withdraw so completely he’d end up working a job guaranteed to isolate him from other human beings? Could Leah, who’d always found it easy to connect with others, have understood?

“Ira? Could you talk to me?” came Neil’s voice. “I think it would help distract me from the pain.”

Ira wasn’t sure how to start. Conversation had never come easy for him—and now, after all this time, it was like trying to remember how to play an instrument you only had a few lessons for years prior.

“I’ve never known a mind to use its former name before,” he said, finally.

“I suppose, living on a shipyard you’ve, come across many uploads like me.”

“I don’t always need to talk to them. At least not verbally. Usually, I run programs or communicate through text. It’s the crews that talk with them later on, and they usually call them by the ship’s name or designation.”

“That must be odd,” came Neil’s voice. “When I was first beamed into the hauler, I still thought of myself as…well, me. I was glad when Arturo suggested using my name.”

“I get that,” Ira said, wondering if Neil might’ve begun his life as a hauler at Nova shipyards.

The silence stretched through the UV’s cabin as Ira thought about what else to say. Finally, he blurted the question that had been on his mind since he’d first heard Neil speak.

“So how did you end up…like this?”

“You mean, how did I die?”

Ira remembered talk of death made other people uncomfortable and wished he could take the question back. He imagined Leah shaking her head like she did whenever he stuck his foot in his mouth when they were kids, but Neil didn’t seem to mind.

“Hover accident. I didn’t die, but I would’ve. AstroCraft offered to have me evaluated to see if I qualified for upload to a ship. It wasn’t something I’d ever given much thought to. After all, most upload options into new bodies or virtual afterlife are too pricey for anyone but the obscenely rich, but AstroCraft needed minds to fly their ships. Their offer was free, and in that moment, facing death, unable to feel most of my body, and sensing only pain in the parts I could, the thought of a life among the stars seemed like a good deal.”

“So, you let them test you.”

“Yes. I qualified and was uploaded to a training unit just hours later. They didn’t say what happened to my body, and I didn’t ask.”

“You weren’t afraid?” Ira asked.

“I knew what they said about minds uploaded to ships,” said Neil. “That they started off human, but in time became soulless. I didn’t buy it. Bodies don’t make us human. I was sure I’d hold on to my humanity, and for the past thirteen years, I have.”

“Thirteen years? I’d assumed you’d been uploaded more recently.”

Ira thought of the ships that occasionally came in for maintenance—ships with minds uploaded years prior, but many more recently than Neil. They’d seemed anything but human. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this made it easier to communicate with them. There was no body language to translate, no micro-expressions or colloquialisms he wasn’t familiar with. Things were simple with such minds, the same way they were with machines. Neil was something new. Somehow, he was still Neil, despite the many years since upload.

“You must think me strange,” Neil said. “Who chooses to become a ship, right? I had a great life as a human. It wasn’t long, but I had people who loved me. I had fun. I had great sex. I did all the things I wanted to do. This is just a new life, as something else. It doesn’t take away from what I had or who I was.”

Ira pondered that. Neil was so different from Leah. She’d been adamant one life was enough. She hadn’t wanted to become a thing, or to risk losing herself. He found himself wishing they’d met. Maybe Neil could’ve convinced her to continue as a spaceship, where Ira had failed. Maybe then he’d still be able to talk to her—the one person he’d felt comfortable communicating with. Still, he couldn’t help wondering, after years as a ship, would she still have been Leah?

▲▼

Ira docked Neil on the repairs side of the shipyard, before returning the utility vehicle to its garage, which—when sealed—opened to the living quarters. Once inside he wasted no time getting into his spacesuit and thruster pack so he could head back out to more closely survey the damage on Neil, and deal with the problem of the pilot’s body.

As his helmet lights passed over its surface, Ira again saw Neil’s hull, though obviously damaged, had held up well. The hauler’s structure seemed warped, but not in a way that the door shouldn’t be able to open.

“Neil, I’ll need you to open your access hatch if you can.”

“One sec.”

A moment later, the hatch at the rear of the hauler slowly opened about halfway. Good enough. Ira could see the pilot’s body floating inside the otherwise empty hold.

“I see Arturo. I’m going to bring him into the shipyard.”

“What’ll happen to him?”

Ira pulled the pilot’s body from the hauler, looking into his face now frozen from exposure to space, and considered how to respond with tact.

“I’ll be honest, Neil, I’m not set up to deal with a body, but I am set up to seal food waste. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful. That’s usually sent to an organic processing center to be turned into nutrients for farming colonies. In Arturo’s case, I’ll send him to Earth on the first available ship. In the meantime, he’ll be perfectly preserved.”

“That’s good,” Neil said. His voice—despite being a digital representation created by a computer—sounded heavy with emotion.

Ira completed the process of preserving Arturo’s body with as much care and respect as possible. Considering he’d had to go through another airlock cycle and remove his gear first, it hadn’t taken very long. Feeling that it wouldn’t be right to leave the pilot’s body with the food waste, Ira took it into his sleeping quarters and lay it on the bunk. He wasn’t squeamish about such things. In the meantime, he’d sleep in his captain’s chair—something he often did anyway.

Having finished with Arturo, he got back in his spacesuit and went to check out Neil’s repairs.

▲▼

The damage was bad. Worn wiring had caused a fire, which had in turn come in contact with gas from—ironically—the life-support system. This caused the explosion. Neil’s fire suppressant system had stopped the flames from spreading, but the harm to Neil, and Arturo, had been done.

Ira looked down at the useless toolkit attached to his suit and shook his head.

“Neil…this is…beyond my skill to repair.” He didn’t add that when vehicles were this damaged, they were scrapped for parts or component materials. “Best I can do’s disable the sensors that make you read the damage as pain.”

There was a long pause, then: “Yeah. I remember the doctors saying something like that just before they told me I was going to die.” He let out a sound like a short laugh. “This was supposed to be my means to cheat death.”

Ira got to work disconnecting the circuits that allowed Neil to sense the damage. At least he could do this much.

“If this had happened closer to the mine or the processing center, Mikkon would’ve transferred you to a new hauler, but I don’t have one here,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

When he’d finished, Ira closed everything up and began drifting back to the airlock.

“What about the ship you’re building right now?” Neil said, suddenly.

Ira eased his thumbs off the thruster controls and looked down toward his feet, beneath which was the massive form of Starlight Dream.

“Not an option. You were approved and trained for a hauler. Interstellar space liner’s a whole different ballgame. You’d be overwhelmed—might never adjust. It could drive you insane. Not to mention, I’d get canned and sent back to Earth. I came out here for a reason.”

“But there’s a chance it could work,” said Neil.

“Real slim, Neil. Too slim.”

“What do I have to lose?” he said. “I don’t want you to lose your job but… I don’t want to die either. Believe me, it doesn’t get any easier facing death a second time.”

As Ira continued to drift over Starlight Dream, he thought of Arturo, this stranger who’d somehow formed a bond with his hauler’s mind. What sacrifices would he have made to save Neil?

“There’s another problem with your plan,” he said. “The ship can’t receive a mind upload. The electrical system isn’t finished and the arm responsible for building it is broken. I don’t have the parts to repair it.”

“Can’t one of the other arms do it?”

“I’m afraid not. Each one’s programmed to its own set of tasks.”

He let the silence linger, hesitant to say what he was thinking and create false hope.

“There’s one thing I could try,” he said, finally. “It’s a longshot but I can scavenge parts from the hauler and jury rig them to temporarily patch the problem with the arm. The repair won’t last, but it could get it up and running long enough for it to finish the job. Maybe.”

“Do it,” said Neil.

“Even if this works, you need to understand the risk. Once I upload you, if you can’t adjust to Starlight Dream, there’s no going back. Even if you manage to keep your sanity, you might not be yourself. Your personality—everything you think of as you—could be lost. And that’s a reasonably successful scenario; one in which you’d have control of the ship. If things go really bad, you could find yourself in there, aware but unable to access anything, facing an eternity of sensory deprivation—or at least it would seem that long before the company deleted you.”

“Like a corrupted file,” said Neil.

“Exactly. Even the law calls it mercy.”

“And if things work perfectly?”

“You travel the stars. I still get fired for putting an untested mind into one of the company’s most expensive ships.”

“Maybe we should sleep on it,” said Neil. “Or you should, in any case, since I don’t sleep.”

“Maybe. But right now, it’s food I need, not sleep.”

He drifted up to the airlock and went back inside the living quarters where he left the comm open for Neil. Then he retrieved a ready meal from storage and pulled the tab on it to flash-cook it. He was mid-bite into spaghetti and meatballs when Neil spoke.

“Ira? How long have you been out here all alone?”

Ira thought about it for the first time in a long while.

“Guess I’m going on seventeen years now.”

“Seventeen years alone in deep space? How can you stand it?”

“Once in a while they drop off basic supplies, and ship parts from the component plants—same ones that get their raw materials from the processors you hauled to,” Ira said, before taking another bite.

“But do you even see them? The people, I mean?”

Ira had to admit he hadn’t laid eyes on another human being in a long time.

“I was never great with people,” he said, licking sauce from his lips.

“You have no one back on Earth?”

“I had a sister I was close with. She passed on though. Cancer. Fought it for two whole years. Even looked once or twice like she might beat it.”

“Let me guess, that was about seventeen years ago?”

“Yes.” Ira was grateful Neil couldn’t see the tears pooling in his eyes. “She was offered the same deal they gave you, but she didn’t take it. After she passed, I went to AstroCraft myself. Told them I wanted to get off-world; go as far as they could send me. There’re always job openings in places like this. Not a lot of people can handle the isolation, but my psych evals determined I’d thrive on my own. Eight months of training and an interstellar flight later, I was here.”

“You never get homesick?”

“Not often. I miss nature, sometimes. Fresh air, that sort of thing.” Ira leaned back in his chair. “I should ask you the same, though. Don’t you miss being human—physically, I mean?”

Neil paused a moment before answering.

“There is one thing. I can hear you eating. I miss that. Not so much eating, exactly, but rather tasting. Being a hauler isn’t that different from having a body like I used to. I can feel, hear, even see, in a way. I don’t really have anything that equates to smell, but I don’t miss that as much—it’s the sense of taste I’d want back if it were possible.”

“Anything you’d like to taste in particular?”

“Strawberries. Picked fresh on a warm summer day.”

“Man, I can’t remember the last time I had a fresh strawberry,” said Ira.

“Do you remember what it was like to pick a big, bright red berry, bite into it, and feel sweet juice burst in your mouth, still warm from the sun? I think about that sometimes. I think about it a lot. Arturo used to describe things he ate to me, but it wasn’t the same.”

“I get that,” said Ira. He leaned forward and tapped the computer to search his personal files, finally selecting an audio of Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major. Classical music was always nice after a meal. “Here’s something for your sense of hearing.”

“Thank you. That’s lovely.”

They listened in silence until Ira drifted off.

▲▼

“Ira?”

Ira’s eyes opened and he glanced at the clock that kept time to Sol System Standard. It was early, but not so early that Neil hadn’t given him a decent number of hours.

“You awake?” came Neil’s voice once more.

“I am.”

“I’ve gone over the risks while you were sleeping and I’m willing to take my chances,” Neil said. “But it’s not up to me alone. I understand if you don’t want to risk your job. I know you’re happy here.”

Was he happy? Ira had never really asked himself that. He’d only known he was unhappy before. Since he’d arrived at Nova shipyards, he’d been content, but was that the same as happy? And if it was, was it more important than the chance—albeit slim—to save someone’s life? Did it matter that this person inhabited a form different from his?

“Let’s do it,” he said, after a moment. He might not know the answers to those questions, but at times like this, he thought of something Leah used to say: Sometimes your brain has no idea what to do, or which way to go. When that happens, follow your heart. Right now, his heart was telling him he had to at least try to save Neil, whatever the cost.

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” Neil said. “Where do we start?”

“First, I’ll float out to you and scavenge the parts I’ll need to fix the arm. If all goes well, we’ll have to wait for it to finish its job, which should be another few days, I think.” He paused before finishing with: “Then I download you into temporary storage. You’re not going to like that. It’s going to feel like you’re in there, alone, without your senses, for a lot longer than it is. You should feel it when I upload you to Starlight Dream though, and hopefully be able to get your bearings.”

They got to work almost immediately, with Ira foregoing breakfast to suit-up and get out the airlock faster.

With several of Neil’s sensors disabled from the previous day, the process of removing the parts was painless for him, and relatively simple for Ira. Once he had the necessary parts, Ira used the thrusters to float to the broken robotic arm. Neil was strangely quiet as he made the repairs and Ira wondered if he was having second thoughts.

After several hours—space repairs were never quick—the job was done. It didn’t look great, but Ira thought it might just be enough. There was only one way to know for sure.

“It’s as good as it’s gonna get,” he said. “Time to test it.”

“Fingers crossed,” Neil said.

Ira smiled at the use of such a human expression and drifted down to the arm controls to switch it back on. He hesitated a moment before pressing the button.

“Here goes nothing.”

Even after all these years in space, he somehow expected noise when it started up again, but there was only silence, and he had to look along the arm to see it moving. The repair was holding, as the work resumed. Ira watched it for a while, in case the arm broke down again, but it kept going, working as fast as the others despite jerky movements from the articulating joint.

“I’m going back in,” he told Neil. “This’ll take a while.”

▲▼

Over the next few days, Ira and Neil spent much of their time in conversation. Ira couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken aloud so much. This was more than he even talked with Leah. He came to know more about Neil’s past and found himself sharing some of his own. He learned Neil had a sarcastic sense of humor—one he had a hard time reading at first, but was gradually getting used to. Perhaps most surprisingly, Ira found he enjoyed his time with Neil and came to realize he’d missed interacting with other people.

On the fourth day, the robotic arm signaled it had completed its programmed tasks. Ira ran the usual tests on Starlight Dream’s systems, and everything seemed up to spec. The ship was ready to receive a mind. He glanced at the unread message he’d received a day earlier from HQ in response to the one he’d sent outlining the problem with the arm. Technically, Ira should’ve let HQ know he’d repaired it. They probably hadn’t yet uploaded the trained mind into a virtual construct. No one at HQ was ever that quick to act. But job or no job, he couldn’t do it. Neil needed this shot, and the other mind had basically won the lottery, getting uploaded to one of the afterlives catering to the wealthy, instead of settling for life as a ship—and all on AstroCraft’s dime.

“Neil,” he said into the comm. “It’s time.”

Neil said nothing for long enough that Ira was about to repeat himself when he heard:

“I’m ready.”

Ira packed the temp storage drive and attached it to his spacesuit before getting into it and heading back outside. He drifted over to the hauler where Neil let him in, and made his way to the cockpit to plug the drive into the computer.

“It’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Ira…if this doesn’t work, I want you to know I’m grateful for all you’ve done, and that I don’t blame you.”

Ira didn’t know how to respond, so instead said, “Here goes,” and typed the command.

A file icon appeared on the drive’s display. That was it. Such little fanfare for what amounted to a person’s consciousness being transferred from one place to another.

Now Ira moved fast, or as fast as one could safely move in space, using the thrusters to propel himself to Starlight Dream on the other side of the yard. Some of the arms still moved along the hull, adding finishing touches. Ira wove past them to one of the airlocks near the bridge and used the manual controls to open it. He drifted inside and, using the zero-G handholds to pull himself along, headed to the main console where he plugged in the drive. Finally, he keyed the upload command and waited.

Lights flickered on, then off, then back on. More lights, in varied colors, lit up across the console. A holo-imager displayed a female avatar wearing an AstroCraft uniform. It looked so real that Ira nearly jumped out of his skin. He marveled at the sight of another person—however holographic—before it vanished once more.

“Ira,” a voice not quite like Neil’s said. It seemed distant, tinny. “Ira…I can’t…I can’t see…”

“Stay calm, Neil, baby steps. Don’t try to do it all at once.”

There was no response. He wasn’t even sure Neil could hear him, but he kept talking.

“You’ve got this, Neil. Just take it one system at a time. How about life support?”

“There is…there’s…what is this?” Neil said. “I’m afraid.”

“I’m right here, Neil.”

“Ira? Is that you? It’s been…a long time.”

“I went as fast as I could, pal.”

“Why is this…? Oh…I understand now.”

Ira didn’t know what Neil was referring to, but after a moment the lights came on and stayed on. Readouts across the console showed systems coming online, one after the next. Finally, the entire ship seemed to come alive.

“I can see you now,” Neil said, in his usual voice. “I have control of Starlight Dream. It feels…strange. This’ll take some getting used to.”

Ira felt his boots make contact with the floor as gravity came on.

“Take it slow,” he said. “I don’t think you’re quite ready to fly us to the nearest system yet. Focus on not killing your crew for now.”

Neil laughed. “I think I can manage that.”

“Man, HQ’s not gonna like this. You’ll have to prove to them you can do the job, so they keep you onboard.”

“How much time do I have?”

“Weeks, probably.”

Neil laughed again. “Do you even understand how sophisticated this computer is? This is nothing like the hauler. I’ll be ready in hours, not weeks. I can process things so quickly now—I’m doing it as we speak. I feel so…expansive.”

“Well, don’t let it go to your head,” Ira said, smiling.

“There’s so much I can do now,” Neil continued. “So much more I’ll be able to see. I never dreamed it could be like this.”

“Just promise me one thing,” said Ira. “Don’t let the crew call you, Starlight Dream. Make sure they call you Neil, like Arturo used to do. I think that’s key. The more they treat you like a person, the more likely you’ll remain one.”

“You might be right.”

His job done, Ira turned to leave. He could better assess how well Neil was adjusting using his programs in the shipyard computer.

“Ira,” Neil said, as he made his way back to the airlock. “When I’m complete, and my crew arrives, I’ll have to leave you.”

“That’s how it works.”

“You’ll be alone again.”

“Yes.” Ira said. “I’ve been thinking though…maybe I should get back to Earth for a visit. See how it’s changed. Breathe in some of that fresh air.”

“And maybe go strawberry-picking?” Neil added.

“That too.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Yeah…maybe I’m ready to give Earth another shot. And if I somehow convince the company not to can me, I can try for a transfer—maybe working with uploaded minds like you.”

“When you return to Earth, can you take Arturo back with you—see to it he gets a nice funeral?”

“I can do that.” Ira floated out of the airlock and drifted up toward the shipyard’s living space.

“Ira?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to miss you. You saved my life.”

“I’ll miss you too, Neil. And I’m pretty sure we saved each other.” ■

P.A. Cornell is an award-winning Chilean-Canadian speculative fiction author. In 2024, she became the first ever Chilean-born finalist for the Nebula Award for her story, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” later receiving her second Nebula nomination for “Through the Machine” in 2026. Additionally, Cornell has been a finalist for the Aurora and World Fantasy Awards, and in 2022, her story “Splits” won Canada’s Short Works Prize.

Despite her early interest in fiction, Cornell’s first publications were in non-fiction as a journalist and copy editor. Since 2015, she’s dedicated herself to writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror full time, and her stories have appeared in over seventy magazines and anthologies, including multiple “Best of the Year” anthologies.