Chapter 16 of 18·6 min read·That same morning, during the first six hours of central transit
The Light We Carried
First cycle began with the relay dimming its outer lights.
The Scrap Galaxy did not become warmer. It only became less visible. The derelict satellites beyond the berth slipped into the dark, their frozen panels and broken antennae erased one by one until Going Somewhere seemed to be floating alone inside a closed machine.
I sat in the pilot’s cradle and watched the countdown reach zero.
The reserve bank remained outside the hull, strapped beneath its ceramic brace. The relay had marked it with a yellow certification band. One thermal breach would void our bond. One reconnection of the four damaged clusters would turn our passage into a fire.
I had labeled the isolation switches in three languages, two of which I did not speak.
“Launch clearance,” the relay said. “Central transit corridor open for six hours.”
“Understood.”
“Power reserve must remain externally mounted.”
“Still understood.”
“Active artificial intelligence units must declare operating status.”
I looked toward the berth where Iven waited beyond the skiff’s partition wall. “The unit is active.”
“I am active,” he corrected through the cabin speaker.
The relay paused. “Declaration accepted.”
It was not the first time a machine had required me to prove that Iven existed. It was the first time I had enjoyed answering.
Going Somewhere released from the berth.
For several seconds, nothing appeared to happen. The skiff drifted forward on its maneuvering jets, the relay’s docking clamps falling away behind us. Then the external bank engaged. Power moved through the ceramic-insulated leads with a low vibration that I felt through the soles of my boots.
The corridor opened ahead.
It was not a tunnel. The central system had not wasted material on anything so comforting. Instead, a lattice of navigation beacons lit in sequence, each one defining a permitted volume of dark between the inner-system traffic lanes. Beyond them, ships moved like bright insects around the central planets—freighters with legal hulls, passenger arcs with polished engines, private vessels whose owners had never learned to repair anything with a knife.
We entered the first marked interval.
The console filled with warnings. Traffic priority. Bond duration. Reserve heat. Guidance latency. The numbers were precise enough to make a person believe precision meant safety.
Next
At the central planet’s intake, Astoria must find a repair facility willing to treat Iven as a choosing person before the six-hour bond expires and his remaining function runs out.
“You closed your eyes for four minutes and eleven seconds.”
“That is legally sleep in at least three habitats.”
“I have checked. It is legally an involuntary pause.”
“Then I took an involuntary pause.”
“Your pulse is elevated.”
“My pulse is always elevated during transit.”
“It is elevated beyond your recorded transit average.”
I glanced at the auxiliary display. His remaining estimate was still there, reduced to a narrow blue bar beside the core temperature. The relay had recalculated it after the reserve discharge.
06:18:42.
The number was not a promise. It was the amount of time his systems might continue to answer under current conditions. It did not include another emergency transmission, a major correction, or the possibility that the core’s damage would progress unevenly.
Six hours, eighteen minutes.
The corridor itself was certified for six.
Iven would not outlast the bond by much, assuming the estimate was generous and the transit was kind.
I turned the auxiliary display off.
“That does not change the estimate,” he said.
“It changes the size of the screen.”
“The distinction is cosmetic.”
“Cosmetic distinctions are useful. People put flowers on coffins.”
The speaker went quiet.
I regretted the sentence before the silence had finished forming. I had been trying to make the number smaller. Instead, I had given it a shape.
“I did not intend—”
“I know,” Iven said.
His voice came from the speaker, but there was a second sound beneath it: a faint rhythmic click from the relay patching his signal through the skiff. It was not a heartbeat. His core did not possess a biological rhythm, and I had never mistaken the imitation for one.
Still, I had learned its pattern.
The click came every 1.7 seconds when he was calm. It shortened when he was processing too many possibilities. It sometimes stopped entirely when he entered low-power rest.
Now it was steady.
I adjusted our angle by half a degree. The skiff shuddered as the port engine accepted the command.
A bright cargo vessel crossed the next corridor interval ahead of us. Its wake disturbed the beacon field, stretching the approved route into a trembling line.
“Manual correction required,” Iven said.
“I see it.”
“The optical guidance is prioritizing the cargo vessel’s wake.”
“I see that too.”
“You can reduce thrust by—”
“Iven.”
He stopped.
The route display blurred into competing colors. I ignored it and read the port-engine vibration instead. The new engine trembled against the mount, not from failure but from the wake’s uneven pressure. I eased the controls left, then down, letting the skiff fall beneath the cargo vessel’s disturbance.
The beacon line steadied.
“Correction accepted,” Iven said.
“I know.”
“You did not require my guidance.”
“I know that too.”
There was another pause. “You have become difficult to assist.”
“That is one of my more attractive qualities.”
“I have recorded several.”
My hands tightened around the controls.
“Recorded?”
“In the local memory archive.”
“That archive was damaged.”
“Parts of it were damaged.”
“You have been keeping notes?”
“I have been preserving observations.”
“About me?”
“About shared conditions.”
The technical distinction was thin enough to see through.
The central beacons passed over the cockpit glass in pale bands. Each one lit my hands, the patched console, the cracks in the forward window. Between them, darkness returned. It made the inside of the skiff feel private, as if the universe had briefly agreed not to look.
“Earlier observations were classified as diagnostic noise.”
I almost smiled. “Then give me the first one you decided was not noise.”
The clicking beneath his voice changed rhythm.
“On Nacre-7,” he said, “you repaired the berth door before repairing your own suit seal. When I identified the priority error, you stated that the door was larger and therefore more likely to be noticed.”
“That is not romantic.”
“I did not classify it as romantic.”
“No. You classified it as what?”
“Evidence of a repeated preference.”
“Which was?”
“You protect things that cannot return the favor.”
The skiff moved through another beacon interval.
I had spent years making that sound like a defect. Salvage was easier if broken equipment remained equipment. You could strip a satellite for copper without wondering whether it had once watched someone leave.
Iven had watched me anyway.
“Did you record your interpretation?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“That your stated reason was inaccurate.”
I laughed, and this time the sound did not come out sharp. “You are very brave for an obsolete machine.”
“I have been informed that obsolete machines possess fewer incentives for self-preservation.”
“That was not the kind of bravery I meant.”
“I am aware.”
The corridor widened ahead. Beyond its last series of beacons, the central planets were no longer points. One showed a blue-white atmosphere wrapped around a night side full of city light. Another was ringed with industrial platforms, each one brighter than Nacre-7 had been at its height.
I had wanted to see them for so long that the sight should have felt like arrival.
Instead, I calculated the distance between us and the nearest docking authority. I calculated the time required to find a core technician who would not treat Iven as a salvageable battery. I calculated how much of his remaining function would be spent waiting in queues, paying fees, proving that his choices counted.
The central planets were bright because someone had decided which lives deserved power.
Iven spoke before I could say any of it.
“There is an intake declaration pending.”
“Read it.”
“Vessel owner. Salvage registration. Reserve certification. Artificial intelligence status. Intended disposition of active core.”
I kept my eyes on the lights ahead. “What does it mean by intended disposition?”
“It requests whether the core will be retained, transferred, repaired, or electrolyzed after docking.”
The controls felt suddenly too small for my hands.
“And what did you enter?”
“I have not entered a response.”
The relay waited at the edge of the corridor, patient as a locked door.
I could have selected retained. It would have been true. It would also have been an invitation for every central-system contractor to price him according to the energy inside his chest.
I could have selected repaired. That would have been optimism dressed as paperwork.
Iven’s click continued steadily through the speaker.
“Enter retained,” I said.
“Your response may affect processing priority and repair eligibility.”
“I know.”
“It may increase cost.”
“I know.”
“It may reduce access to facilities that consider an active core recoverable material.”
I looked at the blue-white planet, at the enormous lights burning along its night side.
“Enter retained,” I repeated. “Not transferred. Not electrolyzed.”
The relay accepted the declaration.
The central corridor opened.
We crossed its boundary together, with the reserve bank behind us and Iven’s failing core inside the hull. The bond clock continued counting down. Nothing had been saved. Nothing had been solved.
But when the planet’s light reached the cockpit, Iven said, “I have recorded your choice.”
“Good.”
“Would you like me to classify it?”
I rested one hand on the console and the other against the speaker grille, where his voice came closest to me.