Routines and Shapes
The days that followed did not announce themselves.
They arrived softly, one after another, marked only by changes in the sky and the slow, steady progress of my own work. Without clocks or schedules, I learned to measure time by completed tasks and growing things. When I woke, I checked the greenhouse first, not because it was urgent, but because it mattered.
The plants responded better than I had expected.
The grain stalks straightened under the filtered light, their leaves thickening day by day, and the tubers pushed deeper roots into the soil as if relieved to be given permission to stay. Even the red fruits spread slowly, creeping outward in careful clusters. I adjusted moisture levels by instinct, vented heat when the air grew too heavy, and reinforced the frame where expansion would eventually be needed.
I did not think of it as farming.
I thought of it as stabilization.
Food became predictable, and predictability changed everything. With hunger no longer dominating my thoughts, my mind wandered more freely, circling the wreckage that surrounded me like an unanswered question. I began to walk farther each day, mapping the basin in loose mental layers. Certain hulls collapsed under their own weight when disturbed. Others resisted time stubbornly, their materials still strong despite centuries of exposure.
Those were the ones I marked.
I started bringing pieces back to my shelter, not with any specific plan, but with an eye for consistency. Beams with similar cross-sections. Plates that shared curvature. Internal supports that hinted at standardized manufacturing rather than improvisation. I stacked them carefully, sorting by size and mass, already thinking in categories I had no names for.
That was when I realized I was no longer seeing wrecks.
I was seeing components.
At night, I sat near the shelter entrance and watched the stars emerge. They were sharper here, cleaner, not dulled by atmosphere or light pollution, and I found myself tracing invisible lines between them without knowing why. My thoughts drifted to movement, to distance, to what it would take to leave the ground beneath my feet behind.
The shapes came then.
At first, they were nothing more than suggestions, impressions hovering at the edge of thought. A narrow frame, compact and efficient, meant to move fast rather than endure punishment. A larger silhouette, broader and heavier, trading speed for stability. I imagined how mass would distribute along a central spine, where structural stress would concentrate, and how thrust would translate into motion instead of destruction.
I caught myself smiling at the familiarity of it.
This was not dreaming.
It was design.
I tested myself the next morning.
I lifted a beam I should not have been able to lift and held it suspended while I walked slowly around it, studying how it responded to minute adjustments. I rotated it, angled it, let it settle and rise again. The effort was not physical in the way lifting usually was, but it was not effortless either. Focus mattered. Precision mattered. When my attention drifted, the beam trembled.
I learned quickly where my limits were.
Pushing too hard brought a pressure behind my eyes, dull but insistent, like a warning light rather than pain. Pulling back eased it immediately. Whatever this ability was, it did not reward force. It rewarded control. I practiced until I could place components exactly where I wanted them, down to fractions that felt more like engineering tolerances than guesswork.
That frightened me, just a little.
In the afternoon, I began clearing a section of ground near the shelter. Not for building yet, but for space. Flat, stable space free of debris, where something larger could exist without fighting the terrain. I worked slowly, reinforcing the ground where necessary, anchoring deeper supports beneath the surface.
I told myself it was preparation.
I did not tell myself for what.
The greenhouse expanded again that evening. I added another panel, another support, enough to double future output without overextending resources. It felt natural, like breathing. Growth was no longer something that happened to me.
It was something I allowed.
Before sleeping, I walked the perimeter of the basin one last time. The wrecks loomed quietly in the fading light, no longer threatening, no longer mysterious. They were raw material, history stripped of intention. I rested my hand against a scorched hull plate and closed my eyes.
I could almost feel the ship it had once been.
Not in memory.
In structure.
As I returned to the shelter, one thought followed me with unsettling clarity.
I was not waiting to escape this place.
I was waiting until I was ready to leave it.