The feeling of falling lasted only three seconds before the crystals blew out, but it was long enough to prove it worked. Narchi cut the shuttle engines and ran back into the main compartment. Neblae looked rattled as she threw her breather over onto the bunk. She remarked, "I bounced off of the ceiling! Was that micro-gravity?" Narchi shouted in delight, "It worked! NINETY PERCENT NEGATION OF GRAVITY! With the MMI's we could make about 85 to 90% of light-speed with the energy needed to tool around town! We did it! We created our own little bubble of a universe around the skin of the vessel! You're a genius!" They laughed and jumped around. Neblae bowed and said, "Thank you, thank you! I stand on the shoulders of giants, and couldn't have done it with you, Hat-Man." He frowned and raised an eyebrow. "Why so formal, Neblae?" She frowned back, "I--I shouldn't have told you my name. I don't want you to think that I have no morals." He sighed and wanted to strangle her. "Look, 'Ahrini', Yellow-Knot-Woman, or Neblae, or what ever you want to be called--if you really want to fly a Trow craft from one of the flying cities, you had BETTER get used to calling people by name! Dump those goofy tribal traditions." She looked sad and said, "I don't want to go to the flying city anymore. I won't come back. I'll die there." Narchi looked keenly at her. "What's wrong? You've seemed ...distant, cold even. Who said what to you?" She looked at him from an uncomfortably close distance and asked in a whisper, "Narchi...do you have any relatives?" Narchi laughed. "Girl, I'm a discard. Something of a failed experiment made by the famous Doctor Moderaan, himself! NO relatives." She narrowed her eyes and asked, "Doctor Moderaan? He was one of the 'Big Three', wasn't he? Aldus Panchetta,Gar Moderaan, and Toshi Balak? Yes, THAT Toshi Balak who became the Celestial Father of the Church of the Holy Child? How old ARE you? They were around at the end of the Jade Empire, two hundred years ago!" He sighed,"I'm eighth in the 'Narchi' line and this body is just less than thirty years old. My first body was made over two-hundred and thirty-five years ago." She took a step back and stared at him in shock. He said miserably to her, "Didn't you wonder about my cyber-horn with the memory module in it? Wonder about a DISCARD with implanted full-suite cybernetics? My mind writes memories to a back-up in the horn and it was plugged into replacement bodies, so Moderaan would have an eternal assistant. I was a failed experiment in immortality!" She blinked. "Failed? How?" She could feel her pulse pounding her head. She felt light-headed and her heart was in her throat as she looked at this odd-seeming little man. Narchi shrugged. "I've been alive for thirty years. My knowledge of life goes back over two hundred years. I'm NOT the same person. I just have access to their memories like a library. I don't think like them or vice versa." She did get the chance to respond as the shuttle doors cycled open, and Captain Dokka Tkarro came in with an odd look. --to be continued-- media is Poser 6