I Can Show You The World (Leviathan)

"I Can Show You the World" is the sixth episode of the third season of Leviathan: Distant Stars and the twenty-ninth episode in total.

## Summary

### The meal (continued)

The meal is the opportunity for the crew to bond together in space. Theea feels better, Kika asks her to count her moving fingers. Oxana makes sure that Theea both sees all of the embarrassing logs related to her bout with unconsciousness and understands how she, Oxana, saved her. Xe'anna justifies her behavior: *I was trying to help you [...] It sounded logical when you said it*. Besides, the med bay, which was redundant while Hexie was their doctor, is still used for storage. Theea's take on this situation:

> *Kika, next time I'm unconscious, put a pillow under my head and call a doctor.*
>
>

Rachel inquires about Hexie's status, says *It's good that she is not dead*, and acknowledges for the first time in front of the crew that she herself can help with healing. Conrad, who is not part of the conversation, is also a trained medic. In the background, one of Hexie's songs starts playing, and Oxana is singing along.

### Conrad pilots Tsarin

Back on the bridge of Tsarin, Ary and Conrad come to terms with their mutual feelings. Ary shows Conrad the ropes of piloting Tsarin at a blank console, with no interface: it's actually Tsarin that will use Conrad to pilot themselves, to alleviate their cognitive load.

Conrad translates that as:

> *You need to become one with the ship and the Universe*
>
>

just as ICA taught him. Except that Ary was not metaphorical.

Is Conrad sure he want to do this? Conrad is ready to sacrifice himself for the mission, to mate with Tsarin. Again, his metaphor is off, because *It's not about having kids*. Conrad opens his mind, hums his song, and everyone hears it. He feels a tingle, the KFC logo on his shoulder grows brighter, and so do Ary's tendrils. He stops singing, hears Tsarin's sound: there is a whole orchestra in which the other crew members are distinct instruments, and Hexie is there too. Conrad inhabits Tsarin, and dives into thread space from the emptiness of space. Tsarin now permanently inhabits a corner of his mind. Conrad wasn't expecting this experience: *Good Galaxy!*

After a shift of smooth sailing, he *sleepwalks* off the bridge, has barely enough functionality to pick up Slurpee, and returns zombielike to the Bat'leth's Copulation Cube, where he falls asleep. Conrad will eventually master his environment, teach his song to Tsarin, and with the piloting always in a corner of his mind, he'll find any difficult task, such as making a meal, harder.

### Killing time

A week (or 1,5 Tritium Day) passes before they arrive.

Rachel plays poker with Oxana, and teaches the game to the rest of the crew. The time she has spent in bars on Duranga taught her to cheat too: she abuses her pupils, making up rules on the fly. Theea lies, feigns to ignore the rules. Xe'anna, stone-faced, intimidates and flips the table often.

Entertainment also includes tapes: they have *The Galaxy's Next Top Model* and the best season of *As the Galaxy Turns.*

Rachel opens up about her story to Xe'anna: her family didn't approve of her marriage with Deckard, they had intended an arranged marriage for her; Deckard had a wife and a kid before Rachel, the kid was a psionic, remained untrained and eventually torched: Deckard had to stop him; when Rachel returned and Deckard found out that she was a psionic too ... Rachel breaks down, crying on Xe'anna's shoulder. When she stops, she just says: *I'm sorry*. She's sorry because

> *Any second, I could just go off [...] I could kill all of you.*
>
>

Xe'anna sees a solution:

> *When we get out of this, we'll find someone to train you.*
>
>

She is sorry it wasn't Deckard's first suggestion and adds:

> *There is a lot of future in front of us*.
>
>

Xe'anna herself, as a fighter, wasn't used to thinking too far into the future. She only changed her mind after finding something to hold on to.

Slurpee is no longer with Conrad. It is a cleaner on a very dirty ship. Because he can't tell these creatures apart, Conrad even brings several slurpees, which Theea proceeds to the row off the ship.

### RIP KikaShot 5000

Kika works on the next stage of her project; she puts a hydraulic system in the walls. When Xe'anna confronts her, she describes her contraption as a defense system, a way for her to go to the Engine Room quickly. Xe'anna doesn't want Kika to dig more holes on the ship: *it's not structurally sound*. Oxana resents that: when Xe'anna says: *I'm trying to save you*, she replies:

> *Thank you; in fairness, this is a trash ship.*
>
>

> *Your trash ship*, Xe'anna points out.
>
>

The *KikaShot 5000* is going to be an air cannon to fly Kika through the hallway, *a Kika delivery system*. After all, with her nest on the bridge, it's normal for her to want to go from one end of the ship to the other fast. But then Xe'anna could just throw her.

### Conrad: high and higher

Conrad still seems confused to his crewmates who still don't know how piloting Tsarin changes him:

> *Space is really big, you guys. [...] Think of the biggest thing you can off*.
>
>

He may have tasted hallucinogenic mushrooms from Rachel's garden, like that one time Theea gave him some. Conrad starts devising a ticketing system but realizes that somebody else already thought of it.

During that conversation in the hallway, Xe'anna realizes how good the slurpees have been at cleaning her ship.

## The stash and the egg

Kika respects Xe'anna leadership, she will put all the parts back into the engine if it is what Xe'anna wants. The first part of Kika's sentence makes Xe'anna feel good, the second part ... not so much. But ... Kika only took parts of the quarter of the engines that never worked. She had not realized Xe'anna wanted all of the engines to work; she just made two turbines work at partial capacity and one at full capacity.

Problem: Kika and Theea will have to move their secret stash, which is precisely there. They thought it was camouflaged, Rachel tells them it's actually horribly obvious. Conrad helps them move the stash, especially a big round object that needs to be kept warm, an egg with spikes aimed one direction. It is Theea's egg, but only in that she owns it, it is a very valuable animal. After weighing various options, like the oven or Kika's nest on the bridge, they make an incubator for it in the Copulation Cube.

Kika also stashed several dolls: a rabbit, a princess with red wires for hair, and Sp'eanie Kids: Lucky the Clown, Sasquatch the Mouse, and Charlie the Horse, Wiggly the Snake. They would be valuable if Kika had left the tags on. There are also a clan of murdering birds, a white bat, like her husband, that Kika made herself ... and possible surprises for later. The Sp'eanie Kids are kept with the egg.

Conrad speaks about perpetuating the circle of life and death. At the same time, *Theea and Kika start hearing a very low, deep version of the ICA Flight* *Song ... and then it fades out again*. Conrad, still spaced out, discusses noises in space with Kika, and realizes:

> *Isn't it weird though? There is, like, beauty in the static**. [...] The chaos doesn't want to be chaos, the chaos wants to find order.*
>
>

He realizes he has a place with this crew.
Kika suggests that Theea use the bond they all share to reach out to Conrad and understand him like she understands her, except that

> *Theea and Kika have a unique bond in the sense that* *they are functionally sometimes one person*.
>
>

This leads to a discussion about colors and Kika seeing only red. The engine is cleared out, but not repaired.

### More piloting

Ary comes tells the crew they are about to leave thread space and thanks Conrad for piloting. Lauren explains how Conrad feels after all that time piloting:

> *You're kind of loopy, but really in the zone; like you understand how Tsarin flies.*
>
>

As usual, their state of being changes rapidly when they leave thread space.

### In the Pramissan sector

They emerge in a solar system with one sun, rocky planets and solar giants. This is whence the Raze left the sector. *Cuthra!* The lab is not there, but there are six ships in the distance. Theea realizes that looking at the screen is not enough. Conrad, still suffering from Thread Delirium, tells her she has to open her mind, feel the data. Ary corrects that to seeing through Tsarin's sensors. She also says that, as a Voice, she is less good a pilot than Conrad and Theea could see more information than her through Tsarin. Helped by Ary, Theea becomes one with Tsarin:

> *There is a moment where the size of your form does not match what your skin is in. [...] You can hear in color, and see in sounds; everything expands and there's a whole other range of frequencies that you're able to pick up on.*
>
>

Theea understands what Conrad was saying earlier: *Holy shit!* Is Theea alright?

> *I am everything*.
>
>

Pramissans handle this kind of experience better than humans. Rachel did handle a similar experience better. The six ships are small drone-like Raze fighters and they are closer than they first thought.

Science interlude: we never touch anything.

Xe'anna has her own experience of perceiving space through Tsarin. She can control her focus, make the experience less overwhelming. Conrad, who has done it before, recognizes the patterns of the ships' motion as *drills*, *scanning a region*, *sweeping back and forth*, specifically the outer regions, because incoming ships would exit from thread space there. Ary keeps trying to find a course. Conrad draws the only logical conclusion from his penalty-inducing exhaustion:

> *The thing about the Universe, it goes in many directions, but sometimes the direction it has to go is vertical.*
>
>

And he injects himself with a new stimulant, Tsunami, which is more intense than the Dew, finding himself *ready to punch the Universe*. Conrad's intensity causes a shudder in the ship, as if the intensity were transmitted from to the pilot to the piloting. Conrad is hyper-focused but there is something weird and artificial about it. Nevertheless, he misses his piloting roll: the ship lurches, they make a handbrake turn and drift in space around a gas giant; Oxana detects that *There was a sudden movement*. So much for hiding: three fighters come toward Tsarin.

### Fighting the fighters

Rachel goes to the gun console. Conrad will try to buy time by moving Tsarin away from them. Rachel realizes she will never be effective as Xe'anna, Conrad and Theea are now, as long as she is not bonded with Tsarin:

> *It's like [...] trying to navigate Linux in Russian if you've been using Windows in English*.
>
>

She turns to Ary, says:

> *I'm gonna be next to useless like this* [...] *Just do the thing*.
>
>

Ary takes Rachel's hand; Rachel squints; the glowing line that transfers from Ary, directed by Rachel, becomes a cool tattoo on the sides of Rachel's head; she *is on the telepathic party line now*. Rachel could reach out to the others, or push them away: *She definitely shuts down the doors with iron bars instead*. The neural interface of the guns now makes sense to her and Conrad remarks that:

> *A new instrument joins our orchestra. The cosmic ballet goes on.*
>
>

Ary is too busy to lead, and it's not her job anyway: Xe'anna will have to be the captain. Kika leaves the engine of the Bat'leth and joins the others to *make it work*. Oxana may be a little snarky when she tells Kika: *It's unfortunate you did not have a projectile system to get you out faster. It would have been amusing to watch**.*

Time for ship combat initiative.

Tsarin recognizes the fighters as autonomous drones controlled from another ship. They are scouts, as such they are very good at flying and sensoring, not at fighting. As Theea realizes that these three fighters may be able to report back to the others or, worse, to their presumably Raze pilot, she ponders and proposes crashing their systems. Tsarin will also shoot at them with its two weapons: a flak emitter and a charged particle caster. Their debris should eventually disappear in the gas giant.

In the first round, Conrad goes above and beyond piloting; Kika, who had three babies herself, baby-talks Tsarin into boosting their speed; Rachel shoots both guns, blows up one fighter and misses another, which barrel-rolls to the side. As the ships defend themselves and one tries to crash Tsarin's systems, Theea senses a buzzing in her head.

Conrad can *feel the purr* of Tsarin's engine. He *wanna* *make space purr* and do evasive maneuvers with Kika's help. Kika massages Tsarin's non-sticky plastic- or pleather-like walls or rather, tells them they've done a good job; to which Tsarin reacts in an *I'm a good dog* way. Another fighter drone goes down. Rachel accidentally tunes into the group conversation and misses a turn's shots.

Ary, still plotting a course, yells about *a planet and a star system that wasn't on the map*. Xe'annas advises her to focus on her irritation.

Finally, Rachel blasts the last ship, ending the battle. Tsarin was not injured.

## Notes

1. ↑ *NftE*: Thanks for the title, Lizzie.
2. ↑ For Kika and Xe'anna, at least.
3. ↑ That is, Kika.
4. ↑ *NftE*: thanks for this nice touch. Feelz.
5. ↑ Dan mentioned 7 Stars in that scene.
6. ↑ Any resemblance with a Star Trek: TNG scene is exactly what Bluejay had in mind.
7. ↑ *NftE*: Yes, they mentioned VHS tapes on stream. Crazy, right? And it was not even the first time.
8. ↑ Theea's initial defense: *Why would you accuse me of giving anyone anything?*
9. ↑ Also, in Lauren's notes, EGG, as in: *Thank you for this gift that you've given me*. Bluejay has her own idea: there is a facehugger in it.
10. ↑ *It's a princess who you've put red wires on for hair since you heard out that Xe'anna was a princes.* *NftE*: Thanks for that, Bluejay.
11. ↑ This useful precision, by Bluejay, after Lizzie asked about its size and Claudia showed it was small: *It's not a sex toy!*
12. ↑ Lauren may have said *Fight* instead.
13. ↑ *NftE*: Beauty in the static was a strong contender for this episode's title. Thanks, Dan.
14. ↑ Conrad, Kika and Theea all being in *high* spirits talking about colors, Lauren faded to black.
15. ↑ And starting to unravel.
16. ↑ Not sure about these two words.
17. ↑ *NftE*: In unrelated news, France has just won the World Cup and I can hear people going bonkers outside.
18. ↑ Here are 2 snippets from chat on this subject. @Kol\_Drake:

*the vibrational energies of atoms keep you from actually touching surfaces @AnnaGeeks:* AnnaTomic is my super hero name. ;-)
19. ↑ There was a Black Panther reference here.
20. ↑ What the players give to the GM they sometimes take away from the GM.