The question rang in Kira’s mind. It was one she’d wondered often enough since becoming joined with the xeno. Could she control it? Could she use it in a responsible way? Could she master herself well enough to make either of those things possible? She stiffened her back and lifted her chin, feeling the answer rising within her, born of pain and long months spent practicing. “Yes. I don’t know how well it will work—Gregorovich will probably have to readjust to his implants, just like when they were first installed—but I think I can hook him back up again.”
Hwa-jung crossed her arms. “You should not go rummaging around inside someone’s head if you do not know what you’re doing. He isn’t a machine.”
“Yeah,” said Sparrow. “What if you turn him into scrambled mush? What if you totally screw up his memories?”
Kira said, “I wouldn’t be interacting with most of his brain, just the interface where he plugs into the computer.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Nielsen said calmly.
“Mostly sure. Look, if it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it.” Kira spread her hands. “I’m just saying I could try.” She eyed the captain. “It’s your call.”
Falconi tapped his leg with a furious rhythm. “You’ve been awfully quiet over there, Doc. What about you?”
By the door, Vishal ran his long-fingered hands over his equally long face. “What do you expect me to say, Captain? As your ship doctor, I cannot recommend this. The risks are too high. The only reasonable treatment would be to take Gregorovich to a proper medical facility in the League.”
“That’s not likely to happen any time soon, Doc,” said Falconi. “Even if we make it out of this alive, there’s no telling what shape the League will be in when we get back.”
Vishal inclined his head. “I am aware of that, Captain.”
A scowl settled onto Falconi’s face. For several heartbeats, he just looked at Kira, staring at her as if he could see into her soul. She matched his gaze, never blinking, never looking away.
Then, Falconi said, “Okay. Do it.”
“Captain, as the attending physician, I must formally object,” said Vishal. “I have serious concerns about the outcome of this procedure.”
“Objection noted, but I’m going to have to overrule you here, Doc.”
Vishal didn’t seem surprised.
“Captain,” said Nielsen in an intense tone. “She could kill him.”
Falconi wheeled on her. “And we’re flying straight into the Jelly fleet. That takes priority.”
“Salvo—”
“Audrey.” Falconi bared his teeth as he talked. “One of my crewmembers is incapacitated, and that’s endangering both my ship and the rest of my crew. This isn’t a cargo run. This isn’t a goddamn fetch-and-retrieve mission. This is life or death. We don’t have a millimeter of wiggle room here. If we screw up, we’re done for. Gregorovich is mission critical, and right now he’s no good to anyone. I’m his captain, and since he can’t make this decision for himself, I have to make it for him.”
Nielsen stood up and crossed the galley to stand in front of Falconi. “And what if he decides not to follow orders again? Have you forgotten about that?”
The air between them grew tense. “Greg and I will have a little chat,” said Falconi between set teeth. “We’ll hash it out, trust me. His life is on the line here, same as ours. If he can help, then he will. I know that much.”
For a moment, it seemed as if Nielsen wasn’t going to budge. Then she relented with a sigh and said, “Alright, Captain. If you’re really convinced this is what’s best…”
“I am.” Then Falconi shifted his attention back to Kira. “You better hurry. We don’t have a lot of time.”
She nodded and got to her feet.
“And, Kira?” He gave her a stern gaze. “Be careful.”
“Of course.”
He nodded in return, seeming satisfied. “Hwa-jung, Vishal, go with her. Keep an eye on Gregorovich. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Sir.”
“Yessir.”
3.
With the doctor and the machine boss at her heels, Kira ran from Control and proceeded down a deck to the sealed room that contained Gregorovich’s sarcophagus. Along the way, Kira could feel her skin prickling as her adrenaline ramped up.
Was she really going to do this? Shit. Falconi was right; there was no room for error. The weight of sudden responsibility made Kira pause for a second and question her choices. But no, she could do this. She just had to make sure that she and the xeno were working in harmony. The last thing she wanted was for it to take the initiative and start making changes to Gregorovich’s brain on its own.
At the sarcophagus, Hwa-jung handed Kira the same set of wired headphones she’d used before, and Vishal said, “Ms. Kira, Captain gave the order, but if I think Gregorovich is in any danger, then I will say stop and you will stop.”
“I understand,” said Kira. She couldn’t think of anything the doctor could actually do to stop her or the Soft Blade from working on Gregorovich once they started, but she intended to respect the doctor’s judgment. No matter what, she didn’t want to hurt Gregorovich.
Vishal nodded. “Good. I will be monitoring Gregorovich’s vitals. If anything drops into the red, I will tell you.”
Hwa-jung said, “I will monitor Gregorovich’s implants. Right now, they are at … forty-two percent operation.”
“Okay,” said Kira, sitting next to the sarcophagus. “I’ll need an access port for the Soft Blade.”
“Here,” said Hwa-jung, pointing at the side of the sarcophagus.
Kira fit the headphones over her ears. “I’m going to try talking with Gregorovich first. Just to see if I can check with him.”
Vishal shook his head. “You can try, Ms. Kira, but I could not speak with him before. The situation will not have improved.”
“I’d still like to try.”
The instant Kira plugged in the headphones, a whirling roar filled her ears. In it, she seemed to hear snatches of words—shouts lost in an unrelenting storm. She called out to the ship mind, but if he heard, she could not tell, and if he answered, the roaring obscured his response.
She tried for a minute or more before pulling the headphones off. “No luck,” she said to Vishal and Hwa-jung.
Then Kira sent the first tentative tendrils from the Soft Blade into the access port. Carefuclass="underline" that was the directive she gave the Soft Blade now. Careful and do no harm.
At first she felt nothing but metal and electricity. Then she tasted Gregorovich’s enveloping nutrient bath, and metal gave way to exposed brain matter. Slowly, ever so slowly, Kira sought a point of connection, a way to bridge the gap between matter and consciousness—a portal from brain to mind.
She allowed the tendrils to subdivide even further, until they formed a bristle of monofilament threads, each as thin and sensitive as a nerve. The threads probed the interior of the sarcophagus until at last they chanced upon the very thing Kira was seeking: the caul of wires that lay atop Gregorovich’s massive brain and that penetrated deep into the folds of grey and formed the physical structure of his implants.
She twined around each of the tiny wires and followed them inward. Some ended at a dendrite, marking where non-living merged with living. Many more ended in a bead of melted metal or a neuron that was dead and withered.
Then, delicately, ever so delicately, Kira began to repair the damaged connections. For the melted leads, she smoothed the bead at the tip to ensure a proper connection with its target dendrite. For the leads that stopped at a dead neuron, she repositioned the wire to the nearest healthy dendrite, moving the wires infinitesimal amounts within the tissue of Gregorovich’s brain.