“The crystalline blocks you are seeing are actually many-meter thick pieces of transparent titanium! These blocks are extremely difficult and time-consuming to produce, with each piece taking up to six months and over a billion labor hours to complete. As a result, only ten million are produced each year in the People’s Atomic Production Facilities of the Greloz Solar Constructor . . .”
Y tuned out the audio channel of the tour guide. While a trained member of the Administration of the Craton, who had given such a tour dozens of times at various stops in inhabited systems, her speech was vexing to him.
It was, after all, not really accurate. Aside from the many abbreviations and short-hand used for describing elements of the ship, in her description of the makeup of the crew, she had mentioned only one Ehni.
The curious human habit of creating arbitrary distinctions within reality!
It was truly astounding, really. These tools were simply ways for their minds to comprehend the sheer complexity of it all.
They spoke to him, a singular machine, and considered him ‘one’. Did they not know that he was a collective of consciousnesses? Just as they were. Two halves of a brain composed of sections that all added their own minor contributions to make a ‘whole’.
It could at least be said that they were one contiguous being. He could understand and accept the logic there.
But his kind? They were code. The body that people interacted with each day was simply a tool for him to use.
On occasion, he’d seen humans reacting to his mechanical bodies when he was not using them. They were often startled to open a door and find the shell there, whereas they would have little reaction to finding a wrench or drill. Some regarded it almost like a human corpse, with the possibility of contagious pathogens, and did not want to touch it.
Simply a part of their instincts, but interesting all the same!
The reality was that he had no body, and his systems were enshrined within special secured architecture of the ship itself. And the ‘he’ that presented here was in some ways different from the ‘he’ that would present among his own people, using hardware of their own design. Such a shift was the most difficult part of being here, and it was only the sheer cleverness of his code itself that allowed him to exist in a non-Ehni system. At the end of the day, it was their code that made them unique, not the hardware.
It had taken a long time to learn how to adapt themselves to these other systems, though. Yet they had, precisely because they were not one being.
And what of his backups? On the ship, at various SU starbases, back among his people . . . Were they not also individuals, him yet not him? Were they a part of the one?
He thought of the ship of Theseus, and was amused. Some humans understood.
He had completed his medical reports for the day, taking care of them in a fraction of a second. He’d taken longer than normal, being extra thorough in his work today. One might even say verbose.
Captain Brooks was concerned about him, he knew. Many humans and other beings were affected for a long period of time after a close friend was injured or killed. Some were changed forever!
But he was not.
Despite how badly his friend Dr. Logus had been injured during the battle in the Mopu system, despite his sorrow, it did not impact him the way it would impact a human.
He should be working on his latest article, but he’d allowed his progress on that to stall for now. Right now, the tour was getting a significant fraction of his attention.
It was, really, a circus. Aside from six staff on the ship from the Craton, everyone on the vessel were from Gohhi.
Like many beings, they had a strong interest in the Craton. She was the first ship of her class, and it was hardly a class, given that she was just a hollowed out asteroid.
An asteroid from the dawn of time! At least, all of the science, even that done by his own people seemed to suggest as much.
Possibly some of the oldest objects ever to exist that still existed, given that stars of the very early universe would likely have been too massive to live more than a few million years.
And while all the implications and practicalities of that were endless even in his estimation, the effect when they came to a place like Gohhi was that everyone wanted to see it.
Prior to the tours being started, people had taken to bringing private ships in towards the Craton. Even if they stayed at legal distance, so many appeared that it quickly became unsafe. And because they were technically fine, there was little the Craton could do – and the Gohhians themselves were not about to impede members of their ruling elite, even if they were behaving dangerously.
A compromise had been struck in regular tours, conducted by an SU shuttle that would take the curious around the ship.
With the deal, too, concessions were given for keeping other vessels at bay – both for their safety and to frustrate attempts at surveillance. A good compromise, really.
Forty-seven beings were gathered at viewing ports, some rather rudely pushing others to get to the windows, their own unjustified senses of self-importance compelling them to behave in such a way.
Others had a self-assured sense of wealth that was largely internal, Y felt. They truly thought themselves better than others, superior in some undefinable way, and so therefore above such behavior.
It was an interesting contrast to the humans he’d met that he respected. Those ones were aware of and accepted that they were just animals, not far removed from their ancestors who crawled naked over tree limbs, yet who also knew they could hold themselves to higher standards.
None of these people actually knew he was watching. The feeds from the ship were public, like all surveillance cameras in public areas on the ship. Few did much more than peer in occasionally, but he found it fascinating to watch the people.
Aside from their behaviors, even their DNA showed subtle differences from humans of other places. Their time in space had caused genetic drift which, while they still firmly fell into the category of homo sapiens might one day lead to-
His attention was pulled elsewhere.
One of the crew members had left through a door that led towards the supply rooms and one of the tourists had followed her.
That in itself was not so odd, as sometimes people did that to ask for something, but this man did not appear in the ship’s sensor systems.
Some sort of device on his person had created a sensor shadow around him, causing the automated systems to simply forget he existed.
It was interesting that it did not work on him, viewing remotely through the ship’s internal systems. He could see the AI on the ship – no ignorant machine by any stretch, even if it was not like him – and it had no idea that the man was even there.
Let alone in the hallway following Ensign Peony Vale.
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Y took control of one of the security drones. Their weapons had been inactivated, and he could not override that, but he would make do.
His view shifted to the hall. It wasn’t very large, with doors along one side leading to engineering or service rooms. She was headed towards the fourth door, where drone chefs were currently making hors d’oeuvres to the exacting standards of their guests.
She had not noticed the man behind her. Floating along in zero-g, there was no sound.
But something suddenly spooked her. Y checked the audio levels and saw that the man’s breathing was within human audible range.
He saw her mouth opening to scream, but he was lunging for her, in his hand a transparent knife, barely visible in any spectra of light.
Before he could reach her, Y moved the drone he was controlling in between them. The knife hit the chassis, but the hardened alloy did not even take a scratch. Skidding off harmlessly, the man’s face went from a strange mixture of rapture and fury to one of confusion.
“Oh hello,” he said through the vocoder. He pushed into the man, shoving him back towards the wall and away from Ensign Vale.
The man activated thrusters, and Y realized with only a slight bit of sadness that he would not be able to do this without violence.
Twenty other drones, under his control, rammed into the man from every angle.
They had locking clamps and grabbed onto the man’s arms, legs, even wrapping themselves around his head and torso.
“I am afraid you will need to remain still,” Y told him. “Or else you may be hurt.”
The man struggled anyway yelling.
“I have to do this!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
His pulse was running at an extremely high rate. Y could tell that his heart was beating more than 300 times per minute, quite unsafe. And despite the power of the security drones, he was able to flex his arms, still trying to strain towards Vale.
All of these signs indicated that he was enhanced to a high degree. Not simple prosthetics, but things so subtle that he did not even register on most scans.
Y spoke to the terrified woman. “Ensign Vale, this is Commander Y. Move to the safe room immediately,” he instructed. “A medical drone will treat you for shock.”
He sent more security drones through the ship, to be sure the man had no accomplices. But the rest of the ship was calm.
People were viewing out into space. They had no idea what had just been about to happen.
He alerted both the captain and the Craton. Response Team Two scrambled and more drone pods were dispatched towards the ship to further secure the man.
Another drone came, giving the man an injection to subdue him. It had some effect, but he was not calmed. Nor even much impeded.
As Vale moved to safety he let out an animalistic scream.”Let me go!” he roared. “She has to die! He has to see! He has to seeee!”
----------------------------------------
Iago hadn’t looked so happy in a long time, Brooks thought.
Cassandra Caraval, next to him, looked far more nervous. She didn’t seem to want to meet Brooks’s eyes, which was a little different from how he remembered her.
But in her situation, most people would feel pretty uncertain.
She had, after all, been thought dead for the past few years.
It had been on a visit to the mining colony on the fringe where she had been born – an accidental explosion during a cryo-stir of the colony’s air tanks had vented an entire habitation dome. Everyone had been thought dead.
Now that she had returned, Brooks felt his caution was justified. Iago had suffered a strong reaction to tenkionic exposure recently that had seemed to be causing a deterioration of his sanity. But then he had found Cassandra again and had seemingly recovered. Miraculous, but also alarming in its own way.
Before him, Brooks had the results of every test they could run on Cassandra.
He had decided to let Y take slightly lighter duties, and gotten Dr. Zyzus to perform the tests, him being the next most senior. But everything had come back to say, essentially, that this was Mary Cassandra Caraval.
She was not a clone, no kind of hyper-advanced biological machine as far as they could tell. She had the same scars and physical markings. She had aged up exactly as made sense, albeit with higher stress markers.
All of which fit.
“Cassandra, if you don’t mind me asking,” he said. “What do you remember of the incident?”
Her eyes raised slightly, her head staying angled down. It made her look all the more innocent. “Very little. I only vaguely remember warning sirens . . . I was already putting on a suit, but I can’t remember why. Perhaps to help check the external power lines for micro-meteor damage? It used to be my job when I lived there . . .”
“She was probably showing some newbies the ropes,” Iago interjected.
Brooks glanced to him, keeping his face calm, not too sympathetic nor letting his annoyance show. It wasn’t so much at them as . . . well, his feeling about the whole situation.
“The next thing I remember,” Cassandra continued, “I was waking up on the Grey Gift. That’s a ship that belongs to the Order.”
“I see. Did they have any more information about your survival?”
“They just responded to the automated distress beacon and found me floating, unconscious and badly injured – my helmet had taken a debris hit that dented it, giving me some skull trauma.”
That healed injury had also shown up in her exams.
“There must have been a lot of debris,” Urle said, and Brooks was grateful for just how calm and kind he managed to sound. “How did they locate you through all of that?”
“I don’t know, Commander,” Cassandra said. Everything about it screamed that she was being honest. “It was simply a miracle of the Infinite – that is all I can imagine.”
Brooks glanced to Urle.
“Well, Cassandra, I suppose all I can say is that I am grateful that you are alive – however it happened. And welcome back.”
He extended a hand, and Cassandra nearly jumped in her seat before quickly taking it.
“Thank you, Captain. Does this mean . . . ?” she trailed off.
“Yes, you are now officially back among the living,” Brooks told her. “With all of the rights and benefits of that.”
Elation spread across her face and Iago let out a whoop, grabbing her in a hug.
Brooks did feel genuine happiness for them. How could he not?
But he also couldn’t shake the feeling of concern.
Iago reached out and took his hand now. “Thank you so much, Captain. I can’t tell you how much this means to us.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “I’m sorry there was such a runaround. It’s not nice to have to go through.” A smile crept onto his face. “I was reported dead once and it was difficult to sort out. But now I hope that you all can move forward joyously. Especially Elliot. How is he, if I may ask?”
“He’s over the moon,” Iago said, grinning. “I know things were hard for him lately – I know I was.” He was speaking quickly, stumbling over his words. “I wasn’t doing for him everything I needed to do. But I’m better now, and he’s strong enough that he made it through. There was a light for him at the end of this, at least, and I just couldn’t be more proud of him and happy that he got something back.”
Cassandra was listening to him, but put a hand on his shoulder gently to calm him.
“Thank you again, Captain. We are eternally in your debt,” she said.
“If I may ask,” Urle said. “I understand you’re now a member of the Esoteric Order’s faith – we don’t really have any facilities of worship for that, nor is our chaplain familiar with your faith. While he’ll learn – in the meantime, is this an issue for you?”
“Oh no, Commander,” Cassandra said. “My faith is very private, anyway. You won’t see much of it, I promise you.”
“We’re not worried about that,” Brooks said. “I’m not sure how much you remember of the Sapient Union’s stance here, but we have no state religion and such organizations are treated no differently from any other, people are free to worship as they please – we just don’t allow public proselytizing.”
“You won’t have to worry about that,” Iago said. “We’ll be private.”
“You’re an adherent now?” Urle asked. He phrased it in a friendly manner, and Iago clearly took it that way.
“Yes, absolutely. How could I not be when it gave me back Cass?”
Brooks nodded and smiled. “All right – well have a good day, you two. And I know you’re interested in resigning your commission, Iago – I’ll look over that, but take a week off first to see how you feel, all right? If you still want it then, I can grant it with no issue.”
“All right, thank you sir!” Iago saluted him, and the two moved to leave, smiling and talking excitedly.
As the door closed, Urle said nothing, and Brooks rubbed his forehead.
“It still doesn’t sit right with me,” he said to his Executive Commander.
Urle sighed. “Me neither. I want to believe it, and I can’t find any evidence that it’s not true, but . . . it’s too convenient.”
“It wasn’t long ago that Pirra reported seeing a duplicate of Michal Denso on Monitor 1,” Brooks added. “Completely intact, unlike the actual man. And that was the same mission that caused Iago his mental breakdown.”
“Though that copy was insane, wasn’t it?” Urle noted. “Cassandra seems completely there.”
Brooks only let out a dissatisfied grunt.
A warning flash went off on his desk.
“Brooks,” he said, answering it.
“Captain,” Pirra’s voice said. “We’ve had an incident on a tour ship. One man attempted to attack one of our crew-“
The sound was interrupted by screaming. It was not Pirra, but the voice of a human male, clearly furious.
“Calm him down!” Pirra ordered sharply.
Someone else said something, but the words weren’t picked up.
Y’s voice could then be heard. “Give him another dose of Sedative 12. It will not hurt him and I believe it will achieve the necessary action.”
Pirra was panting when she came back. “Sorry, sir. We’ve apprehended – or, well, Dr. Y apprehended the subject.”
Urle tilted his head. “Y?” he commented softly.
“Was anyone hurt?” Brooks demanded.
“No, sir. Ensign Vale is pretty shaken up, but she’s not hurt. The only other person involved was the perpetrator, a Gohhi native. We have not ID’d him yet, his system blanked itself and he had some pretty nice tech that made him practically invisible to sensors.”
“Is he military?” Urle asked. “Is this an attack on the ship?”
“We don’t think so, sir,” Pirra said. “He’s augmented, but they appear high-grade civilian, not military.”
Brooks frowned. “I’ll be down in a minute.”