This was it.

The final moment, they were loading onboard the berth that would be their home and respite for the rest of their journey to the new colony.

Just like the models and the walk throughs it was a bit bigger than Aleph’s and Omega’s houses combined.

A Series of rail ready canisters. Able to be shipped from precision engineering facilities across the plate.

Four modular containers, each with its own atmospheric processor, scrubber, hydroponic garden stack, personal effects store and sleeping closet.

Each was crammed with everything you would need to keep two able bodied humans alive under extreme rationing as close to indefinitely as possible.

Volunteers had stayed in the things for years before the first colonies went out.

Aleph knew that the last Terra bound test had completed with both surviving for twenty years on just the resources that was in ONE chamber.

It had been one of the studies that Omega made her go over again and again. Every little thing.

Omega had also pointed out the fifty similar tests that had failed prior to those twenty years for all manner of reasons.

It was not expected that they would need to be in transit that long but just in case the load out they had was rated for it.

And they had FOUR chambers with equal systems to that which were newer than the ones used in those studies and backups of the backups. They also would have whatever aide and assistance was available from the visitor according to the contract.

Aleph’s only real concern was that Quarti was going to drive her and Omega crazy.

“Wada-di di-da-da do, do da di dodo doo do, wada da-da? Wada do-do? Wada-di di-da da dee-da-do?”

“No please. Quarti if you can’t remember the words don’t just sing the melody...”

“But I can remember the word some, but the wordsome don’t rhymesing anymore. So it be wrong sound now yah? Don’t know the sound song to the word sing. soul remembers all the word but they change in the mouthing and the tonguing. So can’t use in the singing. Have to find new words”

Omega blinks a few times then tilts her head.

“Can’t you just do it in your head?”

Quarti blinks at them both then makes a face like they were idiots.

“If did it in my head, would just sound like the right way and not be the right way. Have to use the tonguing and the teething and the throating out in the sounding or the wrong words won’t flow in the singing. Idiots”

She stuck her tongue out, then looked down her nose at it and got distracted with trying out it’s flexibility.

Before pulling it back and going back to humming and ‘singing’ parts of a song trying random words in the lyrics then grumbling and apparently not being satisfied that they fit.

Aleph looked back at omega.

“We can seal her in one of the chambers on her own right? That would be fine? Maybe we can have her ride in on a different pod of the berth and just forget to connect it?”

Omega shook her head.

“No we are going to have to wait in one pod while they load us up and wait for them to latch the other three up from outside. Come on, It’s not bad, as soon as she figures out a way to sing this song I’m sure she will move onto something else.”

Aleph raises a brow at omega.

“Or she will start singing it constantly for the rest of our trip.”

Omega bit her lip and shook her heads.

“She comes around if you talk with her you know. Really Aleph you are being kind of unfair here, she’s older then Aoria itself. She’s practically a time traveler but she came around the LONG way. I know this is your first time around but she’s incredible to have lasted so long disembodied like that. And active! Not just moldering in a crystal waiting to go bad. Being unincarnated is dangerous, being unincarnated just out in the open is legendary.”

Aleph looked up at Omega, then leaned around to stare at the prophet and how she had started ‘folding’ herself back over backwards so that she could put her own feet on her head.

“Are we sure she’s not secretly a visitor? I could accept that, she’s actually just some alien.”

Omega laughed and shook her head.

“She’s not an Alien Aleph, just really old and in a body raised to her specifications.”

Aleph blinked then looked up at Omega.

“You mean the whole room thing? Left alone until she can talk on her own? That was...”

Omega smirked.

“Yah she asked for that specifically... Um I’d have to check the literature but something about brain stimulus overriding the soul integration going the other way? It’s not something I think I could manage.”

The pod jostled and the rail’s cadence switched from one rythmic clicking to another. They were descending down the cliff now.

“What couldn't you manage Omega?”

“Bootstrapping myself up without anything to build on like that. It’s not like anything you would remember now Aleph. Being born you just aren't wholey there yet, all the ideas and things that make up well, you or me just float waiting for senses to assemble themselves into sense, and every time you grow up everything is raw and new for several years. And that’s with a mother or father to help teach you what words fit together to and what sights and sounds and tastes mean.”

Omega had gotten old and distant and dreamy.

“It’s not like waking up one morning as a baby... It’s like your body and your soul have to reach towards each other and find an overlap before you even can exist. And by that point? You’re already some one new. Whoever your mother is fits into every mother you remember... whatever was sky is every sky, whatever was sweet or sour is every sweet and sour.”

Omega laughed and quarti joined in right THERE next to them.

“Oh lonesome fun that is something wot? Howsmany times have your favorites been awful foul?”

Omega cringed and chuckled.

“So many times! You will see some treat and think ‘I LOVE those’ pop it in your mouth and want to throw up because somewhere along the way you learned it all different. Or you will one day notice you love something you thought was awful last time around”

Aleph paused to stare at them consideringly.

She’d never seen anyone bond with Omega over that kind of thing before.

She’d never experienced any life but this one.

But out of the blue Quarti had an insight she never imagined?

An experience shared with Omega?

She scowled a little and looked around at the space that was going to be theirs along with three other exactly like it.

She focused on the vibration and clanking of the rails as their pod moved.

The lightness in her belly as they moved down. Not as bad as full free fall. But it would be eventually.

The outside beyond the clank of the rail teeth was all she heard.

There was no view of outside. Beyond protection of the plate direct vision was dangerous. The windows were clouded over by gold laminate shields.

Which although good for shielding against dangerous glare while past the rim wall mountains, also made the darkness beyond terra’s sun difficult to distinguish.

Especially with the glare of inside.

Jostling from outside as they shifted to another track, lurching stomach as they stopped moving vertically and began slowly shifting horizontally. Omega and Quarti were still talking with each other, Something about meditation pods and some kind of horrible pond scum bath that Quarti was swearing by over the ‘stifling’ new method.

Aleph listened to the click whir of the atmospheric system to drown out the animated chatter. Another lurch, and then the motion became soft, almost swaying a little. It was, like floating in a bath as a child.

There was no sound but those inside the chamber.

In a lull in their conversation Aleph spoke with a slight cough.

“We’re in the ship”

Omega grew quiet before shifting over and leaned against one of the portholes. Trying to peer out but where as the stars had minimal illumination that was mostly blocked, the ship’s interior might as well be opaque.

“No lights inside”

Quarti hummed and tilted her head back a bit before smiling.

“Plenty of song in the Resonance though, it’s so cozy-some”

Aleph blinked at her and tried to feel out herself but didn't hear anything, not of the familiar devices or networks she was used too.

It was like the world ended outside the pods.

It was so quiet as they gently shifted and swayed.

It was hard to tell they were moving at all except for slight tilts one way or another presumably as they traversed corridors in the ship interior.

Which of course meant that all of them jumped and Aleph and Quarti Shrieked in surprise when the grinding of the airlock seal locking into place.

The signal over resonance coming a bit late.

~Alright we got the first pod hooked up colonists, you should be able to open it up after the pressure indicator goes green from in there. We are gonna get the rest hooked up and then you are on your way. If you want the transmitter should hold stable while you are still docked but will lose coherence after departure. Good luck!~

There were two progressively more muted grinding snaps as the other pods were secured to them. Then a light creaking of joints as the entire berth settled against some surface below.

They were on the ship.

The Visitor’s Ship.

Aleph was buzzing with excitement, she looked at Omega with eyes wide and a grin on her face. All the frustration of Quarti forgotten, all the suffering of the drills and training and throwing up.

“This is it!”

Omega just nodded and laughed.

“We made it!”

They were on the ship and they were going beyond terra!

Nothing was going to ruin this moment for Aleph.

“So, are we arriving yet?”

Quarti’s voice was innocent and pure without a hint of malice.

But Aleph knew better.