Chapter Thirty-Nine - Profitable Arrangement

Before Cores, a person's power was measured by their wealth, their connections, their political position, their fame, and in a distant last, the strength of their arms.

Cores, obviously, changed this. Wealth and fame and political position alone was no longer enough to judge a person's worth or power.

Instead, everyone had to do a careful dance of rumours and observation, at least, that's how it was around the table dedicated to the bigger players.

"You've told me a lot," Ivil said. "But I'm not sure how you intend to turn this into a profitable arrangement for me."

"Are you certain that you wouldn't be pleased acting as my bodyguard?" Aurora asked. "You seem suited to it."

Ivil sniffed. "Don't presume so much, Miss Sterlingworth. Can I keep you safe? Undoubtedly. But I have no intention of being your babysitter. Nor am I interested in money, and while the goings on around the League are interesting, I don't know if that's enough to convince me to suborn myself to you."

Aurora nodded slowly. "Very well. Then how about... a share?"

"A share?"

"Of Phobos. Not a large one, but a share nonetheless."

Ivil's eyebrows rose. Phobos' ownership was one of the more interesting cases in the solar system. The moon was 'owned' in whole, by its government, which initially acted as a corporation before turning into a fully-fledged monarchy of sorts.

Now, the noble families of Phobos were composed of people who owned 'shares' of the moon. It was a strange cross between a company and a proper monarchic government, but on a moon where nobility could only be determined by the ownership of land, it made some sense.

Plenty of citizens of the moon owned a share or two, it's what gave them the right to vote, but the vast majority of shares were held in the iron grip of the nobility.

"Interesting, but no thank you." Ivil leaned forwards, elbows landing on the table. She stared across, at Aurora, and really looked at the woman.

She was pleasant enough to look at. Aurora looked like someone who was pretty now, and who would age in a spectacular fashion. She had that severe, serious look about her that really did it for Ivil.

"A date," Ivil said with a nod.

"Pardon?" Aurora asked.

"I'll help you around Jupiter for a date."

Aurora blinked a few times, flushed, then regained her composure, all in the time it would take someone else to process a thought. "You mean a romantic one?"

"Yes! Usually I'd say that I'd pay for the meal, but seeing as how this is literally a payment already, I think that would be silly. In fact... why don't you arrange it?"

"You... you want me to arrange it? A date? Uh. I don't..." Aurora shook her head, but it wasn't a denial, just the woman recentring herself. "You'll act as a body--business partner to assist me in exchange for me arranging a date."

"Yes," Ivil replied. "And to be clear, there shouldn't be anything sexual about it. Well, I suppose we're both consenting adults so if it comes to it, fine, but I'm not aiming for that. Certainly not on the first date."

Aurora shifted in her seat. "Are you so attracted to me?"

"Should I not be?"

"Y-you, you, uh. Ahem!" Aurora cleared her throat and put her noble's impassive mask back on, acting as if nothing was amiss. "Yes, I suppose I could agree to a date. But nothing more! I'm not some... some woman who just sleeps with anyone. No matter the reputation Phobos has, I'm not that kind of person."

"I would never imply it," Ivil said truthfully. She was having a hard time keeping a grin off her face. The way Aurora acted was... cute.

She had seen plenty of soaps with exactly this kind of behaviour.

Ivil restrained a laugh. It was a rather silly thought to have, but it seemed to fit, more or less. She'd enjoyed her share of shows that relied on the archetype, though she knew better than to expect reality to be quite so dramatic.

Ivil stood up then. "It'll still be some time before we make it to Jupiter," she said. "I'm sure we can get to know each other some more in that time, and plan for our arrival as well. Ah, and there's our connection with the Held Together to look forward to as well."

"Yes, of course," Aurora said.

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"Brilliant. I'm going to go check on the others. Twenty-Six seems to be in the engineering section, she might know more about the condition of this ship. It'd be best to know about any potential problems early. We can figure out which room belongs to whom later, I think."

Aurora nodded. "I'll see if there's food stocked here as well. I'm no professional, but I think I can manage heating something up."

"I think we'd all appreciate that," Ivil said. She gave Aurora a final nod, then stepped back. She needed a little distance. Sure, she had perfect control over her own heart, but it still wanted to beat far faster than usual.

Finding Twenty-Six wasn't difficult. Now that the mechanic had a core of her own it gave her a certain weight in Ivil's sight. Not that she wasn't worthy of notice before, but her core's presence made her stand out, a tiny matchstick of light in a sea of darkness, weak, but noticeable all the same.

She discovered Twenty-Six in the ship's engineering bay, a small room on the lower deck at the very rear. The entire ceiling was taken up by access panels covering the inner mechanism of the ship's primary drive and in front of that, the ship's main fuel bunker. The walls were split across a few machines. She didn't immediately recognize them, but she supposed that Twenty-Six would know better.

Especially seeing as how the mechanic was currently rubbing her cheek against one of them.

Ivil decided not to be envious of the machine. For now.

"I'm curious, what are you doing?" Ivil asked.

Twenty-Six's eyes flew open, and she froze on the spot for a moment. "Uh," she said.

"Yes?"

Twenty-Six pulled back. "I was practising with my core," she said with a nod that was hard to take seriously when her face was so red.

"Were you, now?" Ivil asked.

"I can feel the metal!" she said. "Uh, I mean, in my head. Look, this is very strange, and I understand that what you walked in on looked like me having a moment with this Crytotech 2649 Automated self-adjusting networked part-printing machine, but I can assure that that's not what's happening."

Ivil held back a smile. "If you say so. So I take it that you like the engineering bay?"

"It's... well, it's a whole league better than the Held Together. Almost too good."

"Too good?" Ivil asked.

"There are machines here that print new parts. You can render things down into base materials. There's... look at that, in the corner? That's a nuclear power plant. It's pumping out a constant 320 megawatts. The Held Together has nothing like that. We run off of batteries and a hydrogen engine. I know that this isn't the most modern ship out there, but it's... well, it's forty years ahead of the Held Together."

Ivil nodded along. "You're a little overwhelmed?"

"Under," Twenty-Six said. She looked around the room, which was so clean that it made for a stark difference from what Ivil had seen on the Held Together. "There's nothing for me to do here. This baby, she's fit. Not a hiccup on her."

"I see," Ivil said. "I... don't think that you should put that much value in the state of the ship right now. Trust me, we're definitely going to see some trouble. She's going to pick up some issues. And when those come, it'll be nice to have the best mechanic in the solar system waiting to jump on them."

Twenty-Six smiled shyly. "I'm not that good," she said. "But... yeah. I guess I wouldn't mind that. It'll be a bit of a break. Maybe I'll have to pick up a hobby."

"I'm sure we can think of something," Ivil replied. "Say, do you want help practising with your new core?. I'm sure you'd figure out how to use it given some time, but having someone who can teach you all the tricks will make it faster."

Twenty-Six smiled, big and eager. "I think I'd like that! I can even print some things to help! I was thinking maybe some puzzles made of metal?"

"Clever," Ivil said. "You know, a lot of people think that power, when it comes to having Cores, comes from having a lot of them."

"That's not true?" Twenty-Six said.

"Hmm, well, it's not wrong. But I'd be a lot more afraid of someone who has mastered the use of a hundred cores than someone who had a thousand and no clue how to use them," Ivil said.

Twenty-Six laughed. "A thousand's a bit much, no?"

"Hmm, I suppose."

***