Starmind Chapter 50 (Patreon)

Same as last time, this is only very lightly edited. I appreciate any and all comments about typos and other mistakes!

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Drifting dark and silent through the void was a lot more fun than it might sound like. I had my Crew, of course, and they could make anything bearable, but that wasn’t all. For one, there was all the music! I had a lot of nice memories of music from the Crew, but besides what they’d done with drumming, whistling, and singing, I’d never actually heard music myself. Now I could bring up anything I could think of, and play it anywhere inside myself I wanted! I usually didn’t even need to, because at any given moment there would generally be at least two different pieces playing at different volumes. I’d known that the Crew all liked music, but now that they could they were listening almost all the time.

It was very nice, but a little confusing, too. Before I gave them the audio crystals they’d often wanted silence when they worked or relaxed, especially Harvin and Bekeri and especially when they were alone. Now they almost always had something in the background, even if only at a low volume.

I asked Simeon about it while he tended to the Hydroponic Growth Chamber. His first answer was that they were all trying to catch up with all the music they hadn’t been able to listen to since leaving Mundus. He was laughing a little while he told me that, though. Then he said that the real reason was that music just wasn’t the same as other sounds. A lot of people, he told me, could think better with the right music in the background, but it wasn’t like everyone could have an orchestra, or a quartet, or even a single musician playing for them all the time.

“This is a wonderful thing,” he told me, turning his audio crystal over and around in his hands. “There are rituals and enchantments that can reproduce a prepared piece of music, or a short speech, or something similar, but they’re very expensive. And, like I said, they can only reproduce one thing. This?” He laughed, holding the crystal up in front of his face. “This is an incredible luxury. I can’t imagine what we might be able to sell one for. And you can just… make them.”

“They don’t work outside me, though,” I pointed out. Temeri had the idea of giving one to Tammeron and her crew, so she’d tried taking one outside of me, but it had stopped playing as soon as it passed outside my hull.

“True. Which makes sense when you think about it. But still, like I said: an incredible luxury. And that’s why we’re all using them so much, and for music especially. The books are unbelievable, too! Not as much, since we’ve all had access to good libraries, but any book we can think of, right on our slates?” He sighed, which turned into a little laugh as he shook his head slowly, a huge smile on his face. “Amazing. You continue to amaze us.”

“That is very kind of you to say,” I replied, feeling all bright inside. “You know what I’ve been wondering, though?”

“What's that?”

“Is everything in there, or just everything you can think of?”

“Huh.” Simeon stopped working, and his face smoothed as he got a faraway look in his eyes. His hand went to his ear, thumb rubbing slowly along the curve of his jaw. “That's a very good question,” he said slowly. “I'm no philosopher, but… how could we ever know? We can’t look for something we don't know about, can we?”

“Nope. I have a registry, sort of, but it’s all things people have looked for.”

“Right…” Simeon kept rubbing. Then he just shrugged and smiled. “I guess we'll just have to look for more things, then. Maybe get a list from Sophia’s crew? I'm sure Avgash would love some new books.”

“Oh! Good idea! I’ll ask.”

I made sure that there were no Order ships between us and Sophia, then sent a quick request by tightbeam to see if there were any books the crew there were interested in, if they could just put together a list of book titles they remembered that they didn’t currently have. They couldn’t reply; I didn’t send our position and velocity just in case someone did intercept the message, so they wouldn’t know where we were when they were done. But once we were back I could get all those books for them and transfer them to Sophia. It would be the easiest thing, and it would add a bunch of books that my Crew would then have available to them. Good times were ahead for everybody!

While I did that Simeon went back to work, fiddling with some settings on the hydroponics and peering closely at the rooting substrate. It was interesting to watch, but I didn't really know what he was doing.

“How are the plants?” I asked.

“They should pop up any hour now,” he said, voice full of anticipation. Then he tapped the slate above the light fixture that formed the top of the Hydroponic Growth Chamber. “According to this thing, some of the generated seeds in each cluster have sprouted. Beans, eggplant, and snowberries, all of them!”

“That's wonderful! Is that why you’ve been staring at them for over an hour now?”

Simeon laughed. “It can’t have been an hour!”

“Well, not an hour straight, but you keep taking little breaks to watch the dirt for a few minutes.”

“Okay, that I can admit to. I’m just excited, I guess. We’ve got plenty of fresh food at the moment, but once these seeds sprout… I’m just looking forward to seeing that we can grow things ourselves. That we can have that during the long trip back to Mundus. Food’s important, you know?”

“I know,” I agreed solemnly. The first few weeks, when all there had been for the Crew to eat was basic nutrient paste, had been awful. They’d tried not to show how unhappy it made them, but I had too many senses to miss something like that once I knew what sad looked like. The flavor paste was an improvement for sure, but nothing made them quite as excited as when they found new food, and then when they got fresh food on Sophia. The idea that I could help give them food that actually made them smile, it was… it just made me so happy!

“How long until they're ready?” I asked as Simeon brushed gently at the soil over one of the many seed clusters.

“Couldn't tell you,” he replied, but he didn't seem worried. “Their growth is supposed to be optimized, but there's no indication of what that means in practice. But there's a patch here intended to be eaten as sprouts, so those should only take a few days. Honestly, I’m a little tempted to see if I can’t learn a verdancy ritual to help them along.”

“Can you do that? Isn’t your magic determined by your class?”

“Eh…” Simeon made a so-so, kind-of gesture with his hand. “To a large part, yes, but healing and general medical magic is life magic. Not that far off from druidic magic. It’s worth a shot, at least. And you know, I do have a huge advantage!”

“That you’re elf-blooded?”

“Huh? No!” he laughed. “You! You and your magical library! And I remember the name of one of my gram’s old tomes, one so basic that she let me and Vee read it. I think she hoped we’d follow in her footsteps.”

“Oh, she had all the flowers, didn’t she?” I asked as some memories bubbled up. Bright, happy, memories of Simeon and Varlanda, both tiny, running around inside a big glass structure full of all kinds of flowering plants.

“‘All the flowers’ is probably the right of it, yeah. Obviously, neither Vee nor I took after her, but we both got interested enough to put in the work and get mage classes.”

He fell silent for a moment, smiling softly as he got lost in some memory before finishing, “So! Salian Springfield’s The Aspiring Florimancer’s Primer. Do you have it?”

“Of course I do!” It was with great pleasure that I pulled the book out of wherever they were and sent it to his slate. “There you go. Ready to read!”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Simeon took another moment to look at the rooting substrate, where absolutely nothing was peeking up just yet, then straightened and said, “Might as well start reading. Will you let me know if anything breaks through the surface?”

“Of course!” I hadn’t cared so much about the plants themselves before. But now that I knew how excited Simeon was I was sure that I’d be checking constantly, and I was determined to let him know the first moment even a hint of green appeared!

While Simeon went to sickbay and lost himself in his new book, Harvin was deep, doing Harvin things. That mostly meant scanning for any hint of someone turning their attention to us, and I was helping.

Shortly before our surprisingly long visit to Sophia, we’d discovered that while I couldn’t feel other minds at all, not even Harvin’s when he was trying very hard to make me hear him, what I could do was to boost Harvin’s own sensitivity. We didn’t quite know how it worked, but as long as I was connected to him telepathically, like when I was talking to him directly, his ability to sense others out there in the void went way up. So we’d worked out a very simple way of accomplishing that without me disturbing him: I’d hum, very, very quietly. I barely did more than think about humming to him, really, and that was all it took. As long as I remembered to keep doing that, we had a huge advantage over other Diviners out there, and we were exploiting it for all that we were worth. Which was a lot, because my Crew were perfect and I was a very good ship.

Now, when trying to find other people out there, it made a huge difference if they were thinking about us, paying direct attention to us, or not bothered about us at all. While we were on Sophia, Harvin could detect all the people there from a mile or two no matter what they were thinking about, but figuring out what was on their minds took a lot of focus and effort on his part. Out in the void, with me helping, that range increased to thousands of miles; tens of thousands if they were thinking about us, and over a hundred thousand if they were actively focused on us, like if they’d found us on a sensor, or if another Diviner had detected us. And thanks to the shrouding ritual Harvin and Varlanda had set up—and the increased range from me helping—we had a very good chance of Harvin being able to detect another ship and figure out what the crew were thinking about long before they might be able to spot us. Not only that, but long before a Diviner onboard could even detect us, despite Harvin looking right at them, so to speak. In fact, we were relying on that so much that Harvin would be spending most of his time in his acceleration couch, taking long naps throughout the day so that we wouldn’t spend seven or eight hours of every ship’s day blind to minds searching for us.

I’d asked him if he wouldn’t get bored, but he promised that he wouldn’t. Though he did ask me to let him know when the others got together for a meal, and whenever Varlanda took a break. “It never gets boring,” he said, “but it can get kind of lonely.”

Two people who definitely weren’t lonely were Bekeri and Temeri. Bekeri had his hands full keeping the Teletic Fabricator running and building the Holistic Autolathe, and Temeri had appointed herself his assistant. Apparently she’d decided that she’d spent too much time making and revising plans of action that were likely to never be of use—many of which involved me, though she wouldn’t say how—and now that we were away from Sophia and Captain Tammeron she had a lot of free time on her hands. She’d decided that she may as well learn something useful.

“It’s become abundantly clear that I have far too much free time on my hands,” she’d told the Crew over their first breakfast in the void. “For that reason I’ll be shadowing all of you, off and on, to improve my practical understanding of each of your roles, and to hopefully pick up some new skills. Except for you of course, Harvin. I really don’t see how I could learn anything from you without making it impossible for you to do your job.”

“I mean… I could answer questions when I take a break?” he’d suggested, but Temeri didn’t like that at all.

“No, your breaks are your breaks. I think I know you well enough to say that you won’t take one unless you need it. Any questions I have can wait until we have real downtime again.”

“If you say so, Cap.” Harvin hadn’t sounded the least bit disappointed.

That day, our first full day in the void for many weeks, Temeri spent with Bekeri. She’d done that before. He didn’t seem to mind, and she really seemed to enjoy his artificing work, which probably played a part in her decision, too.

On a normal ship a lot of Bekeri’s time would have been taken up by going around inspecting all kinds of pipes and tubes and the devices they connected. But with me being the way I was, he didn’t need to do much of that at all. I could tell if something was wrong somewhere, and then I’d tell him and he’d go straight to it. Otherwise, he spent almost all of his duty time in the artifice bay or, the last several days, installing components in the Holistic Autolathe.

“With all due respect, Captain,” he told Temeri as she very carefully prepared to attach a little box of some sort to the inside of what would be the control panel of the autolathe, “you’re being too gentle. It’s not a kitten. Some components are delicate, and you must take your time assembling and installing them. This one is not. Just make sure the inputs and outputs are in the correct direction, and weld it in there.”

“But what if I—” Temeri objected before Bekeri cut her off.

“You won't. I’ve seen you handling that welding wand. You're a natural. You do better than many apprentices with months of experience. What you don’t do well is to relax.” He put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Just weld it in there. I wouldn't let you if I didn't trust that you can do it.”

“But what if I do a bad job, or break it?” Temeri said in a rush, before Bekeri could cut her off again.

“Then we’ll cut the welds, and ask Star to recycle the component. We’ll have to make a new one, and it will be a little longer before the Autolathe is ready. That’s all. Not ideal, but in no way a disaster. Go on, now.”

With a heavy sigh, and a look of intense concentration, Temeri got to it. After she’d finished she watched anxiously as Bekeri inspected her work. She didn’t relax until he declared, “There! A perfectly serviceable weld all around. A little wobbly—from nerves, I’d wager—and there’s some undercut—see here? Some pinholes, too, but that’s to be expected. Still far better than it has any right to be with your level of experience, and if I’m any judge it’ll last longer than the component itself. Well done, apprentice!”

Temeri hummed, a smile flashing onto her face. It wasn’t quite gone by the time Bekeri had turned around. “Apprentice?” she asked simply.

“I should be so lucky,” Bekeri said, returning her smile. “Now, let’s see how the Fabricator’s doing. The first of the Personal Force Field Generators should be just about done, and then we can fiddle with that while fabricating some more components.”

Those personal force fields had been a bit of a sore point between the two of them. Temeri had decided to prioritise them, just in case, and they took a long time to make; twenty hours or so, almost a whole ship’s day. Bekeri really wanted the Autolathe finished, and would have preferred to just keep making components, but Temeri was the captain after all, and if she said safety first, then he was a good enough naval officer to listen. He had managed to get her to compromise, though. They’d make a force field generator, and then they’d make a component, then another generator and so on there was a generator for each of the Crew.

To help make Bekeri feel a little better about the “lost time,” as he called it, I’d unlocked Basic Manufacturing Developments. It finished just that morning, and gave me a couple of—meaning two—new Development options. I’d started with the one that should make Bekeri happiest: Manufacturing Speed. I had the idea that it should make manufacturing and fabrication machines work faster, which should make him really perk up when I told him!

Manufacturing Efficiency was probably really great too. Who wouldn’t want more stuff for less materials? But we had more materials than time, so Speed it was.

Last, and in no way least, there was Varlanda. We weren’t currently making any new Matrices, with Bekeri working hard on finishing the Autolathe, and there was only so much maintenance to do. That left Varlanda with a lot of time to fill, and she wasn’t the type of person who’d just lay about and relax all day. So, to keep herself busy, she’d decided to unravel the mystery of just how I’d come to be the way I was, and how my special Matrices worked.

“They shouldn’t,” was her conclusion after her first full day of comparing schematics. She compared them to each other, to how my Crystal Mind Core Matrix had been designed, and to the most up-to-date and advanced texts she could pull out of my library. “None of these Matrices should do anything except convert mana to heat. Especially your Core!”

“Why not?” I asked curiously. I could pull up all kinds of reference texts on Crystal Matrix enchanting, but that didn’t mean that I understood them.

“They just shouldn’t!” she replied, leaning back against the wall of the Crystal Chamber and running her fingertips along her scalp. “Sure, the scripts are fine, and they connect to each other, but the effect of those connections shouldn’t be anything except a very hot crystalline mass. Except your Core, which should have gone off like a poorly considered fireball the moment the changes were made. It’s— okay, basically, most of the scripts aren’t designed to accept the kinds of inputs they’re getting. It’s like if you tried to make nutrient paste with oil instead of water. Hells, not even oil! Quicksilver! It just wouldn’t work, would it?”

I was absolutely horrified by the mere suggestion. “Varlanda!” I said seriously. “Quicksilver is terrible for you! And that much oil would go right through you!”

“Right! You wouldn’t get anything like what you want, and the machine would probably break down, wouldn’t it? That’s what should be happening with these scripts. They should be trying to modify the inputs, failing horribly, and maybe outputting something but most definitely wasting most of the mana and burning themselves out in the process. And yet, these are some of the most mana efficient Matrices I’ve ever seen! I’m honestly starting to get onboard with Harv’s little god idea, because I can’t explain it any other way. At least then I can say that they work because you want them to, and leave it at that.”

“Will you? Leave it at that, I mean?”

She laughed at that. “Not a chance. It’s incredibly frustrating, but it’s also the most interesting problem I’ve worked on since… well, since your Core. Even if you are a goddess of some sort, there’s got to be something I’m not seeing, and I won’t stop twisting and turning it until I find the right perspective.”

Varlanda kept herself very busy until we reached our next manoeuvre. She swore a lot, too.