"Raizen."
The voice arrived from somewhere outside the soft, dark place his mind had been resting in. Firm but gentle, pulling him upward without urgency.
"Raizen, wake up."
He didn't want to. His body had spent the last weeks processing more than it had been built to process in a year, and it had finally found a position it approved of.
But the voice persisted, and his eyes opened by reflex.
Alteea was crouched in front of him.
Her sunglasses had been pushed up onto her head, the dark lenses sitting in her hair like a second pair of eyes. Her actual eyes - sharp, amused, slightly tired around the edges - were level with his.
"Hey, grand traveler. We're here."
Raizen blinked. The aircraft, the cabin, the gentle hum of thrusters that had carried them more than a hundred kilometers. The pressure-differential aircraft. Alteea's pride and joy. They'd been flying for -
