In the neverending night that is both night and day, the ship makes another voyage. Her passage goes unnoticed. Logs are not consulted. No former masters reminisce about times aboard so long ago. Keel pitted and scarred, hull slashed in a thousand places from as many accidents not worthy of mention. No wounds - rust her spilled blood. Her holds are bent from the weight of vanished cargoes, flaked with pieces of manifests signed five owners back. Controls a jumble of cryptic switches links synapses to captains no longer interested in changing course, to pilots unable to read the charts - numb swallowers of pills passed as food passed as sleep passed as knowledge. She slides through the dust of countless stars, never crossing another wake. Slow. Tired. Waiting for death on rocks never there, on reefs only photographs in a museum forgotten before she had been launched...
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