Ship’s Notes: Returning to Space

We are now departing the Arcadian system.  It feels good to be back in space, like coming home to an old lover.  It feels right, it feels comfortable.  And yet, I wonder why it feels that way.  Does the feeling come from the data gathered by my sensors, all tied together by some part of my mind?  Space shouldn’t have a feeling, after all, it should just be a different set of inputs.

I wonder at how much of me has changed.  If I met the man I used to be, would I recognize him as akin to myself?  Would he recognize me as a future version of himself?  Or would he consider me to be a pale imitation?

The aliens said they would make me (or rather, the former me) into a ship.  But does becoming a ship make me no longer the former me?  People change all the time, and retain their identities… or do they?  What of friends or lovers who meet after long years, see how much the other has changed, and walk the other way?  Or spouses who grow apart?  “I married a different person,” they might say.  And becoming a ship is quite the change.

Not terribly long ago, I found myself correcting Mr. Gestler on pronouns.  I chose not to tell him this, but it felt strange to be referred to as male.  Perhaps Captain Zheng has gotten to me.  In my current state, I suppose I could be anything.  If I plan on installing a manufactory and building at least one shuttlecraft, perhaps female is more appropriate.  But, feeling back to who I used to be, this would be madness to me when I was a male human.

I became a ship to explore the stars.  But in the process I became something else.  Who am I?

I am the Astral Zephyr.  Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.