FARAH RASSE, DEVAN ADERNO, and RUTHIE NIRA are sitting around a table, playing with cards, in an enormous room. Windows on all sides have their views partially obscured by clouds, but what is visible clearly indicates that they are a great distance above the ground. In a corner behind the group, enormous but still dwarfed by the scale of the chamber itself, is the large metallic form of the RV Rock Bottom.
RUTHIE: You've never been on an airship before?
FARAH: Well, I've been inside a few, but never while it was, you know, flying.
FARAH: Most of my travel throughout my life has been by road.
FARAH: The rest tended to be by boat or ferry.
ADERNO: You'll certainly be getting your fair share of water soon enough.
FARAH: I do look forward to it.
FARAH: Honestly, with all the talk of how limited in capacity the Rock Bottom is, it's still much larger than I expected.
RUTHIE: It's much smaller on the inside than it is on the outside.
FARAH: (laughing) Sounds like the start of a poor man's parlor trick.
TITANIA MIERE enters from stage left. She seems to be in a hurry.
MIERE: We're being hailed. I've instructed the pilot to land.
FARAH: Land already? We're still so far from our destination!
MIERE: We are leaving the Imperium. I believe our neighbors just want to make sure everything is in order before we enter their country.
ADERNO: Will we be delayed? We're already behind schedule.
MIERE: Not long, I hope.