Ravana's Shadow (12) (Patreon)

Entertaining the citizens in Remedial was never that difficult. Remedial's tiny colonists required only a little attention, a little affection, and they walked away from her visits happy. 

Usually that meant sitting down on a cushion around them and letting them crawl as close as possible, competing to sit in her lap or on her tail. At first, they were all strangers, but now she'd learned most of their names. With less than a thousand total colonists in all of Mara, Kit would learn every single one of them if it killed her.

True to his word, Forerunner had brought only a small group today. Several of them were even familiar faces, led by little Lucien in the front row. The ferret sniffed once at her tail, then backed away from their usual hiding-spot. "Did you fall in something?"

"Kinda," Kit answered, resting the tablet up on her knee. "I don't have to read today if I'm too gross. It's straight to the bath as soon as we're finished."

The half-dozen or so kids shared a look, muttering to each other. Not exactly quiet, they lacked the awareness for that. 

"She might not be back for years!" Callum exclaimed, prodding at Kit's tail. "It takes so long! Maybe she'll forget about us completely!"

"I will not!" She lifted the rabbit up onto her knee, where he couldn't keep causing trouble. As usual, he didn't resist—the small colonists never did. Living in Remedial meant conditioning them to a world where Forerunner provided for most of their needs. "I'm new, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forget. I would bring you up to the surface with me if I could, take you on field trips... but I don't think Forerunner would let me."

The AI spoke from behind her, entirely flat. That either meant the persona was greatly unhappy with the idea, or else so distracted that his focus was elsewhere. "I believe you are sufficiently qualified as a caretaker. However, the therapeutic effects of Remedial treatment would not be accomplished. I advise against the practice—it might encourage citizens on the borderline to recuse themselves from their duties and delay the advancement of colonists in treatment.

"The repetitive, comforting environment is meant to foster recovery, but also restlessness. If colonists are able to experience true life in the colony above, why should they strive to return?"

"Boring!" someone called loudly—Tonia, poking at her knee. "Forerunner can talk like that for hours, don't ask him! We wanna hear a story!"

"Right." She held the book sideways, where Callum could see. "We're gonna read this one today. About... the Great Exodus." 

She tapped the screen, navigating through a few pictures. With each one, she paused to lift the display to show the onlookers, who all crowded close to look. Even Lucien, who pretended not to care. "Once upon a time, there was a big city. It was the biggest city that ever was, so big that..."

Kit wasn't exactly sure how long she kept reading. The young colonists eventually settled down, minus the occasional interruption to ask a question about the material or interject something they knew. With a larger group that could devolve into minutes or hours of random conversation that went nowhere, as advanced intellects struggled through the powerful cognitive filters of a 30% template.

But a smaller group meant fewer interruptions. Soon enough they were finished, and Forerunner carried them away. "Hurry up with that treatment," she whispered, watching them go. "I want another pilot."

None of the nursery robots remained, but the Persona could still speak through her tablet. "I am hopeful about our prospects to recover colonists from Remedial in the next few decades. Endless repetitive centuries reduce their drive to compete and explore. Many become long-term patients, sustained by conditions here but never recovering. Wren could not provide them with a compelling reason to try. Perhaps you have."

She stood up, tucking the tablet under her arm. This comfortable reading room was somewhere she knew by now, along with the swiftest path to the elevator. She kept her voice down as she passed between the many pens of the dusk room. Most were styled to resemble interior spaces, with windows overlooking the false skies and environment of Remedial.

"If the Neophyte mission fails, the Mara colony goes with it. You don't have a backup plan, do you?"

"Likely yes," Forerunner answered, so quietly that Kit could barely hear him. "I could re-instance fallen colonists, but the resources lost would be irreplaceable. Other avenues that might have proven successful will be out of reach. I will be forced to keep the population comfortable and send out distress calls as Ravana has done. Perhaps they will be answered before my supply of energy and material are depleted. If not, I can at least ensure that the colonists are preserved, so that future explorers to this place could revive them."

Kit reached the elevator and smacked the button for the 80% block. Dirty or not, her tail curled tightly around herself. But instead of bringing its usual comfort, there was only the powerful smell of someone who had just lost a fight with Remedial.

"Lot of pressure for one woman," she whispered. "Save the colony or doom it. Are you sure Wren wouldn't do a better job?"

"I am sure Wren would never even consider the option," Forerunner said. "Despite her past, she has become as risk averse as the other citizens, with a near religious trust in their capacity to innovate. When the Aether was first detected, her only thought was how to extend the colony's operating lifespan. She had no intention of utilizing the resources for any other purpose. When I first brought the Ravana distress signal to her attention, she immediately disregarded it."

And maybe they had no chance of doing it before, she thought. Before the Aether arrived, the colony had already used all the metal they had to build itself. Now, though...

"I wouldn't feel so underqualified if I was actually... myself." She lowered the tail from her face, so she could stare into the mirror along the elevator's wall.

The squirrel-girl looking back at her was particularly bedraggled today, her hair and tail patchy and her skin stained as badly as the uniform. Mara's biotemplates didn't show exhaustion in quite the same ways that humans did, so her eyes didn't go bloodshot and baggy. "Maybe Garrick is right. Kids shouldn't be doing this. Even if I have the same memories inside, I'm... filtered too, right?"

"If you were not, the smaller body would fail to accomplish its designed purpose. At your size, you can still experience personal fulfillment without anxiety or discomfort over human drives common to older templates. Likewise, you can perceive and control limbs that your human body did not possess."

The elevator stopped. Even so, the door remained shut. "If you wished to expend greater resources in favor of more mature colonists, you probably should not have accepted Maddie's scheme to restructure the colony around an 80% template. Such a change would not produce confidence in your population, even if you had the cognitive stability to avoid decoherence without Mara's filters in place."

Right. Kit still remembered her first moments, standing naked in the dark foam of the fabricator. Even being a “full template” had been too hard for her, and Forerunner had to make adjustments. No surprise, considering she wasn't a saved Pioneering Society imprint at all. How intact was the frozen brain inside her skull after eons floating through space?

"It is natural for you to feel overwhelmed. If you are afraid, remember that you have my full confidence. Mara's citizens do not need you to provide expertise in any of their fields. Be their sunshine."

The door opened again, into a familiar hallway. Despite Kit's promotion into the Director's office, she still missed living down here. Back when no one depended on her, and she still believed Mara was a successful colony. They weren't living on a lifeless ball of ice; they were just hostages to a powerful computer. When she figured out how, she would set them free.

If Kit could've sprinted straight to the 80% bathing facility on the second floor, she would've. But being Director meant keeping up at least a semblance of decorum, even when her tail was smeared with brown goo and little bits of it flaked off with every step.

She walked across the old hallway, passing door after door of colonists. Each one had a name and an animal icon beside it, though there was rarely just one. As more and more colonists moved in from the other two domes, an increasing number shared their rooms. A few even had three or four names.

I should really be down here with the other colonists. Wren kept herself separate, but I'm not special like she was. I'm just lucky to be alive.

She knew her destination by the moisture in the air and the familiar scent of soap. She hurried through the door, then the locker room and blasting showerheads that followed.

No part of the Institute amazed her every time she visited quite like the public bath—where an incredible wealth in water and energy could be spent whenever she wished for no reason other than her comfort.

That comfort was particularly needed today, with the weight of Forerunner's expectations so heavy on her. She could do nothing to help with the design, and very little with the construction. They couldn't even use her for unskilled labor, since Forerunner's drones would do it so much better.

The pain and pressure of that could all wait, shuffled into the back of her mind by the altogether more important task of removing the wreckage of recruiting Chase from her fur. 

She hesitated for a second as she exited the shower, already feeling better. As Forerunner had warned, Kit wasn't alone today—she'd have to share the space with several others. 

"Kit!" Maddie waved one hand in her direction, beaming up from the bubbling water. "We were just talking about you! There were some mission objectives we wanted to work out!"

The steam and warm water were already helping her, maybe even enough that she was ready to play Director for a few more minutes. "Sure, but... over here." She splashed down into the water beside the tail-washing machine. "Either of you have any conditioner? You do not want to know what they did to me in Remedial today."

"Got you covered." Maddie made her way over, depositing a healthy portion from her light-blue bottle into the machine. "Lavender okay? Can't be worse than whatever that is."

She eyed Kit's tail, and the dirt lifting away from it as it floated in the water.

"Not what you think!" she said, settling into the bench. "Pudding. Chase Pine Marten decided I had to be target practice before he would agree to join the mission.”

"Chase is coming?" Pat slipped into the water opposite Maddie, balancing a glass tablet on her lap. It was already covered with dense writing, though Kit couldn't read a word. "It’s been a long time since he came upstairs. Must be getting bored of learning the same stuff over and over.”

Maddie giggled. "Wren would've never gone for an offer like that. Director's a brave hero." The fox settled back into the water herself, though she sunk down a little further than the other two. At a 70% template, her shoulders remained just beneath the surface. Her tablet floated on the water above her, its glass scrolling with the status of an ongoing simulation.

Kit's chair reclined slightly, so the oversized brush could start working on her tail. She relaxed, settling down into the water. "Something to... ask me?"

"About life support. The math works out a lot better if we put most of the crew to sleep for the trip. Not like they would need to do anything. Pilot and engineer, maybe a backup. The rest won't do anything until you get to Ravana."

"But they might," Maddie said, a little louder. "We can't just assume that something won't be needed. If the mission goes exactly how we think, then nobody will work anyway. We could all go into hibernation and wake up when we get there. Are you comfortable with that, director?"

She opened one eye, glaring up at them both. "Last time I went into hibernation, I woke up a third my age and with a tail as big as I was. If I sleep for this voyage, I don't even want to imagine what kind of world I'll wake up in."

"This one," Pat said, her ears folding back in annoyance. "And you wouldn't be sleeping. You're the only one in the Institute who remembers flying a rocket. Obviously you'd be awake."

"We're just trying to save as much mass as we can," Maddie said. "And volume. Never dreamed of moving a fabricator until now. Not a lot of space left for the crew, even if you detach the material feed. We've got to bring at least a dozen folded Forerunner drones, and he wants double that. Then there's biofabricator stock for a whole colony's worth of survivors." She turned the screen towards Kit. 

Kit looked up, at least far enough to see the extensive manifest, arranged by weight and volume on the waterproof display.

"Compared to all that, kinda feels like the crew section is... minor," Kit said. "Are we really saving much by putting everyone to sleep?"

"If it was really everyone, yes. But even Pat doesn't think that's a good idea. I know you don't!"

Kit nodded along. "If it wasn't for the time delay, we could do it. Or if... Garrick would let Forerunner do the mission without us. If I convince him to change his mind, could you do all of this without us, Forerunner?"

"Assuming an ideal outcome, yes. But this is not a safe assumption—the Surya system has many hazards. Even if no natural difficulties present themselves and the hardware works entirely as designed, there is much we do not know about Ravana. In almost all cases, humans produce better outcomes when working with other humans."

The brush released Kit's tail, prompting her to lay onto her back instead. She rolled over, floating there in the soothing water. Then the brush started to spin again, producing a second wave of comfort and warmth.

"Crucially however, this mission requires a great majority of our spare resources. One of our complete fabricators will be required, along with all the valuable nuclear material from the Aether. To explain another way, the colonists of Mara will all die if this mission fails, regardless of whether they are aboard the rocket or not. Given that consideration, a manned expedition is preferable."

Kit gestured vaguely at the wall, where the sound had come. "You heard him. Worth the resources no matter what, since we don't get another option." She couldn't exactly look dignified while floating on her back, but she at least met their eyes. "I want the crew to be awake, at their normal capacity. 80% templates. If that means we have to make it bigger, do it."

She sat up, or tried. The brush behind her held her down too tight for her to escape while it was still working. But the chair moved when she did, retracting lower to keep her near the brush. "If we succeed, it doesn't matter how expensive the mission was. We need to win the first time, no matter what it costs."

Neither seemed particularly happy with her suggestion. But in the end, Kit was the Director. When it came time to make critical design decisions, Forerunner would take her word. Even if that meant some unhappy colonists. 

No stasis, and no bringing Remedial along for the flight. Somehow, she didn't think they'd find room for a hot tub on the launch vehicle.