"Many are the holy barges which the gods have cast upon the Black Seas. The first of these was the Daughter of the Generations, she of the Endless Journey."

-- from the Holy Ovidiana

*~*~*~*

I won't mess up this time.

Bru drew a deep breath, trying to ignore the people in the bronze-plated balconies overlooking the feast hall. She just needed to keep it together for a few minutes, and then her nerve-wracking Walk would be over.

Easy.

On the hall's cedarwood stage, Pedagogue Jelileo beamed at the last fourteen-year-old to Walk. "Sejun was a gifted young astrophysicist even before his Legacy of Mind blossomed last month," the old man said, patting the shoulder of the rainbow-maned boy. He bent over a table, where five walking staves rested atop the rose-embroidered gold runner. "And a delight to have in my alchemy circle. A real credit to the Eighty-Eighth Generation."

Bru held her breath as the stout man pressed the staff into Sejun's hands. Soon, it would be her turn to receive her praise and walking staff. The Pedagogues normally didn't gush over her, but now they had to find something nice to say.

Try not to look too eager when you're up there, she lectured herself the way she'd overheard other kids' mothers lecture them. She sipped her rose tea and then folded her sweaty hands in her lap. A green smudge caught her eye, and she glared at her wrist. At her grumbled command, away the charcoal smear went, cleansed by her glittering gilt nanites. And don't drop the staff. Even Naturals manage to keep it together under pressure. You're a Brew. Act like it.

The adults' staves thudded against the walnut floor, and Sejun descended the brass-trimmed stairs, staff held high.

"Bru Unemd," Pedagogue Jelileo's voice rang out through the noise, amplified by the gilt shimmering around him, "please come forward. It's time to leave childhood behind and Walk into Adulthood."

Bru jerked to her feet and grabbed her chair as it threatened to overturn. A nervous giggle squeezed out of her.

Sejun returned to the table where his beaming rainbow-haired Family waited. But no one sat beside Bru at the Unemd table. Until her, no one from her Womb-born Family had sat here for over two hundred years.

She tipped her chair back into place, glad everyone was focused on Sejun. No one paid her empty table much mind as she stepped away.

The crimson carpet stretched before her, flanked by her classmates' Family tables. She sucked in another deep breath, but the gold-embellished rug didn't grow any shorter. Gritting her teeth as everyone turned to look at her, she began her Walk.

One foot in front of the other. One step, then another. Who placed the tables so close together? Her elbow bumped her blue-haired classmate, Tundir, and Bru squeaked out an apology.

Around her, eyes measured her like they had always measured her, as though each step might reveal something. A hidden excellence. The special purpose every Brew possessed. A useful tool.

When had the air grown so hot?

Her toe caught the rug. Already stiff-legged with anxiety, she slammed to the ground with a yelp.

"Oh, my," Pedagogue Jelileo said, hurrying down the steps. "Are you alright?"

Maybe the stained-glass chandelier would fall and put her out of her misery. "I'm fine," she whispered. Her gilt was already at work, a few nanites freeing themselves from the raiment she wore to ease the sting of her scraped elbow. If only the gilt could soothe her bruised pride.

Around her, the looks shifted to the ones she most dreaded. Here, a grimace. There, an old woman's pursed lips and a young father's disappointed frown.

And from the lone gallery above them all, Patron watched, silent and inscrutable. Even in the distance, the midnight blue eyes behind his sculpted-plaster mask were too big. Too dark. Too piercing.

Bru shuddered and turned to Pedagogue Jelileo, accepting his hand.

"Just a little fall," he said as he pulled her to her feet. "Nothing to be ashamed of."

Her cheeks burned. As she followed him up the steps to the stage, her lip wobbled.

No, don't cry. She took her place at the Pedagogue's side. Don't you dare.

As Jelileo began to speak, Bru eyed the table full of olivewood staves to distract herself. The temptation to grab one, leap from the stage, and flee back to her sketchbook thrummed through every muscle. Was there any way to salvage this situation now? She'd made a fool of herself. Everyone was judging her, as they should. She was a terrible disappointment.

Don't cry. You'll just make it worse if you cry.

One by one, she filled her mind with calming images. The spinning universe. Laying on the cushions of the rotating gyratory back home. Reading the Reminders scrawled across the reflection chamber's ceiling.

Ad astra, she recited as she stared at the walking staves. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. She drew a breath. The air tried to lodge high in her chest, but she sucked it down into her belly. Irt is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.

She could not stay in the cradle forever, either. Bru swallowed and squared her shoulders.

Pedagogue Jelileo droned on. "We all know the young woman who stands before us: Bru Unemd, the Daughter of the Generations's only Brew in two hundred years. Nearly fourteen years ago as Uld Irt counted time, she came to us, born of the ship. On her birthday tomorrow, she will join her peers--" His hand swept the feast tables below, where proud young people sat with their Families. "--in adulthood as her Legacy of Mind unfolds within her. Like those who Walked before her today, her Legacy will grant her knowledge to aid our great Mission. But this young woman also possesses knowledge of her own, won through hard study."

Relief flooded Bru at the reminder. That was right. It didn't matter if she had failed to make anything of herself yet. Tomorrow, her Legacy of Mind would blossom. She wondered what hers would be. Intimate knowledge of astrophysics, like Sejun and others of the Tartir Family? A linguist like the Vlemij Family? A chirugeon?

Whatever it was, her Legacy of Mind would be great. She was a Brew. These others carried Legacies inherited from their Brew ancestors long ago, but the ship had produced her fresh. She must have something exceptional inside.

She noticed she was lollygagging again when Pedagogue Jelileo picked up one of the staves. As he approached, his cheeks glowed crimson, and his jaw moved like he was rolling marbles in his mouth.

She stared up at him. Surely he could think of something about her to praise? Anything?

The Pedagogue shoved her walking staff into her hands. "She has nice calligraphy."

Bru's heart sank. She was good at drawing, too. But he was already patting her back and gesturing for her to leave the stage.

As she obeyed, exhaustion crashing over her, the whispers started.

"At least she made herself a gorgeous raiment. The poor girl is more fit to wear gilt than to work with it."

She smoothed her dress, feeling the nanites shift beneath her fingers and flow back into the deep blue design she'd instructed it to clothe her in that morning. Asymmetrical, it cascaded down her body in slinky but modest waves, like water pouring from a pitcher. Her body felt poured out, too. Drained. All the anxiety had fled, leaving only numbness.

Maybe she could sell her designs if her Legacy failed to manifest. She chuckled bitterly as she returned to her seat. At least she could earn a few extra Hours on the Perudiis luxury deck to buy herself some new charcoals.

Do the People of the Four Sisters wear their nanites like we do? she wondered suddenly. Surely not. If they went wrong like... She shuddered at the very idea and glanced up at Patron, only to find his gallery empty.

"Unless the ship thinks we need a Village Idiot at Journey's End, I can't imagine why the Womb brewed her up," a woman said.

A child giggled, and someone else said, "The Brew can distract the natives!"

Laughter rippled over the table until a father, with an apologetic glance at Bru, said, "Is your speech nonviolent? No? Then hush."

Swallowing hard, Bru took her seat.

As painful as their words were, one thing was true. She held onto it and lifted her chin. I'm a Brew, she chanted until her shoulders began to relax. I'm a Brew.

Everyone knew the rusty old Womb spat out a Brew whenever the ship needed a special skill set. She carried a great Legacy within her genes. And tomorrow, it would finally manifest. Then she'd show them all what she was really made of.