Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

It will vibrate through the underwater spaces twice more, giving everyone the time they need.

The walkway vibrates under my feet, broadcasting the all hands signal through the ship. Things that are choices today won’t be choices tomorrow that’s the way it’s always been, when you sign away your voice for a new means of dancing. What will be done to them, what they’ll have to do in service to their country. Those ships will be lighter than ours could ever dream of being, freed from the need for filters and desalination pumps by leaving themselves open to the sea. Latest scuttlebutt from the harbor holds that a generation of wholly flooded ships is coming, ultra-light fish tanks with shells of air and metal surrounding the water-filled crew chambers, the waterproofed electrical systems. The heartbeat of the ship follows me through the iron halls, comprised of the engine’s whir, the soft, distant buzz of the electrical systems, the even more distant churn of the rudders, the hiss and sigh of the filters that keep the flooded chambers clean and oxygenated. We are constantly envious of those who escape its limitations, and we fear for them at the same time, wishing them safe return to the reef, where they can be kept away from all the darkness and predations of the open sea. The space is tight, confined, unyielding it is like living inside a coral reef, trapped by the limits of our own necessary shells. The smell of damp steel assaults my nose as I walk the hall, uncomfortable boots clumping heavily with every step I force myself to take.

Series: The Tales of Gorlen VizenfirtheĬondensation covers the walls, dimpling into tiny individual drops that follow an almost fractal pattern, like someone has been writing out the secrets of the universe in the most transitory medium they can find.Series: From the Lost Travelers’ Tour Guide.People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!.

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire