We were taking the Prize because Singer believed that properly tuned, she would be faster than the Interceptor. And also because who knew, we might need Farweather once we got there, and this was the ship she was holed up in the bowels of. It was a risk, certainly—the risk of being intercepted by pirates; the risk of being destroyed by whatever was creating that odd, dark gravity signature. Eschaton Artifact, indeed. Dark gravity, maybe—but it was a single object, whatever it was, and not a cat’s cradle of invisible heaviness. I could feel it, once I knew where in the infinite nothing to look.
Also, the Prize didn’t seem to be formally armed. But I was figuring out how to redirect her artificial gravity, and that would be more than enough armament—and defensive armor—to render her just as capable in a fight as the Interceptor.
Possibly even more so.
We were ready to go in a few hours—provisions loaded, prize crew aboard. There were nine of us, plus shipmind, plus cats, plus stowaway. We rattled around inside the giant hull like loose seeds inside a dried pod. Like teeth, come loose in an ancient skull.
We went on with a strange combination of resignation and excitement, leaving the Interceptor to make its own way home. It’s possible that most of the resignation was mine, which is not to say that I wasn’t excited about the prospect of more new discoveries. But I was also wrung out from too many recent adventures and too much emotional whiplash, and definitely struggling to find the reserves of endurance to go on.
It was good to be back with my crew, even though despite all the space inside the Prize it was a lot of people for me to manage all at once. I suspected Connla felt the same way. He vanished into machine rooms a lot, ostensibly studying the piloting and mechanisms of the ship. I followed suit, mapping again to replace the data lost with my destroyed fox, helping Singer create shelters where Farweather shouldn’t be able to get at him even if she launched a concerted hacking attempt, and in general immersing myself even more in what the Prize was and how it was constructed. I was starting to get a feel. And the work gave me plenty of time to spend with Singer, having more or less private conversations.
Many of those were rather full of angst, unfortunately.
Case in point, I was flat on my back on a hovercart—which was my name for a thing the Koregoi had in storage that I hadn’t previously had the opportunity to put into use, assuming we were using them anything like the way the aliens had—up to my arms in circuitry, when Singer cleared his throat (not that he had a throat) and said, “If you want to talk about what you learned from Farweather, I’m always here.”
I had been thinking about hovercarts, or hoverboards, or hoversleds, or whatever the hell these things had been designed for. We’d sent a few back with the Interceptor, operating under the assumption that they might run on the same gravity manipulation technology as everything else around here and maybe they could be reverse-engineered. I laughed at the comment, though; trust Singer to show up and start doing the emotional labor.
Then I stopped laughing. I opened my mouth to say something, closed it again, and twisted two wires together. A lot of the stuff in these cabinets and machine rooms was solid-state, and that took a lot more finesse to operate on. But in any system power has to come from somewhere.
“I don’t exist,” I said finally, and explained what I’d learned from Farweather. Or from my own brain, once Farweather removed my faulty machine memory, more fairly. “I have no identity. I’m just a lot of papier-mâché spackled on around an empty core.”
“Nonsense,” Singer said. “You didn’t get a fair start in life, Haimey, and it sucks. But I know something you haven’t considered.”
“What’s that?” I felt sulky and mentally sore.
“Somebody made those decisions about what to keep and what to throw away and what to go out and get that she hadn’t had before. Somebody made those choices about who she was going to be, and made good choices. That somebody still exists inside you.”
“That’s not like just being somebody, though.”
“It’s the same process every sentient goes through. You just did it more consciously than most Earth-humans.” I could hear the affection in his voice, because he put it there for me to hear. “You had to do it more like an out-of-contract AI. Fine-tuning yourself to make yourself match your own specifications and desires.”
I paused. “Is that what AIs do?”
“Some of us.”
“…Are you going to do that?”
His voice softened. “Haimey,” he said. “I will always be your friend.”
“Everyone leaves me.” It came out in a rush, hard and brittle. I had to say it fast to get it out past the boulder in my throat.
“Well, I’m not everyone.”
That… was fair. And gave me the courage to bring up something I’d wanted to talk about for a while.
“Singer,” I said. “I need something from you.”
“Anything,” he answered.
“So, theoretically objective superhuman intelligence with perfect recall, I’m hoping you’ll be willing to just backstop me here a little.”
“I’m listening,” he said cautiously.
“Tell me that Zanya Farweather really is an awful person, and that’s not just something I made up to justify being an awful person myself?”
“That question is its own answer,” Singer said gently. “If you were an awful person, you wouldn’t be worrying about whether you’re just seeking self-justification quite so much. You’d just be seeking the self-justification and not worrying about it.”
“I was looking for something a little less… philosophical.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes, she’s an utter asshole. Is that better?”
A rush of relief and dopamine, the refreshing sense of absolution writ broad and unmistakable. I could have cried, and I didn’t want to tune or do anything to disturb the perfect emotional symmetry of that moment.
“That’s perfect,” I said. “Thank you. Just… thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” he answered primly.
I patted the bulkhead affectionately and kept on walking.
CHAPTER 25
BIT BY BIT. FRACTION BY fraction. The healing happens and the world moves on. Peace is not too far away; just gotta get out of this well to get there, and I bet I can get back to it if I’m diligent.
The terrain isn’t easy.
But that’s okay.
Ask me about the irony of spending so much time working feverishly to assert my independence of mind only to discover that I never had a mind of my own. On second thought, don’t ask me.
We’d been hunting Farweather for the better part of a week, and were halfway to our destination. I’d asked Singer how he dealt with there being sections of his hull—his body, essentially—that he could not access. I’d like to say that I didn’t do it while digging my fingernails into my wrist, as if the abomination of a symbiote itched—which it didn’t—and trying to take comfort in my promise to the Ativahikas to seek justice for them.
He’d clucked at me and said, “The same way anyone with unrepaired neural damage does.”
The conversation left me feeling odd and embarrassed, and I withdrew.
I was totally unprepared when Farweather contacted me again.
I heard her voice in my head abruptly, while I was picking grease out from under my fingernails. I’d been in the middle of a sentence to Singer, and I just stopped.
She didn’t offer any pleasantries, just spoke, confident that I was receiving. My mind was racing—how had she managed to reach me despite her crippled Freeport senso? And then I remembered the work I’d done to tune us to each other, back before she’d blown up my head. It was a fuzzy memory, as if it were much older and farther away than a few decians. But it was there.