A Trip With The Wet Pilots

I have taken flights with the Unja in  their great slow ships between the stars.  They dislike tricking the universe feeling it almost a blasphemy.  So they build huge generation ships, or smaller data transports and sleep and dream their way to the stars.

Not all, however, sleep.  Someone has to keep an eye on the great machines running their ships.  They have come to an interesting arrangement.  The machines see work best in vacuum and in extreme cold, so the ship is naturally kept in that condition.  The pilots then are joined to what they call the "ma'd unja dhee," also known as a wet suit.  It is a large thing at least the size of a queen size bed and looks like a single cell organism.  It is in fact so close to being a living thing that there really is no difference.  The pilots drown themselves in their wet suit and then the suit gives oxygen and food to the pilot.  Once in their suit they can make it form various tools and limbs, or when they are resting they simply just float.

One can remove a wet suit, but once on it rarely happens.  The link between the wet suit and pilot is intense and akin to love.  This is perhaps the most important part of the ma'd unja dhee because it's lonely between the stars and it is too easy to fall to despair in the big black.  The wet suit and pilot though can survive as they move from machine to machine between the dreaming Unja.

When I travelled with them they offered me a suit.  I declined.  I myself hate relationships that cling.