Shadowkill

MEMORY:

The pod was on the launcher, a shadowy black seed. She crawled into the flightspace, stretched out on the pad and eased herself into its hollows, fitting her skin against the sensors.

A moment later she felt the hard sharp kick of the launcher.

Her vision cleared. She could see the Cillasheg floating half a kilometer away, could see all round herself. She shifted her vision out and out until she could see the asteroids, frost in the darkness, white and black glitter in the light of the dim, distant sun, shifted down again until her vision was confined to an area the width of her wings at full deployment. She snapped the wings out full, gossamer fields like shadows in glass. The light-winds filled them, pushed her outward. She gathered speed for the turn, feeling the sunmoth come alive under her as she drank the winds and rode them out and out.

She laughed and groaned, making love to the winds, laughed again and swung round, tilting her wings, slipping the winds, tacking right, tacking left, sweeping toward the sun, on and on, faster and faster, time compressing to nothing. Her blood was wine, her body sang, on and on…