I found him. He'd say he found me 'cause that's how they are - they want and I think even need the credit - but I found him. I wish to Hell I hadn't.

I'd locked myself in a cargo crate and was on the orbital platform before Father Antonio ever knew I was gone.

A man in a jumpsuit decorated with flames (I thought some sort of engine tech) I was sure was anything but an engine tech was sauntering after me so I'd ducked into the lounge and wouldn't you know but there was only one seat free. The man at the table seemed surprised, but thinking about it now, I'm ashamed to say I should've seen it was an act he was that transparent.

"Order something. You see anyone else not drinking? Whatever you want. It's on me." He peered over my shoulder. "Don't turn around, but he's here." He signaled the waitress.

I said, "Whatever he's having. Hurry." I watched her walking away. I was sure her smile was for me. "Been a long time since I seen something that pretty. Be a change for me."

I spat. "Orange juice. Who in Hell are you?"

He smiled, and I thought it was 'cause of what he said next. "Virgin screwdriver. Let's people think you're drinking. More often than not, it's best to let 'em think you're one of 'em." He smiled. "That way, when the shit hits the fan, you've got wits enough to duck."

The man in the jumpsuit came to our table. "St. Anselm's said they're missing a boy. It's a boy's school, you know the kind." He never looked at me. "You don't want their kind on your ship. You should know that."

"I should."

"So who's this boy?"

"He's my prentice. I'm a parser."

The man paled and took a step backward. I'd noticed the pocks on my savior's face (I write that knowing what he is), but his sleeves had been rolled down. He rolled them up. His skin was a raw color and his nails long, yellow and brittle.

"Well, then," said the man, backing away.

"Fools. Think the gamma stays in you. Do it seem to you I glow in the dark? You're afraid."

I shook my head.

"Sure. It's suicide, being a parser. You could stay here, get caught, go back to St. Anselm's 'til you're of age and then what? Ain't not other ship gonna take a stray, not looking the way you do."

I wished desperately for something more than orange juice. "You're gonna say I owe you. Well, call him back if you want."

He shook his head. "You can go. The choice is always yours. It always is. But look around. You're ten years younger than the youngest man here. You stick out. Most crews are honest. They don't have any need, or room, for someone green, and for that matter, someone illegal. So. Go." He waved his hand.

"Couldn't I do something other than parse? Your captain, doesn't he need a mate or something?"

Eduardo smiled. "You offering your services or your, uh, services? Captain Briggs don't need a first mate, a second or otherwise. What he needs is a parser. I'm dying. But go. You've got a long life to live. Go live it."

I looked around. He was right. The other men, the women too, were clean, had neat hair, didn't have lice.

"Deal," I said. We shook hands but I had to sign something too.

Going from the station through the tube and into the bright light of the ship hurt my eyes.

"Space is vast," he told me. "Hold your thumb and forefinger apart like this. Good. You're a louse who wants to travel from one nail to the other. Long trip. But if you pinch your fingers, it's just a hop. We're just that louse, right? The engines do the job of making the fingers pinch."

I didn't like the idea of being a louse or living under some guy's thumb.

He grinned. "We call that the government. Laws of men, supposed to keep us safe, sane. Make men - and women too, but mostly men - good folks when they really wanna follow the laws of nature. Eat, fuck, even kill when you want, that sort of thing." He poked me with is elbow. "You know what I mean?"

I shook my head.

"Didn't teach you much religion at St. Anselm's, I guess. Why you think there's all those rules in the Bible?"

Uncomfortable, I said, "You religious?"

He shrugged. "Most men out here are. You don't have to be, but I'd bet my immortal soul you'll be too."

"You're on," I said.

He grinned. "During a pinch, it's your job to keep the m'am going. Lotta guys I know like to talk about stroking her, keeping her fluid, but that's crude."

I thought it was funny.

You couldn't actually see inside the matter-antimatter chamber. All you had were 'grams, sliders, even an old keyboard.

"In regular space, them artificial minds do our job. It's easy. Predictable. Good for machines, bad for guys like you and me. How much physics they teach you at St. Anslem's? As much as they did religion? Or maybe the better question is how much you learned?"

I shrugged.

"Bible says that in the beginning was the Word, and maybe that's true, but the architecture of the universe is mathematical. Words are slippery, meanings sort of shifting when you least expect it, but math is solid, real. You can make black seem white, good seem wrong, that sort of thing if you've got a silver tongue, but two plus two is four no matter how you split it. Speed of light is a constant but only in a real universe. You can exceed the speed of the light if you invoke i, the root of negative one."

I shrugged.

"Problem is, i-space has real consequences. Well, sort of. It's better if I show you. After all, the way you're staring at me, I might as well have been speaking in tongues. When you get a chance, touch the walls. Feel what you feel. Outside, there's nothing. In real-space, there's particle-antiparticle pairs appearing and disappearing like that." He snapped his fingers. "But here, there's nothing at all. Nothing outside, just in."

"Look, stop talking 'bout religion, all right? It was Hell. There was nothing saintly about it, about the other boys and some of the brothers I was sure were devils. That I'd rather die than be back there should tell you something."

"Oh, it does. A lot."

"So. Stop."

"Deal."

"There's two problems with a m'am. The only way to contain the fluids is with a magnetic field. But one that runs hot, like ours, fails sometimes. Only for a split, but it's enough." He ran his fingers over his pocks. "And even if the mag containment doesn't fail, sometimes there's a collision. Two gamma rays." He made a V with his fingers for emphasis. "There's lead all around the tube, but in some spots the bursts have made thin spots and the gamma gets out. It's why fools think we glow."

There was a klaxon.

"Going to a pinch. In real-space, no time passes." He snapped his fingers. "But not in i-space. Watch the numbers on the 'gram. And, three, two, one."

I'd expected, as you probably would too, some sort of shudder or high-pitched whine or something, but there was nothing like that all. The 'grams, however, went crazy.

"i-space. See these numbers?" His fingers were thin and long. His nails were sharp and yellow. "In real-space, mass, charge and spin are entirely predictable. But in i-space, they can be anything. See? Here, for example. Electrons and positrons have a spin of a half in real-space but here they can be anything at all. Lot of times it's a factor of pi, which is hard to correct for. You and I, we've gotta keep our eyes on the numbers, use these sliders to reject the false numbers, keep the engine going."

"And artificial minds?"

He snorted. "Grown in a vat of logic? Deprived of the basics of human experience? The fictions? The lies? That, that is what separates us from machines. Only our minds," he tapped his temple, "can separate fact from fiction. Parsing the real from the imaginary."

I stared at him.

"This space? We created it. People did, people like you and me. It's why logic doesn't work here, it's a fiction."

"Idle minds," I said.

He nodded. "i-space is the devil's work, like everything else made by men. God set limits, boundaries between the real and imaginary; the devil broke 'em. God is real, without an atom of fiction to Him. He can't be here."

"So this is Hell?

"As close as you'll get. Remember, the devil's also the Father of Lies."

After that, we didn't talk. It was hard work. The numbers were sometimes obvious, but often subtle, the interplay of mass, charge and spin adding up to something that was so close it might have been real if not for something - you couldn't quite put your finger on it, you just felt it - something that just wasn't quite right.

"Like pushing a rock up a hill. You think you're almost there and then," - he snapped his fingers again - "forget it, it's all back to square one. When you get a chance, put your hand on the bulkhead. Or better, your forehead."

You sweated a lot, parsing. It dripped down your back, off your armpits and down your sides, down your cheeks, into your mouth, your eyes. And that burned, made it hard to see, hard to parse.

"Take a break, huh? She's not a big ship. She's not called the Nutshell for nothing. You take two rights, a down, a left and one more down and there's a caf."

Remember, I came up in a box so I had no real idea how big the ship was but I found it strange how I was entirely alone and, after a while, lost. St. Anselm's was mostly a large and very old former prison (and sort of current prison)) with bricks that were always damp when it was raining. And it was always raining. That's why the holly bushes grew like weeds all around, thick and tall and deep, a moat of close branches and brambles. As good as wire for the most part. The ship's walls were circular except on the narrow floor and made of some sort of metal that was empty to touch. Not cold or warm or wet or dry or anything. You couldn't walk through it but otherwise it was as if wasn't real.

It wasn't cold but I felt a chill. This was, for the moment, the entirety of the universe. I was terrified we'd never fall back into real-space.

After a long time of up and down and left and right, I found what passed for a cafeteria. St. Anselm's had one where women with no hair and big moles ladled out under- or overcooked potatoes, beans, cheap vitamins. Here there was just a rack of sticks, nothing but sticks. Meat sticks, vegetable sticks, antimicrobial sticks, uppers and downers. And squeeze bottles of over-sweetened juice.

I picked several and sat in one of four seats around a plastic table. A while later a boy came in. You could tell he was 'hanced, the way he walked and talked. I've been eight years old, I've known more than I can count, and none of them were like him.

"You must be the parson's new boy."

I stood up, ready to beat him. "The what?"

"Parson. There's only three of us. Now four. The captain, me, the parson and you. There'll be three again, I hope. I'm hoping to get off soon."

"He's a parser, not a parson. Me too."

The boy nodded. His eyes were a curious color, almost without color, and I'd swear they flashed. Mechanical eyes or something. Not human. "He's that, and a parson too."

"He never told me that."

"You're from St. Anselm's, right? He told you he was a righteous man, what would you have done? 'Sides, we don't know he's really a parson or not, but he passes."

I swore. "Is everyone a true believer?"

"The parson and me now. You aren't, I'm guessing, and the captain ain't either."

I sat down. "Does everyone know St. Anselm's? It's just one building on one lousy world."

He nodded. "It's our business. Me, I coulda let my old man beat my ass 'til I was dead, or silicon up. You gotta get permission where I came from, but there's way around it. Like you, you know? Parsers are supposed to be thoroughly vetted," - they talked like that; it's one way to know one from the other - "'fore they slide, but not you." He tapped his temple.

"They're just hallucinations. 'Sides you got those chips, right? They know what's real and what's not."

He shook his head. "Didn't he tell you 'bout the minds? Same with the chips. You have to shut 'em down during a pinch or they go mad. It's like having a dream only with a dream sooner or later you wake up and know that it was only a dream. But here you're awake and there's no firm boundary between the true and false. It's enough to drive a man mad. It's why parsers usually have extensive training, but no silicon."

"So you're human when we pinch? Fully human? How's that make you feel?"

His voice was tight. Controlled. Saying they're not human can get you locked up a lot of places. "You think we're different, you and me? What you do to get here? Stick someone? Can't get out of a place like you did without leaving a few bodies. But the difference between you and me? I know what I did. Know what it means. I've accepted."

I got up to collar him, beat him, teach him a lesson I'd learned more times than he had, but he was smaller, quicker.

"Clean up the trash, huh? Captain Fokke doesn't like shit like that laying around case we lose spin."

I stood up.

"Parson says every man rises to his purpose," he said and grinned.

He was at the hatch before I could reach him.

I got lost again trying to get back. You learned at St. Anselm's to be aware of your space, so you could hide when you needed to, or run.

The captain was too tall to really be a man, with shoulders that nearly touched both sides of the bulkhead and a great black beard as thick and prickly as holly bushes. (I still had a hundred or maybe a thousand scratches to prove just how thick and prickly they are.)

"You been looking for me. I been looking for you."

"No. Um, sir. What about?"

He held out his hand. His hands were heavy with calluses, his nails bit to the quick, his iron grip painful. You didn't expect hands like that on a captain of a ship like this. "Captain Fokke."

"I thought the parser called you Briggs. Captain Briggs. Sir."

"Either's fine. Been a long time at this." He sighed. "A long, long time. Some would say whole lifetimes. Man sometimes needs a couple different names keep from being too known. Benjamin. Bernard. After a while, like everything else, names don't matter." He studied his fingernails. "Got a squirt says a boy escaped St. Anselm's. Says there's a reward."

"I'm emancipated."

His laugh was ugly. "The Hell you are." He sighed. "But, we've got a schedule to keep. Java's a long run and there's plenty boys at St. Anselm's. They'll forget about you before they ever forgive you."

I said nothing. What could I say?

"First mate says you harassed him 'bout being 'hanced.

It's a crime, you should know. But not like knifing a priest."

"I didn't want to, of all of them he was one of the few who was nice, but I'd gone too far. 'Sides I only cut him a little. Had to show him I was serious but I wasn't gonna kill him."

"Sometimes we gotta do things that are necessary but ain't right." He shrugged. "You did what you had to. We all do. Even the parson. Mate says you gave him shit."

I nodded.

"You did what you had to. Right?" He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Kid's a prick. Should've been a cabin boy, not a mate. Won't be a problem for long anyway. His family's waiting."

"You've got cabin boys?"

"Oh, Hell no. Not for a long, long, long time. "Got these nasty little machines," - he wiggled his fingers - "That keep things clean. Or you." He laughed unpleasantly. "Mate told me 'bout that. Kid's at least got a sense of humor."

Now my voice was tight and controlled. "You wanted to see me?"

"You did, son. This here ship's a little different than most. A little different than when she started. So're the people who're on it. Used to be more, a lot more." His voice was low and quiet now. "My wife and baby girl, for example. You're an unbeliever, and that's important. Parson wants you to accept, but you know better. Like me. We gotta stick together. You cave and he wins."

"Is this a game?"

He shrugged. "Tell me what else it is."

"Parson says the devil's real."

"Oh, he is. Evil is. But God? Parson will tell you He's real but He can't be here, in imaginary space, but you and I are real, right? Solid." He punched my shoulder hard. "Evil's real, so's the devil. I know that for an absolute fact. It ain't as if God don't exist, but that He's abandoned us." He poked me in the chest. It hurt a lot more than it should've. "You. Me. The parson especially. Not the mate no more. Little fucker's jumping ship like the rat he is. You getting the pieces yet?"

"Pieces?" I shook my head.

He shook his. "You're lost, right? Really lost. I'll take you back to the parson. I don't accept, never will, but sometimes he finds the light for someone weak or desperate enough. Did for my mate, huh?"

I'd swear the way he led me wasn't the way I'd come, or even possible. But we find the m'am quickly enough, and the parson welcomed me. "Need a break myself."

He left me there, so did the captain, left me to slide the numbers. You could tell we'd gone deeper into i-space. The numbers were absurd. I'd thought earlier had been tough, me and the parson sweating bullets, but alone it was very nearly impossible.

It wasn't until my eyes were bleary, my hands cramped, my fingers raw and bloody that the parson returned and casually leaned against the bulkhead.

"You gonna help out?"

He chewed on his fingernail and spat out a yellow piece. "Time is it?"

My watch was broken, the glass cracked and the hands bent. It was cheap but it'd been a birthday gift from Father Antonio.

"When you break it?"

"I don't remember."

He nodded. "Maybe in the holly bushes? Or the cargo box in the freighter? Though that was dark, right? Dark and cold. A transition maybe? How much you remember between the bushes and the box?"

I thought for a while. "Nothing."

He sighed. "Lot of guys figure it out before now. Captain likes you, which is good 'cause you're gonna be here a while I think."

The klaxon sounded.

"You can rest for a while, but soon enough you'll have to be back here. Come on. There's something you should see."

We went to an observation bubble where you could see the tube, a sort of inky black nothingness blotting out the light of the universe, connecting the ship from the station. The mate came out the other end and all the people hugged him or patted his shoulder or shook his hand, and then they walked away.

The parson draped his arm around my shoulder. "Tell me something. Would you like to go out there?"

Where the mate had gone and all those people had stood was empty. "Where are we?"

"Want you to look at one more thing." He put his finger to my chest, right where the captain had that had hurt so much, and then pushed a little. His finger disappeared to his last knuckle.

"Oh God!" I leaped away and his finger came out, his skin, his nails still clean and yellow.

"Captain still won't accept it. He laughed when he signed. Ninety days to make that trip, and only his soul in return. And since he was sure he didn't a soul, he was bargaining away empty air. But just 'cause you don't know you have a fortune don't mean it can't be taken. Makes it easier is all. The mate, he finally understood."

"Understood what?"

He poked me in the chest again, and it hurt. "You got shot 'cause you stuck the priest. You think you just cut him a little but you nicked an artery. Stuck in the holly bushes, you were a sitting duck. I'll tell you that, but the rest you gotta figure out."

Which is why I'm writing this down. The captain gave me his log, which is this old-fashioned paper book, a quill and an inkpot, (he had to show me how to use them) and told me to write whatever I needed. When I tried to turn back to see what else was written, the pages were blank; but when I tried to write on those, the ink spilled off like water off wax.

I've got all the pieces. I can even see what the puzzle's supposed to look like. But the rest? I tried feeling the walls in real space again and again and you can feel the difference. Sometimes they're cold and sometimes warm - depends on how close and if you face the sun. Sometimes I think I see Father Antonio's ghost trying to tell me something, I hope to forgive me. But there's no saints in i-space. Only three of us. Only me, the captain, the parson. And the parson don't count.