Escaping Tek was not that easy, of course. While he did manage to get out of the room as Tek peppered the Death’s Wings and Captain Tsa’ikeet with questions, Serenity didn’t escape the flood. Tek simply texted the questions to him instead.
It got even worse when Tek found out that the ship maintained a full virtual space for all of the Tsarualk and invited Serenity. Serenity had never realized how many people it took to run a spaceship; this wasn’t a ship, it was a village. A small one, but there were still at least two hundred Tsarualk; from what Rissa said, that was only half of the ship’s complement. Serenity had no idea where Rissa got enough people to run the ship.
Even if Serenity did end up having to meet more people at once than he was really comfortable with, there was one huge benefit of the virtual space: Aide was finally able to meet people on even terms. He manifested as a human with horns, fairly similar to Serenity’s human form, but with different features and colors. Serenity wasn’t sure how Aide did it, but he was somehow able to make deep green hair and golden horns look natural instead of like a bad dye job.
Even better, Aide was able to hold discussions with many of the others at a speed Serenity couldn’t match. Yes, he was augmented above normal human levels, but he still wasn’t as fast as Aide. Serenity hadn’t realized how much Aide wanted others to work with until he saw them talking. The Tsarualk seemed eager to show off the ship and share information, as well, though Aide mentioned that the amount of technology they shared was limited.
It was a week of travel before Serenity realized that his first estimate of the number of crew on the ship was faulty because he’d counted the virtual presences while Rissa had only compared the physical ones. As it turned out, the number of artificial intelligences on the Death’s Wings was about three times the number of Tsarualk. That still meant there were over a hundred crew, but that was far fewer than Serenity had first guessed.
Serenity spent the time exploring the ship. If he was going to own it, he should know it and it turned out to be far larger than he expected. It wasn’t the yacht Serenity had first assumed but it also wasn’t a cruise liner; instead, it was a general-purpose ship that moved both people and goods between planets.
Several of the cargo holds could be reconfigured to either house guests or used as party spaces; that was the way it had been configured for Serenity’s birthday party. Once most of the guests were returned to Earth, Captain Baxter had it reconfigured to carry mostly goods instead.
He hadn’t hired anyone to manage trade deals, but that certainly seemed to be the general idea. It was one Serenity could get behind; if they could figure out how to buy the right things and sell them at the other end, carrying cargo could significantly defray their operating costs.
That was a matter for the future but definitely one Serenity wanted to consider. He knew he wasn’t the right person and he suspected that no one from Earth was, but surely there were people out there who could do it if he could find them.
There was one other major feature of the Death’s Wings: she was an armed ship. She wasn’t a warship, but her weapons weren’t just for show either. The presence of weapons said there might well be a place to use them. Serenity didn’t remember ever having to fight space pirates as Vengeance, but then he also wasn’t able to afford to travel at low Tier. That might well not be the only threat in space; Serenity simply didn’t know.
When he asked, the answer wasn’t reassuring. Space pirates weren’t common, but there were planets that simply weren’t safe to visit because they were common enough. More importantly, there were creatures that lived in space. Most weren’t dangerous, but it was sort of like an ocean; the fact that there was life, even if it was widely spread out, meant there were predators.
They tended to cluster near solar systems since that was where the energy was, but of course that was also where ships had to go. Some of the space predators liked ships, but most of the time the threat was actually from rock-eaters who thought the ship was a large noisy rock. It was fortunate that they were generally relatively easy to spot and discourage.
Shortly before they reached Eitchen, Serenity was nearly to the ship’s bridge when he was confronted by the winged avatar of the Death’s Wings. “Your people are strange.”
Serenity stopped short; he hadn’t expected the ship to interrupt him in the middle of the corridor. “Why do you say that?”
“Aide talked me into talking to the crew through the viewscreens and tablets you all have everywhere.” Death’s Wings appearance shifted to look a little less realistic and slightly more cartoonish. Serenity could immediately see one benefit: the new appearance allowed her to use human body language. It was clear that she was grumpy but not actually upset, though how she managed the expression on a bird’s face without looking weird was beyond his skill.
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Serenity nodded. “People like having a face to go with a voice. We don’t have actual integration yet, so appearing as an image makes sense.”
“That’s what Aide said. He also said that most of you would take the ship talking to you as if it were normal. That’s strange; humans don’t like it when inanimate things talk back at them. We’ve sold ships to the Empire; the shipmind has to always be servile and impersonal. They’re not supposed to joke with the cleaning bots! They’re certainly not supposed to keep asking for names!” Death’s Wings had her wings folded just like arms; they rested on the spots where her hips would have been if she actually had hips.
Serenity wasn’t able to keep a straight face. The image was just too perfect. His lips twitched; he tried to suppress the smile but was fairly certain he failed. “That sounds pretty normal to me. Are you telling me you’ve settled on a name? I admit that Death’s Wings is a little long, but I’ll keep calling you that if you want.”
“You, too?” Her wings shifted until they hid her face, just like someone burying her face in her hands. “The only person who hasn’t asked is Captain Baxter!”
This time, Serenity didn’t even try to hide his grin. It just wasn’t possible. “Does it bother you? I’ll ask people to tone it down if it’s a problem.”
The ship’s avatar waved a wing at him. The wind that came off it wasn’t real, but it was still enough to express her annoyance.
“No, no, it’s just … I didn’t expect this. It’s almost like being one of the great Clan ships. The ones that this model was designed to be. I was prepared for this to be a ship of the Empire.” She sounded almost lost for a moment, before her voice firmed. “No, this is how it should be. It gives me hope that the other ships that were sold out of the Clans may someday find a family even if they do not have Tsarualk companions. I came to tell you two things.”
Serenity blinked at the sudden change in topic, but perhaps it wasn’t as much of a change as he thought it was. “Oh?”
Death’s Wings nodded slowly. “Tek has completed a human-compatible version of a jilomi implant. She says it’s based on yours and on the ones we give to young Tsarualk, but less demanding.”
Serenity wasn’t certain what his expression did, but he suspected that it expressed his worry, bordering on horror, at that statement because Death’s Wings started laughing.
“Don’t worry so much. She says it is done but I do not, not yet. She is close and I am watching it; if the jilomi implant can truly be adapted to other species, there are many who will be interested. The child’s version also has many safeguards. From what she has said, it seems that yours did not.” Death’s Wings watched him for a moment, then nodded.
Serenity found himself relaxing. Tek had to invent things; it was who she was. If she had someone watching over her and making her add safety features, that would solve a lot of the problems.
“Second, I have searched through your files, the ones that were loaded while we visited Earth. I have found the right name for myself, the avatar of the Death’s Wings. You may call me Simurgh.” With those words, Simurgh vanished.
Serenity knew he could call her back simply by talking to her, but he didn’t see any reason to spoil her grand exit. Instead, he grinned and nodded. “Simurgh? I like it.”
Serenity took the few steps that remained between him and the door to the bridge. It let him in and revealed a busy scene.
The far wall was dominated by a view of the planet they were headed towards, but no one was paying it any attention; the scene was beautiful but not actually helpful. Instead, everyone had their attention on the screens at their individual work stations. Serenity had to blink twice before he realized that about half of the people he saw weren’t there physically; instead, they were virtual presences. Most of the stations had both a human and a Tsarualk present, as well as the Tsarualk’s jilomi and the station’s local AI.
With or without the artificial intelligences, the scene reminded Serenity more of mission control during a space launch than any science fiction space show he’d ever seen. People were quietly working on their tasks, speaking to each other over headsets rather than calling things out for everyone to hear. The Tsarualk didn’t even have headsets; they were directly linked into the data streams and were using them as additional displays as well.
Serenity was aware of the various data that was moving around, but he didn’t try to look at it. He could probably get a sense of it with Aide’s help, but he certainly wasn’t an expert and didn’t really need to know most of it. Instead, he moved up near the two Captains. Baxter and Tsa’ikeet were talking but fell silent as Serenity approached.
Serenity nodded at them. “Is this a good time?”
Baxter nodded. “This is the best view available. We have messaged ahead and it seems that there are only two other ships near Eitchen at the moment, so we have some time if you would like to watch. They do not have proper space control here, so I would like you to leave in about ten minutes so that we can concentrate.”
Serenity nodded; that seemed reasonable. The last thing he wanted to do was interfere in the proper functioning of the spaceship. In fact, the very fact that Baxter didn’t want Serenity on his bridge when they were too close to anything made Serenity realize that there was one type of room he hadn’t seen anywhere on the ship: an observation room, where he could see space or a nearby planet. That was probably fixable, but not while everyone was preparing to land.
Rissa arrived on the bridge less than a minute after Serenity did. She hugged him as they watched the blue-white marble that was Eitchen approach. It wasn’t as beautiful to Serenity’s eyes as Earth, but it was still a pretty planet. It would be a shame if something happened to it.