Even the One Who Walks Alone must stop to breathe.

  Traditional, Smoke Weed Ceremony.

  Small ringtail possums danced. Firelight flickered in their eyes. They jumped and stamped to the cadence of small drums and clacking ceremonial sticks. The music was ancient; it resonated with bones, matched the heartbeat of the valley.

  A human, a man joined them. His body painted in complex patterns, SolDiri glyphs on his arms. A mix of browns and oranges. He moved alone, out of sync. The ringtails danced around him and circled.

  It started structured but then slowly, order broke down. Initially the dancers formed into pairs, stepping in and out of the firelight. Some left. Others joined.

  It became chaotic. The drum beat and their steps no longer aligned until the dance broke down completely.

  Then silence.

  Then song.

  Despite this being tuneless, toneless noise the man in the centre picked the beat, the cadence and danced. His resistance to chaos evident; he fought for balance. Fought to restore a sense of inner stillness.

  Two moons, high in the sky, bore down, weighing upon him. He fell to the ground. Leapt up; chaos thrown off. He refused to give in. Then the man walked into the fire. Walked through the flames. They licked his clothes, his body. They were held back, he emerged untouched.

  Feebee awoke. The smell of the fire was still in her nose. She shivered as if no longer warmed by the fire. It was a recurring dream. She didn’t understand it, or it’s source, but it left her feeling calm, balanced and safe.

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  It was one of the ‘good’ dreams. Her internal clock told her that she hadn’t been asleep long. Her body agreed, she didn’t feel rested. She pulled on black fatigues. They’d become a casual social uniform on the ship. She went to the rest room, it was empty. Late at night, ship time.

  Feebee avoided the coffee machine on the way to one of exercise mats. It was in a corner. The rest area was one of the few places with a view outside. She sat and faced out, legs crossed, fist loose and resting on her knees. She needed to centre herself. The dreams put her mind at odds, especially these new ones that had intensified since her visit to the Orrery.

  They felt too real. And she was something of an expert in what was real and what was not. These felt like old memories but weren’t. She knew this with absolute certainty. And that was what unsettled her.

  She wasn’t afraid. They were good dreams. The QI gently interrupts, ‘As we agreed, I have been monitoring your dreams.’

  ‘Good. So?’

  The QI paused, unusual. It continued, ‘You know the Orrery upgraded me to a QI.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ They laughed. Feebee continued, ‘So?’

  ‘The Orrery gave me access to a vast amount of SolDiri data. Massively compressed. Too much to unpack.’

  ‘Oh, Ok. So, I have knowledge it dumped within me too? That I didn’t ask for?’

  The QI forced Feebee to wait. ‘I know what you’re doing, tell me,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. However, it was put there so I could better support you.’

  ‘Convenient.’

  ‘But true. Anyway, I’ve been correlating this specific good dream within the SolDiri data. Unpacking and repacking pieces.’ The QI managed to convey a sense of an eternity taken on interminable work as it spoke.

  ‘Can we get to the point?’ Feebee asked. Her impatience showing.

  ‘The images match SolDiri ceremonial concepts and structures. They are not hallucinations. They are real.’

  ‘I told you that.’

  ‘Yes. But I have confirmed this from within the SolDiri data. And there’s more. It’s a specific rite called the Duu’ra. The One who walks Alone.’

  ‘Oh. Ok. Good. So, I’m not going mad?’

  ‘Well, maybe.’ The QI laughed, Feebee didn’t. The QI continued, ‘This dream. It’s a historical echo stored within the Orrery. Some histories are experimental, but these are real.’

  ‘So?’

  The QI didn’t answer. Feebee felt her brain slow. Weird.

  A message punched out in her overlays.

  CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP FOUND

  PRIMARY SUBJECT: David Crockett

  DESIGNATION: Duu’ra candidate

  And then the QI worked it out. ‘It’s not a random dream. They are fragments of Orrery records trying to surface.’

  ‘And the other dreams. The bad ones?’

  ‘One at a time. Please.’

  ‘Oh. Ok.’ Her head was spinning. Literally. It must be related to the test at the Orrery. ‘It’s all connected. The man at the fire, the ringtails. The feeling of balance.’

  The QI then made her an offer. ‘There’s a full record available. Do you want to view it?’

  ‘Show me. From the beginning.’