The diagnostic lead connected, and Iven’s imitation of a heartbeat skipped once.
I kept my hand around his until the cradle’s restraint light turned amber. The clinic had built the machine for units that arrived without anyone beside them. Its armature lowered in sections, securing his shoulders, wrists, and ankles with padded clamps that looked designed by someone who had never needed to ask permission.
Taven stood behind the diagnostic console. Blue light moved across her face as the system read through Iven’s chassis.
“Initial scan will map the core fracture,” she said. “The emotional module is included in the scan.”
“Included how?”
“Signal presence, partition boundaries, load behavior. It will not open the local archive.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I can show you the access log after the scan.”
“That is not proof. That is a record of what your system says it did.”
Taven looked at Iven. “Your responsible party is difficult.”
His fingers shifted against the restraint. “She has demonstrated accuracy in prior disputes.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“It was not intended as praise.”
“I will keep it anyway.”
The display above the cradle counted down from 03:41:16. Beneath it, a line of smaller text listed the predicted diagnostic draw: forty-three minutes, with a variance of twelve.
I watched the number fall.
The scan began with a low vibration under the floor. Iven’s chest panel lit in thin bands, each one corresponding to a layer of his failing system. His external frame had always made damage easy to see. The left-foot stabilizer was gone. His left arm had once hung by its own cable. I had replaced what I could and braced what I could not. The core had hidden its injuries more successfully.
A lattice appeared on Taven’s screen.
The central structure was split by three dark seams.
“Those are old,” she said. “Thermal propagation from the original fracture. The coolant loop can reduce further spread if the circulation valves accept the modern pressure curve.”
“Can you repair the seams?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly enough to make it useful.
Iven’s voice emerged from the cradle speaker. “Can the core remain operational?”
Next
Astoria and Iven must reach a new berth before the reserve bond expires, carrying a temporary stabilization that may not last through the next decision.
“Idle processing. Limited external transmission. Minimal motor activity. No high-load navigation assistance. No repeated active communication through the station relay.”
I looked at him. “That is a shutdown with better lighting.”
“It is continued function,” Taven said. “The distinction matters to the unit.”
“It matters to me too.”
The scan reached the emotional partition. A separate pattern unfolded over the fractured lattice, fine and irregular, like a repair someone had performed with the wrong tools and unusual patience.
Taven leaned closer to the display.
“What?” I asked.
“The partition is drawing power from the same failing regulation channel as the language system.”
“Was that expected?”
“For this model, no.”
“Can you separate them?”
“I can attempt a partition isolation.”
The cradle’s vibration changed pitch. Iven’s hand tightened beneath the restraint.
“What would that do?” I asked.
“Reduce the emotional module’s access to the regulation channel. It may lower his core demand.”
“May.”
“It may also reduce the responses generated by that module. Affect, attachment behavior, preference weighting. There is no reliable way to predict which functions would remain.”
I stared at the display. The system had turned the things I recognized in him into a list of possible losses.
“Would he still be Iven?”
Taven’s stylus paused. “Identity continuity would likely remain.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No,” she said. “It is not.”
The timer showed 03:08:42.
I had wanted a clinic because clinics were supposed to contain answers. The central planets had charged us for polished corridors, controlled air, and machines that could name every failure. None of that required the failures to be fixable.
Iven turned his head toward me as far as the restraint allowed.
“Ask me,” he said.
My throat had tightened around the words. “Do you want the isolation attempt?”
“Explain the alternatives.”
Taven answered. “We leave the partition connected. The coolant loop may stabilize your regulation channel, but every active emotional response will continue to draw through the damaged circuit. If the loop fails, degradation resumes at the prior rate.”
“And the isolation?”
“Potentially lower power demand. Potentially reduced emotional function. The process cannot be reversed within this clinic.”
Iven was quiet while the diagnostic lights moved across his chest.
I remembered him in the dark berth on Nacre-7, choosing controlled shutdown so I could repair the guidance relay. I remembered his hand against mine during the final approach beyond Pelin, the pressure carefully measured because he had learned where my joints hurt. I remembered the archive he had protected from the station’s questions.
Those were not convenient symptoms. They were the shape of the time we had spent together.
“Leave it connected,” he said.
Taven’s gaze shifted to me. “You authorize preservation of the current configuration?”
“I authorize nothing for him.” I placed my palm against the cradle’s edge. “I confirm his choice.”
Iven’s heartbeat pattern stuttered again. The machine marked the fluctuation as noise.
Taven entered the command. “Preservation selected.”
The coolant loop engaged.
Cold vapor moved through the transparent lines beside Iven’s neck and shoulders. His fingers twitched, then went still. The timer continued its descent, but the projected function estimate changed from a single number to a range.
02:56:11–03:22:40.
The upper estimate made my lungs loosen. The lower one corrected the mistake.
“Why a range?” I asked.
“The core fracture is responding to cooling unevenly. Some systems are retaining charge. Others are shedding it.”
“Can you narrow it?”
“After the active-load test.”
“What active load?”
Taven touched the console. “The clinic must determine whether he can perform necessary functions without crossing the failure threshold. I will ask him to retrieve a stored instruction, process a route fragment, and answer a preference query. Each test has a cost.”
“He already passed consent verification.”
“This is a stability test.”
“Then use a harmless instruction.”
“There are no harmless instructions for a failing core.”
Iven said, “Proceed.”
The first request appeared on the display: STATE THE LAST THREE LOCATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH ASTORIA VASK.
Iven answered in order. Nacre-7. Pelin Exchange. Central intake lattice.
The projected range dropped by nine minutes.
The second request displayed a string of navigation coordinates. Iven processed them without activating the skiff’s relay, identifying a collision corridor and two safe corrections. The clinic recorded the result.
The range dropped again.
The third request did not appear on the screen. Taven spoke it aloud.
“Would you accept transfer to a compatible chassis if transfer preserved your operational continuity but erased all local memory not classified as mission-critical?”
The question entered the room and stayed there.
Iven looked at me. His face had no mechanism for uncertainty, but I saw it in the pause before his answer and in the minute adjustment of his thumb against the restraint.
“No,” he said.
Taven did not look surprised. “Reason?”
“My local memory contains Astoria Vask’s authorized shared records.”
The clinic lights reflected on his cheekplate.
“And if retaining those records shortens your remaining function?”
“I accept the cost.”
The projected estimate fell to 02:17:03.
I looked down at the floor until the blue service strips blurred. The number was precise enough to be cruel. I had spent conductor to get him through the door. He had spent function to prove that his choices belonged to him. The clinic had given us a possible stabilization and taken nearly an hour from the part of him I wanted to keep awake.
Taven finished the report. “The coolant loop is compatible. The core cannot be restored. It can be held in a lower-temperature operating state, provided his active load remains below the tested threshold.”
“For how long?”
“Your current estimate is two hours and seventeen minutes.”
“Current.”
“It will decrease during movement and communication. Idle cooling may slow the decrease. It will not reverse it.”
The cradle unlocked. Iven’s restraints rose, and the coolant lines detached one at a time. His shoulders sagged by a degree. I reached for him before the floor sensors finished releasing his feet.
He leaned into my grip.
“I am functional,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“You are using the left side of your mouth to prevent it from shaking.”
“That observation is private.”
“I will retain it privately.”
Taven handed me the access report. The archive log showed no query, no copied block, no diagnostic read beyond the permitted signal map. I folded the report and put it inside my jacket.
“Where do we go now?” I asked.
“Out of the clinic,” Taven said. “Your three-hour access ends in one hour and twelve minutes. The central-access bond has forty-seven minutes remaining before the reserve bank enters assessment hold.”
I looked through the glass wall toward the berth. Going Somewhere waited beneath the station’s white lights, patched hull exposed, ceramic-braced reserve bank still hanging outside like an accusation.
“Can we reach another berth before the bond expires?”
“Yes,” Taven said. “If you leave now.”
Iven straightened. The motion cost him; the new estimate flickered down by two minutes.
I took his hand.
“Then we leave now,” I said.
The clinic door opened onto the bright corridor, and Iven stepped through beside me while the timer continued counting down behind our backs.