Chapter 1

When Bianca felt the connection break, she screamed in her small shuttle. Almost instantly, there was a hollow inside of her, and she knew Hermes was gone. Knew that he had gone back to the DreamWorld. She wanted to follow him, wanted to turn the shuttle around and go where he had gone. But she knew she couldn't. It didn't work that way. It wouldn't bring her to him.

For the first time in many years, she was alone. And he wasn't there to help her. Her emotions, feelings, and everything that made her into a Navigator, she would have to deal with it herself. He'd always been there, being by her side when her emotions rose inside of her. When they overtook her, and when they subdued, leaving her trembling. Those emotions made her into the Navigator she was. And she needed them to steer through the Dreamworld. Hermes made that possible, the connection inside her heart, helping her. But not any longer. She was alone, broken, and with a hollow in her chest.

She looked around her tiny shuttle. He must have wanted to save her, she thought. He must have been more damaged than he'd told her, and done what he could to rescue her. She never thought this would happen, that she would live her life without him, that he wouldn't be there inside of her. But there was nothing she could do. Nothing that would bring him back. The sadness drifted away, and for a moment, acceptance washed over her. She dried her tears.

Navigators. Peculiar beings. Their emotions flowed as quickly and nimble as water in a river. Starting to cry as quickly as they stopped. And you might have experienced it yourself, how emotions flowing through you simply wanted to find a way out and be released. That is how it was to be a Navigator.

They were special, as you might have understood. Mortal, just like you, but the world they lived in was inhabited by immortals, beings with computerised memories and biomechanical bodies. Once, they too had been human. But as they left Earth and a new planet became their home, they began to change. Slowly, over the centuries, they found a way to replace their bodily parts with mechanical ones. And little at the time, their life had changed and they became immortal. But the price they paid no one could have foreseen. Their emotions vanished, disappearing, and they were left with an intellectual, sharp mind that saw the world through a lens of serenity. They didn't cry, and they didn't understand Navigators and their emotions.

But they didn't shun them. Far from it. Navigators were born in that world and were citizens of the society. And immortals, as highly evolved as they had become, didn't know how to travel the Dream, nor how to connect with a Dreamship. But the gap between them, the void between those who felt and those who didn't, made Navigators feel misunderstood and immortals uncomfortable.

That was the world that Bianca had grown up in. Never truly at home, never truly understood. There were many days when she had cried, but more often than not, she'd accepted it, as the Navigator she was. Nothing could be done about it, nothing that she did would change it. But it didn't stop her from feeling lonely.

All that changed when she met Hermes.

She still remembered it. That day when her loneliness had disappeared. When she'd stopped feeling misunderstood. When he had moved into her, their bond had been established, and she became his Navigator and Hermes became her home, her family, and a part of her. Her life had taken on a new meaning then, and the loneliness became a thing of the past. Until today. When Hermes disappeared, and she was left alone, travelling through space.

What would she do? Their home lay many light years away, and there were no liveable planets within reach. She thought about Hermes. What had he wanted her to do? Well, she knew that. He had wanted her to live. And as his Navigator, there was nothing more she wanted than to make him happy, to feel his love. After that, the choice became easy. She would live. Even though she might never find a way to fill that hollow in her heart, at least she would stay alive. One more day, one at a time.

And that's how her travels began, to a destination yet unknown. She didn't have a plan, didn't know where she was going, but she had to live to see another day. The distress signal she'd sent out would take many years to reach her world. But in the end, you never knew. Someone might find her, someone might come to rescue her. Even if the chances were slim.

And so the days became weeks and the weeks became months, and she kept travelling. The thought of Hermes stayed with her, stayed in her heart and in her mind. Just like the hollow. But she kept going, holding on to his last wish. More than once, she cried, overwhelmed by the thought of having to live without him. But once the sadness was gone, and she was left trembling in the tiny shuttle, she knew she had to continue. Knew she had to keep living for another day. And so she did.

What happened next, no one could have predicted. Because you see, Hermes had been right, the chances of her being rescued were almost zero. And there was no sole spaceship or a fleet of Dreamships in search of a lost Navigator that found her in the end. Instead, one day, many months after Hermes had shot her from him, the radar beeped on the shuttle's dashboard. An object had been found, located several days from her. She stared at the screen until her eyes ached. It was a sight she never thought she would see, and the tears that fell made the image blurry. Those were tears of sadness, because Hermes wasn't there to see it, and tears of happiness, because they'd found what they'd been searching for.

Because the image on the radar's screen showed the signature of Einstein. The first colonial ship that had left Earth 10 centuries ago. It was the ship that the scientists had wanted to find and the reason to why Hermes and she had been travelling through space all these years.

No one knew what had happened to it, or if the people onboard were still alive. Most ships leaving Earth had reached their destination, but Einstein wasn't one of them. No one knew why. But it was her only chance of rescue, and she put the shuttle on course towards it.

During those days, until the ship could be seen outside of her window, she thought about Hermes. He'd been so excited to meet what he called his ancestor. Dreamships were not built, of course. But still, he thought about all ships that had come before him as his ancestors. Now he would never see it.

Those days, as she travelled to Einstein, she would always remember with an odd mixture of sadness and relief.

When the silhouette of the ship appeared outside the window, she put the shuttle in an orbit around it. I will keep living for you, Hermes, she whispered. The windows of Einstein were dark, and the vessel seemed to be drifting. She put on her spacesuit and exited the shuttle, drifting towards the dark ship. As she reached the lock, she looked back at her transportation. Hermes, I'm doing it. She took a deep breath, turned to Einstein and opened the airlock.