Starmind Chapter 31 (Patreon)

While we waited to hear from our host again we weren’t entirely idle. We couldn’t power up the drive or the reactor — we didn’t want to change anything that the station would be likely to detect — but there was no reason for me to use any less mana than I had been. I’d been giving the thrusters everything they could take to keep them hot and ready, and now all the mana I wasn’t using went into my Development Matrix, and had since I powered down the drive. That meant that, by the time anything happened, I only had a few hours left on Maximum Mana Regeneration I! And yes, sure, the situation wasn’t great, but I was really looking forward to that!

And for the Crew there was almost always something to do. After some discussion, Temeri decided that we should prioritize the Phase-Disruption Field Generator, as well as another Mana Condensation Matrix. We all agreed that we’d want them both soon enough, anyway. That kept both Bekeri and Varlanda busy. Not only did the field generator need lots and lots and lots of special parts that only the Teletic Fabricator could produce, but some of them would need Varlanda to etch little enchantments into them — once she was done with the Mana Condensation Matrix, of course.

While they worked on their individual tasks, Harvin did what he usually did: watching for minds. The difference was that now he was hyper-focused on the rock instead of the surrounding void, trying to find any trace of thought within the nearest several miles of us. He came up with absolutely nothing, but it was worth a shot, I thought.

And that left Temeri and Simeon. Temeri did what she usually did when we weren’t in immediate danger: she planned. She planned, and she planned, and she planned, considering any number of what-ifs and agonizing over the best course of action for each. Or at least, that was what she tried to do. I don’t think she got much done, because Simeon had other plans.

Simeon was the only member of the Crew who didn’t really have any specific tasks to do as we waited. He’d done all the inventory he could, and I took care of making sure that all the life-sustaining systems were working as they should. That freed Simeon up to worry about his captain, and so he did. Very insistently.

After Varlanda, Bekeri, and Harvin all left the rec room, Temeri stayed. She had her slate with her already, and sat down to work as Simeon cleaned up. But when Simeon was done, he didn't leave. Instead he sat down across the table from her, folded his hands, and said, “Captain, we need to talk.”

“What do you need, Tell?” she asked without looking up.

“I need you and I to have a conversation. In my capacity as Healer.”

Temeri’s expression didn't change, but her stylus stopped. “I’m perfectly healthy,” she said without looking at him.

“Captain, we both know that's not entirely correct.”

“You can use any diagnostic spell you want, or stick me in the rejuvenation field for a day. We both know it won't make any difference.”

“And we both know that's not what I'm talking about,” Simeon said patiently. “We’re having this conversation. The only question is, can I have it with Captain Carlon? Or do I need to invoke my power as chief medical officer of this vessel, temporarily relieve you of duty, and have it with Temeri?”

That made Temeri look up, but she didn't look surprised or angry. Just tired.

“You know the others would go along with it,” Simeon continued. “We’re all worried about you. About Temeri as much as Captain Carlon.”

“Gods damn you, Tell,” Temeri sighed. She still didn't look or sound angry. Not sad, either. Just tired. “I shouldn’t have let Star talk me into leaving the bridge. Fine. Talk.”

I knew she'd directed that to Simeon, but I decided it was as good a time as any for me to speak up. “Um,” I said, “this sounds like maybe you’d want some privacy. Should I…?”

“No, Star,” Temeri said, and Simeon raised his eyebrows. “I don’t see the point in keeping anything from you. So? You wanted to talk, Tell. Talk.”

“Thank you,” Simeon said, with real gratitude. He thought for a moment before continuing. “It’s been, what? A week since we talked last? A lot has happened in that week. How are you doing?”

“My Healer is so concerned about my mental wellbeing that he's just threatened to relieve me of duty. How do you think I’m doing?”

“Fair. We both know that you’ve been under a lot of pressure.” Simeon paused and looked around. “You're sure that you don't mind Star hearing what we talk about? I need to bring up some things from our last conversation.”

“Yes,” Temeri sighed.

“Okay. Well, keeping in mind the feelings of inadequacy that you brought up the last time we talked: two nights ago, in the bath, you said that it was nice to have a problem to work on with a right answer. One that you could solve, and be done with.”

“What about it?”

“Well, first of all, I want to apologize. I shouldn’t have aired my thoughts about that in front of the rest of the crew the way I did.”

“It’s fine, Tell. If you feel that you need my forgiveness, you have it.”

“Thank you. With that said, would I be right in saying that you feel like you don’t do much on this ship?”

Temeri frowned and turned her face away. “It’s not that I don’t ‘feel like’ I don’t do much. It’s a fact.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Everyone on this crew has an essential role but me. Alder keeps an eye out for threats. Bekeri and your sister are actively improving the ship — Star, I mean. No offense intended, Star.”

I was so engrossed in their conversation that I almost didn’t catch her addressing me. Especially when I didn’t think there was any reason for me to weigh in. “I am a ship, though!” I replied, nonplussed. “I’m your ship! Why would that offend me?”

“Because—” she started, but she seemed to change her mind. “No, you know what? You’re right, Star. Never mind. And you, Tell. Without you we’d all be dead in the first place, and even when you don’t need to perform your duty as Healer you keep an eye on stores and help keep morale up with your cooking. Which, I know you don’t have much to work with, but I have no idea how you manage the things you do.”

“Lifelong interest and a good teacher in my childhood,” Simeon said with a little smile. “But let’s not get off topic. I can’t help but note that most of what you brought up are things one might point at and say, ‘he or she did that’. Even in Alder’s case we can put any bogeys he finds on the board. So, returning to what you said in the pool: is it possible that you feel that only concrete accomplishments count as ‘doing something’?”

“If I say yes, will you drop it and let me get back to work?”

“What are you working on?”

Temeri looked away from him, first to her slate, then to the wall. Then she muttered something so low that even I barely heard.

“What was that, Captain?” Simeon asked. 

“Defensive plan!” she repeated, loud enough for him to hear.

“A defensive plan? For what?”

“Star’s new layout. Sight lines, lanes of fire, placements for each of you considering your strengths and abilities. Variations depending on if they breach the docking port or the hull in various places.”

“Concrete things.”

Temeri sighed. “If that’s how you want to see it.”

“And if Star changes her layout?”

“Then I’ll update the plans.”

“Okay,” Simeon said, nodding. “Fair enough. But speaking of plans. In the last twenty-four hours, you conceived of and executed a plan that, as I see it, keeps us safe from the unknown hostiles indefinitely.”

“Don’t,” Temeri whispered.

“You did. The plan played out just as we hoped. We’re hidden from visuals, thermals, mana, and divination.”

“And we’re at the mercy of some unknown entity. We don’t even know if it’s sapient or a faulty Crystal Mind! It could destroy us—”

Simeon interrupted her. “Do we know that?”

“It threatened—”

“It did. But do we know that it can go through with those threats? We haven’t seen any turrets or other weapons. All we know is that it closed off the shaft behind us. It hasn’t actually done anything to try and harm us. Just words.”

“But we don’t know what it can do!” Temeri said hotly. “It sealed a five-hundred foot wide shaft in seconds! For all we know it has complete control of this rock! What if it’s like—?”

She suddenly fell silent, her face going blank.

“Captain,” Simeon said, and his voice was both firm and gentle, “do you still fear Star?”

At those words, my entire attention was on Temeri and Simeon. There may as well have been nothing at all outside of that rec room. Everything I was focused in on Temeri, and time moved to an agonizing crawl as I waited for her answer. A second before Simeon asked I hadn’t even considered the possibility — I thought we were beyond that — but now I was sure that any answer except one would destroy me.

After an eternity, which was probably only a second to someone who didn’t have quite so much attention to focus as I did, Temeri said, “No,” and my world fell back into order. “No, I don’t fear her anymore. Not her as an individual. But the concept of her terrifies me. She was built for research and science, with a crew chosen for their excellence in those roles. What if the same thing happened to a warship? If it happened to any of the patrol ships I’ve served on or commanded? What if it happened to this station? What if this is some kind of prison or black site, and all the entity controlling it cares about is collecting as many prisoners as it possibly can?”

Simeon nodded slowly. “Yeah, I can see your concern.”

“And I took us in here. I put us in its power. We can’t fight. We can’t escape. Our situation is better in some ways, and infinitely worse in those that matter most. That successful plan of mine may have killed us, Tell, and there is nothing I can do to fix it.”

Simeon was silent for a long while before he sighed and said, “Perhaps. But… look, matters of the mind aren't my speciality. I’m sure there's a way I’m supposed to spin this, but can I just tell you what I think? Not as your Healer, but just as a person sharing this situation with you?”

Temeri shrugged.

“I think I’d rather be in here than out there dodging bogeys, or drifting through the void with no certainty of how long or miserable or even survivable our return trip to Mundus might be. I think that no matter how uncertain the situation is, odds are that we're in a better position than we were — whoever or whatever our host is. All they’ve done is to take reasonable precautions. And I know that you, Captain, are a valuable member of this crew. Nobody looks at what you produce. We look to you to take what we know, put it all together, and tell us what we’ll do next. And you know what? We may not always have agreed with your methods, but we’re alive, and we’re free. If not for you, that gunship would have taken us. I’m sure of it. It would have killed us on its first attack run, and if anyone survived, we would have been killed or taken captive when they inevitably boarded us. If not for you, we would have had to escape to the deep void when that squadron came after us, and as amazing as Star is… gods only know how that would have ended.

“And, Temeri,” Simeon said, and when he used her name Temeri turned her face to look at him again, “you don’t have to contribute to be worth our attention, or our friendship. And I do hope that we can be friends. I suspect that we’ll be spending a long time together and I, for one, would very much prefer for us all to be comfortable with each other. When you were first concerned about Star, you talked to us. You can still do that. There’s no reason for you to feel alone.”

Without waiting for a response, Simeon slowly stood and made his way toward the access tube. He had his hands on the ladder when Temeri spoke up.

“Simeon,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear. Not “Healer” or “Tell.” Just “Simeon.”

Simeon stopped and turned around. “Yes?”

“I’m not feeling a whole lot better. But I’ll think about what you said.”

“That’s a partial success, then. I’ll take it.”

“And I think we should talk again tomorrow, if we can.”

“Great. I’ll remind you if you don’t find me before lunch.”

With that Simeon climbed down to the work deck, continuing to the cargo hold. “What’ll you do now?” I asked him curiously. I really wanted to ask about his conversation with Temeri, but even if I’d been allowed to listen it still felt too private to discuss.

“I don’t actually know,” he said, waving to his sister and Bekeri through the open door of the artifice bay. “I just thought I should leave the captain alone for a while.”

In the rec room, Temeri sat with her slate in her hands, but she wasn’t scrolling. Nor was she writing anything, and when I looked closer, her eyes weren’t even moving. She sat like that for several minutes before she suddenly sent the slate skidding a few feet across the table and said, “Star, you can make simple items out of hull material, right?”

“I can!” I said excitedly. “Or out of any simple materials, really, as long as I can extrude them from an existing part of me.”

“Great. Here’s what I need—”

*

Getting what Temeri needed done only took a few moments. They were mostly simple shapes, after all, and made out of simple materials. The important thing was to get the dimensions and weights right.

“Are you sure that this is safe?” I asked, feeling a little bit anxious as she laid down on the bench I’d just made for her, with a bar carrying almost eighty pounds right above her head.

“I’m sure you must have some memories of me exercising among what you got from me,” she said, gripping the bar. “It’s perfectly safe. Mostly.”

“Mostly! Shouldn’t you have someone to watch you while you do this?”

“I do. You’re here, aren’t you? And if anything happens you can either teleport the bar away, or just reduce the gravity to null. Besides, this—” she slapped the bar, “is just for warmup.”

She had a hundred and fifty pounds on that bar at the end, and I watched her super carefully, ready to drop the gravity at a moment’s notice if she slipped or couldn’t press the bar back up. And then, when I thought she was done, she put the bar on the floor and started lifting it off the ground, all the way to her neck. She did all kinds of exercises with that bar, sweating so much that I had to teleport it away so she wouldn’t slip on the floor. By the end of it she was hunched over on the bench, breathing so hard she could barely speak, but she was smiling nearly as wide as she had when no one could see her in the bath.

Then she said, “Gods, I’m going to be paying for that over the next few days! I think I nearly killed myself. Thanks, Star! I really needed that.”

I had absolutely no idea what to say to that, other than to tell her to stay right where she was, and to send Simeon up to check that she was okay; I thought she might have hit her head somehow and I’d missed it.

They both laughed when Simeon got up there, for some reason.

*

At 1310 hours, shortly after the crew had finished their lunch, our host contacted us again. It was a simply message, no voice, requesting a muster roll. They also took the time to again threaten us with lethal force if we failed to comply or didn’t provide a full and accurate roll.

“Do as they ask, Star,” Temeri said when I told her. “Give them the muster roll. Don’t mention yourself. You never mustered onto this ship, so we’re following their instructions to the letter.”

I wasn’t entirely comfortable, since it felt dishonest not to mention that I was a whole person, just not Crew. But whoever they were, they’d detained us, so there was no reason for us to volunteer anything they didn’t ask for. Besides, the Crew were all really uncomfortable about anyone finding out about me, and that was more important to me than telling the truth to someone who might turn out to be unfriendly!

It took less than a minute for the next message. This time it was the voice. It said, “Captain Temeri Carlon, Artificer Bekeri, Diviner Harvin Alder, Healer Simeon Tell, Enchantress Varlanda Tell. Prepare your ship for inspection, then disembark for temporary detention.”

“Disembark?!” I practically screamed the word at the Crew, so intense that Harvin squeezed his eyes shut and Simeon flinched. “No! No, you can’t—!”

“Star, please!” Temeri — no, Captain Carlon — said firmly. “Transmit the following: On whose authority?”

“Okay,” I said. I was scared, and a little hurt by how brusque she’d been, but I did as she asked. I sent her question to the station, which replied instantly, still in that same warm, friendly voice.

“On my own damn authority. We’re far, far from Mundus, Captain! The docking bay is pressurized and kept at a comfortable temperature; carry no weapons or equipment beyond basic clothing. You have ten minutes to comply. Failure to comply within the set time will be met with lethal force. I’d really rather not. Please don’t make me. Your ten minutes begin now.”

The channel fell silent and idle.

“Star,” Temeri said softly. “Threat assessment?”

“Um… I didn’t want to tell you before, but there’s a ship on one of the other landing pads with its bridge blown out. So, pretty severe, I’d say. But there must be something we can do!”

“No, Star. Not in ten minutes, there isn’t.” Temeri took a deep breath, and every trace of emotion disappeared from her face. “Crew, you heard them. Prepare to disembark.”