Flash eased very gradually back to consciousness. His eyes were open long before he moved a muscle. He had no idea how long he had slept, and unlike on earth, time didn’t really matter here. He had no schedule to keep. No morning or evening. He would sleep when he felt tired, wake when he felt rested, eat when he felt hungry. Because of the unlimited imagination potential of the human mind, he was never bored. 

Mars’ orbit would make it convenient for Flash to check in with the Nomicon community there, and report their progress back to Ash Lander. But Mars was still a long ways off. 

Flash already felt at home aboard the ship. He had so much more room than he had in the TNI, but even that had been sufficient for him. The advanced communication system would be a great asset, since the radio had proven problematic on his previous voyage. 

Here in his own native solar system, especially amongst the innermost planets, one side of his ship was always in the day, and one side in continual night. As he travelled away from the sun, the light at his stern would decrease. For now, however, the contrast was intense. Out here, away from Earth’s atmosphere, there was a clarity to space that would be difficult to imagine without actually seeing it for yourself. Flash was certainly accustomed to it, but never tired of seeing it. 



Though there were windows on every side of the ship, the best way for Flash to see what lay outside was by way of the screen above the cockpit.

For all his love of space travel and contentment with being alone, Flash was not, by nature, an antisocial person. He treasured his friends and family members, and enjoyed making new acquaintances… Be they human or not. 

He was keenly aware of the K. D. head on the dashboard. Now that he thought of it, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. It seemed to be staring at him. He flipped the control switch to raise his seat back and thus get a better view of the face on the orb. The expression was changing, but not the way a natural human face would change. It was more like a series of old Kodak slides flashing still images of variations on the face. This accounted for the clicking sound he noticed as he first boarded the ship. This mechanical clicking added to the illusion of a slide projector. 

“I wonder if I can find some coffee,” Flash said aloud. 





“Certainly,” came a voice from the orb. With that, a cup dropped from somewhere and instantly began filling with fresh, steaming coffee. 



“How long before we run out of coffee?” Flash asked. 

“Never,” came the reply. “Your food is served on the table of elements.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”



“Your coffee wasn’t grown on a coffee plant, harvested, roasted, ground and brewed. We have a supply of each of the elements on board the ship, and your food is created by joining various molecules. It is real coffee, achieved in a slightly different manner than on earth. And it is more pure. Later, all these molecules will be used again for something else. Matter is neither formed or destroyed, just rearranged.”

“What a great idea,” Flash mused. 



“Thank you,” the voice said. 

It occurred to Flash that this was not a new idea at all. This is how it used to work. Before the invention of plastic and styrofoam. Before nuclear waste and chemical intervention. K. D.’s words came back to him about how everything must be recycled. 



The coffee tasted better than any he had ever had, and it revived him. His flight to the mothership hadn’t been particularly stressful, but the weeks leading up to it had been tedious and disappointing. From his new vantage point, the process seemed clear, and the results inevitable. Everyone must make their own way through this life.  Flash’s life and his space ship were on course. Various people share that path with us for a while, and we enrich each other. When our paths diverge it only ends one sentence so that a new experience can begin. Flash’s soul bore the fingerprints of all those who had touched him, and in this way he would forever carry them all with him for the rest of his life. 



By this time, Earth was nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye. It was just a dot set against the infinite curtain of the universe, and difficult to see for the glare of the sun, here where there was no atmosphere to diffuse it.