“Smeg, smeg, fecal-impacted smeg!” Harvey repeated to himself as he staggered out of the stable. His hands checked sore points for the presence of blood and brushed off straw and dust. “Visit the stables during a decel, smegging brilliant, you ponce.”

The horse’s whinny seemed to mock him, and he couldn’t argue the derision. The biospheres sang with panicked confusion. He couldn’t fault them. In fact, it seemed right; it seemed natural.

Scampering along the exit hatchway in search of a more secure spot for the hyper jump, Harvey’s mind stuck on that word—natural. His mother used to bemoan the fact that nothing was natural any more, not the food, not the grass, not even the air. As a kid he wondered. As a teen he scoffed.

Now, on board the Gilgamesh, millions of tons of technology, life, and likely foolish hope, about to hurtle through hyperspace at impossible velocities, he knew darn well they’d left natural far behind.

“Good riddance?,” he mused while buckling in, “More like good luck to us all.”