Hurried footsteps clanked heavily on the metalic floor. His eyes flickered back and forth across any crew he saw, judging their intent.

'IM A DAMN FOOL!' Mantovani thought to himself, still racing down the corridors. 

He arrived his workstation and crouched down. pulling off a panel from underneath his desk he reached into the cavity, pulled out a thick silver bracelet and slipped it onto his right wrist.

'why had i never thought of this before?'

 Jumping up, he hurriedly rushed down the corridor once more.

After a minute of power walking, Mantovani stopped about a meter away from a closed heavy door. with a few deep and steady breaths, he calmed down. 

His expression softened. 

donning a friendly and assured smile; he approached the door. 

Bright red letters spelling out 

'security clearance required' flashed green and changed to read 

'access granted'.

With slow methodical steps Mantovani made his way into a dimly lit room. rows upon rows of reinforced lockers lined the walls. they were filled with various objects, many ornate and sophisticated, most deadly by nature. A lone female lumerian sat slouched infront of a console, but sat up straight at the sight of the horatio. Mantovani paid no heed to her, focusing instead on a single locker tucked away in the left corner of the room. upon reaching it, he swiped his right hand down the side of the locker, unlocking the locking mechanism. 

An ornate silver laser pistol sat on a pedestal next to an curved antique dagger. The blade of the dagger was decorated in fine bronzed swirls, like the curling waves of the sea.

Mantovani delicately picked both items up and stored them inside his robes.

" 'ey! you 'ave permission to take that!?" the lumerian asked aggressively.

"I belive i do. how else would i have been able to enter?" Mantovani said as he waved the right arm to display the silver bracelet.

She looked at it, unimpressed and simply shot a glare at the horatio. Mantovani sighed and shifted his weight. 

A small clear vial dropped to the floor and rolled towards the lumerian, who caught it neatly under her boot. She moved her foot a little, revealing a bright golden glimmer coming from the vial. She groaned and picked it up.

"im only ignorant if its for defence, got it?"

"loud and clear, Madame."  

As Mantovani left the armoury, the lumerian set a video and audio loop on the recordings from the security systems. proof of Mantovani entering the room at all faded from existence with the selection of an X marked botton.

"That's events", Ylona answered, "Those have precise spacetime coordinates. Objects have timelines. And not knowing where things are doesn't excuse you from not knowing when that's the case. And Alice is on the bridge right now, having the conn. I should probably come along in case she needs somebody to pass it off to."

And, but she did not say that out loud, to have Alice clarify about when things happened. It seemed impossible to get that answer out of λ.

"Ah! That is a useful clarifcation. I will record this to access before."

λ activated the box on his wrist and began to emit a sound. Under the loosest possible definition of the word, it could be described as singing. It floated without rhythm, each time a pattern started to emerge it would collide violently with another. It swung back and forth between pitches, often with multiple overlapping 'notes'. Just as it seemed to reach some sort of climax, it came to a sudden halt. λ tapped a button, and the box began to play back a recording. 

"I-appreciate-your-assistance. Let us go to the bridge."

λ floated out the doorway backwards, without bothering to turn around. Perhaps he had been backwards the entire time?

"You seem versed in your understanding of time. How did you become so knowledgeable? Did you study at a school?"

"Most people don't see the need to teach their kids about time. It's something that happens to all of us and we just have to deal with. Like puberty", she joked, before realising who she was talking to. As not to get the conversation bogged down in that side path, she just carried on: "Spacetime, though, that's something that needs some teaching. You can't be an interstellar pilot without at least knowing something about relativistic delays. Can't understand half of astrophysics, either. So yeah, I probably know a bit more about the topic than your average guy."

For a moment, she walked in silence, thinking. Then, she continued: "There is another, reason, too, but it's ... personal. Know what that means?"

"Personal. Something that is secret to you only. Typically due to loss or tragedy."

For the first time, λ felt awkward in the silence that followed. 

"I-extend-my... I am sorry if you have... lost someone.

I am interested in learning more about spacetime. Do you have any materials I could study about it?"

"Hah", Ylona barked a laugh, "That's rich. Lost someone. No, my folks are fine. Anyway, the point is that you don't go talking to this with anybody expect me, and just listen for a moment."

She took a deep breath, trying to order her thoughts. "It's the Dust. Don't think me a weakling just because half the crew is on the stuff and I'm the only one whining. The Captain eats it outright like it's breakfast, and I should be thankful it allows the Craver to have thoughts which aren't about killing and eating other people. But what it does to you, it's personal, and everyone has their own experience. And mine, well..." She sighed. "I'm not taking Dust. Not unless it's needed, because when I do, I see spacetime. I see gravity. It's like I'm turning into a planet, living in the scales of light minutes and millions of years. I don't need to calculate trajectories like that, because it's just straight lines. It feels like cheating, because once you see what I can see, it's all so easy. But it's not so good for social situations, because people get so ... tiny. We're nothing compared to the size of a planet. We, and our ship, are nothing but specks in the whirpool of the planets. I can't focus on another tiny speck when my mind is filled with the entirety of space and time. Heck, when I trance too deeply, I won't even notice anything that doesn't make a ripple in gravity. And I wonder a bit if that experience, if it's similar to what you feel, every day."

This new information brought λ to a complete halt. Even the subarms froze in place.

"That is... fascinating. You can see on such a vast scale, through The Dust... We do have something in common. Or at least, we will before. Just as you can see space on such a grand scale, my people could see time on a similar scale. When we were back home, time stretched before us like an ocean. We could swim through it with ease. But here... Time is a drop, an atom. Time in terribly finite. For you, imagine having that planet sight your whole life. Never knowing anything else. Then suddenly, irrevesibly, your perspective becomes that of a human. Imagine the loss and the confusion. This is the experience of my people. We have seen everything time can be, but that beauty has been stolen from us. The loss is immense. My people don't live in this universe. We endure it, and only barely. 

Still, you have a true gift. I only wish the Dust did as much for my people as it does for you. When did you first learn you could do this?"

"Now that's something where I lost somebody. Not really personal, though, seeing how there was a hearing and everything. A lucky, or unlucky, who knows, shot from a pirate got the freight of Dust into the helm. The rest is a blur, even now. I was utterly buzzed and they had to pry my hands off the steering when we docked."

Shrugging, Ylona pointed forwards. "The bridge is just ahead. There you can ask Alice about your samples. And if you want to learn about space time, I could try digging up a few lectures like those I listened to. But I don't think it will help you much. It was mostly maths."

After meticulous investigation of about half of the food-dispensers parts 7-4-1-N-7-D finally found the 'malfunction', a somewhat clogged filter-module. To patrons of the cantina, it might have looked odd how this Drone started to disassemble more and more of the dispenser, just to clean this one part. After that deed was done the robot placed in all the parts, previously taken out, in. Satisfied with its achievement 7-4-1 would surely request data on this dispenser by next week to see if its work had an effect.

But for now there was nothing left to do: It couldn't start the research project is assigned to all alone, there are currently no available repair or maintenance duties and despite continues scanning for other inefficiencies in the ship the sower just couldn't find any, then it realised it could double run some numbers in the cargo manifest, everything better than running idle on standby. It left the cantina for the smaller hallways leading towards the rarer visited part of the ship : The cargo-bay.

"Still on the bridge, Captain?", Ylona asked as she sauntered through the door behind the Riftborn. λ was Alice's problem now, but given that she'd possibly have to leave her post to get the stuff from the armory, it was better if somebody was around to pass the conn off to. "I thought you'd have headed for some R'n'R yourself by now", she commented the Vodyani's continued presence. She wondered if he'd even stood up from his chair since she'd left.

Alice was so deep into her work that she didn't notice the construct's approach nor the discussions around the captain at first.

"The armory?"  Alice glanced towards λ.   The creature's resemblence to her drones always outnerved her a little since while she knew her own machines, this one's thought processes were a complete mystery.   Despite her engineering work, she was never comfortable with fully sentient AIs.   Probably a leftover trace of her parents' teachings...

"I can certainly make the request but I'm not authorized to open the door for you."    Not that she couldn't but it was probably best not to flaunt that she had cracked open the Saviour's systems to an extent her priviledge was likely higher than even the fair captain's.

Valorum was actually still seated when Ylona entered the bridge, and was still poring over some of the data from the Tanye I probe. The captain now glances back to Ylona as she enters, answering calmly:

"I am quite comfortable where I am now, sister; far more so than where I was but a few hours ago."

"No argument there. It's a weird day when the one hanging upside down has the least stressful time on the away team", Ylona answered with a chuckle, "But still, I'd have thought you'd go have a nap or some prayer time. As comfy as a captain's chair is, I bet you it's not the most comfortable place on the ship."

Falling into her helmsman's chair, the Vaulter got herself comfortable, lounging unceremoniously with the legs outstrechted. "Have we made a decision concerning that other place yet, on the moon? It sounds rather dangerous, but if it's another Endless place, we'd be skipping on our contract if we just flew on.  Well, at least it's going to make the folks back outside happy to hear that Tianquitzli isn't boring. Bad news is, though, it isn't boring." She chuckled again.

The Valorum showed no sign of reacting to λ's thoughts of tree-passing. Perhaps The Yellow Ones could not read minds? Or maybe The Valorum was keeping his subarms close to his frame...

As the The Valorum described the phenomenom, λ's attention grew.

"Pardon-me-Chief-Custodian-Valorum. I could be of assistance with this moon. My kind draw energy from various forms of radiation, including nuclear radiation. It is possible that with a large enough radiation source, I would gain energy faster than the moon could drain it. At least up until a certain distance from the phenomenon's origin. Will you considered this an acceptable solution?"

"Well, you're the captain, Captain. It's your decision", Ylona answered, "If you want my opinion, all I can say is that putting us on an orbit that gets us as close to the surface as you want and then back out is no problem for me. With a moon, I can get you a periapsis measured in meters. In, out, back to orbiting the sun and let the energy gatherers on our hull do their work. No worries there, as it doesn't look like there's any unusual drag on the probe path, so it doesn't eat kinetic energy. Would be strange if it did. But well, if that path's safe, you'd have to ask somebody else. No idea at what amount of power flowing out or core explodes or goes subcritical or something." She eyed Alice, seeing if she felt like participating in the discussion.

"Where did that oversized ball bearing go?" murmured manovani as he searched for the sower drone. the bridge was clear and so too was the numerous crew quarters. After extensive searching along the corridors he reached the mess hall. Only then after all that, he found a clue as to where the drone was. Following a brief questioning of one of the kitchen staff, Mantovani had learnt that the drone had recently fixed the food dispensers.

" it went left out the door there" replied a hisso woman whilst drying a few plates. "why do you want to know"

"The damn thing moved one of my art pieces. now i cant find it anywhere and the only thing that might know where it is, is that stupid cue ball." 

'never lie on the fly', one of the more useful things R5 tormanca taught me' thought Mantovani. He wondered where his old friend was. Mantovani wanted to thank him for all the things he taught him, as they might just save his bacon soon.

"okay then" continued the hisso. "hope you get your... thing."

With a new sense of direction and more questions to crew members along his path, he had finally ascertained the sowers location, the cargo hold. 

He silently opened the main acess doorway to the hold and walked down the flight of stairs leading down to the cargo hold. The room was enormous, traversing the length of the ship with hills of boxes, crates and containers of all kinds arranged somewhat chaotically. Dim lights provided limited visability in this dark, maze like room. It was almost uniform in colour: blues, whites and greys saturated the entire space. Mantovani tried not to pay to much attention to the disgustingly iridescent yellow glow coming from a pile of crates nearby. 

Mantovani had entered about 3/4 of the way down the hold. The stairway provided a good vantage point to search for his quarry.

It was then he spotted it, hovering along between the containers towards the cargo bay at the front end of the ship.

The white light of main ship corridors faded as the doors closed, leaving only the dim lights to struggle away at the darkness. It was eerily silent, aside from the distant drone of the sower. Mantovani reached the end of the stairs and headed towards the cargo bay. Mantovani fiddled with the bracelet around his wrist. His cloak began to change colour to match the surrounding environment. He couldn't afford to be detected, his life was at stake. 

The "Cue ball" was scanning a stack of containers and compared the data their displays gave with what was in the Saviours database. It wasn't in need to do any of that, but it was work. If the sower would have known the word "Workaholic" it would have defined it as a healthy mindset towards the world, if it knew "Burnout" it probably would have defined an opposite term of it to describe how it feels without a task to fulfill.

A Humanoid entered the cargo bay, but the sower didn't put any processing cycle worth of thought to it, cargo has to be used every now and then after-all. But there was a small detail that made it turn and focus its main sensors on that man, he stopped on the stairs for no apparent reason. Fully turned around and after its sensors could adjust it switched from scanning with its all-around sensors to the more precise ones on the front and ... the man was gone from its vision.
They couldn't have left the way they entered in this short time. Did they move behind some containers to get something? The machine didn't care much and turned back to continue its task.