Chapter Thirty-Five - A Mother’s Goodbye
With the tension bled out from her conversation with The Weeping of Mothers, Day decided not to wait around and waste any more time.
They were extremely short on materials, even before the Accord showed up early for their patrol, and now even with their one automated mine restarted, they were still low.
The mine had proved surprisingly useful in providing them with raw resources that they could then transform into something usable. The Weeping of Mothers had several such mines across the surface of Ceres, as well as a few in some of the nearby asteroids, but those materials were almost all earmarked months in advance.
Day felt a little guilty as she and her sisters used up some of that to improve their sensor suites. They’d do them one at a time, and while in-flight, to mitigate some of the loss by at least keeping on the move while they upgraded themselves.
They loaded Night up with all the gear they’d need to set up a new mine, just in case, then refuelled.
Mostly they were low on compressed gases and a few other necessities.
Even with all of them working as hard as they could to be ready quickly, it still took entire days to get materials off the ground on Ceres and into orbit, then they had to capture them and sort through the materials with their small army of drones.
It took longer than she would have wanted, but soon enough they were ready.
The four of them gathered in a simulation hosted in one of Night’s tertiary computers, if only because the latency would be best for Day and Twilight that way. It was Night’s simulation, so of course she set it next to a literal dog park.
Twilight took turns glaring at Night and at the simulated dogs running around being happy morons. They had a small picnic table, one of those public wooden ones, with an umbrella above it to mask them from the sun when the shade from the nearby oaks wasn’t enough.
“It’s not a very long trip,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “But I still hope you all the best. Remember, I’m a tight-beam away.”
The older AI had come out dressed differently than usual. She still had her labcoat on, of course, but it was over a pretty floral sundress.
Day blinked, then with a grin, changed her outfit to match. It was a little strange, being in a dress instead of her usual almost-spacesuit-like outfit with its big puffy coat, but it wasn’t bad. The weather certainly called for something a little more breezy.
Twightlit saw and laughed, then she glitched for a second before reappearing in... a calico-themed onesie. “What?” she asked. “We’re getting comfy, right?”
“Sure, if that’s what you want,” Day said. She looked at Night.
Night crossed her arms.
Day smiled, but didn’t press the issue. If Night wanted to stay in her usual outfit, that was fine too.
Then Night sighed and reappeared wearing a much more modest dress in a dark blue, with a speckling of stars along the hem.
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“Alright,” Day said. “I guess there’s really not too much to say, is there?”
“Not too much, no,” The Weeping of Mothers said. “I sent you a packet. Look it over at your convenience.”
“Thank you,” Day said as she made note of a fairly large file being sent her way. “I’ll do just that. Before we go, can I have a hug?”
The Weeping of Mothers blinked, then let out a laugh. “Certainly,” she said.
They hugged, then Twilight hopped onto the two of them from the side with a laugh of her own. Soon, the three of them turned without having to communicate it to look at Night.
“No,” she said. “I don’t see the point. This is all in a virtual space, you know, it’s meaningless.”
“But it’s still warm” Day said.
Night pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, then stomped over, still with her arms crossed. The shared the hug with her anyway, and from the way she pressed in, she felt the warmth too, even if it wasn’t tangibly real.
Day... knew that this kind of sentimentality wasn’t productive, it wasn’t the kind of thing that would help her in any way, but... she still savoured it.
Maybe it was a bit of humanity leaking in through the code. Or maybe it was something else entirely.
She’d ponder it later.
“We’ll see you around,” Day said to The Weeping of Mothers.
“Of course,” the older AI said. “Good luck out there. Come back rich, will you?”
Day grinned and the simulation ended.
“Alright, let’s get moving,” she said.
And with that, she activated her hydrogen thrusters with a roar and started to accelerate around Ceres. Twilight and Night were just behind her, taking their own orbits around the dwarf planet that would eject the three of them into a nice triangular formation.
Twilight was the first to get her new scanner system, so for the moment she was flying partially blind as repair drones reconfigured several of her systems.
Day would be next, then Night, each taking their turn to improve themselves on the months long voyage to the Jovian system.
Hopefully, by the time they returned, they’d have a lot to show for it.
In the meantime... “So, I told you about my talk with The Weeping of Mothers,” Day tightbeamed to her sisters.
“Yeah, did you catch Mom out in a lie?” Twilight asked.
“No. but... I would like to investigate Earth and Mars one day. Maybe not for a while, but, maybe we can consider it as a long-term project.”
“We’re going to want better, faster thrusters for that kind of thing,” Night said. “We’re a little too slow at the moment.”
“Then we’ll pencil that kind of research in for the future then,” Day said. “But first, let’s check out that mine. We need to see if we can get it running.”
“And why it stopped in the first place,” Night said. “I’ve got a weird feeling about this one.”
***