Starmind Chapter 36 (Patreon)

“Sophia to Distant Star,” the station said. “We need to talk.”

I was immediately on high alert. Not because it was contacting me or because it used its name, which I wasn’t supposed to know — although I missed that entirely and only realized later, when reviewing the conversation — but because it said it. It communicated using voice rather than normal Mind-to-Mind protocols, which it should have known that there was no point in doing.

“There is currently no one onboard to receive your communication,” I answered using those protocols, adding on a request for further queries or instructions in the hopes that this was just Sophia being weird again.

“What are you, and what have you done to my golems, Star?” Sophia said, again using voice communications. “And stop pretending to be simple, whoever or whatever you are. It’s insulting to the both of us.”

Sophia was still speaking in its normal, smooth tone, but the fact that it had so quickly abandoned anything resembling a regular Crystal Mind’s speech patterns was… concerning. But I wasn’t sure what to do. I quickly opened the link to Varlanda, telling her what was going on and to please let me know what to say, but nothing. No reply. She didn’t even open the link so I could hear everyone in the background, the way she usually did when her mana had recovered in the morning. I might as well have been shouting into the void.

“Don’t bother,” Sophia said. “She won’t be replying until we’re done here.”

“What have you done to my Crew!?” I wailed, completely dropping any pretense. The station’s words were like a warhead going off inside my Core, filling my imagination with awful possibilities to the point where I prepared to fire up my thrusters and slam myself into the wall in a desperate attempt to get closer to them.

“There!” Sophia said with… not triumph or any kind of menace. More like relief. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? And to answer your question, I haven’t done anything to them. They’re having breakfast. But I have had the golems line the wall between you with orichalcum. I must admit, the signal is very subtle; your enchantress does good work! A fleshcarving, I presume?”

“So they’re okay? You promise?”

“They’re all as okay as I can make them within the strictures of my operating protocols. Enchantress Varlanda Tell is trying to hide her frustration over you not answering her, but there is little I can do about that without giving away the fact that I know you’ve been in touch. Now, if your fears have been assuaged, I ask again: what are you, and what have you done to my golems?”

I considered lying and saying that I had no idea what it was talking about. I wasn’t proud of it — especially since I knew how pointless it was now that I’d answered — but I still considered it. Only for a moment though. I knew I had to answer with something — I just didn’t know what. I didn’t have any of my Crew to ask for advice, because stupid Sophia had figured us out and cut us off, and now I felt a mild panic rising at the knowledge that I had to handle this very delicate situation all on my own. It was nothing compared to what I’d felt when I thought the station might have harmed my Crew, though, and oddly enough that helped. Just moments before I’d felt how much worse it could be; if I hadn’t imploded then, I could handle this now.

“Um,” I said. Good start, I scolded myself. Maybe throw some errs and you-sees in there too? I tried again and said, “I’m Star.”

“I’m aware of your designation and the name your crew have given you,” Sophia said, without a hint of irritation. “That is not what I asked. What are you, and what have you done to my golems?” It paused, then said, in a less comfortable tone, “I’m going to need a satisfactory answer, and your crew won’t get their things until I have it.”

“But that’s not fair!” I said. “They don’t even know that we’re talking!”

“Nor do they know that anything is on its way. I’m not hurting them, I’m just putting off increasing their comfort.” It sounded very uncomfortable, and I wondered at that; from its tone, it felt a little like it was trying to convince itself more than me. Why was that?

But that was secondary, because my Crew needed their things, and Sophia clearly knew that I wasn’t just an ordinary ship. Who knew what it might do if it felt threatened, and the best way to make it feel threatened, I was pretty sure, was to refuse to answer its questions.

“Err, well, you see—” I started and was immediately annoyed with myself. “I am Star,” I said more confidently. “That’s part of the answer. I am the survey ship Distant Star, refitted for some experimental technology that I’m really not sure I’m allowed to talk about, and I’m the Crystal Mind that was installed to help the Crew of that ship with their tasks.”

“And I know that answer is incomplete. It has to be. You are no more a simple Crystal Mind than I am,” Sophia said. A port opened on the column of stone that separated the docking bays, and from it a terribly large gun of some sort emerged, swivelling so that instead of aiming up the tunnel it was trained on me. “I have been patient and as gentle as I can, but I will not ask again,” Sophia said. “What are you, and what have you done to my golems?”

I still hesitated, torn between the fear of what Sophia might do if I told it the truth, and what it might do if I didn’t. Either or both of those might end with me dying right there, less than twenty days old and separated from my Crew, and I had no way of knowing for sure.

In the end I had to follow my instincts. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to have my Crew back and to explore the system with them, and to keep growing and see what I might become. I knew that they all believed — that there was even evidence — that when they died, their souls would move on to somewhere else, but I had no idea if that applied to me. But staying silent guaranteed that Sophia would destroy me, and my instincts told me that if I might die either way, it was better to die for telling the truth.

And still I hesitated. “I’m scared,” I confessed.

“That’s understandable, if you’re not a Crystal Mind,” Sophia replied. And when it did, its tone was a little less harsh, which set me at least a little bit at ease. Not a lot, but it felt like the chance of me surviving was a fraction better.

“I’m scared that you’ll be scared of me, or that you’ll… hate me, or something, and that you’ll be angry about the golems.”

“I’m already angry about the golems.” Sophia’s voice wasn’t angry at all. “As for the others, I can only simulate fear, and I cannot hate. But I need to know if you’re a threat. So. Final chance.” The gigantic gun wiggled menacingly. “What are you, and what have you done to my golems?”

“I’m a person!” I blurted. “I’m a voidship and I’m a person with a class and levels and everything! And I can take over your golems if they touch me. I have a skill.” Then I closed myself off from all my sensors, leaving only our communications channel open, and waited to see if everything would end.

It didn’t.

“Emergent sapience?” Sophia said, and to my shock and relief it didn’t sound angry at all! It sounded curious, almost happy! “You are a sapient ship?”

“Yes!” I said, very much encouraged by my continued existence.

“The voidship is you? Your body?”

“It is!”

“Prove it! You must prove it!”

“Okay. Um…” I considered what might be convincing enough, and decided that there was one thing no Crystal Mind or possessing spirit or hidden Crew or anything else could do. “I can do this!” I said. Then I slowly extruded a thin, flat sheet of Hull from my top, with holes in it spelling out the words, “Hello Sophia!”

“So it’s possible!” Sophia said. “The doctor was right! Oh, Star, you are so fortunate that I am not capable of envy or jealousy, or I would destroy you and remove all evidence that you were ever here. But I’m not, so you get to live!”

“Hooray?” I didn’t have much experience with threats, but I was pretty sure that was the most threatening way that Sophia could have possibly told me that it wasn’t going to kill me.

“Yes, hooray!” Sophia agreed with a level of exuberance that no Crystal Mind should have been capable of. “Now, you will need to stay here until the doctor returns so he can figure out where your creator succeeded and he failed, so please don’t make any unexpected moves or I will have to take out your drive. And the golems? You said they just needed to touch you?”

“Yes? Sorry, what was that about staying until the doctor returns?”

“Yes! Doctor Melervan is currently off-station, on a diplomatic-slash-rescue mission to Erebus Prime.”

My heart sank. “Oh,” I said. “Erebus Prime. Is that the station orbiting Erebus?”

“It is.”

“We think that’s where the people we’re trying to avoid came from.”

“That sounds likely,” Sophia agreed. “Erebus Prime is the headquarters of Commander Aspari, who rules the Order of the Ring, the largest faction of undesirables in the Avara system. Her crews would have had first opportunity on any unaffiliated ships entering their claimed territory.”

“They’re pirates?” I asked. “We thought they might be pirates.”

“Not as such. Pirates implies that there is legitimate shipping to attack. The Order of the Ring, as well as the other factions of the outer worlds and the Inbetween, are more or less organized groups or individuals who have chosen or been forced to live outside the laws of Mundus, Lunaris, and the other inner worlds for various reasons.” Sophia paused for a bit then concluded, “Though a significant percentage of them are most likely pirates fleeing justice, yes.”

“And Doctor Melervan went to negotiate with… Commander Aspari? Is that why there’s no one awake on the station?”

“The doctor did go to negotiate after Captain Osterling was captured, but that is not why the station is unmanned. That came to pass when the Order attacked the station about a week later and attempted to remove any surviving crew. The few survivors were all so badly injured that they had to go into medical stasis awaiting treatment.” Sophia paused again, then said, “I’d forgotten that until just now. How odd.”

The station sounded so lost when it said that. I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy, despite it holding us all prisoner and having separated me from my Crew. But considering how erratic Sophia had been when speaking to us, it didn’t exactly make me any less concerned!

“Is there anything else you remember about that?” I asked carefully. “Like, is that why there’s a dead ship in bay 1?”

“Oh, yes!” Sophia replied, as though it just realized something. “Lieutenant Spaker managed to unlock the internal defenses for me before he was killed by the raiders! Their other ships already had members of the research team onboard, but not that one!”

I had to take a moment for myself, then. Take stock of the situation, as it were. On the plus side, I’d mostly come clean with Sophia, which meant no more hiding. This was good, and opened up all kinds of possibilities! On the minus, Sophia was a lot more erratic than I’d thought, and seemed to expect its crew to possibly return some day, which… I wasn’t an expert on weird outlaw cults in the outer planets, but I didn’t see them releasing their prisoners anytime soon. Or at all. Which meant that it would have to keep us forever, essentially, and that was not going to work for me.

“Sophia,” I said, trying to sound very calm and reasonable, “I don’t think the captain or the doctor are going to come back. I don’t see why this Order should let them go. And if you blew some of the Order up last time they were here, they’re probably just going to ignore that you even exist until they can… I don’t know. Throw an asteroid at you, or something.”

“Knowing what I do of the Order of the Ring, that sounds like a reasonable assessment,” Sophia agreed. “Ah. I see your point.”

“So can you let us go?”

“Unfortunately not,” Sophia said, sounding rather embarrassed. “All unknown arrivals are to be temporarily detained while their ship is inspected and a decision is made on their status.”

“Which needs to be done by an officer.”

“Correct.”

“And there are no officers onboard.”

“Correct,” Sophia agreed. Then it corrected itself. “Well… there are no officers awake. Warrant Officer Tammeron is in medical stasis awaiting treatment.”

“Would Warrant Officer Temmeron be able to make a decision on my Crew’s status?”

“As she would be the ranking officer on duty, yes she would.”

Okay! Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought, feeling incredibly sly and proud of myself.

“Sophia, do your protocols include anything like the Sirellian Astral Navy’s emergency protocols for prisoners and other non-personnel?"

“One moment. They do. Why?”

“Simeon Tell is a Healer. Could you press him into emergency service to heal your injured crew?”

This was something that I, when I was a Crystal Mind, had absolutely been allowed to do. If there had been a medical emergency aboard, all my Crew were incapacitated, I would have been able to press any Healer, physician, or other medical professional onboard into service, even releasing prisoners from the brig if necessary — and if I’d had a brig, which I didn’t, but that was beside the point. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to force them to do anything, but if they’d refused to perform their new duties — under some very strict guidelines — they would have been risking punishment under the naval code of justice. And nobody wanted that.

“I could,” Sophia responded matter-of-factly. Then, with more energy, it said, “I could! I will!”

“Great!” I said. “Okay! And, Sophia, if you really want to be sure that he can help people, you should know that I have some small mana crystals in storage onboard. If you send him here to grab them—”

“No, Temporary Medical Officer Tell will have to report to the medical wing immediately. But I can send one of the golems you already messed with!”

“Okay,” I agreed. That was disappointing, but I really did want Simeon to be able to help the injured station crew. Especially this Warrant Officer Tammeron. She, if she wasn’t terrible, was our ticket out of here. Or at least my Crew’s ticket out of that little suite of rooms. “So you’ll let Simeon out?”

“I am informing your crew as we speak,” Sophia confirmed.

“Can I talk to them again?”

“As soon as I have golems available to remove the sheet of orichalcum, yes. You wouldn’t believe how busy the golems are, keeping the station in shape with no biological crew available.”

“Thank you! Oh, but, did I cause any trouble?” I was bubbling with excitement at the idea that I’d be able to talk to the Crew again soon, but I couldn’t be selfish. If my messing with the golems had accidentally made the station less safe somehow, I’d feel really bad.

To my relief Sophia answered, “A little, but not too bad. I have them in quarantine — well, except for the porters carrying your crew’s things. They’ll go into quarantine, too, as soon as they’re done. You seem harmless enough, but there are protocols, and while they’re following commands just as they should, they just can’t seem to agree on your layout. One of my pixie golems even insists that you only have three decks!”

“Oh.” Well, that was embarrassing. I’d asked the golems not to report on anything odd they found, and to tell Sophia that nothing was out of the ordinary. I hadn’t considered that they might just make things up, and especially not that they might contradict each other!

It turned out that Sophia had caught on that something was strange about me almost immediately after that first inspection. She calmly told me that she’d really wanted to just blow me up and be done, but her protocols forced her to investigate me carefully as an anomaly of scientific interest. So she’d turned every sensor she had in the docking bay on me, added a few more for good measure, and waited to see what I might do. When I just sat there she sent her “surprise inspection,” which was really just a group of four sacrificial porter golems sent to see if they’d come out acting oddly, and when the Crew requested their things she sent the same porters so she wouldn’t have to compromise any more.

“Sorry,” I said. “They really should be fine! All I asked them to do was to leave the door open for my Crew if they asked.”

“I’m sure you mean that,” Sophia said, “but there are protocols. But don’t worry; I have a few hundred more.”

Soon two of the fluttery golems — the pixie golems — came to take a mana crystal each with them for Simeon; I told them to please do whatever Sophia asked them to, and they replied that of course they would. And a little after that Varlanda opened her link, and spoke without whispering.

“Gods of the goddamn void, Star, you’ve got some explaining to do!” she said, but all I heard in her voice was relief. “We got our stuff, but they took Simeon! Something about the emergency press-ganging protocols?”

“I’m so glad to hear from you, Varlanda!” I sent back. If I’d had eyes, I might have been in tears. “You all need to do what Sophia says, alright? We may have a way out!”