Twenty-six postures. Breathe in and out of the nose. Focus on your practice. It is your practice, no else’s. Your energy is your energy. Your energy is shared by those in the room. Your energy is shared by the whole of the universe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Namaste.

These mantras were known the world over by the more than two hundred million people that performed yoga in 2018. Now, in 2648, that number is over twenty billion throughout the known worlds. Twenty billion regardless of economics, regardless of race, creed, gender, sexuality or species. Regardless of atmosphere, be it on a planetary surface, a ship or a space station.

Another session has concluded. You come out of savasana, the corpse pose, sitting up, going out of your way to avoid turning your right leg. You remove the blue ice packs from below and on top of your knee. A layer of ice had formed in the polyester of the torn yoga pants you refuse to throw away. You move both ice packs to your ankle while you attempt to pack up all your crap: sweat-soaked yoga mat and towel, the Kevlar strap for both bow poses, the lavender-scented hand towel courtesy of the studio, the six-liter vacuum water bottle (now empty), the aforementioned ice packs, and your heavy, sweat-coated ass. Though the studio is deserted all but for the ninety-year-old yogi from Ganymede and your friend Erika from Alpha Centuri Four, it takes a considerable amount of effort not to disturb their post-yoga meditations. Your knee isn’t being as mindful as it could be, forcing you to suppress a series of grunts and curses as you walk out into the lobby to nominal temperatures, zero humidity and 1G gravity.

Dump the lavender hand towel into the laundry bucket. Drop the ice packs into the rectangular Tupperware. You stagger over, looking out to the near dark. The glow of the three moons brings an aurora borealis, or night rainbow as the first interstellar settlers came to call it. It would be beautiful if it didn’t signify a radical drop in temperature from the binary stars. You debate whether to leave your damp clothes on or fight with your thermal tights and plaid skirt. Then you think of the frost bite in a rather uncomfortable place and concede to the inevitable fight with a sprained knee. The continent on this planet is one of extremes. No different than the valley where you were born on Terra Prime.

Like some hopped-up cheerleader rallying her team, Erika bounces out bubbling with energy. “Woo, that was great.” Her mood shifts on a dime. Your near fall from grace didn’t go unnoticed. “It looked like you fell over in the standing bow.”

You grunt, exasperated. “I’m fine. It’s just my knee acting up again.”

“Well I feel fantastic, I’m ready to go back in there and do another round. Or maybe the vinyasa class in Studio B. Ooh, let’s try the Gun Kata class. That would be fun.”

“I thought you were banned from any firearm-based classes.”

“Peshwa, Donna, why would I be banned from those?”

Rolling your eyes around, you say, “I don’t know, the matter of unloading into the hull plating next to Instructor Trace.”

“That was an accident.”

“You reloaded… twice.”

“That bitch wouldn’t shut up.”

“And so that required unloading thirty-six rounds into Studio F’s wall? They haven’t fixed that, by the way.”

Erika is visibly shocked. She’s feeling betrayed by you, her closest friend and yoga confidant. You, Donna Xin-Colette, Second Technician for the Celestial Porte Foundation, who goes with every one of her crazy whims at whatever cost it would cause your body. How dare you decide tonight of all nights to defy her. “Whose side are you on?”

“The side that’s trying to convince you that dinner and alcohol would be better than another round. Now that both suns have set, it’s cold as a bastard out there.”

Erika looks out the studio windows. The rising steam from the unchanged yogis walking to their transports, the small formations of fog and clouds around their bodies, can’t go unnoticed. “I see your point. Okay, let’s get some food and get shit-faced,” she says as she scampered off to the dressing room, bounding off the walls as if it were zero-G.

You follow not that far behind and watch Erika’s yoga-sculpted body, doing your best not to ogle her too much. You have to remind yourself to be respectful and try not to stare when she undresses. You also need to remind yourself to not get jealous when she disrobes, bouncing head first to the showers. Erika has a body for yoga. She’s tall, toned, and round in the right places—the ass, the stomach, the hips, the ass, the shoulders, the ass, chest, and (did I mention?) the ass. You don’t have a yoga body. You don’t even have a rugby body. You are pear-shaped, as the clothing magazines would say. Though if your body type really bothered you, you would have donated your yoga mat to Goodwill ages ago.

Peeling the sweat-soaked Poly-Kevlar blend from your skin, doing your best not to tug at your sprained knee, you catch sight of the astrological map pinned to the walls. Of all the signs, constellations and moons, Callisto—the rocky Salt Lake moon of Jupiter—grabs your attention. It was thinking of Callisto that took you out of yoga tonight. Thinking of the family you rarely see except for in transmissions, since the cost to return to the Terra-Sol system outside of work is prohibitively expensive. The thought of your mother dances around in your head, as the last transmission you received from your stepfather was bleak. You think of all the birthdays you’ve missed, all the Christmases you’ve postponed, all the Colonial Days that came and went. And now, there aren’t going to be any new ones to waste. The idea of going into your savings to use a Celestia-Porte as a passenger outside the prearranged times seems like the only redeemable thing you can do. As a Technician in the Celestia-Porte regime of the Space Corp, you know there is no guarantee of getting to Callisto in time.

In the transport to the restaurant, as the alien landscape rolls past, you look out to the vast sea of stars in the night sky. When you were a teenager on Callisto, you knew every orbiting body and every constellation of the Human Colonies. You look out trying to figure out which star is the Terra-Sol. Which blinking light among the ocean of blinking lights leads to Terra and Jupiter? Then it occurs to you that you’re on the wrong continent to see Terra-Sol. You would have to be on one of the southern continents to get the faintest glimmer. Even then, at thousands of lightyears away, it wouldn’t be your Terra-Sol. There would be no vast orbital platform and lunar colonies. It would be the Terra-Sol of Alexander the Great as he started his campaign across Asia. “You only see the past when you look at the stars,” said an astronomy professor.

At the restaurant, Erika is trying to get your attention. She could tell you were on auto-pilot when you ordered a Caesar salad and a Porte without looking up from your menu. Considering the attractiveness of the waitress, that was quite the accomplishment.

“Altair-Three to Donna, come in Donna.”

“Sorry, my head wasn’t in this solar system.”

“Obviously.” She rolls her eyes at you while taking a swig from some neon Northern Altarian drink. “Did you hear me? I have tickets to Choudhury’s maiden voyage.”

“Choudhury? Like Bikram Choudhury? The founder of Bikram yoga?”

“One in the same,” she says gleefully. You’re taken aback by such news. On one hand, you’re astonished that Erika was able to get tickets for such an exclusive vessel. Then you realize that if anyone you knew could get aboard that vessel, it would be Erika. She had the type of friends, clients and connections that could get her into anywhere. The SS Choudhury is no exception.

Choudhury is the first entertainment vessel with yoga in mind, particularly the variant known as Bikram. In the Colonial Years, the wealthy and upper classes weren’t satisfied with the mere stretches and meditation that had been part of yoga since the Pre-Vedic Period India on Terra Prime. From boredom grew masochistic trends, such as weightless Yin and Acroyoga, variable gravity Vinyasa, and the trifecta from hell, 10G, forty-three degree Celsius, 100% humidity Bikram. If the rich and bored had found a means of performing on the surface of stars—White-Giant Bundali or Black-Hole Vinyasa—it wouldn’t have surprised you.

The Choudhury is a single-purpose vessel. It only has Bikram on its mind, but of course with a twist. Apart from enhanced heat and humidity, enhanced gravity is thrown in as well. It has the ability to go as high as 15Gs (fifteen times Earth’s gravity at sea-level). This is, theoretically, the limit a human body can withstand before it is crushed into paste. Of course, you know that is theoretical. Nobody outside the Colonial Marines had any reason to experience gravity that high.

Erika assures you that the ship isn’t going to be any higher than 5Gs. You know Isaac H. Newton would have something to say about that. A droplet of sweat that weighed next to nothing in normal gravity would have the density of a bowling ball made of granite. But that isn’t even your greatest concern. The Choudhury has a state-of-the-art Jump Drive, the Faster Than Light propulsion that allows crossing great distances of space in the blink of an eye. Part of the Choudhury’s plan is to jump during every posture.

“Twenty-six jumps?”

“Well, it’s more like one-hundred and fifty,” she says matter-of-factly as she pulls out her holo-communicator. “They will be doing jumps in time with every breath of the last breathing exercise.”

You suck down your Porte with little effort or wincing. You order another as well as double whiskey. The thought of FTL jumps, let alone one-hundred and fifty of them, has you shaking all over. “Have you ever been in consecutive jumps? It’s no walk the park. It feels like you’re being sucked in on yourself and exploding while walking through a lightning-filled hailstorm.”

“Oh come on, you go through the portals a dozen times a day.”

“Yeah, and that’s a one-way transmission from one place to another. You’re not being crushed to nothing over and over again at billions of times the speed of light.”

“Chicken.”

“I’m not being chicken. I just don’t like going through multiple FTL jumps.”

Erika sees right through you as your finger nervously taps against your glass. She knows something is up. She tries to probe you for further information. You do your best to brush it aside and get back to the conversation at hand. “How did you get tickets to such an illustrious event? I thought only the who’s who of the Colonies would be aboard for this launch.”

“They will be and it just so happens that one of those who’s who was staying at my place. He left me two tickets as a tip.”

“And you want to go with me?”

“There’s no one else I could think of who would enjoy it more.” You know that’s a lie, but you also know why you two are friends. In the A-Z of human interaction, a social-standing entertainer and an introverted technician can’t be the oddest of couples, though it’s the type of friendship bad sitcoms are based on. Where Erika can attend to a room of five or five thousand and have each individual fawning over her, you often find yourself more comfortable amid smaller pockets of humanity, having intellectual conversations with AIs. Yet, of all the people you’ve met in the known worlds, Erika is one of the few who isn’t full of shit. She’s true to herself. That’s what you admire most about her and why you would chase windmills with her.

In a few days’ time, you find yourself riding aboard a shuttle with Erika. You have duffle bags filled with changes of clothes and yoga mats ready to be unrolled. You sit with her amongst a couple dozen wealthy strangers who could not only buy and sell you but are probably thinking of the market value of your parts. You’re just hoping whoever uses your fat for soap would at least have the decency to markup the value of your ass.

The Choudhury is parked at an Interstellar Union space station in the Sirius system that orbits the planet between the binary stars. The trip so far had been a series of Celestial Portals followed by a jaunt aboard an FLT transport before landing on the planet, only to immediately board the shuttle in its rears while the important people walked the red carpet, getting chatted up by holographic gossip show hosts led by the severed head of Mario Lopez.

As the shuttle banks around the station, the Choudhury comes into view. Your jaw falls slack. Outside of cruise lines, most starships lack any aesthetic to their design more often than not, looking like flying warehouses and office buildings since there is no wind resistance in outer-space. The Choudhury is not a skyscraper or a warehouse, but a temple of a yacht, with glistening and glimmering golds that one would normally never see on a starship. Its outer edges are molded to simulate a grand rocky surface connected to the internal forest and lake, with the main deck at the center of the body of water. It’s as if someone scooped out Eden and placed it on the saucer of an alien vessel, like saucer ships in pulp stories of old.

Once aboard the Choudhury, all pomp and circumstance are replaced by a locker room that isn’t partitioned. You expected to be placed in a corner near a janitor’s closet with a postage stamp of a cubbie hole. Instead, you find yourself sharing a shelf with the richest woman in the galaxy, an Academy Award-winning director (of a film you have no intention of seeing), a teenybopper, a rabbi from Terra-Prime, a sherpa, and the organizer of something called Burning Man. All of these women of various ages and backgrounds have no problem disrobing in front of you, while you do your best not to stare. The group of women go from no clothes to articles that leave little to the imagination, but you know that’s typical of most Bikram sessions. With your long yoga pants and tank top, you’re the odd one out, which is fine, since you’re used to being overdressed—be it in a space suit or in a colony.

Yoga mat and vacuum flask in one hand, strap in the other and you are ready. Along with the others, you are marched into a vast studio, larger than a school gymnasium. The room is already warm and humid. A display in the corner say it’s forty degrees Celsius with 50% humidity. You thought it was going to be hotter and muggier. The gravity seems to be at 1G. It is a pleasant surprise. In the days leading up to this, you took classes from the Trifecta instructor and thought you were going to die. A way of prepping for extremes that don’t seem to be present. Of course, that could change once the class gets started.

Taking in the room, simplistic luxury is afoot. Translucent windows that can shift from transparent to reflective cover the walls and the ceilings. All spaces are marked by numbers on droplets arranged on the floor. Erika takes hers. You take yours, readying your mat and props. Everyone preps in their own way: stretching in various poses, meditating, breathing, calming. You lay down on your mat, face up, palms up and feet to the rear out of respect. You look up to the ceiling, eyes wide open. The window is opaque at the moment, giving you a view of the moving space of the solar system. Your pale reflection looks as though it is flying amongst gases and debris, your mat and towel serving as your cape like some comic book hero of old.

More and more people take positions on the floor until every row is filled, every droplet has a mat corner covering it. A chime indicates it is time to stand and face forward. The Captain stands at the front. She is a toned and in-shape individual, as you expect for these surroundings. She is rather tall. You’re not certain whether it is from growing up in space or if she is just a tall Earther. She makes all of the formal speeches you would expect, discussing the achievement of the ship and the history of Bikram as well as the path the ship will be taking. All the information that the brochure discussed but, as a seasoned facilitator, she suspects that most of her guests didn’t read.

“As this is our maiden voyage, we have a special guest instructor to help us through this class.”

From out of the projection system, a middle-aged man of Earth Asian decent appeared in front of the group. It is a holographic representation of Bikram Choudhury himself. You wonder if it is blasphemous to recreate a spiritual man as a hologram. He died many centuries before such resurrection was even possible. But now, there he floats, legs crossed, as though he never left his mat.

“This is a very special class, my yogis. Not only are you lucky enough to be aboard such a unique vessel, you are in Bundhi of the universe.” The mirrors and windows become more transparent to the surroundings of space. “This will be the closest you will ever be in your waking life. You were created from the universe before you were born and you will rejoin it once again upon death. This session, with every posture, every jump, every breath and every drop of sweat, you will be one with the universe. For that, and that alone, this will be a flow and we’ll go from one posture to the next only once as the ship jumps with us. For you’ll share with each and the universe. For the next hour or so, this is your session, this my session, this is all of us together. With that, let us begin.”

In a matter of moments, a long sea of inhales and exhales flood the room. Breaths in unison, breaths slightly off. Hundreds of people attempt to stay in time to the Captain and the holographic Choudhury. A count of six never felt so laboring before, not even in those Trifecta classes. Yet, you feel no strain. In and out, in and out… in… and out. As you reach the last inhale, you can feel time slowing around you. From your experience, you know it is not actually slowing. The deck plating feels as though it is becoming as large as a football stadium, your mat as long as the field. Shimmers of light twirl all around the hull, all over the ship, all around your fellow yogis, all around you. As you exhale, a flash envelopes your surroundings. For a moment as brief as your exhaling, space is gone. The last bit of bad air escapes your lips, and space returns but now it is a nebula. One jump down, several more to go.

The next warm-ups seem harmless enough. Half moon left and right. Jump. Awkward pose: flat, high feet, heel. Jump. You twist like ropes, right, left, jump. The hologram instructs everyone to drink water, for this is the only break. You look toward Erika who is already covered in sweat and still in a pose. You’re not certain whether she is adding to the warm up or fell behind. The holographic Choudhury reminds everyone to focus on their own practice and the group. You’re not sure if that comment was directed at you or the class in general. Not wanting to argue with the master, you heed his advice and return to the task at hand—and the section of session you have yet to master.

Dandayamana Janusirsana, standing in a head-to-knee pose, or as you often call it: “Watch how unevenly long my legs are in relation to the length my arms.” There is a strong feeling in the air. You start out slow just lifting your right leg. Sucking your stomach in, you find enough strength to lean over and cup your foot with both hands. A deep breath in unison with the rest of the class, the leg stretches out. Soon after, your elbows lower down. The droplets of sweat fall from your body, showering your mat. Their impact is the only sound you hear. Change. You repeat your motions with your left leg as if you are the only one in the studio, as if you hovered in the vacuum of space. Jump. The birth of the universe, galaxies and streams of endless light and new life flood out and flash…

Dandayamana-Dhanurasana. You are already pulling your right ankle with your right hand and reaching out with your left hand. You don’t remember how you got into the standing bow pulling pose, yet you are not concerned. It is as though your fingertips have become the tip of the Choudhury. Releasing your leg, you fly amongst the rings of a gas giant. Ice and dust trail in the wake of your stance. Jump. You balance from one leg to next at the aft of the ship as an asteroid belt dances around. Jump. Standing separate leg stretching under the dorsal of the ship above a red dwarf. Jump…

Trikonasana… Back in the studio, there is something off about your left arm. You’re not sure what. Droplets hit your face as you look up to the opaque ceiling which is now difficult to make out. Change. Standing up right, a sight catches the corner of your eye. It is you. Not a reflection, but actually a few rows down between the teenybopper and the rabbi. “Follow your own gaze forward,” says the Holographic Choudhury. Gazing forward, you are Erika. The twinge of her rotator cuff. The stiffness in her back. You knew she had injuries, but you had no idea. As she rotates her arms, you can feel where she broke her collarbone on Gamma Hydra, and the pain into her right arm as she tries to straighten it. You rarely hear her complaining about it. The burning and spasms. You feel guilty for complaining about your knees.

Jump. Standing separate leg to knee, humility comes in the soldier missing both limbs below the knees.

Jump. Tree pose as a popstar.

Jump. Further humility in Toe Stand as the ninety-year-old author. Jump…

Back to yourself in Savasana. Back to your breathing. Back to relaxing before the start of the next series. The Choudhury rotates with every breath. A familiar binary System comes into view. It is the Sirius System. Eight light years from the Terra-Sol System. Eight light years from Callisto. Eight light years from home. Your breathing slows. You’re supposed to be thinking of nothing but your practice. This close to home, you can think of nothing but that message. You think of your mother and the last words she said to you before—

Jump… Pavanamuktasana… right, left, you cradle both legs… You’re back on Callisto. Jump. You sit up and your outside the Dagatah Hospital in New Berlin. Jump. Bhujangasana. Strengthening your core and your soul as you reach a room. Jump. Salabhasana. All of your strength to walk through the door. Jump. Poorna Salabhasana. You reach out, higher and higher. Jump. Dhanurasana. You kick yourself, for all you can do is say goodbye before she’s—

Jump. Supta Vajrasana, you are sitting upright back in the room staring down. It is not sweat rolling down the sides of your eyes.

“Hey you!” Choudhury says. “Lower your hip for this posture.” You look up, wanting to give him a piece of your mind. You didn’t pay for this trip, but even still, you’re certainly not going to take that kind of crap from a collection of photons and forcefields. But then you see that this Choudhury is not a hologram. Taking in the surroundings, you’re not aboard the ship. You look out a window and it’s a bright sunny day with concentrated clouds in the sky. A sign in English reads: “Los Angeles Loves Yoga.”  It is Earth of the past.

Jump. Ardha Kurmasana. Folding over you are further into Earth’s past, on the other side of the globe. It is the master’s home; it is Calcutta. It is as hot outside as the studio indoors. Jump…

Light and heat flood around you. Ustrasana. Spires of plasm arch in all directions. You move into deep back bend above a star. The flares of sunlight bend with you. The star is alive. The star bends with you…

Jump. Sasangasana. You fold over and over and over endlessly into the darkness.

Jump. Janushirasana with Paschimottanasana. Compress to and spaghettify.

Jump. Ardha Matsyendrasana. Twist both ways until…

Jump…

Aboard the ship. You made it to the other side. The lights have faded all around you and everyone else. The Holo-Choudhury takes his final position. “We will close out this inaugural session with the final pranayama exercise. We bring space all around us as we use Kapalbhati breathing in Vajrasana. We will jump with every breath. Begin.”

The first exhale… Jump…

Dry…

Wet…

Cold…

Hot…

The Choudhury…

The Celestia Portes…

Outer-space…

Inner-space…

Subspace…

Lightspeed…

The beginning of the universe…

The end of the universe…

The big bang….

The big condense…

Birth…

Death…

Callisto…

Earth…

Alpha Centuri…

Altair Three…

Sirius…

All colonies…

All moons…

Every blade of grass…

Every bit of waste…

Light

Dark

No color

All color

Utopia…

Namaste… And you’re gone.

The class is over, at least for the other yogis. Erika looks to an empty mat and the empty clothes that rest atop. A perfect session, a perfect time. You have become one. No more worries where you’re going. Everywhere and nowhere. Namaste.