Over the course of the journey, which took eighteen days, Jedao remained taciturn. She couldn’t tell whether he was afraid of provoking her again, or he was hiding information from her, or something else entirely. It worried her that he kept going blank and unresponsive; the original Jedao had had a tendency toward dissociation. At one point she handed him a dossier on Kujen’s base and told him to read it, which he did.
The base resided on an obscure moon orbiting a planet that was poisonous to humans, poor in resources, and entirely uninhabited. In short, the kind of place that Kujen had liked to lurk around. Cheris had given up on conversation with Jedao for the moment and was in the cockpit with 1491625.
“I’ve always wondered when, in between coordinating his makeup with the season’s fashions, brainwashing people for entertainment, and perusing menus of ridiculous luxury foods, Kujen had time to study enough survey data to site all these bases,” Cheris said to 1491625.
“Time flies when you’re immortal?” 1491625 said, its lights tinted a snide pink-orange. “I mean, you should know.”
The original Jedao had spent most of his time confined in the black cradle, in nearly absolute sensory deprivation. On the other hand, Kujen had enjoyed the comforts of a body and freedom of motion. But Cheris didn’t say this to 1491625. It was being tetchy not because of anything to do with Kujen but because of their passenger.
Cheris set one of the subdisplays to optical as 1491625 brought them in a long arc toward the base. She couldn’t see the base itself except as a phantasm of shadow and blotches. Certainly she couldn’t discern its boundaries with the naked eye. According to the reports that 1491625 had passed on to her from Pyrehawk Enclave’s records, the base was underground. Kujen would have known how to mask its profile from the casual observer.
“This is your last chance to change your mind,” 1491625 added.
Cheris appreciated that it had waited until this moment to tell her this, a surgical strike, instead of nagging her about it the past eighteen days. She wouldn’t have been able to endure that. “The original plan stands,” she said.
1491625 flickered blue lights in a distinct sigh and didn’t bring it up again.
The moon had only the thinnest veil of atmosphere. Cheris would have to go in suited, with an air supply. Jedao, too, just in case. It wasn’t clear to her that he’d survive near-vacuum, despite his origins. Or, more accurately, that he’d do so in a manner that would make him tolerable company.
The display showed the topography in standardized false color, with bold isoclines forming a pattern as distinct as any fingerprint. There had been liquid water on this moon a long time ago, and the traces remained carved into the stone. Cheris noticed with a pang that there was no rock garden to greet them, as there had been at Tefos Base, where she’d met the servitor Hemiola. She wondered where it was now, and if it had ever gotten to watch the rest of that drama it had liked so much.
“We’re going to have another tedious discussion with Nirai servitors,” 1491625 said, tinting its lights a ghoulish violet.
Cheris shook her head. “For a superior type of sentience, you have a lot of prejudices.”
“Not superior,” 1491625 said, “just different. You may be made of allegedly delicious meat”—Cheris rolled her eyes good-humoredly—“but you don’t suffer metal fatigue and have to have new parts installed. Although I suppose one of these days you’re going to wear out your joints, the way you abuse them in close combat, and need those replaced.”
“Oh, look,” Cheris said, “we’re about to land.” As if 1491625, who was doing the piloting, needed her to tell it that.
The needlemoth settled smoothly on the level portion of a ridge. No one had fired on them; nothing had exploded. That didn’t mean they were safe, as far as Kujen’s defenses were concerned, but at least they hadn’t already been obliterated.
Cheris expected the base to be protected by one of Kujen’s favorite tricks, a calendrical lock. She’d defeated them before by resorting to a prime factorization mechanism that only worked in a heretical calendar, something Kujen would never have countenanced.
During the journey, she’d convinced Jedao to let her run some preliminary tests. Despite his inhuman physiology, he affected the local calendar as though he was human. She suspected it was because his mind was more or less human.
Cheris sighed and made her way to the bunkroom of the needlemoth. Jedao lay on his side on his bunk, staring at the wall and breathing shallowly. He did not react to her approach.
“Jedao,” she said. “We’ve arrived. Come with me.”
Jedao didn’t argue. Didn’t speak, either. Instead, he levered himself up and stood, watching her with dead eyes.
She’d endured long stretches of time in the black cradle with only Kujen for company. Even that had been intermittent. Kujen had enjoyed leaving her in the darkness so that she’d be grateful when he let her out. She’d known exactly what he was doing and why; had been pierced by the unwelcome sting of gratitude anyway. Still, she hadn’t expected this other Jedao’s quietness to bother her so much.
Cheris led the way to what passed for the galley: a small counter where two people could sit and eat if they didn’t mind bumping elbows.
“Great job,” 1491625 flashed at her from the cockpit. “He’s being so cooperative.” She ignored it, wondering, not for the first time, if Jedao understood Machine Universal. He’d never shown any reaction to 1491625’s speech, but she knew better than to assume.
Jedao took his accustomed seat, scrunched up so as to avoid touching her. Cheris was seized by the sudden desire to slap him, to get some reaction out of that unresponsive face. She was starting to feel, superstitiously, that through some mirror-sorcery, like in the Mwennin folktales she’d learned in her childhood, anything that happened to him would eventually happen to her.
Cheris retrieved her factorization instrument from the locker she’d carefully stowed it in two years before. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.
No answer, but his shoulders tensed. She was afraid for a moment that he would smash the instrument. She’d stop him, of course. It was at least as valuable as she was, and because of the tolerances in its manufacture, she couldn’t produce a new one from the small matter printer she had on board.
Tersely, as if she had his full attention, Cheris explained Kujen’s security, which demanded fast factorization of a very large composite number. The instrument would allow them to defeat the system. The catch: it only worked in certain heretical calendars.
Jedao flexed his hands. She couldn’t help staring. He looked so odd without his half-gloves. “I’ll cooperate,” he said. “Whatever you need.”
The high language, which they both spoke to each other, divided its pronouns into animate and inanimate classes. Jedao had used the inanimate version of I. That didn’t imply great things about his state of mind.
This is for you as much as it is for me, Cheris stopped herself from saying. No point in quarreling this close to their goal. “We’re here,” she said, and turned toward the airlock.
Jedao tackled her. Cheris bit down a yelp. Fought him, breaking one arm with a sickening crack before realizing he was hissing in her ear, “Stay down, there are hostiles—”
She went limp despite all her instincts screaming at her to disable Jedao while she had the chance, as if breaking bones did any good against someone who healed as rapidly as he did. Jedao covered her, which she interpreted as calculation rather than honor or mercy—that inhuman regeneration made him the better shield.