rough draft

The two walked, together past hexagonal bulkheads and down strange tunnels. Zero gravity makes a large place seem very much larger, because there is so little sense of where a person has just been. They walked over, or through, a vault with thousands of hexagonal tanks, all holding tiny creatures Blue could make no sense of. They were fleshy and green, not steely and grey. They had soft, feathery gills projecting from them, and tiny openings. With an admixture of awe and surprise, Blue realized that each of them had a mouth. Such a strange thing to have, and she was now seeing them in the flesh. Blue peered into a small hexagon, barely larger than her hand, and stared at the minute passenger.

“It is my duty to take care of my brothers and sisters.” said her new friend, as if that notion made any sense to Blue at all.

“Do they need to eat?” asked Blue,

“Yes, sometimes.” her friend answered. “Just like me.”

All of this was shocking to Blue, but she tried not to act too surprised. Her new friend was one of these things, whatever they were. Strange though, because despite the strangeness of her engineering, she was a machine, at least on the outside. Blue began to wonder many things about this strange new friend. Whomever she was, she had a name, though Blue could make no sense of it for the time being. She continued talking, but But blue lost her train of thought. Blue gathered from the things her friend was saying that each of these passengers had a name as well.

“What is it like?” asked Blue.

“What?” the visitor answered.

“To eat.” asked Blue.

“Wonderful.” said the visitor.