As a nine-year-old, I had never seen anything in my life quite like it. My dad’s brother, Ellison, handed me a pancake-shaped device. It had no bumps or scratches. It was perfectly balanced. The metallic device was just slightly larger than my nine-year old hand. Its texture was so smooth that it looked like spilled liquid silver when put down on a flat surface.

The three of us (my Dad, Uncle Ellison, and me) were sitting at a tiki café overlooking launch area number three of the Magellan Spaceport, a floating city primarily used as a transshipment point of finished luxury goods from Luna-2. My Dad had booked us a room at the spaceport’s hotel so we could visit with his brother. My uncle didn’t usually come back to Earth and when he did, he rarely ventured beyond the spaceport he arrived at. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Earth, he just preferred to be out in the void. Uncle El treated his whole life as a journey with no destination. He thought that any time he was still, as in on the ground whether that be on Luna, Mars or Earth, his journey was at a standstill.

Uncle El smiled as I examined the device and told me it was called a yoke. According to him, they were manufactured on an orbital platform above New Rome. The yoke reflected the beaming sun into my eyes as I ran my hands over it. I remember hearing the roaring crackle of two reactor engines launching in the distance as I tapped on the yoke.

“Do you know what it does?” he asked. My Uncle Ellison was a large man, and his beard made him look like he was born in the 19th century. At least it was always neatly trimmed.

I shook my head and looked up at him and my dad.

“Alex, your uncle brought you a very special gift,” my dad said.

I’d seen a yoke before on a fictional vex. It was on the Taz and Yaro Show, a kid’s program about two teens trying to find fossils on Pluto (they never found any). While physically on Pluto or Charon, Taz would chat with his girlfriend Veronica, who lived on Luna-2, with a yoke.

“Each yoke is paired on the production line with exactly one other yoke. They are intertwined together by quantum entanglement. What one yoke experiences so will the other,” elaborated Ellison. “Stick that in a pile of regolith or rub it against a rocky cliff face on an asteroid, the yoke will send me its chemistry. Grasp it in your hand like this.” He clutched it with his right hand centering the yoke on his palm, “And now I can see your heartbeat.” Uncle El proceeded to show me several other features of the yoke. It had duplex quantum communication, and he showed me how to activate the voice comms feature.

“Don’t ever let anybody take this from you; it’s yours. The good thing is: even if somebody took it from you now, it wouldn’t matter. When you first touched it, it identified your unique genetic code and will only work in your presence so when I’m on Callisto this summer and you clutch it, I’ll know it is you and only you.

“One day, you’re going to explore the void, and I’m going to come back here with your Dad and Mom. As I finally enjoy the luxury of warm air and sunshine on my face, I’ll be able to follow your adventures out there in the cold darkness.” I didn’t know what was more difficult for me to accept: my uncle saying he would be living on Earth or that I was just gifted one of the most sought-after gadgets in Solis. Elisson removed his yoke from his back pocket; it was equally stunning. His yoke had a gold triangle seamlessly blended into the silver.

I looked down at my yoke again as it vibrated with my uncle’s heartbeat. It was as if I was holding the sorcerer’s stone or a magical device from Asgard.

My dad moved his chair over to mine, “Pretty awesome, right?”

Despite the golden sunshine warming the café, a sudden chill fell over me.

“Dad, I’m cold. Can we go?” I felt a shiver run through my arms and legs.

“Huh, that’s strange,” uttered my uncle. “This can’t be right.” Elisson flashed his yoke’s now-activated display. Gray and blue blocks were combining. I peeked closer at his yoke and it was visually depicting hydrogen and oxygen.

A heaviness shifted over me. I looked at my father and said, “I’m in the water, aren’t I?”

“It will be over soon,” my Dad replied.

“Alex,” interjected Ellison. “I’m here.”

The yoke vibrated incessantly.

My head and limbs felt as if they were forged of iron. I was sunken into cotton sheets. I forced my eyes open; they both felt as if I had little pins poking them. After bringing the room into focus, I noticed there was a sophisticated-looking group of individuals that looked like doctors in white coats crammed next to my bed. I was in a hospital. I had never seen so many medical professionals in one place before. I remember my mother crying as the doctor walked into her room to deliver a terminal prognosis – the lady didn’t even need to speak. The fact that a human, and not a robot, was there to deliver the news said enough. Now, here I was staring at a room full of doctors. Although I didn’t feel like it, I thought I must be dying.

At least I made it out of the ocean.

Starchain: Hammer, Alexander

11 JUN 2555 A.D.

Location: St. Brendan Hospital, Johnston Atoll, United American Republic, Earth

As a nine-year-old, I had never seen anything in my life quite like it. My dad’s brother, Ellison, handed me a pancake-shaped device. It had no bumps or scratches. It was perfectly balanced. The metallic device was just slightly larger than my nine-year old hand. Its texture was so smooth that it looked like spilled liquid silver when put down on a flat surface.

The three of us (my Dad, Uncle Ellison, and me) were sitting at a tiki café overlooking launch area number three of the Magellan Spaceport, a floating city primarily used as a transshipment point of finished luxury goods from Luna-2. My Dad had booked us a room at the spaceport’s hotel so we could visit with his brother. My uncle didn’t usually come back to Earth and when he did, he rarely ventured beyond the spaceport he arrived at. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Earth, he just preferred to be out in the void. Uncle El treated his whole life as a journey with no destination. He thought that any time he was still, as in on the ground whether that be on Luna, Mars or Earth, his journey was at a standstill.

Uncle El smiled as I examined the device and told me it was called a yoke. According to him, they were manufactured on an orbital platform above New Rome. The yoke reflected the beaming sun into my eyes as I ran my hands over it. I remember hearing the roaring crackle of two reactor engines launching in the distance as I tapped on the yoke.

“Do you know what it does?” he asked. My Uncle Ellison was a large man, and his beard made him look like he was born in the 19th century. At least it was always neatly trimmed.

I shook my head and looked up at him and my dad.

“Alex, your uncle brought you a very special gift,” my dad said.

I’d seen a yoke before on a fictional vex. It was on the Taz and Yaro Show, a kid’s program about two teens trying to find fossils on Pluto (they never found any). While physically on Pluto or Charon, Taz would chat with his girlfriend Veronica, who lived on Luna-2, with a yoke.

“Each yoke is paired on the production line with exactly one other yoke. They are intertwined together by quantum entanglement. What one yoke experiences so will the other,” elaborated Ellison. “Stick that in a pile of regolith or rub it against a rocky cliff face on an asteroid, the yoke will send me its chemistry. Grasp it in your hand like this.” He clutched it with his right hand centering the yoke on his palm, “And now I can see your heartbeat.” Uncle El proceeded to show me several other features of the yoke. It had duplex quantum communication, and he showed me how to activate the voice comms feature.

“Don’t ever let anybody take this from you; it’s yours. The good thing is: even if somebody took it from you now, it wouldn’t matter. When you first touched it, it identified your unique genetic code and will only work in your presence so when I’m on Callisto this summer and you clutch it, I’ll know it is you and only you.

“One day, you’re going to explore the void, and I’m going to come back here with your Dad and Mom. As I finally enjoy the luxury of warm air and sunshine on my face, I’ll be able to follow your adventures out there in the cold darkness.” I didn’t know what was more difficult for me to accept: my uncle saying he would be living on Earth or that I was just gifted one of the most sought-after gadgets in Solis. Elisson removed his yoke from his back pocket; it was equally stunning. His yoke had a gold triangle seamlessly blended into the silver.

I looked down at my yoke again as it vibrated with my uncle’s heartbeat. It was as if I was holding the sorcerer’s stone or a magical device from Asgard.

My dad moved his chair over to mine, “Pretty awesome, right?”

Despite the golden sunshine warming the café, a sudden chill fell over me.

“Dad, I’m cold. Can we go?” I felt a shiver run through my arms and legs.

“Huh, that’s strange,” uttered my uncle. “This can’t be right.” Elisson flashed his yoke’s now-activated display. Gray and blue blocks were combining. I peeked closer at his yoke and it was visually depicting hydrogen and oxygen.

A heaviness shifted over me. I looked at my father and said, “I’m in the water, aren’t I?”

“It will be over soon,” my Dad replied.

“Alex,” interjected Ellison. “I’m here.”

The yoke vibrated incessantly.

My head and limbs felt as if they were forged of iron. I was sunken into cotton sheets. I forced my eyes open; they both felt as if I had little pins poking them. After bringing the room into focus, I noticed there was a sophisticated-looking group of individuals that looked like doctors in white coats crammed next to my bed. I was in a hospital. I had never seen so many medical professionals in one place before. I remember my mother crying as the doctor walked into her room to deliver a terminal prognosis – the lady didn’t even need to speak. The fact that a human, and not a robot, was there to deliver the news said enough. Now, here I was staring at a room full of doctors. Although I didn’t feel like it, I thought I must be dying.

At least I made it out of the ocean.

Starchain: Hammer, Alexander

11 JUN 2555 A.D.

Location: St. Brendan Hospital, Johnston Atoll, United American Republic, Earth