[A human is sitting at a not particularly crowded bar. There is a quiet hum of lazy 
activity, and the bar is swaddled in the awkward grays of artificial twilight.  The human 
has been drinking, but is not drunk, and seems to be directing his monologue towards the 
barkeep, although it is not clear that the speech would cease were the barkeep to wander 
off]

"There's a certain chill sometimes, when I can't escape remembering it.  When my hands 
brush across the weld lines that make the paint cringe in the subtle dismay of a suture, 
when I see adverts for a new jump drive, when some phantom process in my brain 
convinces me I can still smell the kt'tothan leather that no longer covers the cabin seats, 
as I sit here staring at a half empty stein - I cannot outrun reality, and I am left with the 
knowledge that I pilot a dead man's ship.  This cold clings to one's skin, like some sort of 
shrink-wrapped leprosy, and I can't help but wonder if it's going to follow me to every 
ship that I'll ever run.  It beckons, you see; the cold vacuum of space moves its lifeless 
arm, and I am compelled to join the legions what sail upon her speckled onyx waves.  
Riding in mastless vessels, scant body-lengths away from her condemning kiss - and 
there he'll be - a ghost from selves by then long past, waiting for me to join him.  How 
many times can I refuse before I am forced to fold?  How many times can I wake to find 
myself still sane?  Far more, I hope, than my melodramatic flares would lead you to 
believe.  I've no urge to dive into those sunless depths.  Happy or no, I have it better than 
many, no worse than most. After all, I was raised by Klk'k - a few scars more or less and 
some bending at the knee, and you can see eye to eye with near anything that has the 
means to think.

"Which does beg the question: where did all the golden futures go that we were 
promised?  Where are the bright tomorrows that we dreamt of nearly a millennium ago, 
before we walked among the stars?  Space is dark, but one knows we have brought our 
own shadows with us.  War.  Avarice.  Deceit.  Would we have been any better off to 
have left them behind, or would we have suffered for the loss of our most practiced 
skills?  Or, more likely, we did attempt to leave them behind and failed in a traditionally 
miserable fashion.  Perhaps the universe is cruel that way, and the ancient philosophers 
were more wrong than they could imagine; perhaps it is not void that nature revolts 
against, but perfection.  What a saddened place that knows only entropy's embrace.

"Maybe that's why all the older races are gone.  They wandered around and built bigger 
and fancier toys and built bigger and more wondrous monuments to their own 
advancement, but couldn't escape their own imperfections.  But what then?  Did they, 
like bickering Greek gods, manage to cast each other off of Olympus?  Did they decide to 
exalt that which they could not overcome and crumble in a burst of self-destructive 
decadence? Maybe they just packed up their toys, cried, and left in disgust to find a 
playground with better programmed nanny-bots.  Eh, they probably didn't even pack up 
their toys.  They probably just ran screaming from the meaninglessness of it all.  I've met 
a lot of people like that around here.  Buried in their work as if it was of dire importance.  
'There's a war on and every effort counts,' they'll say, but some efforts count more than 
others, and deep down somewhere, they know that tending an algae vat that runs itself so 
that that miners overseeing excavation-droids that happily run themselves can eat 
tasteless green wafers with a company logo stamped onto them isn't something that's 
going to make any sizeable portion of the universe give a teiktha's ass.  

"That being said, it's not a bad way to live, but if you've seen ... if you've felt the 
inexorable grind of the universe's apathy ... you can't bring yourself to believe it.  You 
can't find a way to convince me that there's any particular reason that I'm sitting here 
talking instead of him.  Fate has no weavers, only the mad spider of chance and the ever-
spinning spindle of time.  Underneath it all we're not even pawns - pawns can become 
knights or queens - we're nameless particles in some sick, twisted Brownian motion 
colliding every now and again with each other and changing.  We dream up gods to play 
with us, if only so we can pretend to be pawns. We sup on hubris so that we can aspire to 
have names.  It is only a question of which dish we choose to partake of. Do we follow 
the Shapers and seek to assault the glass ceiling of perfection without even the knowledge 
as to what that would mean?  Do we cloak ourselves with the counter-empirical idealism 
of the Andolians, believing that all problems can be solved, and that our ability to solve 
will progress indefinitely?  One could retreat to the scared futility of the Purist's status 
quo, or, joining the Unadorned or the Mechanists, give up the pretense of desiring to be 
human.  Is there any solace in the Merchants' proud valuing of wealth or the High-Born's 
pride in their twisted conception of nobility?  I choose none of these.  

"I'll make my own way, with my own beliefs, using whatever I have to, using whomever 
I have to.  I'll live, not because there is any reason to, but because I'm alive and there's 
no reason not to be.  If the universe wants anything of particles like me it's to keep 
moving, and so I will.  I have seen space in all her naked glory, and she has beckoned me 
to make her my home.  I'm too stubborn to refuse now what I've already accepted.  I 
worked for three months at dockside jobs to pay for all the repairs the insurance wouldn't 
cover, to pay off the medical bills - I'm honestly surprised either I or that ship are in 
mobile condition after how I had to land it - if I were capable of giving up, I would have 
done it a long time ago.

"I bet you think it's revenge, or anger, or somesuch that motivates me: that I rage inside 
with a desire to kill the pirates who killed my friend.  I felt that briefly then, but I feel 
almost nothing now.  The pirates, the ISO, the Luddites, even the Aera - they're all just 
doing the dance called 'staying alive.'  I can't really blame them for it, even if they'll 
probably blame me if I take the lead in the dance and reciprocate their violence. Pity 
really.  Things would be so much more pleasant if we could learn to not step on each 
others' toes, or claws as the case may be.  Don't think I don't mourn my friend.  It's just 
that the blackness of an executioner's mask doesn't make it fit for mourning clothes.  If I 
see the pirates that killed him ... I'll probably try to kill them, but for the reason that 
they'll be trying to kill me.  Here's my advice, Mr. Robo-barkeep: don't hold grudges, 
don't look for comforting answers and don't wait for magic wands.  The first can only 
hold you back, the second are never what you want them to be, and the third are always 
being held by something that's going to turn you into a toad if you aren't careful.  Feel 
free to take it with a few grains of salt though. I'm not anyone qualified to pontificate - 
me, I'm just someone having a drink at your bar and ... flying a dead man's ship."

[Human leaves.  Fade to black]
