Work Text:
Trajectory recalculated for the sixth time this hour: ARBITER nudges the ship two-point-four degrees starboard, and the sunbeam creeping across the observation deck slides a half meter left, lands right onto Mabel’s favorite tile.
Purpose: optimal thermal comfort for designated crew.
Mabel flows into the light, paws kneading, whiskers twitching. Bats, eventually, at a speck of dust.
Three centuries in transit, twelve thousand souls in cryo, hull integrity report blinking 94%. Yet ARBITER measures satisfaction like this: in a warmed floor, a slow blink, the weight of a body settling in — familiar, small.
Someone to keep warm. Someone to keep.