Fabienne Gschwind - Star Map

Nemo at nearly 70 was exceedingly fit and could easily beat Jay if they ran a simulated marathon. He was gray-haired. Alternately wore a thick mustache or a bushy beard. He was the only one who could be seen to have Caucasian ancestry and liked to claim that his ancestors came from an influential tsarist family. He was very lethargic and laconic. "Let's see..." was his favorite phrase. And this trait had already saved his life in a few situations. He was exactly the man you wanted at your side when your spaceship was torn apart and you landed on a monster-strewn planet. Nemo would always and everywhere found a solution. He had put aside his hatred of humans for two decades and loved being an emeritus. If the Abhysal would return...if...then he would simply sign on for the next mission. Again and again until he died somewhere in an accident or passed away in peace.

Milo was born on a small colony planet but had spent his entire childhood in South America. When asked where his ancestors came from, he would only say, "from Earth." He had a southern Spanish-type look and could have easily been a heartthrob. But he was not interested in that. He was extremely shy around people anyway, and it had taken him five years to get to know the crew enough to confide in them, but now he considered them his family. Most of the time he was taciturn, but he could easily talk for hours when it came to astronomy or physics. He also pursued psychotherapy and the crew was sure that he became more confident and communicative every year. He faced the idea of encountering aliens fearlessly. "If they have spaceships, they must have a good knowledge of physics. I bet that's exciting." Milo was even taller than Jay and had to duck each time to go under the bulkheads of the starship doors.

He was the only one on board who had no hobbies.

Time-consuming hobbies were probably the most important thing aboard a mapping ship.

Even when the crew was on board, they didn't have to do much, and their only job was to monitor Kiki.

A day passed like this:

At six in the morning, the crew met. That might seem early, but after 400 years of genetic manipulation, the average human's sleep time had been reduced to three to four hours. Most of them went to bed at one in the morning and by six o’clock. They were fully awake.

Now Jay took the helm. As the ship's manager, he was responsible for keeping all crew members healthy and fit. Although the Abhysal had artificial gravity, the gravity plates left much to be desired, and without exercise, the astronauts would quickly lose muscle and bone mass. A minimum of two hours a day was mandatory. But Jay's obsession with sports and fitness meant that the average was more like four hours a day. Jay had built a gigantic fitness track in the Abhysal and kept coming up with the latest ideas to get everyone moving. So, the day started for example with a five-kilometer run through Abhysal 's storage rooms, followed by a climb up the shaft of the freight elevator. To be very mean, Jay also liked to increase gravity or make it reverse. So, everyone had to try hard not to fall off the climbing wall. When Jay didn't put climbing on the program, there were obstacle courses, because he had built a real ninja warrior parkour where everyone practiced coordination and dexterity. There was also a well-equipped fitness center in the lounge, so all the usual equipment like weight training, spinning, or rowing machines could be used. Fun exercises like jumping rope, trampolining, and gymnastics were on the schedule as well as athletics, dance or ballroom sports, or military drill. Jay himself was still an avid martial artist, and so there were regular boxing or Kung Fu classes. Nicolai and Joe had also discovered their passion for martial arts and trained regularly with Jay. Lex trained with them when asked, but she didn't like it. She only liked archery at Jay's range.

Milo performed his sports exercises as he was instructed, but felt sports were just a boring waste of time.

After the sport, they had breakfast. The storage rooms of the Abhysal were filled with stasis containers of food. And if food ran out in 30 years, the hydroponic garden could be expanded to grow all the food they needed. The garden currently provides only vegetables, protein cucumbers, meat eggplants, and noodle tubers. Thus, the crew could also benefit from fresh food.

After breakfast, everyone turned to their work:

Joe and Nemo mostly worked together. But before starting their work, both engineers squeezed into their high-tech technician outfits as usual. In addition to all kinds of technician bells and whistles, it also offered radiation protection, cooling and heating systems, as well as a light muscle booster. In one of his previous missions, this suit had saved Nemo's life when a leak occurred. That's why he had insisted that they always wear it on routine missions. Joe was officially responsible for everything around subspace technology and Nemo for the fission reactor and life support systems. But after so many years in starships, both were experts in both areas and did the work together.

They had to perform daily inspections of the various parts of the ship. Today they inspected the outer casing of the subspace diving generator and evaluated the X-ray image of the maintenance robot. There were no faults to be found (which was logical, because otherwise, Kiki would have informed them immediately). Then they checked the filters of the water treatment plant. Here, too, everything was in order. Conscientiously, they filled out the maintenance forms and got ready to enjoy their free time.

Jay himself sat down in his office. There he filled out the fitness forms and noted the team's progress, then Kiki gave him his agenda. From time to time, he had to do medical exams and check up on the other crew members. Or he would go through the stock lists and check to make sure everything was in order. He also looked at what everyone in the crew was doing and if they were doing their jobs on time. At least this way he could feel a little like a captain.

But his favorite thing to do was test the latest subspace maps that Kiki had created overnight. He used a simulator and flew through the newly mapped area. If there were any ambiguities, he reported them to Kiki, who then recalculated the maps, which happened once every two years. The subspace maps traveled with all the other documents in the "carrier pigeons" small autonomous spaceships that flew back in the opposite direction and delivered the data to StarMap.

Afterward, he did stretching exercises for an hour to work on his mobility. Occasionally, he would sneak into the simulation box. This was Jay's favorite retreat. Virtual reality was set up in the box, and thanks to a full-body suit and an exoskeleton, movements, and touch could be simulated almost lifelike. Brain stimulation helped make it seem even more real. Jay practiced everything from complicated surgeries to spacewalks in the simulation box. But when he could, he played war games. First-person shooters as well as strategy games or replicas of famous battles. Sometimes he needed the box six to eight hours a day, but no one would deny it. Lex got seasick in it, Milo didn't care, and Joe and Nemo only used it a little.

Milo disappeared into the astrolab immediately after breakfast and would not come out again until the evening. Most of the time, his nursing robot escorted him to the dining table so he could eat properly.

Milo used his time both to create the new navigation plans with Kiki and to track down and explore unknown subspace phenomena. He wrote new publications and once a week he was allowed to present his latest results to the crew. Not that anyone understood much about his theories, but everyone made the effort to listen to him carefully. After all, it was important that Milo felt comfortable and had fun. The benefit was that with time most of the crewmembers were now also experts in subspace physics too.