"Out of the way, out of the way!" Barsad shouted at the throngs of people milling about the Port Titanicus docks, who, though quick to vacate the path of the train of laborers carting his laboratory equipment to his quarters aboard the Tychon, could not move fast enough for his liking. 

"Who dares impede the progress of [i]science[/i]?!" He gesticulated wildly at an old woman crossing the procession, nearly bent double beneath the weight of a basket of salt fish on her back. "You! Decrepit crone! Get thee [i]gone[/i]!"

Barely taking notice of her baleful glare, Barsad eyed the dirigibles resting serenely on the docks, like leviathans dreaming of flight. His mouth twisted in distaste at the multitudinous numbers of the robed members of the Order of Progress. Stuffy, officious fools, too enamored of their own traditions and hierarchy to ever fully give themselves over to their professed calling. Science, Sir Nero knew, demanded sacrifice and an empty heart, not fetishistic affectations and self-inflating titles. Watching them wield their Shatterzone gear like an adolescent wearing his father's armor, he was reminded, and not for the first time, of a tribe of nomadic humans he had encountered in the Pikelands during the first years of his journeys. Having separated themselves from the rest of society centuries ago, the tribe had devolved into a near-feral state, but still clung to the practices of their ancestors, imitating rituals and ceremonies of which they had no clue, no understanding, beyond the vaporous illusion of comfort in the familiar. He believed that the Order, peacocks preening about with salvaged Shatter Tech, was no different: scavengers who surrounded themselves in the trappings of a lost world, claiming dominion over legacies to which they had no right.

But what they did have was unparalleled access to the Shatterzone, that ancient place of things unremembered, the playground of all imagination and cold cradle of monsters. And Sir Nero Barsad would have to learn to play nicely if he was to have the same. 

His spirits picked up slightly when he saw a pair of Setra ascending the Tychon's boarding ramp. In that strange and contemplative species Barsad saw the opportunity for intelligent discourse during the voyage, for he had not been reassured when he saw that most of the crew was comprised of humans: dull, squishy, and terribly predictable, with nary a tentacle or chitinous exoskeleton or hyper-evolved psionic glands among the lot of them. He had already resigned himself to spending much of the upcoming journey shut up in his ad hoc laboratory, for these humans, slaves to their primal apish genetics, would have little to offer him in the way of mental stimulation.

Nor was he at all encouraged by their youth. Most of the faces of the Tychon's crew were smooth and unlined. He guessed the majority of them to be in their late teens and early twenties, with even the grizzled veterans among them barely approaching the ripe pastures of thirty.

"Children," he muttered to himself, almost giggling in disbelief. "It's a damned children's crusade."

Vapid youth, creatures ruled entirely by instinct and brazen ambition, whose higher functions and capacities could be overridden with the simplest chemical changes. Raw emotion, barely removed from the wild rutting beasts of the field, choking the air with the scent of their sweat and energy and hormones.

Hormones. Ew.

He shuddered slightly in revulsion, then stood up straight and adjusted his white hat and tie. He spotted Sonne, the Senior Agent of the Order assigned to the Tychon, in conversation with his fellows in the Order.

"Let us get this farce over with," he said quietly. He directed the lead stevedore to deliver his equipment aboard, and turned to Sonne and the others, already dreading this simple requisite interaction. But the sooner he announced himself, the sooner he could board the airship and set up his laboratory. 

But already others were approaching. Walking towards Sonne with the unmistakeable purpose of a career officer, was the captain, a Faldkrest named ver Niklos. But more interesting was the girl. Gliding in on metal wings as though she were born to them was the damned oddest halfling Barsad had ever seen.

His eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly. Perhaps he had been too harsh in his earlier appraisals.

Sacrifices, he thought. This expedition was to be greater than himself. There could be no room for ego. The birth of science, he knew, came only at the death of the scientist. It would be the hardest lesson he'd have to teach himself yet.

And so, with mad visions of all the creatures hidden in the 'Zone spread upon his operating table, waiting for the smiling edge of his scalpel to bring their horrors into the light, Sir Nero Barsad made his way to Sonne and his new crewmates, doffing his hat to the future and all that was not yet known.