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       From the first moment the doctor looked at me as his dearest child: who had returned
after a long time from far away dangerous lands    - he kept touching me: stroking my hair:
straightening my clothes: listening attentively: to my every word:  and carefully answering
all my questions    - compared to how he behaved towards the rest of the unimportant noise:
which created around him a whole irrelevant and distracting external world:  it looked very
bizarre: and after a few days I got a strange feeling: that nothing is real.     But it was
also good: because it somehow got rid of my hesitant fear:      and I told him at the first
opportunity: that I would like to return to Ember 0 as soon as possible       - to which of
course he immediately agreed with a happy roar:   because that was actually exactly what he
also wanted most of all   - for me to continue his work: with my abilities and to write his
name on the universe in even brighter writing.
      In a few weeks: I was on my way to the Asteroid Belt:  along with a team of designers
and engineers: who helped me bring the ship to life in several fast months -    during that
time: I assumed the appearance of a young man - I grew up very quickly: it slightly alarmed
me: for I was born not quite five years ago: but I did not dwell on it for a long time - as
my head was full of my desires and imaginations.
      I longed for love   - which I first admired in written and acted stories from Ember 0
archives: and then: on Hydron      - in all its beautiful postures: expressions: smells and
sounds           - as Peter and Alia painted them for me: and my boisterously maturing body
intensified. I longed for a beautiful muse of my kind: with whom I would make love and save
the world      - and when everyone left the ship: I started working on the tissue incubator
feverishly.
      As I observed my cells up close: watching their tremendous growth rate:     burlesque
interactions and ability to regenerate almost instantly:     I somehow sensed that all this
would not be free: and I probably wouldn't live very long  - I even seem to have recorded a
point: the specific hour:           in which my five-year-old body completed its growth and
development: and began to age - I then painfully estimated the maximum length of my life at
twenty to twenty-five earthly years        - and this plunged me into a deep and bottomless
depression  - I even stopped working completely for a few days   - I was walking around the
ship and scrupulously and ritualistically tortured myself with a thousand of questions.
      What if in two years I start suffering from fatal diseases?
      What if I become naturally deaf and blind?
      What if insanity is encoded in my genes?
      Can I bring another such being into the world?
      Will life be a gift or a curse for her?
      :It was a hopeless hike: which finally ended with me deciding:  immediately after the
birth of the child to dismantle the apparatus: so that it could never be used again.
      Surprisingly: the doctor did not protest for very long time      - after a short loud
exchange of opinions I convinced him: that the two-man team will be absolutely complete for 
to start the work again: and avoid the mistakes: that were made in the first version of the
device.
      To get rid of all my doubts:    I decided to leave it completely in the hands of fate
- let decide the lucky coincidence or merciless accident        - I chose one germ: only by
intuition: it just seemed a little more viable and prettier than the others   - I wrote the
word Mastern with a black marker on the cover of the incubator and started the process.   I
didn't even know: if it would boy or girl and sometimes I imagined:   what Alia's identical
boy twin would look like - the interesting thing was: it never worried me in any way    - I
felt: that I would love him just as passionately and intensely