Chapter 57

Narrative Vacuum Zone · New Glitch Sector, Cosmic Era 1004 Standing on the deck of the starship Scorch, Leila watched the tribal youths use bone knives to carve new constellations onto star-chart slates. Meanwhile, the Mechanical Pandas assembled binary constellation codes out of malfunctioning gears, with the error margin of each gear corresponding to a real star—their light still bearing the quantum traces of coffee grounds. "This constellation is called 'Scorch and Spirit Butterfly'," the tribal elder said, embedding the final piece of coffee residue into the slate as two stars instantly began to flicker in the starry sky. "The star on the left is the handle of the coffee machine, and the one on the right is the notch in the spirit butterfly's wing."