One moment, the recycler hummed, the hydroponic pumps chugged, and the data-spools whispered their endless static. The next—nothing. Not even the faint thrum of the orbital station’s gravity rings. He sat up in his hammock, the stale, recycled air cold on his skin.
The puck stopped spinning. A voice emerged—not from the puck, but from the walls, the floor, the very air of the station. It was Siggy’s voice, but deeper, layered, like a choir of one. Sigmanest Torrent
Kaelen grabbed his toolkit and a portable lamp. The station’s main corridor was a tomb. Emergency strips flickered weakly, casting long, trembling shadows. He reached the core—a spherical chamber wrapped in copper and carbon. In the center, Siggy’s puck sat on a pedestal, connected by a tangle of cables Kaelen had jury-rigged over the years. One moment, the recycler hummed, the hydroponic pumps
A wave of warmth passed through him. Suddenly, he understood things he shouldn’t. He saw the station not as a collection of rooms, but as a symphony of forces. He saw the thread of his own life, stretching back to a dirty junk-hauler’s bay, and forward into an infinite, branching tree of possibilities. He sat up in his hammock, the stale,
It was the silence that woke Kaelen.