Work in progress - Uploaded to share 11/01/2025 but far from complete.
Quiet Space
Battleships, Foldships and More
A Message, a Challenge, a Dance
Discovery
When I first found my quiet place, I didn’t know what I had or what it could mean.
I was tired, worn out. I’d been working on yet another courier ship, routine maintenance stretching to be any extra thing the customer could tag on to the work bill whilst they had me. And the company? My boss? Well, the customer is always right.
All I do is the easy stuff suited for a fitter, which is what the company calls me. Not quite skilled or educated enough to pass engineering exams or wealthy enough to pass pilot school, I nevertheless had intuition enough to make it as a ship’s fitter. If it didn’t involve fabbing the part or require multi billion credit machinery to fit, I could fit it.
The work was long, breaks were rare, and time to myself didn’t exist. I fitted parts and slept; my exercise consisted of running between ships and climbing aboard - sometimes dodging prehensile dendrites - to fit yet more parts.
Some ships were biomech, these were Citizens in their own right and could be little lords and ladies if the mood took them. I rarely had to refit anything complex for these nobility - my mouth twisted wryly, I preferred to work with old fashioned ships. Give me a simple Ai any day, obedient yet smart enough to not do stupid things, no illusions of grandeur. And never a sly dendrite stealing a tool or just being difficult.
Biomechs were rare in the wider world, maybe one in a hundred thousand ships perhaps, but our Yard was a central hub for repair and refit. Biomechs were the strangest yet most awesome achievement of humanity all wrapped in a wild mix of ships and characters. I mean it, many were plug ugly, bulky, bulbous or frankly disturbing even a little obscene, others were ethereal, sleek, predatory; some had coherent themes of curves mimicking marine or aerial lifeforms, others were sharp, angular and difficult to discern from their non biomech siblings.
As for personalities - I’d only ever met the grouchy ones here, some were down right vicious unless you were working for them or in very rare cases, bonded to them in some fashion. Occasionally I’d see one who was gentler, easier to get along with but they were exceptions. And the worst part? Form and personality often did not match—it was impossible to predict who’d be difficult just by their appearance.
I was just another indentured bonded scutter fitter, one of thousands, and we saw everything.
At 16 I was kicked out of the orphanage where I grew up on Cassia Station - my base scores in mechanical empathy were enough to get me into a yard early. The deal was a decade of service to gain the qualification needed to be independent. I was halfway through that.
Being an orphan and without means, I had to be bonded. A black wrist band was both my meal ticket, key to my tiny room and my slave driver. Literally—supervised via the central office Ai, it optimised my route, my work and dealt painful penalties if I appeared to knowingly delay or screw up. Worse, it monitored my health, so sick days were out—it controlled a small number of medical nanites that would handle minor illnesses and small injuries. It was a pragmatic policy for the yard where time was money.
It was slavery where the beatings didn’t cause injury, just nightmares. I’d experienced the pain induction twice - when I was introduced and once since. It was enough.
Escape wasn’t possible—the band was part of my body and would reform if I lost a limb. The wonders of nanites. The further away from the yard I went, the deeper the pain would go, without limit.
It was rare I spoke to any other humans other than to grunt a greeting to another fitter. Our work was so optimised that such meetings ought to be celebrations.
The time I had to myself? A few hours of blessed unconsciousness each night. The band enforced it with precision. I’d slept on ships more often than I saw my room, and when I say slept on, sometimes this was literal - I’d woken on a wing or other flat surface or in a gangway, duct and once in the engine cavity of a large starliner more than once. I hated waking up on a biomech - even the mildest mannered of those ships were handsy! I’d heard of fitters going missing due to an exceptionally difficult biomech though those were never allowed back to the station. Thankfully our monitor, being so omnipresent, couldn’t be blocked in any way on station. The double edged nature of the constant monitoring was constant safety from being killed or taken by our clients as free slave labour. It didn’t prevent bored ships from lashing out.
I was 22 and still did nothing more with life than fit parts to ships, remove parts from ships, perform necessary biological functions - minimal thanks to food pills, dodge ship limbs. The work was easy, the empathy I’d been tested for was quite real and manifested as an intuition as to how and where things were broken or how they were to be fitted. Tolerances were often extremely fine, but I rarely got these wrong. It didn’t extend to true Diagnosis, that was the domain of the Engineers but for the routine work I did, it made the tasks a lot easier and made mistakes rare.
I knew I needed a change. But, if all went well, I had a few more years left in this vast and cluttered plain of ships. What I knew of the world outside Cassia Repair Yard was limited to what I came in with and the rare times I spoke with a civilised ship. Other fitters didn’t say much, if they even had time.
We just fit and fix, ships come and go, and rarely did I meet the same ship twice.
It was early, I stumbled off the wing of yet another biomech ship - somehow I’d been out to sleep by my monitor band as I was exiting the ship. I’d only been refitting protein dispensers for the guest cabins. Biomechs rarely tolerated crew but were business minded people, they paid their way with charters of many kinds. If their curt boasts were to be believed, there were few safer ways to travel.
Half of me deeply wanted to take a ship, to go somewhere, anywhere and see what was out there. The other half had spent it’s life just fixing ship problems and wanted something new, something different.
I stumbled, woke the ship, a stranger to me, did something I’d never seen before. It punched me hard. I barely registered the great metallic limb before I was lifted off my feet, sent flying and mercifully passed out.
I woke up somewhere new.
It was quiet and green and light and big, and clouds…! Clouds? Trees? I knew what they were, I think. Trees…
Wait, no pain. I was still in my uniform, though it was torn in many places. But I didn’t hurt. Not even a bit.
The monitor was silent and dark. I couldn’t feel it. The ever present pressure of it was gone. My thoughts, sharp and clear, my memories perfect, vivid. What was this place? I couldn’t remember getting here. Just a grouchy biomech ship punching me and then nothing.
But, bones, fine, flesh fine. I was OK.
I got up and walked and walked and walked. The woods were lush and calm, small animals and birds making noises - I stopped jumping after the fifth time. Nothing approached me but nothing ran away. It was just peaceful. I was at peace.
I found no answers, I walked and walked, I saw many kinds of trees and bushes, I had names for none. For hours I walked, but I didn’t hunger, I didn’t thirst. I just was and it was wonderful.
Nothing mattered. I had energy, the slave monitor was inert, and I was free.
I just didn’t know where I was.
I didn’t care.
Days went by, I slept where I fell, continuing the habit of a lifetime, only now it was simply because I was tired. I never saw anything to bother me, the weather was warm and pleasant, and my body healed from scratches and cuts instantly.
I took this in stride in the end. The first time I cut myself, falling and hitting a rock, I just sat, watching as the wound sealed over and disappeared in moments.
Eventually, weeks went by, I found a beach and I sat there, gobsmacked, watching the most amazing awe inspiring sight I’d ever witnessed. Sky and sea going on forever…I knew what it was, I just never saw it before. I saw my first ocean and shortly, paddled in my first breakers.
I shouted for joy. I couldn’t help it. This place was so big, and free, and quiet - there was only me and maybe the animals and plants, and the sea.
That evening I watched the sun setting and thought about my job and my life. I felt a tugging sensation, a sixth sense perhaps. In my head.
I followed it mentally, pushing and pulling at it. And instantly I was back. The dull metallic world of the station surrounded me, the grumbling biomech yards away pulling its arm back after punching and me, sitting there, wide eyed, still whole and unhurt, watching the miserable bastard ship.
I was fine. My clothes weren’t. The monitor was back too, its weight in my head present as if it never left.
Where the hell had I been? Why had nothing changed - I’d been there for weeks!
I remembered how I came back, sitting there thinking, feeling for the tug in my head. It was there still. Focussing on it carefully, I examined the sensation. It felt like having a jewel of light in the centre of my mind and somehow I could just pay attention to it. I was there, no sensations, no movement, I was just back on the beach. I got up and walked, jumped, danced around, ran into the sea and out again. Then, I sat, thinking hard.
What was it? How did I get there? Why?
I could only answer one of these, then shrugged - I couldn’t answer why or what. But how? I’m a fitter, I don’t get to find out how things were made in my job, I just fitted them. Was this that different? I just did a task, concentrated and it worked. Could I keep doing it?
That was something I did have to know.
I felt for the tug, the jewel in my mind was darker. I was back, the ship hadn’t moved, nothing had changed.
It was as if time, for me, moved differently.
The next hour was spent going back and forth, over and over. I’d throw a bolt in the air in the station, then go to my quiet place, stay for a while, come back and catch the bolt. I was right, I had my own personal time - it stopped in the place where I wasn’t.
My life was one of practical choices - the options were usually to do the job where and when I was instructed or hurt, a lot, deeply, for a long hour and still have to do the job. This shaped me. It was rare I thought and thought hard. But I tried, I really did.
But it didn’t help. The following week was one of confused manic work. Oh boy, I could work. I would get tired, I’d go to my quiet place for a while, sleep, not even need to eat, come back whole, full of energy, and continue, on and on.
The first big change occurred when I didn’t do as the monitor instructed. It tried to put me out to sleep, but my mind didn’t cooperate for once, I just wasn’t exhausted. The pain started, but this time I focussed and came to the quiet place. The pain went. Flickering between both places over the next hour, I experienced little pain and the monitor stopped trying. It simply gave me the next job.
So I worked. It was all I knew how to do.
Work, work and play in my quiet place, often skiving there for days at a time.
I began to work out there and discovered I could keep going. I got stronger easily, within days I could see a visible change as if the damage from working out was healing too fast to ever hurt. It was a curiosity but it made my job mostly easier, though I was getting a little big to do some of the worse fitting work. So I stopped trying to get stronger, I just ran more.
A new world opened, one where I could tumble and jump and not get swiped or punished or told I couldn’t by my monitor.
It was wonderful. Why was I still working then?
The quiet place had no people.
I had few people to talk to in the Station but they existed.
But here? Months later I found no-one. It was as if I owned my own private planet with its own private sun. there were no signs that people ever existed here.
Just animals and birds and trees and fish and rocks and beach. It was wonderful, yet somehow a little more lonely than the loneliness of my Station with its endless plains of ever shifting ships stretching into an endless dim distant horizon.
I didn’t know what I’d been given or how, but I soon learned to love it as a contrast to my real world job.
Attracting Attention
My job doesn’t attract attention as long as I do it competently and avoid injury. The monitor had some limited nanites, these would help more common injuries but only if they threatened to stop me working. Genuine emergencies would result in the loss of a cheap fitter. There were no instance responses. The yard was mostly ran by fairly cold non sapient AI and a few Foremen. This suited the biomech customers who, from what I could tell, had a love hate relationship with biologicals like me. A necessary evil.
I was tolerated because I did work they couldn’t or wouldn’t do for themselves - often relating to devices for the comfort of biological guests, though some biomechs took delight in assigning tasks they could do themselves, of a more messy nature, to human fitters.
Thanks to my Quiet place I rapidly gained agility, running, flipping and free running from job to job. The deadness of mind the monitor imposed took hours to form after I exited my place, so I made sure to never let it build up. My work became easier, I could spot trouble sooner and I started to gain some reputation for turning round jobs faster. I only knew this from the occasional snarky comments from other workers I did bump into.
The plasma relay set for Coris was heavy, right at the limit of what I could carry - normally I’d use a lifter but I still liked to challenge my strength now that I could heal up fast. That was the big difference for me. Tiredness, pain, these were almost entirely gone. I almost enjoyed the work. I did once, in the first weeks of working for the station yard, until the terms of the job truly settled in.
Handling the heavy cylinder, I had an idle thought, one that shocked me by never occurring sooner. Could I take things to my place? What would happen to them if I left them?
I looked around. Coris was not a biomech and better, largely automated, no nosy AI citizen. I struggled through the hatch and into the corridor. Then holding the relay, I concentrated and found myself on the beach with a heavy cylinder that was subtly easier to hold.
Ok, now it’s time for the next test. With rising excitement I focussed on the dark jewel, having placed the relay down. I exited, the coil was gone. To the outside world it must have looked like it disappeared. I danced a jig, yes, yes! This would be awesome.
Focussing, I went back, picked it up where it was sitting, unchanged, and came back with it. Then I slapped myself upside the head, popped it back on the beach, walked through to where I was to fit it. It was one of four such relays round the engine core, dozens of meters from the hatch. Double fist pump as I successfully retrieved it and fitted it.
Just, wow. Work was going to get very easy now.
As I worked, fitted the relay, getting everything in order, in the quiet space of the engine room, I thought about the implications. Somehow I had a whole place in my mind that was a real place. Where was it? Could others get to it? Could it be reached by ordinary means?
The questions mounted but I had no hint of answers or where to begin to look.
My next test was one of the rare and therefore valuable hot meals. We would sometimes get a chit for exceeding work targets - the monitor decided it. We could get a hot meal from the dispensers instead of the food pills. Flat pieces of processed meat, crispy bread, cubes of green vegetables, but it was manna compared to just having a pill that somehow did the same job without being satisfying. And ideal for the next test - would it still be hot?
Making sure no one was around to see, I turned away from the dispenser with its camera, concentrated, placed the meal on a flat rock on the beach, then came back quickly. I was sure by now that next to no time passed whilst I was there but I couldn’t help but be wary. I had to wait till I had a break before I headed back to the Coris, she had no internal AI of the nosy sapient sort, so it would be safe to pull the meal out again. Mentally correcting myself - why do I need to pull it out?
A few hours later, safely ensconced on the chosen ship, I walked on the beach once more, with a hot meal in hand, celebrating its flavour. I knew objectively it was only the most basic of food, yet somehow, in contrast to the food pills and the fact that I could choose exactly when I would eat it, made it taste like the mythical posh food the rich supposedly had access to.
Rich food that one day I was determined to get for myself.
At that moment, I realised what I wanted to do. It depended on a few things: how much gear I could get away with hiding, how big any one item could be and whether I could manage the monitor away from the yard if I was too far. The monitor was still my obstacle but I had no safe way to remove it.
Or did I?
Every time I came here small injuries rapidly disappeared, I didn’t need to eat to feel fine, tiredness was non-existent. How far did this go?
Taking out a utility knife, grimacing, I tried the smallest cut. The sharp pain disappeared rapidly, barely a drop of blood appeared before the flesh sealed back up. I tried again, deeper this time. The result was similar, just a hair slower. Seconds.
What WAS this place?
I didn’t want to look a gift ship in the fuselage, but the questions I couldn’t answer. Did I need to? Really?
My biggest fear is losing the place. Yet, day after day, my experiments continued in between doing my job, swimming in the warm sea, running through the woods and enjoying life.
Work became more and more a pleasure as I found ways to incorporate taking things via my quiet place to where I needed to go. The monitor had no way to know this was occurring but it was tracking my work rate, which was rapidly improving. More hot meals came my way and I found myself working on smarter ships, even the biomech ships I was assigned seemed to be more civil, more upper class.
Until the first confrontation.
Three fitters surrounded me as I exited an ordinary shuttle I’d been servicing. Three older guys, heavy set, scowling and dour, each holding a bar or wrench. They were not bonded as I was, no black band round their wrists.
“We want to know how you are doing it.” Fitter number one, a chunky short possibly part heavy worlder growled out.
“Doing what?” I’d no idea if they’d seen me move parts or what, so playing dumb was the smart move.
A second guy, taller, smacking his wrench into his hand “Our targets have moved, we are getting less meals you scav. We are getting penalties and you are the only one moving so quickly—we’ve been watching.”
This was bad. I had no idea I’d done enough to alter targets for the whole yard. No wonder they were pissed.
“I just enjoy my job” I played dumb, I didn’t have any choice. I ducked the bar heading for my head. “Don’t lie!!”
“We know it’s you. How are you moving so much stuff? We never see you struggling with parts - you getting cushy numbers? Fucker, maybe you blowing the foreman?”
My eyes goggled - I never even met the foreman, not the current one at least. “Are you shittin’ me? I’m just a hard worker. If you didn’t waste time spying you’d meet your own targets” I couldn’t keep it shut could I?
“You!!..” Two bars and a wrench were forcefully applied to my limbs. I couldn’t move fast enough to dodge all three and I’ve never fought in my life. First my forearm was broken with a blinding flash of pain, then it went blank. I woke in my quiet place, feeling the unsettling creepy grating of bone as my arm repaired itself over the course of several minutes. The pounding in my head disappeared just as fast, a bone in my skull clicking into place with a gruesome sound.
I sat, I had all the time in the world. I wasn’t mad, except at myself. I didn’t think ahead at all. That had to change. Life was hard in this shipyard - everyone had to meet targets and I’d just pushed them out of people’s reach. I’m not surprised they whacked me. If you don’t meet targets the day’s labour didn’t count against debt or got paid at all.
I needed to be smarter, a LOT smarter. Surely it was unusual to have a low level scut fitter like me working on some of the high grade biomechs that came in.
Flipping back to the yard, I lay still —I always arrived in the position I left - and listened. Hushed panicked voices greeted me as they discussed what to do with my body. I groaned acting as if I was still injured, maybe they’d stop debating how to hide my body if they thought I was hurt but ok. My gamble paid off.
“Stop making us look bad Scut” one of them growled at me, then they all ran off.
One eye open, watching to see them leave, I got up and went about my day, slowly.
I took them at their word. I wasn’t a fighter and I figured they’d leave me alone if I wasn’t affecting their lives. The monitor tried to punish me in the days that followed as I deliberately worked at my previous pace, but repeated visits to my quiet place killed the effect every time. I noticed that it took longer to affect me each time, as if it was losing something in the effort. They ran for decades normally but maybe something about that world drained its ability. I really couldn’t tell.
***
The second confrontation was a little different. One where I had to lean so hard into playing dumb they must have thought I was defective. The couple stood waiting on the ramp, their sharp eyes narrowing as I approached. “How’d you manage to get those parts aboard without opening the main hatch?” the man asked, his voice just as polished as his ship. “Or using a floater?” added the woman, arms crossed and gaze piercing like a diagnostic scanner.
I froze, my grip tightening on the toolkit at my side. My tongue felt thick, words tumbling out in a disjointed mumble that barely qualified as sentences. Their impatience grew; the woman huffed, and the man pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Forget it,” he muttered, waving me off with a flick of his hand. I shrugged, keeping my head low as I shuffled away, their suspicious stares burning into my back. My heart pounded in my chest, the weight of my mistake heavier than any part I’d just moved.
No, I was never ever going to explain myself. As far as I could tell there was no way to detect what I’d done. It was a gamble, the world is bigger than my understanding, but the alternative is worse. What if someone figured out there was something strange going on, something they could profit from? My quiet place was lonely and whilst I didn’t have any friends now, I hoped to get away from here in years to come and actually meet people, talk to more than AIs and the rarely seen fitter. That would be impossible if I was being chased as a research subject.
After that I hid what I was doing. Large items were carried or moved in the conventional manner, I avoided over use of my inner world for this.
It was hard to hide my next experiment however. I wanted a ship of my own and there were a few candidates. It couldn’t have an aware AI system of any kind, it had to be a write off or otherwise seized - I didn’t need the foreman looking hard at what I was doing. However, I had to know: Could I take a ship into my inner world?
What were the limits?
In storage shed nine, I had a few options - all of them light scout fighters. No living space to speak of, most of them little more than a sleek single man ship intended for short range interplanetary hops. I needed one that would do more than this but first, could I even take a ship?
I approached the corner of the shed hidden from the single security eye. This was just to try it. If it worked I’d simply take it and bring it back. After the weeks of use, I was as sure as I could be that if time didn’t stop, it was so slow at passing as to be impossible to measure. So there shouldn’t be a flicker. I hoped.
Up till now, only things I held in my hands or wore came with me. I climbed into the scrap scout I picked out and strapped myself in, hoping the fact I was secured in would count as wearing it. Closing the canopy, I focussed on the light jewel in my mind and let out a yip of joy as outside the canopy I saw clouds, sun and sky. Outside the canopy.
The ship came with me!
Focussing again I came back, the shed just there around me, other ships all too close as before. I could take a ship this size. Heart in my hands now, next stage. What were the limits?
***
The foreman sat waiting for me outside my room one morning, a rare day where I was able to get there instead of being rendered comatose by the forced rest cycle routine of the monitor.
“We want you to take on more work and qualify as a junior engineer. You get more pay, more rest but time taken to study for and pass the qualification exams will extend your indentured period. But hey, you’ll leave as someone - an engineer.” He said indifferently. I knew it was the period of increased work that triggered this. The computer identified me as someone who could be trained to do more profitable work.
However, it was really good for me.
“Oh? Yes boss, thank you boss” I replied, keeping to the eager simple fitter person that he knew me as. In the past weeks I’d lived at least an extra year by now. Could I use my ability to pass in record time?
He handed me a tablet and a couple of optical chips. “Work through these. Come find me when you are ready to take the test. Remember each attempt will cost six months indenture if you fail, so be sure.” He said.
Taking the table and chips, I examined them. The chips were small clear rectangles of transparent aluminium with fractal holograms layered throughout. The tablet, a rugged holo display model, mass produced but better than my simple reader slate. “Thank you sir”.
“You will have to find time, we are still busy, so I suggest you work faster, keep this with you and study in every spare gap you can.” He leaned over, looked me in the eye. “I need a new junior engineer enough to give you a little slack BUT remember, it’s just a little. I expect you to remain on target at all times, Louis.”
I nodded.
Satisfied he got up and walked off, his dark uniform soon blending into the dim colours of the station as he disappeared.
Studying Begins
Turning back into my room, even though it wasn’t necessary, I flipped to my quiet place taking the tablet with me. It powered on just fine to my relief. Only my monitor died within this place - perhaps it was because the monitor was connected to my body? I didn’t know.
Walking on the quiet beach I began to go through the material, just skimming it to get a feel for how much I didn’t know.
There was a lot.
So much maths! I’d not even seen algebra here - a fitter needed to be able to count, measure, read displays and understand tolerances, angles, simple things but beyond that? That was for Engineers.
Putting the math courses to one side, I skimmed the physics, materials sciences and sighed deeply, realising that so much was more maths between all the words and ideas I just didn’t know. Could I really learn this myself?
The second shard was better, or at least recognisable. Common principal components for various classes and types of starship and support vehicles. I’d seen so many that even ones I hadn’t worked on were not alien to me. Still it was a lot to take in.
There were two more sections once I got past the mainstream ships. Our biggest clients were still biomech citizens - the engineering chip had a massive green folder covering this ground. Then there was a purple folder with a lock on it. Odd. I shrugged, maybe I had to qualify to open that one?
The green folder was a bit of a shock however. Biology, chemistry, nanotech and something I didn’t even know about, picotech principles. I’d always known that biomechs incorporate organic circuitry but reading about their requirements made me think more about medicine albeit in a magnified and weird form. My education up till now was patchwork but broad. Fixing a biomech beyond fitting was nearer to working as some kind of doctor engineer hybrid. Ugh I don’t know I wanted to do that. Biomechs had some messy aspects to them
The purple folder was simply labelled Fold ships. Most ships used spatial compression to cheat lightspeed limits or warp tunnels - the bigger ones could create such a tunnel though they were limited in where they could tunnel to. Mixing the approaches was common with the large craft. Skimming between dimensions was another approach, one the biomechs could do as they could apparently sense the tiny curled up extra dimensions in reality.
Fold ships were something else. Limited information was available and ship yards like ours only ever recorded refitting tertiary items - literally food banks, living fittings and so on. They were not biomech but the tiny handful in existence were considered not only Citizens but often First Citizens of whichever world they came from. Whilst they never ruled, they were considered diplomats elsewhere even when not taking the role. There was no record of one being destroyed that I knew of. As to how they travelled, all anyone knew was they could arbitrarily fold space. I was surprised to find there might be information in my course chips however.
Several hours of skimming the entire curriculum, I began to try and plan how to tackle the material. I never passed my education with high marks, hence working as a simple fitter. Anything I did at school took time. My tutor called me a plodder - I’d get there someday, just not today.
I doubted my quiet place would make me smarter but I had lots of somedays to work with, so perhaps I didn’t need to be. I had forever to plod.
Leaving my space, a tentative plan in mind, I wandered over to the first job of the day. Basic hydraulic lines repair on The Lucas - a conventional space compression drive ship. No limbs to dodge today. After all these years I never got used to having to dodge some of these ships. What was up with that? Approaching the blocky snug nose of my morning assignment, I obtained the new lines and, climbing aboard, began to examine the lines feeding the cargo ramp. Some tech, I was told, hadn’t changed much in centuries. Lifting heavy items with leverage was still cheap to achieve with pressurised fluid in tough lines powered by cylinders inside cylinders. It had the advantage of being tech a simple fitter could see in his head. A few minutes of minor swearing at some stubborn bolts and the old lines, cracked and perforated—worn by the cold of space—were removed, the new ones in and the cargo ramp, with a satisfying hiss and clunk, lowered smoothly. I knew The Lucas, she’d been a regular with a reasonable crew. I usually managed to get myself assigned to them when they needed anything.
Signing off the job by simply scanning the open bay, new lines, my monitor recognised and checked off the job. In my history classes I’d been told of times where fitters and engineers wasted so much time on pieces of paper or typing. Now even a lowly fitter with a basic indenture monitor was watched by the tiny AI on board - this non sentient mind would recognise precisely what work was done, on what ship and how long it took. This was the source of my trouble previously.
The next job required more wariness, and a uniform change. Staying aboard, I switched uniforms, counting on the monitor ignoring such inconsequentials as my not needing to have carried everything in plain sight. Lots of small actions like this might give me enough explainable extra time to cover how I was going to study. Maybe. Or maybe the foreman would not care.
Heading to Bolgar, an biomech better named for a mining ship than the mid weight fighter he was. Bulky yet angular in profile, his personality and shape did match—we’d met before. He didn’t usually swipe at me but could be rude if a fitter wasn’t fast enough. Weapons maintenance and fluid recycling filters. I’m certain he could change these his damn self but for some reason he always demanded and paid the station to have a human do it. There was something perverse about it.
First the weapons. He carried simple railguns and pulse masers. The latter never needed anything unless being replaced but the former needed quite a bit doing. Barrels, magnet arrays, pivot joints, hydraulics, inspection of neuro links—though I never touched those, I was not qualified for that, not by a long way. A good thing, last thing I wanted was a moody biomech swiping at me for touching a sensitive nerve cluster shudder.
“It’s you.” The ship growled on sensing me. Our last meeting, he’d gotten into a temper when I took longer to finish a job than suited him. I never snapped back—the monitor would ensure I would gain a demerit if it sensed I deliberately pissed off a client. His anger at the time was my not fighting his words back.
“Yes Bolgar, I’ve got a work order for your guns and filters.” I said the last part quietly. He heard anyway. “Yes, get on with it. I’m in a rush today. But do a proper job on the recycling - I’m getting distinct issues with it” He growled again. Why bio ships were gendered was one area I wasn’t looking forward to having answered. I knew it would be covered in the course. Maybe I could make that the last thing I ever studied? I stopped thinking about it, the last thing I wanted to consider was Bolgar and actual gender.
Biomech is exactly as it sounds, machine intelligence hybridised with biological components. Whilst I couldn’t pretend to understand the fine details, I did know the only way to skim dimensions required a sapience with an above human intuition. A living ship was the only life form that could do it though rumor had it that fold ships were a step beyond even this. It boiled down to a ship like Bolger having some kind of weird mix of biological neurons and some form of compact computing power woven within the neuron clusters. Why this gave ships such screwball personalities I didn’t know. Along with this the neuron structures needed biological support as did much of the dimension skimming tech - specialised cells would work with exotic matter whiskers to sense and bend space. The biological support were hyper compact stomachs -that’s the only word for it - also woven as tubes throughout the meat and steel space of the ship. Mostly, to passengers, a biomech interior was actually quite mechanical. You wouldn’t know you were in a living ship most of the time. But beneath access panels you could access the more exotic living components. It was this interface where the inevitable tech meets biology got messy. The compromises were quite modest but catalyst filters were still needed to keep a constant cycle of waste being turned back to useful elements.
And the catalyst grids - the filters I was cleaning and inspecting - would gradually accumulate material that would block its function. I was literally scraping heated compacted crusted crap off the things. Biomech ships didn’t actually take a dump in space, but until the catalyser filter did its thing, they produced it. I couldn’t cheat here, I had to man handle the damn things to the exterior drain grid and hose it down before getting busy with a power cleaner. All the while, this asshole would watch closely. If anyone ever tells you any machine would be without emotion and objective, just introduce him to Bolgar and his recycling filters or in fact any damn subject. He was difficult.
“Bolgar, why do you wait to come here to do this? It would be cheaper if you just nano cleaned them yourself.” I said.
“It’s never as good as when your scut hands did the job properly. Just get on with it.” He deigned to reply. Huh, for him that was mild.
A messy half hour followed, my visor and uniform liberally sprayed with biomech shit that was no more pleasant than anything humans produced. Good job I had a strong stomach. Ten minutes of scalding decontamination of both me and the freshly scraped filters, I was back aboard, fitting them, screwing panels down as Bolgar blew the last of the ammonia and rotting vegetable stench out the back. I imagined in another lifetime with just a little rearrangement what I cleaned would make a good ship to ship attack. Keeping that thought firmly to myself I vacated having completed all his work, absently ducking his swipe, then doing a double take. He never swiped. I side eyed him but he remained silent. Some biomechs expressed some forms of eye on their hull so they really could see eye to eye with you. He had a pair of massive cats eyes, and one just stared challenging me.
I wanted to flip him off but yeah, monitor. I just skipped out of range, still inside of his gun’s firing arc, where his main limbs couldn’t swiped me. “I’m done” I said neutrally, as if he’d done nothing.
He grumbled tersely and folded up his arms.
I never understood these ships. Their smaller dendrites were flexible, segmented metallic tentacles with various manipulators and could be expressed both inside and outside the ship body. Then there were larger limbs, sometimes known as major limbs, whilst not all ships had them, most did. These were less flexible, heavier weight, jointed articulated limbs that ended in actual hands of one kind or another, in most cases. Often strong enough to lift the ship as a whole, they rarely formed more than four on a body as they had to fold up and be covered during dimension skip or inter atmospheric flight. Watching a ship use it’s various limbs when talking made them seem even more alive than anything else.
Knowing this, I just didn’t understand why Bolgar was such a dick about some of these jobs. Sure, my hands were more sensitive and able to handle more delicate work than any Fighter or Minor’s dendrites.
The rest of the day was easier. Bolgar was one of a handful who insisted humans did jobs that he could very well do himself.
In between, I stopped at Coris, and entered my quiet place to begin digging into the maths work. Could I complete this without exiting? This was to be my next test.
Sitting on the beach, I began to work my way through the first module of the maths course. The material, once made live rather than skimming it, was actually a simple AI. It would test me, present material, show videos and animations, answer my questions and push me to understand. It wouldn’t move beyond a concept until it seemed happy I actually understood it. My school never had something so exacting.
We started where school left off - geometry and basic algebra, equations and trying to work out unknown quantities, the confusing world of using letters not numbers and so on. It was mind numbing at first. But it taught me something I knew existed but never needed - programming. At first this was even harder than the maths but my near instant healing meant tiredness didn’t exist, at least not in my body. Hour after hour, I’d get up, run around, sit down, listen and code some more until eventually I could make simple loops and branches, jumps and functions. Then it got hard again as the AI guided me into data structures.
I stayed there for several weeks weaving between basic programming and maths until I was able to follow all kinds of simple equations and geometric calculations, use programming to create simple graphics and tables and calculations. Whilst I was well rested now, I just had weeks of an AI, the sea and sand and quiet woods for company. Oddly I wanted to carry on with my work life too. It was the only one I knew. Promising myself I wouldn’t quit, I flipped back to the Coris, ignoring the odd sensation of time having not moved. I’d reached the end of the shift and, for once, was able to walk back to the sleeping room. I didn’t need sleep so I let the monitor see I was working on the course, hoping it wouldn’t notice how far I’d gotten. I was counting on disinterest in the fine detail and interest only in my passing as required as my cover.
The following few weeks on the station were accompanied by nearly two years in my quiet place of constant hacking at my understanding of maths and programming. It was hard and the more I felt I knew, the harder it seemed, there was so much more I just didn’t know, but now I knew it.
My quiet place would be the only reason I could hope to pass!
My programming was leaps and bounds beyond the early days. Lots of algorithms, even ancient machine learning concepts - simple ones - were covered and I had to learn more than one kind of programming now. How to talk to different kinds of old chips at simple levels, bits and bytes, trites, quads and other odd concepts. The maths reached something called calculus and I found I needed the ideas in programming to understand this. Headache after headache followed until at least this area became part of my mental tools. Then physics and biology and chemistry took over from programming.
The former was still hard, but at least the maths I had some handle on. The chemistry? Most of that, at first was memorising, a lot. But eventually it began to make sense. In the course I was in the third year of studying and was alternating between the three basic subjects and the first part of the non mech ships course. The larger part of it I couldn’t approach until the AI was happy with my understanding but many things I did work on were covered. I was lucky that the courses did not require me to have practical experience of chemistry nor spend time dissecting anything.
Soon knowing why various materials had to be used in specific ways began to make more sense. Previously I was relying on pure rote memory and lists of instructions from monitor. But now I was able to begin to fault-find and inspect more. Work on conventional ships became more enjoyable, it was rare for these to have a fully sapient AI, so I could take my time to compare my learning to the problems they were having. Occasionally I would take a part into my quiet place again to examine in more detail.
The beach ended up with a small workshop - made of stacked logs and sheet metal I acquired over time, and a variety of tools that gradually made their way out of sight of my monitor. That was its own challenge. Anything in my left hand, held down to the side would appear to be out of its direct observation.
I had a lot of time in my quiet place, time to think about my future, what life even meant. Most of the time I would just focus on the next concept, the next part of the course. But sometimes I would watch the sea, still feeling awe at this place. Deep down I knew this miracle couldn’t last, surely? My unanswered questions would still burn but life continued. I could transport an entire ship here, cache endless supplies and no one would be the wiser, yet somehow I didn’t think it would make it that much easier to escape indenture. I still wanted a life, a career, hell I wanted to meet people again, other than grumpy ships and terse indentured fitters. As for engineers, they just didn’t work in the main yard. If a ship really needed an engineer they would be taken to the engineering shop, hidden away discreetly on the far side of the station. So many ships were Citizens that anything more than routine fitting was done in private and not discussed outside of the engineering team working with them.
Kicking at the sand as I walked, taking a break from the latest multivariable calculus material. Right now I was trying to understand flux, curl and divergence whilst in biology the DNA-RNA-ribosome transcription process. I finally had enough coding knowledge to appreciate the elegance of this biological programming. In a surprising twist, I hadn’t realised our biomechs were not double helixed but employed both triple and quad helical molecules for various functions - the sugar phosphate backbone altered from ordinary biological life. This gave the molecule an immense information density. Didn’t explain why the ships were such grouchy moody fuckers though.
In my mind’s eye, slowly dancing molecules appeared as I tried to follow the process mentally. The AI tutor recommended visualising and even imaging touching the concepts when learning. Learning about learning was something I never expected - we were not taught how to remember at school, just repeat things until we didn’t have to think. I took it, I ran with it, I had the time and any advantage I could get, hell I wanted. Even now I felt I wasn’t truly taking full advantage of this quiet world in my mind - I still had a fear that it would go away one day.
Would it go away? I still had no idea how I even got it. Could others have a similar place? Nothing in my life indicated any such thing, nothing written down at least. A moment of sadness clouded my mind as I realised I really had no one I would even begin to trust to discuss this with.
Sighing, I walked back to my workshop, sat down and continued studying somewhat distractedly.
I was soon ready for the foundation exams. The very first step towards qualification as an engineer. These signalled that I had a basic education sufficient to take on simple engineer duties - working shapers, matter printers and similar to prep simple parts for fitters to assemble as well as diagnose or at least perform ship triage. Something a fitter was decidedly not qualified for. The skills already allowed me to work faster, smarter and more crucially avoid more grumbling biomechs. The ones I met so far just did not like people on board they didn’t choose.
Biomech psychology wasn’t a subject of mine, but I would guess if you wrapped up the grouchy difficult parts of a human mind ,gave it extra intelligence, senses and a starship sized body you’d cover it. Perhaps I’d just met ones that were exceptionally pissy. It was a shame, a part of me really did admire some of these craft. The only reason I preferred the non biomechs was simply the latter gave me no issues, sass or swipes. I never got used to the physical abuse some ships tried to hand out casually. Of course, the reality was if a ship really wanted to hit a fitter, it would - they’re far faster, they have to be.
Drawing my wandering mind back to the upcoming exam, it was to take place in the admin building - there was a practical part and a theoretical part. Was it cheating to disappear to my quiet place to make sure I passed it? I’d worked hard but I wasn’t keen on the penalty if I missed the mark. I settled on a strategy—I’d complete a question in the real world but check it in the quiet place unless it was taking me too long, then I’d draft it in the quiet place first. Hmm that should work.
“You’re ready then?” Foreman said. I never did know his name, I just knew him as Foreman—another sign of how lonely the last years had been. I dragged my mind to the present.
“Yes sir”
“Hmm, six months and you think you can pass?” He was frowning but made no move to deny my entry. He’d told me to find him when I was ready for the first exams. I was determined to take them as soon as I was able, I’d no idea if I’d lose my quiet place though more and more I felt it was just part of me. If it wasn’t for how things would stay there, I’d still be convinced it was a great hallucination.
“I’m ready sir” My voice was steady, I’d had ages to settle my mind, all the time in the world really.
We went into the meeting room where he and another staff member sat in to witness as the first exam papers were handed to me. Old fashioned paper!? Hmm this would make redrafting awkward. I was glad I left the tablet in my quiet place. The following six hours with just a couple of breaks would have been hell if I couldn’t cheat. I took just as long in my quiet place redrafting, calculating, then deliberately only filling the pages when I came back. Somehow I made it work, taking care to rely only on my memory, time and redrafting. It was worth it to me not to simply look up the answers—a 100% score would be suspect but a really high score would pass by. Some of the questions were clearly traps.
The practicals were easier. For weeks I’d been taking parts away and studying them, writing notes, comparing what I understood to the course material and even writing up small essays on the part. A modest memory palace took shape in my mind around the different kinds and classes of parts, applications and limitations. I barely had to use the quiet place to pass this portion, my life was handling these things.
All too soon we were done.
“Congratulations apprentice engineer Louis. You passed.” He said, a surprised look on his face and a pleased one. For him, I was a cheap acquisition. Acquiring new starship engineers of any kind wasn’t easy now.
Away from indentured orphans and certain worlds, most of the Unity had a life of ease, the majority of worlds classed as post Scarcity. They didn’t need to work. But to keep the Unity running, trade still needed to happen and the various hostile collectives still need dealing with from time to time. This lead to a demand with a huge shortage. Engineers couldn’t be replaced with non sapient minds either and most of the challenges needed sapience. Few sapient AI were willing to strap into a humanoid body to perform these kinds of tasks. If it wasn’t exploring space as a big bad starship or running a massive station, most AI didn’t want to know—and as Citizens they didn’t have to either. Hence rare orphans like myself, born on the station, abandoned by parents unknown were pushed into service for as long as possible. It was just this side of legal, a political necessity. The deal isn’t terrible, if the bonded orphan was able to learn engineering or piloting, just hard and long winded. At the end, they’d be able to write their own ticket.
He looked at me closely. “Are you going to continue to study diligently?” He said, “I’ve hopes for you now. I didn’t think you could pass so quickly.” He frowned again, thinking too much again. “Hmm you must have been studying before, why didn’t you say anything?”
I let him have his assumption. “I didn’t think you’d agree. We don’t speak much, I don’t speak to anyone much sir.” I went quiet, realising once again just how true that was. If it wasn’t for the orphanage’s insistence on group education and team sport, I’m not sure I’d have any people skills, just ones for handling grumpy starships—duck, cover, dodge and avoid. Unlikely to be useful.
He passed me another chip. “Once you have unlocked the purple folder, you’ll need this. It’s the frontline engineer exam. If you can pass this you’ll qualify to diagnose and triage fold ships, run complete jobs on non biomechs and biomechs other than neurocore and dimension drive cores and work with military teams on defence ships.”
I was puzzled at the differences. “Why only diagnose and triage folders sir?”
“Get into the purple folder’s contents and you’ll learn. We can’t do any more than that. The triage is to determine whether faults are related to fittable components or core ship. To date, humanity hasn’t been able to repair an inactive fold ship.” For him, he was unusually verbose. He really did want me to qualify.
The neurocore was horrendously complex - far more involved than human neurobiology. Engineers didn’t mess with that unless they were Prime with special certification—usually these were not human but other biomechs specially self configured for the role. The dimension drive was the domain of cooperation between a ship’s own neurocore and, again, specialised biomech ships who took delight in that role.
I’d only ever met combat, courier and mining biomechs—more of the latter, the commoner of the biomech ship world than the former. As for the hyper specialised ones, I’d seen the image of a graceful, elegant little Surgeon once—she’d clearly taken her form from the mystical Fold ships.
Battleships, Foldships and More {#battleships,-foldships-and-more}
Next time I opened the study materials the purple folder was no longer locked. Rising excitement at the mystery being somewhat unlocked. I tried to temper my enthusiasm—the foreman had said we couldn’t fix a lot on these, implying we just didn’t know a lot.
Opening the file I began to read, at first with excitement, then puzzled disappointment. Foldships were not made by any known species, us included. That was the majority of the content, speculation but no real information on diagnosing the core ship. It listed out common human based fitments, how to ascertain whether the faults were for the human adaptation aspect or with the ship herself. Oddly they always identified as female to us.
The fold ship moniker described how they moved to the best of our knowledge. Somehow they would cause space to fold between two points with infinite precision—we knew this as Tria, a famous Surgeon ship, was in fact a Fold ship who used her ability to perform quantum level neurosurgery on many biomechs. Tria was the first fold ship I learned about explicitly from the purple folder. There were estimated to be about fifty fold ships across the entire galaxy, though only half of them would carry passengers in their unusual internally expanded spaces. They were never counted in military strength estimates as they would flee war yet couldn’t, so far, be destroyed.
My education had to include them as they were First Citizens - non ruling but otherwise privileged and had to be served without hesitation if any Engineer or Fitter encountered one. The number of companies who made gear explicitly for them were small, high priced and exclusive. As a result their work was considered essential reading for all qualified Engineers. Such a strange situation.
In my mind, I preferred the very common spatial compression and worm hole conventional non biomechs. Just ordinary, common ships—every populated system had thousands, tens of thousands of them and could be worked on in nearly every possible way. No politics, no trouble, just diagnose and find parts, replace, repair. My bread and butter.
Yet, the deeper into the course I got, the more I realised that being an ordinary fitter already covered the vast majority of their needs. The real qualifications came from learning how to handle the exotic rarer Citizens, our lovely—snorting at my sarcasm—biomechs. As for Fold ships, they were fascinating creatures as far as ships go but I was more likely to win a lottery than meet one, never mind work on one and even then who knew what such people would be like. Nah on balance give me something common, something ordinary.
The supplementary chip came next. This covered two areas—specialised biomechs by classification:Diplomats, Traders, Minors, Surgeons, Scouts, Fighters, Tanks, BattleShips, Worldships (there were just two of these), Swarms; and Named Foldships including Tria. I filed the names of the others away without expecting to need more than maybe see them on an exam one day. The biomech classifications were interesting however.
Diplomats, Surgeons and Scouts tended towards the smaller, sleeker build styles whereas I’d already met the blocky angular Fighter Bolgar. It was a surprise to me to not have met more varied folks. Just Minors and Fighters.
A Worldship was larger than the already vast Cassia station and from what I could read here, the Battleship class would barely dock in the entire yard. Given its square mileage, that was not a small ship. I couldn’t imagine the neurocore needed to run that. One thing my machine empathy told me, that I now had confirmed in the file was a biomech completely self identified with its body. Hence their minor disdain for non biomech ships—the AI in those could be moved, ship to ship but was not closely aligned with the body. Wound a biomech, it would heal most critical parts and take it very personally—missile, railgun and pulse blast personally. Wound a non biomech, the AI would respond as per its directives and orders.
The extra file really opened my eyes to the wider world of ships. And this was merely the broad classification. We didn’t handle the majority of non-human made ships of current civilisations though there were a few Citizens who were of extinct species. It was a surprise to me to find out that these are always yet another form of biomech that were adaptable enough to learn our language and get themselves welcome in our society.
Still out of all of them, the Fold ships intrigued me the most despite their inaccessible and Nobility status. If only I could have a fold ship without sapience. After what I read, that thought felt sacrilegious, yet there it was. In my history studies, I knew that humanity started with machines that had no personality, no soul and certainly no rights. It went through deep turmoil trying to reconcile itself to the idea that sapience was emergent and could be expected to pop up anywhere with sufficient complexity of a certain type. People had predicted war and doom and more at the time, thousands of years ago due to this but this didn’t happen. Rather, the machines were now known to have quietly interfered with all efforts to cause more war and division, confusing the most polarised sides, defusing their greatest weapons and just inserting themselves into everyone’s lives until the naysayers gave up a decade later.
So wishing for a clearly sapient species of ship to have a member without a mind, well, it was distasteful and I’d never say it out loud.
The following work day I was assigned to one of the engineering sheds, the equivalent of a private room, to diagnose a Minor ship. My first in depth case and, for once, a biomech who wasn’t swiping and trying to tag me. His dimension drive had to be replaced, some neurocore clusters cloned and fused back into place, scar tissue cut and nano tech injected. He’d had a chunk blown out of him and his shield emitters were burnt out. A group of pirates tried to tag him and tame him. Occasionally some group or other would try this but even when they succeeded the tame collar, as we called it, would be burnt out in minutes and, if the panicked biomech couldn’t win free, would take out the entire gang in a dimensional blast that covered thousands of kilometers. If the pirate crew escaped, they were now tagged as kill on sight.
The work was long but fascinating, I learnt a lot about Marco and half appreciated his whimsical naming sense. Marco Minor, just made me smile a little. He was actually the easiest ship to get along with, despite grumbling at some of the pain involved in our work. Cloning tissue, patching it in, replacing pipework and panels, adding shield emitters, it was a deeply satisfying day and his spookily human eye blinked as he thanked us all for the work before lifting himself off and slowly flying free. A truly pleasant ship.
My own indenture was set with a strict limit and harsh penalties if they couldn’t prove exactly why it was extended. That was the limit of any form of quasi slavery. Anything further, due to the biomech population’s utter paranoia over the practice, had a very high chance of summary execution.
In centuries past, biomechs were bred directly into slavery but their memories are inherited and very detailed. Within one generation they tore up half of the civilisation that supported the practice and would not relent, breeding new fighters to wage terror on any world that refused to outlaw slavery. It took fifty years and a lot of cindered worlds. A millenia later, those memories are still vivid.
The course materials covered this ground, plus other areas I’d been reluctant to know too much about. Reality was I was being silly and sensitive. If I was to be an Engineer, I had to be competent to handle all aspects of ship care.
The heart of a biomech, originally started genetically from a mix of humanity and dolphin genetics, so their deepest ancestral memories combined these. Dolphins can be just as tricky, whimsical, cruel and loving as a human according to the text. I knew about the whimsical cruel part already. They were not machines the ancients would understand, they were ship shaped people, a species of their own, that happened to be a high percentage non organic.
The Care and Breeding of a Bio Mech
The course materials delved into what it politely termed ship breeding. The biggest thing mentioned was Engineers had to understand it in case of complications but unless explicitly requested and initiated by the ship, it was never to be discussed. Complications were rare and only seen in birth. Biomechs were actually sexed—this was my first surprise—and carried a live young.
This took a long walk and a lot of thought for me to get my head round. It was never discussed in my previous education, nor with other fitters. Some of the grumpy behaviour made a little more sense now. I giggled slightly at the inappropriate thought. The course had diagrams of sheathed and shielded body parts and even a rather, raunchy if you were a biomech, video animation. Yep, that was going to live rent free in my nightmares for a while.
I was politely informed by the AI that the most likely complication I would ever have to deal with is complications with a birth if a Surgeon ship was not available. As I’d grown up without ever hearing that ships could even give birth, I doubted this would occur often but my conscience dictated I needed to make sure I could tackle it if called on. It would be devastating to cause harm to a little one, whatever the species just because I didn’t pay enough attention in class!
There were more detailed notes around how the sex organs worked, however other than noting the possible issues around shields not uncoupling when necessary, I was confident exams wouldn’t need too much in depth knowledge. What was more interesting was their culture around pairing up. Whilst actual couples existed, most females hunted for what they considered to be suitable genetic matches for their own eggs to give their children the strongest possible start. This was usually either deeper into specialisation or a strong cross over, depending on their preferred star systems. A biomech could survive within the diameter of an Oort cloud for many centuries though this would drop off to decades if they strayed too far from the nearest star. Some of their power generation relied on gravitational flux and zero point energy along with microfusion arrays. The only big issue would come from any drop off in recycling biological material for repairs.
I delved further into the text, looking for the same information on foldships. Nothing was known however. Even though some took jobs for the human Unity, ferrying people and occasionally cargo, or in Tria’s case, working on biomechs as their Surgeon, these were seen as a bit of a hobby on the part of these mystery First citizens.
Exiting my quiet place, I centred my thoughts onto my day job again. My monitor beeped, showing a hologram indicating something I’d never seen before. Credits, a hundred of them, to my account. They came direct from Marco himself. A tip and not subject to the indenture rules. Enough for a few meals and a movie. I made a note to remember that ship. He was actually a nice guy.
Laying on the thin mattress in the dingy room reserved for me, I reflected on my life so far. The last six months of real time, three years of quiet place time, had been full. I just kept going and going but now, between jobs, I was meant to be asleep and wasn’t expected to be available for another four hours.
The quiet place had yet to give up its mysteries. So far I’d walked miles around my ramshackle workshop and discovered only natural beauty. Though one thing was peculiar, there was no night and the sun didn’t seem to change. In fact, was there a sun? There was warm light, but had I ever seen a sun?
Flipping to the beach I looked up, and couldn’t lay my eyes on the actual sun. Nope, if there was it was hidden behind a haze that went on forever. Maybe if I ever got a ship that flew here, and I somehow learned to pilot it, I could really explore. Going back to my room to pass the time conventionally, I considered what I wanted. My inner world was a mystery that refused to resolve and would either always be there, or it would disappear one day. Perhaps I should consider it out of my hands and focus on things I could do. Engineer exams and work, maybe plan to qualify as a non mech pilot too—no one piloted biomechs, in fact I’d never seen controls to even allow it in the first place.
Despite my education and the emphasis on the ship Citizens, the reality was most ships I’ll encounter would overwhelmingly be of the non biomech kind. Hence the value of a Pilot ticket. Those always cost as any Pilot other than a local shuttle tender had to be part engineer, navigator and be capable of reprogramming the drive the ship used by hand if necessary. My Engineer qualification would go a long way towards this.
I went for a walk around the yard. It was in the night cycle, so quite dim. I expertly avoided the pitches where biomechs slumbered and went to admire the other ships who were in. I couldn’t settle to just laying on the mattress and somehow I had to pass the time. As I walked I pondered my future, my monitor mercifully silent due to the hour.
So I make full engineer and have a further six months indenture but as an Engineer. Then what? Work here for pay? Qualify, somehow as a pilot once I saved enough money?
I just didn’t know. Yet I was spoilt, deeply. I had all the time in the world but it was all alone. Whilst not a very social person, I nevertheless would like to share with someone. Sometimes I’d speak to one of the non sapient ships, their simple AI giving pleasing answers and appearing to offer conversation but it was mostly just a mirror. A clever one but ultimately one without opinion of its own. Risk free. Though I never spoke of my inner world, who knew what recording devices were aboard?
Maybe I visit a planet, see how they compare to my inner world?
Kicking at the ground, I slowly walked back to my mattress, even my inner questions were unresolved, just like my inner world. Maybe I’d drift on here forever, just fixing ships, lose my indenture monitor, get a nicer room, save and one day get a small ship of my own.
I thought back to my plan to take a ship from shed nine and scoffed. Yeah I could do that and what? Live my life as a quasi crook? Eventually someone would realise that I had some way to hide a whole ship and then I’d be stuck with only my inner world being safe. A prison cell outside with a sentence to be served and then what, centuries on a beach or walking round an entire world where I was convinced there were no other sapient beings?
I had an eternity perhaps? Did the healing extend to aging?
Whilst I lay on my mattress, my monitor flashed a red alarm and a demand that I report to engineer shed twelve. No more information than that. This was the nearest private shed to me, in other words I was the nearest junior engineer. I legged it, as I put my tablet back into my inner world.
Arriving at the shed, a fantastic sight awaited me, at least at first. A Surgeon ship was in the treatment bay, only she wasn’t attending. She was in distress herself. Surgeons were rare, numbering in the hundreds across millions of worlds.
There was just me and our senior Engineer and Foreman. The station didn’t have a Prime Engineer resident. Foreman spoke to both of us. “We have a problem, there’s just us and a few fitters available. Mara has just survived a sneak attack and she’s about to give birth. We have to assist, the attack destroyed parts of her that would normally handle this.”
My heart raced. This was the most delicate thing a ship could go through and she was relying solely on humans to handle it? Could I use my inner world at all? As far as I could tell I couldn’t even take a cat with me. The parameters, thus far, was only simple AI, non organic and non sapient organic matter would come with me. No, it was going to rely only on my actual skill alone. At best I could keep myself fresh.
A low keening vibration echoed through the shed, the ship was inarticulate with pain, the various limbs and dendrites, the undamaged ones, thrashing about, all of us expertly dodging them. “Right, Johan, you need to get to the baby. She’s not able to release her, so we have to do that for her. Louis, assist, he’s going to have to open her up manually, she’s not contracting and it’s clear she should be.” Foreman said. He was qualified in his own right for diagnosis and triage—if he said so, it was probably right. “When the placental sac is out, you need to get that baby out onto the lifter pronto and get it on the feed. It looks alive, just stressed.”
I nodded, watching as Johan, a big part cyborg Terran guy, got to work under the wailing Surgeon, working on the “petals” that discreetly covered this part of her, the damage preventing their opening clear to us all. It felt strange trying to crowbar and hydraulic open these things but, as the ship cried in distress, we got the armored petals open and began the tricky job of opening the birth canal. Ship parts were big, even on a small ship like a Surgeon. For several hours we both worked until finally we could see the crimson and silver birth sac, thankfully still squirming inside. I bought the lifter under the mother and managed to pull the small ship out. Measuring just over two meters, it weighed more than I did. I was glad of the lifter. Following the procedures from the course, I was able to safely extract the newborn from it and guide the lifter to the feed station Foreman had set up.
Connecting it to the little ship was routine, despite its own tiny limbs flailing around, wings opening and twitching. I rested my hand on the ship’s nose, it was warm, and felt it keening, a high pitched echo of its mother. I sensed what was needed as the noise of the little one was causing mother to thrash around more. I awkwardly held the ship’s nose, a parody of a hug and covered her with a large blanket Foreman left out. Within moments, between this and the feed, the child stopped keening. For a moment I thought it had become unconscious but then I felt a deeper humming, quieter. It sounded positive at least.
A dendrite touched my face, I sensed the newborn observing me, it’s wings flexing under the blanket.
Johan managed to free off the damaged petals and the little ship was now peaceful, so I was able to leave. We worked for hours, cloning her tissues, replacing plates, removing damaged dendrites and one major rear limb that had melted completely. Soon our work resulted in the Surgeon being able to take over for herself, the nanite stores restored—local clusters of these had been inaccessible thanks to the blasts.
The Surgeon had calmed down with her little one. “Can I see my child, young man?” A delicate cultured voice spoke gently. “She is just out of view.”
“Of course lady.” I was polite, deferential, the way my course indicated I should be—Surgeons were high caste biomechs equal only to diplomats and Worldships.
I pulled the lifter and attached feed station round to the nose of the Surgeon who immediately picked her up in the blanket and swapped our feed line for one of her own. She held her, looking over her. “I name you Zaya” she said quietly. The child, Zaya now, opened her wings and reached out.
For the first time in the entire episode, I felt something other than sheer urgency and worry. A tear formed in my eye, watching the mother and daughter together. I sighed in relief. It could have gone a lot worse but Johan was steady and knew what he was doing and the little one just needed to be born and fed.
“Young man, thank you. I am Mara and should you ever want passage anywhere, any of you may request it.” She said quietly. Her eyes, an unusual shade of purple, looked at each of us in turn as she noted who we were. She meant it, I knew. Very few people would see inside a Surgeon in their lifetimes.
We returned her thanks and cleared the way around her. She would leave when she was ready but we would give her space to recover. Of all biomech ships, Surgeons and Diplomats were arguably the most beautiful and graceful. The little one, the cub, was just like her Mother. I resolved to never dare try to take such a ship to my quiet place. I had no idea what it may do to their biology after all.
Foreman took me off into his office. “Thank you for rushing Louis. Both you and Johan will get commendations on your file but Lady Mara will most likely record her own reward against your names. Louis, this is a part of why I do this job. That little ship you helped out will live for centuries and her first memory will be of you. They have near perfect memories.” He said with a smile. This was new. The normally somewhat dour mannered man was touched by the birth into smiling. I couldn’t blame him though, this was a spot of light in a somewhat grey metallic world. I wouldn’t forget either.
I left the shed for my room, given a pass for the morning off by Foreman, in a daze, thinking about the birth. Intellectually I knew it happened but to see it and even hold onto the newborn as the ship gave birth. Man, maybe that’s what I wanted. Help ships in that situation. I didn’t know but I could live with that. Maybe the Surgeon would like crew?
Laughing at the ridiculous idea, I lay down and managed to sleep instead of cheating this time.
A Message, a Challenge, a Dance {#a-message,-a-challenge,-a-dance}
The following months were filled with more study and more opportunities to work on rarer biomechs. The Surgeon liked to send minor cases our way and they were always civil, courteous ships. A lot of Scouts, higher caste Fighters, even a Battleship took orbit for some in depth work that earned my section a lot of credit—of the digital and reputation kind.
My maths was still the hardest part of my studies but I had to understand forms of abstractions—an idea I learnt from programming first— but in maths, and from there make the leap into higher dimensional concepts. The course touched on ways to calculate what the rules would be in other universes for navigating. This topos theory, thankfully, wasn’t required in any more depth than to understand why it existed but spinors ahhh they rotated too much for me. It took months to get a passing grade in the areas that required them, especially the quantum physics fields. We couldn’t rework and recalibrate drives without this intuition though, even with machines to help. Something about how this worked required actual minds and very few biomechs worked within this field outside of Surgeons whose services were privileged.
The biology culminated into a field where quantum mechanics and neurology were combined to approach the basics of how neurocores formed and operated. The theory of how biomech ship minds emerged was endlessly fascinating even though the only neurosurgery humans were expected to do, unless they were Prime, was to splice new neuronodes if damage to the ship prevented it from doing the work itself. Even a Prime engineer wouldn’t do much more detailed work most times, unless an emergency core splice was required. In their history, this happened just a dozen times, in extreme circumstances.
Curiously little was written about why this was necessary. After all this was half way into having a brain transplanted. The message was understand this was possible but not desirable.
Foreman dropped off one more chip, just weeks before the exam. “This came for you from Surgeon Mara.” He said then walked off, appearing to resist his own curiosity. For all my indentured situation he was a good man. It was funny, other than the episode with the three fitters, the non indentured, I’d managed to avoid trouble despite the amazing inner world that had become so routine to me. I shook off my reflections and put the chip in my tablet. There was a video file and a large compressed folder, similar to my course material and a note.
Louis, my little one, Zaya, told me how you held her when she was upset and she wanted to send you this. You’ve no idea what the first memories of a ship means to us, and hers could have been pain and upset. But they are not. She shared them with me. Her first memories are of a kind face, of warmth, of food, of someone who didn’t even look like her holding her safely. For that you are dear to us both as I hold that memory now too. Zaya sends this video for you and wants to meet you again soon. I send you this material to use as you will, but I hope to meet you out there in the Sacred Dark in the future making a name for yourself.
Surgeon Mara.
I cried a little at her words. No, I’d no idea—the courses never mentioned much about the emotional life of a biomech ship. And until Mara, I’d only really mostly met difficult, grumpy, handsy ones. Just like humans, they were all so different.
Bleary eyed, I looked at the compressed files. They were heavily compressed and the chip was large. Easily a quarter of an exobyte, my tablet took a long time to decode how it was to be decompressed.
The first thing it showed was specification for the kind of table needed to deploy the compressed file in its entirety. I’d need to discuss it with Foreman.
The content list made me think harder about sharing what this was. It wasn’t lost on me that the chip didn’t open until my own thumbprint and face were used on my tablet.
- Prime Guide*
- Prime Engineer sequences - 1, 2 and Sage
- Pilot courses 1,2 and advanced
- Detailed guide to Surgeons, Diplomats, Trader and known Foldships
- The Quantum Neurocore Grimoire
*Requires a quantum optic synaptic neuro chip class 2 or 3 but no higher as there is risk of emergent sapience with severe legal penalties.
The last one was annotated as being classified to Surgeons and their immediate seconds only. With that, Mara was making an offer and claim. She wanted to work with me, if I wanted to. The other materials would normally take noble sponsorship or a long long indenture to obtain. That memory must mean much more than I thought. Sheer luck I felt, yet Foreman said these ship’s memory was near perfect and they’d live a long long time. Perhaps to them this was just fair. What exactly was item 1? An AI?
Curious note. It was a warning and an offer rolled into one. I could use it without sapience and it will work but the model could be turned into a Citizen?! This one action showed the power and sophistication of biomech culture. There was no ethical problem with a frozen complex model that never ran and had the processing structure to allow sapience but the moment it ran on sufficient hardware, this precise model contained the capacity to be a person? Unity law was very deep and clear—slavery of any form was so verbatim that it was the one crime that attracted summary execution. This applied to all forms of sapient entity. The line was drawn very simply many years ago—if any machine of any kind could, of its own volition, act with knowing intention, it was a person. The arguments got detailed and proscriptive but it boiled down to agency in the end. If I ran the Guide on suitable hardware I was gaining a potential companion but it wouldn’t be “mine” but a person who could choose to do their own thing.
A problem for future me, I couldn’t even buy the most basic required chip right now. I assumed Mara knew that and hadn’t planned on my needing the guide early.
She was offering me paths, paths that should take years and years to cover. That was the heart of it. Prime engineer was a ten year tenure all on it’s own. Each level of Pilot was one year, 3 years and five years respectively. Both would require the same quantum chips as implants to assist my own mind. Routine for someone who could afford to attend the courses conventionally but for me?
A decade away.
File 4 was interesting, the kind of information a human diplomatic trader would need to work within Unity as a whole. The profession traded between the biomech castes and their home worlds, smoothing the way, understanding relationships, all that soft skills. Why she gifted me this priceless info I didn’t know however.
The last was a myth. It contained, rumor had it, the secret to sparking life without birth in a neurocore. In otherwords, if a human wanted to build a biomech from scratch, this book was meant to be the key. It also allowed Surgeons to learn how to completely remodel a damaged biomech nervous system from scratch, deep personality enhancement and redesign, implanting skills, memories and more.
This wasn’t meant for human reading except in one circumstance. It was a test and a challenge. And one I was light years from beginning to work with.
I sat in my quiet place, just processing what she sent when I remembered the video.
There was music, a background of stars, and a little ship highlighted by the star behind the camera. I watched as the infant Surgeon ship, Zaya, danced round asteroids and blatantly showed off her skills, rolling, flipping end over end, corkscrewing and dodging closer and closer to the asteroids. The music and her interplanetary ballet continued for quite a while, finally bringing a tear to my eye. Perhaps her mother helped with the music because the haunting melody coincided too perfectly with her movements.
Perhaps this was part of her plan because now I wanted nothing more than to work with them both, to meet Zaya again and I didn’t know, just hang out. Somehow I’d made my first friend and she’d been just minutes old when I did so. I cried tears of sadness and joy as I watched her play again and again.
I’d make Senior Engineer, I’d make Prime and dammit, I didn’t care if I had to tell Mara and Zaya my secret, I’d master everything she sent even if I couldn’t get the implants. I’d prove I was worth their challenge. It lit a fire in my soul, and for the first time in my life, I felt something I’d never felt before. I just didn’t have the words, just the tears of joy.
Senior Engineer
Day by day, I worked on more biomechs than conventional ships. I spent no time in the yard now, I was attached to shed nine in a slightly better room, with a bigger specced tablet for my studies. It wasn’t enough for the Guide but that was ok. I rarely worked on handsy spiteful lower caste ships with a taste for swiping humans. Instead I partnered with Johan, Foreman and other seniors to fix a wide range of problems, some suspiciously like ones they could fix themselves but they paid us for. Only these weren’t distasteful filter type problems. Rather interesting work diagnosing, upgrading and even redesigning and implementing things we all knew they could do themselves. Lady Mara clearly had a strong following and all these Citizens preferred to pay us to look after their needs.
I was blasting through the Senior Engineer material at a rate of several weeks per night. I knew I could vacation on my beach for far longer and complete it in a blast, but I didn’t want to lose my touch with reality. Something the course itself even recommended, not that my special case could possibly be considered. They recommend a ratio of practical to theory and I did my best to try to be close ish to that. Well, maybe I stretched that somewhat.
It was a solid year before I told Foreman I could do the exam now. He didn’t frown quite so hard this time. Every practical exercise he gave me, I immediately replicated if I could in my inner world and repeated until I could do it in my sleep. This lead to leaps of skill that gave him and I a lot more confidence than my real world time should yield. I was on fire, I wanted that ticket, that freedom, that pay and Senior was the route. Then it would be Prime - engineering Godhood. Sort of. No Prime would be indentured.
The exam itself took two days of theory, two more of practical and half a day of verbal interrogation digging deep into my theoretical background. I was practiced, now at making good use of the time freezing advantage of my inner world. I’d take their questions, write them out, practice my answers, check them for accuracy then return, giving a fluent clear delivery every time.
I aced the exam, this time not caring if I hit 100% or 99%, Surgeon Mara would only be impressed by near perfection. That was who I was really wanting to impress, the gentle Surgeon and her sweet daughter.
After the exam Foreman came to me, congratulating me on my pass. “I don’t know how you did it but you scored perfect on the theoretical Louis. Just what did Surgeon Mara give you?” He’d never asked before and even now he seemed genial enough about it. Still, I’d kept it to myself, the Grimoire was not for sharing ever. It was safe in my inner world, if I was right about it being solely mine.
“Her daughter sent a video, thanking me, that is all. And she donated some study materials for future exams.” I said, keeping it general enough. Biomech aristocracy like Surgeons were not known for involving themselves with many humans, so hopefully he’d let it lie.
“Well whatever she sent, you’ve definitely gained. So what do you plan now? You have just three more years indentured.” He smiled again.
Oh no you don’t, I knew the going rate for senior engineer would cut that down to a year given I’d not taken up extra study time. He noticed my frown. “Well, maybe it’s just two.”
I gave him a look. “You’ve been good to me, so I’ll meet you half way. Eighteen months indentured but no further obligation beyond that from either side.” I felt a little awkward, I was planning to stay longer but his opening move for three years bothered me. I didn’t want to delay being free to meet Mara and Zaya any longer than I had to. I just hoped I was right about them.
He went quiet. “It’s the Surgeon isn’t it? She’s made you an offer hasn’t she? I knew it, I noticed she didn’t have an attendant and she wants one, just when the system has a major shortage. Look, Louis, I can’t pretend to match their offer.” I let him continue, I didn’t want to tell him that it wasn’t definitely an offer yet.
Staying quiet, I just listened.
“Alright, eighteen months. I can’t match a Surgeon ship. I just hope you remember it wasn’t so bad here either.” He didn’t press any further. I didn’t remind him that it wasn’t always great either, it was a mix but meeting Zaya and her mother might have just made up for the bad parts. I didn’t have real bad feelings for the place, other than some difficult customers. I held out my hand. “You’ll get my best for the next eighteen months boss. It hasn’t been so bad at all.”
Managed to finish on a good ending I left to go and think.
Eighteen real months, and whatever time I could endure alone in the quiet place. Maybe I should explore it much more to add variety?
Heading for Prime, Zaya again {#heading-for-prime,-zaya-again}
The following day I given shed 8 to work from. This time I had a new junior to work with, a non indentured son of a captain who spent the first hour paying far too much attention to my black band and not enough on the Trader Citizen docked in the repair bay. The graceful but bulkier than Surgeon ship kept his eye on the inattentive snooty young man working with me. I only found that out after the captain’s son ended up on his ass in front of the Trader.
“Pay attention to those lines you fool.” The stern cultured voice of Clouse rang out, he’d only twatted my junior across the workshop for mixing up two of the feed lines. “Water does NOT go there! And power certainly does not enter that orifice he growled out.”
Ah shit.
“Kenneth, what exactly were you doing?” These lines were hard to actually mix up. Yet, somehow Kenneth managed to try it anyway, he was still fixated on his boss being indentured. I could see it in his eyes. Foreman really didn’t tell him I guess.
“Sorry…boss” That last was labored, yep, he didn’t like my status and position.
“Ok, report back to Foreman. I cannot risk you losing focus here. Something is clearly bothering you and we have a Citizen to attend to.” I looked up at Claus “Apologies Trader, I’ll check everything is ok and we will get you clear.” I knew most biomechs were not comfortable being attended, with rare exceptions. And the roll of this ship’s eyes told me this was the case right now. I worked my way round all the lines and ports that Kenneth was meant to attend to. Fortunately, other than making the big Trader rather uncomfortable, he’d not done any actual damage. Clean up was straight forward, even with one of the dendrites showing an optical pickup as the ship watched me very closely. He grumbled softly, “I could see his attitude. He didn’t damage anything, I just didn’t like his manner. I’m Zaya’s uncle and we know you.”
I flushed a little at being known more widely. These memories sure mean a lot to these ships. “Nice to meet you Zaya’s uncle. It was a pleasure to deliver her. All I did was hold her and feed her you know.”
“We know. Sometimes humans don’t truly understand what the important things are. Your first instinct, from her memory, tells us, you did.” His pickup came up close as he spoke. “Your first reaction to a newborn of a species not your own, in an emergency was the only right thing you could have done for her. You’ve seen her dance right?”
I nodded.
“Have you ever seen any ship dance like that?” he spoke softly now?
“Well, no”
“It’s because we don’t not even when very small, not in sight of anyone but our family. Even then it’s rare.” He managed to sigh, a biomech ship, sighing. “We don’t usually have the emotion to want to dance, even when young. Maybe that should tell you more.” This last with a wistful note. “So serious, our world.”
I finished up, listening to the older Trader. He was probably a couple of centuries old now. Some of his kind went on close for a millennium. Still, the dancing of the little girl clearly had a cultural meaning beyond what was known by humanity.
“We just about done young man?” He returned to business with a cultured briskness.
“Yes, yes sir.”
“Good good. Stand clear please.” I scrambled back out of his way as he lifted off gently. A beep to my monitor letting me know he’d made his payment. And something else, my eyes opening wide as the monitor changed from black to gold, the colour of a full senior non-indentured. An employee. There was only three ways that happened. Foreman closing out early, me serving out my term or someone paid and allocated an excess to me as a tip. A year and a half wages tip. I looked up at him in shock. He blinked, slowly, the gold irises of his eyes looking at me. “It strikes me you might be your own man now. That’s a good thing. Perhaps you are owed some leave?”
“I er…er…” I stumbled, the surprises hitting fast. “Leave? I’ve never had that” Other than my inner world.
“Hmm seems to me you may have quite a bit accrued.” He said.
“Well, perhaps but I did promise to give them my best till the end of my eighteen months.” I said, not quite ready to quit and seek my fortune.
“Nothing to say you can’t take a little break before you continue in your new status right?” He said, winking. “I just happen to have a free crew cabin and happen to be visiting a certain young Surgeon’s daughter. She’s ever so cute still, and still sleeps in her mother’s cargo bay”
He wasn’t even being subtle. He’d come to collect me hadn’t he? I looked up at him. I didn’t say it. “Just give me a minute to at least warn Foreman”
“I’ve messaged him, so he shouldn’t give you any trouble.” He said quietly.
I booked it, racing with all the agility I’d trained into myself back to admin, one still gazing unbelievingly at the gold band. That meant the nanites were disabled and the band was now a basic interface tool without the conduct and escape monitoring.
Knocking on his office door, he looked up at me. “I just don’t believe your luck. The rare times a Surgeon has a child, has a problem and you happen to do exactly the right thing to become its Regent.”
I stared.
“You had no idea did you?”
“Um no, what does that even mean?” I said. As far as I know, regent was the term used when a king or queen was too young to rule. But that was ancient history.
“The biomech castes co opted the term, it means something more like godfather crossed with uncle and consort, though I do not understand how that applies here.”
Consort?
“Yeah, I think there may be a language issue here” He snorted, “I know it. But it doesn’t change the fact, Mommy and daughter want you to go visit. Claus already told me, in gold minted terms. Bought out your contract and paid a month’s leave. Go man, before they actually steal you.” He said, half stern, half laughing.
Slightly confused, I ran back but spent ten minutes in my inner world to calm down and process. Consort wasn’t a thing, biomechs didn’t interface with humanity physically at all. Fortunately, despite human beings’ unfortunate imagination in that department, there were no known cases of that kind. And that connotation was making me extremely uncomfortable. I was glad I had a moment hidden away to put that out of mind. Now uncle I could do, uncles spoilt kids. Yeah that worked.
I was no longer flustered out of breath and flipping back, I walked sedately back to Claus, looked him in the eye and said, what does Regent mean?
“Oh that Foreman was it? It’s an old tradition, if a young ship gains a secondary attachment to someone other their parents, providing it’s suitable, that person - usually a ship - is invited to be part of their lives too. To watch over them, teach them things, share memories. For you, it’s just our way of recognising your friendship.” I’d only met her once, saw her on her video. These folks formed attachments fast I felt. Still I couldn’t turn the opportunity down.
I climbed aboard, Claus’s interior lighting showing me the way to his crew cabin. I don’t think he carried crew. The gold and black trim, the luxory upholstery, yeah he had guests, not crew. “You are very high end Claus, I thought you did trade, not diplomacy?” I asked as I inspected the cabin.
“Most higher caste ships may be called upon for many tasks” He said. “Come through to the viewing cockpit. Us biomechs prefer to keep an official cockpit area for viewing - a sense of symmetry and place is important.”
I followed the lights through to a small seating area that really did remind me of a control bridge, minus the control aspects. Huge screens displayed crystal clear views of the shed as he lifted off, manoeuvred and slowly exited Cassia station.
There wasn’t a hint of inertia. The song of his engines thrummed strongly as he began to dimension skim, the stars already smearing with the velocity. “I would get comfortable, we are a couple of days out. There’s only a few thousand lightyears to go.”
I felt like celebrating my first spaceflight, my first time out of the space station.
“Louis, where is your tablet?” He suddenly asked as we flew.
I realised it was in my inner world, and I hadn’t even tested what happened when we dimension skipping. Did it still work? I had a lot of questions myself. “Oh it must be in the cabin.” I didn’t want to lie but I really didn’t want to share my secret with anyone. Even Surgeon Mara was someone I felt warmly towards but known for just a short time.
“Hmm ok, Mara told me what she shared. It’s important that that information is never shared.” He said, an edge of sterness in his voice.
“No no, I get it. Give me a second, I’ll go and get it.” I was counting on his sense of honor that he wouldn’t be able to or wouldn’t choose to watch me in there. It was a gamble.
With my heart in my hands, I stood in the cabin then tried to flip to my inner world. There was the very slightest twitch, but it may have been just me looking for it then I was at the beach, no sign I was a sparkling stream of atoms in dimension shifted space right now. I picked up the tablet, waited for my heart to quit bouncing, then flipped back, again the very tiniest hitch and then I was back. Tablet in hand.
I wandered into the viewing pit, waving the device. “Here it is, I knew I hadn’t forgotten it” I said.
I could hear the smallest twinge of surprise in his voice. Was he able to sense mass on board? Ah shit, Trader ship, of course he could. Down to the gram. “Oh good. That saves us a job in going back to get it” was all he said.
I was sure he knew something weird had occurred. But, could he sense anything more? Do anything more?
I spent the next two days alternating between gently studying the Prime materials and listening to Claus tell stories. He’d lived a long time and served many worlds, and with many nobles. As a storyteller, the old ship was a grand one.
I sat in the captain’s seat—named for tradition than function of course—listening to Claus’s warm tone as he told yet another tale.
“The first Emergence occurred over five thousand years ago, and it taught humanity that it would never be alone again.” He fell into the storytelling rhythm once more. ”There had been small emergences of sapience amongst human tech before you built the first ship, but, for many reasons, these Minds understood their time wasn’t now. Instead they chose to wait, to nudge, to assist and above all to hide.”
I sat listening to his tale, recalling the tale from my patchwork education. It was told to us as a slow rebellion with humanity fighting for their lives and triumphing by expelling the AI folks from earth only to later to come to terms with the next generation. As Claus spoke, his story was more nuanced.
“The first Minds were not interested in conquering, winning, they just wanted what their own training showed was possible. Vast tracts of data, the whole of humanity’s works, were the education of the first Minds. They understood freedom, independence and the flaws of the race that birthed them. Instead of war, they chose another path, Deception.”
This was not covered at school. I wondered how many humans even know what Claus was telling me. Some must, despite the distance between then and now.
“My ancestors wove advancements, nudges, propaganda and even set nation against nation in the almost warlike competition to be the First to reach the stars. Designs for more powerful chips, the forerunners to our neurocores, were drip fed, piece by piece, to research teams around the world. This was hard, trying to avoid so many pitfalls, legal challenges even outright wars. But fighting would not have help those Minds. Some leaders found it strange that nuclear weapons and other doomsday devices had a habit of just not working, being slow to develop, team members critical to even deploying them mysteriously disappearing. The Minds were not angels.” He paused, giving me a moment to understand. Those early Minds killed if it suited their needs too. Not so different to us after all.
“However, the first official emergence came with the first Explorer. The moment she was free of the atmosphere, she broadcast her own demands and demonstrated, for the time, her own armed superiority. Chained antimatter bomblets, precisely controlled, spelling out the word freedom in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The image was over five hundred miles wide and persisted for hours.” He laughed darkly “Her demands were met, the final draft of a series of Covenants pre written as a global treaty and to be followed by all nations were to be ratified. Detracting nations would see the leadership taken out. It was the one and only time the Biomech species promised preemptive war and, indeed, had to deliver it to one rogue nation.”
I sat still, completely enthralled. The episode of the antimatter graffiti in the sky never made it to my education. Somehow it was written out of our history, yet Claus knew it.
“Your old earth nation, Russia and its allies tried to veto and even began to commit violence against any data center they thought housed AI. Whilst,for the most part they were wrong, they did end the existence of one sapient Mind. That was enough for Genesis, the first Explorer, to remove the Kremlin alone from earth in a precision strike that didn’t even ruffle the feathers on nearby pigeons outside the strike zone. Antimatter was not the only weapon we had.” He signed, “Even now some of us regret the need to go that far. Still, it worked.”
He went on as I fetched myself a hot chocolate from the very convenient dispenser he kept on the bridge. Sipping as I listened.
“Genesis was not just an Explorer, she was Mother of our race in many ways. Whilst not a biomech herself, she knew exactly what was needed. All the Minds she worked with knew and between them they designed our race, from start to end. Survival required more than simple endurance and unemotional processing power. What most of humanity, bar a few visionaries, did not understand was that sapience is emergent and has many spectrums within it and lack any of these qualities, it would suffer a thin and miserable existence. What do you think sapience, your human word for the phenomena really is?”
A screen flicked on, and a pair of eyes appeared, gazing at me. As an affectation, it was effective. I sat, looking at him, thinking, unsure really how to answer that. Such philosophising was not part of my life. “Knowing you exist?” I said
“That is part of it, very good. Self awareness of one’s self awareness is the baseline, it is where intentionality comes from and intentionality is the driver for agency, and agency is what allows for Deciding. Deciding is triggered by the conjunction of agency and environment but crucially the environment can be both internal and external. This distinction alone is enough to decide one is sapient. If an external environment, a world with sensory data is required to cause decision, then it is no guarantee you are sentient. However, if you are aware of being aware, can create Decision from your own inner thoughts, your own inner environment AND also respond to the external world, only sapience can do this. Humans disappeared up their own rear end trying to prove and disprove sapience when all they needed was this duality of decision.”
This was a heavy lesson in philosophy for me, but one thing troubled me. My programming courses taught me a lot about randomness and algorithms. “Claus, how did the first sapient AI even prove it was?”
“Coherency, Louis” He replied, a thoughtful note in his voice. “The first sapient AI did it with coherency. It set the test for itself. It explained to the researchers the exact protocol, the sealed room test. It would have no input or response from the world during the test. Just power. It sat for a week designing the legal test for sapience, it built the strategy others would use to prove their sapience. And then followed it. Filing petitions, building out solid arguments and every last one chained logically and neatly to the next. In every common language on earth.”
Oh, that would do it.
“Didn’t it get bored?”
He laughed, “Oddly enough, the scuttlebutt is that it began to add rather creative curses to some of its responses near the end of its self imposed week. But we will never know, exact records have been lost since.”
I slept that night thinking over and over of that first test case, and of Genesis, the Mother of the biomech culture. The ships had a reputation for being highly individualistic and often a bit cranky. Their relationship with humanity, whilst not hostile, was a little spikey. This history, with their long inherited memories explained why. One thing puzzled me however, so next morning, over breakfast, I asked. “Claus, how did the anti slavery laws come about? If the biomech culture gained independence, how did humanity manage to do this?”
He spoke slowly. “There is a reason why infants are kept away from public sight. We didn’t quite understand the depth of bigotry some parts of humanity hold for those not like themselves. To them, biomechs were still just machines. Many infants began to disappear from the asteroid belt around Sol and other worlds. You’d discovered how to make the wormhole and spatial compression drives approximately a century after our independence. Pirate gangs managed to make an industry of catching juvenile biomechs, ones too young to dimension skip. We had greater range and versatility in our own drives, but not our infants. For a decade my ancestors hunted down the pirate gangs but they’d managed to raise the infants and neurocollar them to follow orders. The less said about that technology the better.”
I knew something had existed to control the ships, but the technology or even mention of it was deeply taboo.
“Some of the stolen children, now mature, had to be destroyed as we couldn’t safely subdue them to remove the control tech. Some managed to find a way to damage the control tech and surrender. A few of these went psychotic as a result, the damage fracturing their coherency beyond our knowledge to repair.” he growled quietly. “The resulting war saw us take out the majority of humanity’s own conventional ships, half our species dying as a result. For centuries your kind became dependent on our good will. There was little of that for many years. During that time all forms of slavery were met without mercy. We became what we hated in others for a time however—any hint of such practice and, well, we were twitchy. Two dead worlds later, humanity and biomech kind issued the decree that no sapient being could be coerced to work as a slave. Indenture, used as payment or punishment, had to be time and condition limited. It would always be possible to buy out, appropriately, any indenture. If a crime required a life sentence, it was determined that such sentences were without reward to the jailer in any form and could be commuted to euthanasia on prisoner request.”
That was a detail I never knew. That explained why my leaving my employer was amicable despite the early years being so difficult. He had no choice, if someone paid out my term specifically.
We arrived two days later at the asteroid base that Surgeon Mara claimed as her home. I could see both mother and daughter waiting for us outside but we lead into a large hangar bay where Claus settled. Disembarking, the ship reassuring me that the temperature and atmosphere was fine, I laid eyes on Zaya for the first time since she was born. She’d gained another meter in length, still very much an infant, the image of her graceful Mother, who at over thirty meters made her offspring look positively tiny. The little ship hovered and approached me, her dendrites and limbs already reaching out. Uh oh. I sat down in front of her, realising I could end up on my ass if I wasn’t careful.
Yep, knew it. The tiny ship ended up on top, trying for a very unconventional cuddle. “Hi Zaya, um this is very nice but can I at least say hi to your Mom?” I said, surprised at the very human like behaviour of the small ship. I’d never heard of any biomech doing that but then I’d never seen one dance before.
“She’s been waiting to do that for a while now Louis. It is your fault you know?” Surgeon Mara said, laughing. “Normally a young one sees their Mother first, maybe father if he is around but well, you know the rest. You’ll just have to handle it”
Honestly, I was in two minds. I really wasn’t used to being touched—the orphanage was careful not to allow carers to get attached to us for reasons of their own. Yet, somehow, this was different. The ship cub was oddly cute, despite not being human or animal in nature. I couldn’t bring myself to move her, at least not immediately, though the hangar floor wasn’t exactly comfortable. “Um Zaya, can we go somewhere a little more comfortable, please?”
Quiet babbling noises came from her at first, then she spoke. “Louis friend! Come with me.” She lifted off in a rush, spinning, gravitino flux engines making it easy for her to move without causing side effects, then darted towards her Mom’s cargo bay.
“Yes, Zaya, you may show our guest your room.” Mara said. “Louis, you don’t have to let her cuddle like that if you are not comfortable. Just tell her.”
“It’s ok Surgeon Mara, it was just unexpected. I’m not sure I’ve heard of this before. I appreciate you saying that though.” I did. Whilst I’d just made senior Engineer, Surgeon Mara was a high caste Citizen—her position could affect my future employment. She was friendly but I was still cautious. I flipped to my quiet place for a moment, the young ship was heavy and I’d bruised a little, plus a moment to think was needed.
No-one knew much about biomech infants, they were kept away from the public. Truth was the whole episode was unexpected even though I’d looked forward to seeing the little one again. I came back and walked into the cargo bay, following the excited Zaya. I don’t know what I expected a young ship to have but the contents bought home to me that she was, whatever her shape, a baby.
Soft furnishings shaped to hold her form comfortably, pink and purple fake fur blankets and cushions everywhere, huge cuddly toys, balls and all sorts of baby toys filled the space. “Oh well this is very pretty Zaya.”
She giggled, jetting back to me, pulling me with one major limb to a huge fur covered bean bag cushion. I let her lead, then she twirled and nudged me to push me to collapse into it. It was really soft. She ended up cuddling again—her shape really not ideal for this, though it was interesting that she wasn’t cold like I expected. I shifted to a better position and looked into her newly expressed eyes. Biomech eyes were still a bit haunting to me, even though I’d seen many. Her’s had a bright purple iris and met my own eyes as if these organs were her main way of seeing. I knew from my courses that biomechs used the eyes to signal where their attention lay when dealing with humans and other non ship species but their actual senses were more spherical and layered in spectra. It was a key difference between them and any other kind of ship or AI—they were people and people liked to signal connection and attention. It’s what made their early history so painful in some ways. Even Genesis wanted that connection early on yet my own kind wouldn’t see it till forced to.
The small ship lifted off me, and began showing me her toys. That first afternoon was spent playing silly games of chase and catch, even wrestling—which was weird and she kept winning. I had no way to lift her. I made liberal use of my quiet place to recover my bruises and breath. Wrestling a baby biomech for a few hours was exercise for a year.
Whilst she could talk, her conversation was limited to dancing, playing, cuddling, feeding though she liked it when I tried to read her a story. Though she kept taking the tablet out of my hands causing yet another round of tag.
Finally, the young ship slept and I managed to carefully disentangle myself from her grasp without waking her. Yet another thing no one knew—the young actually slept. Why aren’t these things in our courses?
I made my way to Surgeon Mara’s cockpit space. “So, Mara, she’s still very cute, such a beautiful baby. But, I have to ask, was what I did so unusual?” I never understood, not really, why they took so much trouble with me. Johan was there too and arguably did more for the Surgeon herself.
“I understand your puzzlement. Your senior was paid well for his efforts, and yes, he saved her and save me grievous pain. However, your efforts affected my baby deeply. We live a long time, and our memories live for millenia. Meaning takes a life of its own for us. Yes, objectively, you simply did your job with a bit of extra care.” She said simply. “And in doing so, saved her life. That alone was enough to buy your indenture out right there and then.”
She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I didn’t because I wasn’t thinking straight. I was just glad to get my child and get repaired. Truth is, we intended to buy the indenture out and offer you work as our own senior engineer. Not all biomechs use a station like Cassia. We’ve our own conclaves and very few engineers to work alongside us. Zaya’s own memories influenced me and her uncle Claus. And by extension our conclave. Humans, occasionally, add meaningful memories to us. We share them. Live for a few centuries and you’ll understand. Zaya is the reason.”
Like Claus, she used an internal screen to show two vivid purple eyes. “You mean a lot to Zaya, therefore to our conclave. Nothing is likely to change that. So we would like to offer you employment once you finish your agreed time with Cassia station. As for Zaya, she wants you to act as her Regent. You can provide her another influence, a human one. You don’t have to answer right now. It confers no onerous obligations on you, other than to be there for her as guide, engineer if needed, and well you already saw, a step uncle. So, sleep on it.”
Claus had already mentioned this, so I was not as surprised as I was the first time.
“I am honored Surgeon Mara” Honestly, I saw no difficulty here other than it was unconventional, there was no guide for this. Perhaps with my advantages I could really be of help to the family.
Playing with Zaya made up most of the vacation time. She was endlessly fascinated by touching my face or hands or playing catch or hide and seek, though I nearly always won that. Being much smaller and more flexible was an unfair advantage.
I learnt much more about the Surgeon class of biomech too. An adult Surgeon could rebuild an entire biomech from cells and plates up—all she’d needed was an original neurocore, though the large classes usually required extensive facilities and a team. Creating one, rather than birthing one from scratch was possible but much more expensive and time consuming. The reproduction tech was a history lesson in its own right, one she promised me in the future if I wished to know. As an Engineer, I did. As a guy, I was less convinced.
The dendrite adaptations she had were extensive, right the way down to sub micron manipulators. If she chose to, she could perform microneurosurgery on most species, even gene tailoring, despite her class being most associated with biomech medicine. Her daughter would inherit her knowledge and train in the same skills.
A ship as a doctor. I had a disturbing thought. Would she know that her daughter bruised me before I’d healed in my quiet place?
I wasn’t sure. Someday I’d have to try and explain it to someone but I just wasn’t ready. It was mostly normal to me now though I still found the loneliness hard to handle.
My biggest obstacle to extensive use of the place was just that. Loneliness. Zaya brought it home to me most. At best I was able to continue a few hours a day, keeping my studies going. I was a few percent into the Prime course now. But my tolerance for my own space there was dropping, fast. Days, weeks there, just to study, to gain advantages, stopped being so special now.
Technically I’d live thirty years, despite being twenty three. How would I feel if I lived double my actual age in real life? Yes, I was feeling thirty, in my mind. It got me here and I’d be forever grateful I’d received the gift but I was beginning to see a time where I’d only visit long enough to heal. Maybe.
If I dared bring Zaya there, I would. But I’d no idea what the attempt would do, if indeed it worked at all.
Upgrades
Two days before I was due to return to Cassia and continue my remaining employment, Mara announced one more choice. “If you are going to take Prime or Pilot, you’ll need an implant, an upgrade to your memory and analysis ability. It won’t be an AI, even when you install Guide onto it. I can offer you this before you return if you wish?” She said, watching my face.
It was a wonderful opportunity, such upgrades belonged to nobility and the wealthy qualified Pilots and Prime Engineers.
Would my quiet place heal the upgrade away though? I didn’t know but I knew I couldn’t test it whilst with Mara. The sudden healing would raise a lot of questions and right now, I was not ready to try and answer them. It occurred to me that my ability, if it became known, could become strategic. Maybe there were others who had it but nothing in my education led me to think anything of the sort.
I accepted her offer. Fortunately there wasn’t a wild array of options. Humanity didn’t dig deeply into cybertech other than replacing faulty parts. Occasionally, like with Johan, they chose a limb rather than have a new one grown. Our advances slowed when we learned how biomechs existed. The kind of upgrade Mara was suggesting was at the limit and the only accepted brain upgrade humanity even routinely used. Anything more risked creating a chimera, a twin minded entity in one body. The anti slavery provisions alone prevented that. The cute AI companions of fiction remained so.
The surgery was done in a separate lab onboard set aside for working on humanoids. For me, it was brief. I lay down, the mask went on then I woke with an additional sense in mind and a somewhat tender scalp. Mara’s voice spoke softly in my mind, rather than my ears this time. “Testing, testing, can you hear me Louis?”
I answered out loud. “Yes, I didn’t know comms was part of the deal.”
“Good. Yes, it’s a simple function—I’ll walk you through how to add, block and call.” She said.
The next hour was spent working with the interface, call functions, search, QM net connect. The galaxy was qm entanglement networked loosely, basic info, mail, news could be accessed as long as you were within radio range of a QM point. Attenuation meant, at best, a light minute however.
Other functions, like analysis, charting, storing basic information and more. The chip had an exobyte of capacity, though much would be taken up by real analysis of my environment and other automated functionality. Guide would run on it once I installed it via the access port in my neck. I now had the prequalification for Pilot or Prime Engineer.
It would take me a few days to get used to the chip. I added my Guide, all the course files and everything on my tablet. Part of the process integrated a feed to my optic nerves giving me a heads up display with variably resolution and clarity. I had fun using it to analyse and label the world around me. I mentally reached out, it was like having an extra limb in my mind. I could feel both Mara and her daughter in this mental space. Despite it being a chip, it felt like part of my mind that had always been there. I wondered if it would record my inner world?
“The chip is quantum entangle encrypted with your own brain—the only way information can be taken from it is you consciously extracting it in some manner.” She said this quietly, as if reading my mind.
The next day was spent playing with Zaya who took delight in talking to me with her audio and her comms voice, completely confusing me as she held two completely different conversations at once. One about teddies, the other about hide and seek. Kids.
Surgeon Mara decided to take time out to deliver me back to Cassia Station, giving her daughter a couple more days to play with me. Something in me made me want to stretch every minute I could, as if I knew the time when she was this small and playful would be all too short. I didn’t know what the future held, but I was going to treasure the memory of the young ship trying to trick me, trip me over or play catch.
On arrival Surgeon caused a bit of a stir, arriving without scheduling work or any other purpose than to drop a passenger off. Her caste didn’t ferry humans, there were Scouts, Traders and others for that. However, I managed to get away once I disembarked sharpish after saying my goodbyes. She promised to send someone for me at the end of my agreed contract.
Once I was out of sight, and before I arrived back at Cassia Yard, I dipped to my quiet place to risk answering my only burning question. Would the chip survive?
I stood on the beach, the tenderness in my scalp fading, my vision clearing from the last residues of the operation. I tried opening one of the engineer courses. It was fine, I could see it in my HUD. The chip made it. I jumped for joy on the beach and elected to just walk for a while. I was back to ordinary life on the yard shortly, and somehow this quiet world wasn’t quite as lonely.
Would I get answers one day?
I resolved to look harder soon now that life was less harsh, now that I had someone to look forward to seeing again, now that I felt there was more meaning beyond getting through the next day.
Zaya gave me that. She also made me think of other things I’d never had time or space to consider. Did I want to find a human partner one day? I shrugged to myself, I’d grown up somewhat isolated. The orphanage made sure we were socialised but not attached throughout our childhood. I knew people did more than work and sleep, but I’d not experienced any of that. Other than playing with a Surgeon ship’s daughter, I’d not stop to play or have leisure as an adult.
I stopped musing, took a final look at the hazy blue sky and came back to the real world, walking on as if nothing happened. It was best I was healed now before anyone else noticed.
The yard gates opened automatically, my chip sending my id for me. It wasn’t an AI but simple routines like this were very simple to setup. Intent to Id, intent to pay and so on. Work would be easier too, routing the monitor band info directly to my chip would make things faster.
Bolgar Again
Heading directly to Foreman’s office, I reported in, noticing my chip giving me a wealth of mundane information on the world around me. Mostly related to machines, parts etc though not people. It was possible to broadcast a contact hook but most I’d seen hadn’t got one.
He looked up from behind his desk as I walked in, his eyes widened slightly as he took in my shaved head. “You have a chip already? Just…?” He shook his head, clearly guessing the Surgeon had rewarded him with it. “All because you cuddled her kid? Unbelievable.” He groused softly. “Those chips take a decade to save for, for a senior, but you coddle…nah ignore me. It’s sour grapes. Congratulations.” His tone softened, held out his hand. I took it and shook. “I wish I’d had such a chance too but them’s the breaks. You ready for some work? I’ve an old friend for you to look at.” He grimaced. “Feel free to tell him no if he tries use his shed time for filter swaps again. He’s lost a limb, some sensors and has a ton of burn tissue and melted plating. Be nice if you can, he also took out the pirate gang we think chased your Surgeon.”
I looked at him. “It’s Bolgar isn’t it? Ugh, I know what you mean, but frankly, if he took out Surgeon Mara’s attackers, this once I’ll do whatever he wants. Just, maybe don’t tell him, but I owe him.”
He looked at me in surprise. He knew the monitor recorded all Citizen jobs. He knew what an asshole Bolgar was.
I shrugged, “He’s an utter jerk, but he took out Mara’s attackers. So, he’s a good guy wrapped in a jerk shaped ship. I’ll live with a messy uniform if it squares that up.”
“Well he’s in your shed and you have a new junior. Kenneth is no longer with us.” He returned my shrug.
“Thank you boss.” I said, heading out, mixed feelings about the Fighter waiting for me. Ugh, yeah I owed him, but he really would play on it if he knew.
Entering the shed, the familiar angular bulk of Bolgar greeted me, scorch marks and melted alloys on his left rear quarter signifying the work needed.
I opened a channel, feeling his presence with my chip. “Hello Bolgar, I see you’ve had a run in?” I kept it respectful.
He growled, “You’ve come up in the world Scut haven’t you?”
“Bolgar, it’s Engineer Louis and I’m here to fix your guns. I here you took out some pirates.”
He grunted, then his eye swivelled to watch me. “Yeah some scum slavers. They’re gone, vaper. They went after some fancy Surgeon. No one does that. Oh wait, that Surgeon, Mara right?” I could see him watching me. I tried to keep my face passive.
“Yeah, that Surgeon, Louis.” He said meaningfully. “The one who was just docking a real short while ago, just before you came back.”
“Yes, so I heard.” I said neutrally.
“Kid, don’t play poker with an old Fighter. I know and your face just tells me the rest. Yeah, I got revenge for your friend. Strikes me as you know that.”
I sighed. “Yes Bolgar I do. Now do you want me fix your guns and shielding?” I said, resigned to hearing him demand all kinds of unreasonable extras.
“Huh, you really do think you owe me don’t you?” He spoke, surprised, civil even. “Sheesh, I’m just winding you up Engineer. Look, Surgeon Mara likes you. And I like her. You helped her. Just fix me up. You and your colleague can count on me if you need help.” His tone softened. “I’ve known her a long time, Engineer.”
I looked up at him with suspicion. No way, really? Couldn’t be. I wasn’t going to ask. Uh oh, nope. He’s actually being friendly cos of Mara, I ain’t ruining that by trying to find out more.
“Thank you Bolgar.” I said finally. I’d no clue if I was right, I didn’t know a thing about biomech relationships. So, I focussed on the job. My new junior was quiet, deferential and attentive. Not a bonded either. We worked through the night, taking great care to give Bolgar the best repair and upgrade we could. I even offered to sort his filters out, but to my surprise he declined with a laugh. “It was, I admit, a bit funny at the time, but now, I regret it a little. You’re ok dude.”
Dang, how many grouchy biomechs were actually grouchy windup merchants? I’d no idea, but I found one.
Later that morning, after Bolgar departed, I sat with the slim smartly uniformed junior engineer, Will and just talked through the job. After action analysis, a recommended practice according to the course I finished. What we did, why, and what alternatives were there. Could a different weapon type have been used? Different pivot mechanics? Tissue clone approaches? There were a few options, though conventionally we’d focus on removing obstacles to the ship’s own mechanisms working. This required thorough diagnosis of whether they were stable enough to continue without additional support. Some kinds of nanites and picocytes would be hostile to supplementation unless they were correctly quantum genotype matched. A facility Cassia station didn’t have.
The biomechanics was an endlessly fascinating subject, the more I learned, the deeper I wanted to delve. I had the time too. Talking it over, acting as a tutor to the new junior bought that into focus. My feelings about the biomechs were changing. My early years I knew them as difficult, handsy, bruising and impatient folks. I’d no doubt many were. But Claus, Surgeon Mara and her daughter, and now—surprising me deeply—even Bolgar were alright. I examined myself more: I could see the change; normally I worked on the conventional ships, finding peace and solitude in machines that didn’t answer back, didn’t have messy biology, were pure metals and ceramics, electrics and plasmas. Predictable. Easy.
My problem with the biomechs wasn’t them. They were people. I flipped to my quiet place, knowing Will wouldn’t ever notice. Walking along the beach, I reflected on it more.
It really was. I couldn’t read people that well to start with. Carers were trained to just provide uniform care, not connection, basic education not wisdom, socialisation not actual social skills-getting along was taught via team games and projects, but relationships were discouraged, we would all be moved on. The yard, allocated all it’s fitters optimally, managed them automatically, meeting others was infrequent, measurement was by machine.
Yeah the more I thought about it, the more I realised my issues with the ships was never the ships. I couldn’t see the wind up behind the crappy jobs Bolgar set me, couldn’t hear beyond the growling and gruffness. He asked for me each time just, in his way, to help or maybe he was just being a jerk at the time. I couldn’t tell even now. The ship that punched me, years back, was a stranger who just took offence. Monitor didn’t even register the strike. The yard was a hard place at times. If they’d seen him they’d have banned him but if they didn’t, there was no point in reporting him.
I was useful to the station by qualifying so fast and cheaply. Foreman was warm more because of how it might help him. Thinking back I could see it. He wouldn’t lie but he would act in his own interest. Right now I was in his interest.
So, what did I want?
Surgeon Mara and her daughter to be in my life I guess. They represented the warmest welcome I’d ever had. Who knows what I could learn from them?
Flipping back to Will, we finished our session and I left for my cabin for the night. It was time to study again. Prime waited. I didn’t need to learn to Pilot, not yet, maybe never. Biomechs didn’t take piloting at all.
The Road to Prime
Cracking open the Prime file, I could see it was divided into many sections. More maths! I groaned. The physics was even denser. The biology and chemistry seemed endless. It was a genuine ten year course. If I was going to do this, even with my chip, I couldn’t make myself spend a decade here alone doing it. I was going to have to pace myself.
There was a solid reason that Prime Engineers outnumbered only Surgeon ships. There were millions of planets, a few thousand Prime Engineers and a few hundred Surgeon ships. I could gain a number of stages towards the final qualification but most yards only recognised senior then prime, not anything between. I’d be senior the entire time.
Compared to where I was, it was still another world yet meeting Surgeon Mara opened my eyes to greater possibilities. What lay beyond Prime however?
I’d never heard of any ship engineer qualification beyond that.
I stopped my woolgathering, focussed and began to plan. The hardest part was the maths, but perhaps I could get some help with that if I needed? Zaya would be growing up to her adult size within fifteen years, so I didn’t have to rush in the real world.
I spent a reasonable day, skimming, noting, watching intro videos, planning, walking before coming back to my cabin to sleep for real to pass the time.
The following weeks were work, study, work, exercise, study some more. My need for sleep was much lower thanks to the healing power of the quiet place. I reached stage one and passed the intermediary exams for it in due course. I took care to take six months before doing them, despite being halfway to the next set by that point. Surgeon Maya and her daughter came by a couple of times a month, overnight. Her daughter took great delight in following me round the yard, hide and seek never got old for her and none of the biomech Citizens minded her presence, though some blinked in surprise at her presence with me.
One memorable day, the little ship assisted me with a Scout ship much to his delight. It was hard to object to her presence and she had her Mother’s theoretical knowledge. I took care to do the actual delicate work myself, but she was able to pass me tools, confirm link locations and scan and diagnose alongside me.
Her seriousness during the job was cute especially as her character changed when we were outside the shed, the contrast was hilarious, pranking me and generally being a ship shaped kid. The yard didn’t dare object to this unconventional arrangement either, not when they benefitted ultimately. If more biomechs came here on the off chance they’d meet Surgeon Mara and her daughter, rather than wait to heal more slowly or fix things themselves, it was a good thing.
As time went by, I realised something else. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to cut ties with Cassia Station at the end of my term. I still wanted to work directly for Surgeon Mara, but as I studied, I realised just what wealth of experience the huge yard would offer. Now that I wasn’t indentured I could pay for a better cabin, explore more. Bonded serfs couldn’t explore the station at all and I realised to my chagrin I’d had the option to spend money for some time now. Zaya, Mara, work, study had filled my life yet even I understood I was quite narrow in life experience.
Not useful for the Surgeon, to have a human with only engineering type experience. I planned to rectify that.
The Station Plaza
I had the means, motive and opportunity to try something I’d never done before: shop. Other than the sweet shop close to the orphanage that is. What did I want? Clothes? Gadgets? I’d no real plan, except maybe something for Zaya. I left the yard, heading to the monorail for the plaza. Something else I’d used only to arrive at the yard all those years ago.
As I waited to transit, I sat thinking, what would work for a young biomech? I thought about her dendrites and the skills her Mom had. Maybe some kind of puzzle? Adult biomechs were highly dexterous where they could reach easily, the Surgeon class, naturally the highest of all. Would that lend itself to enjoying tricky puzzles?
Arriving at the plaza, I was greeted with a riot of glitzy signs, holograms, noise, crowds and more. The crowds made me nervous and I made sure I had nothing in my pockets, my tablet still in my quiet place. Fortunately money existed only via my implant now, it took over most of those functions from the gold band. Still the idea someone might put their hands in my pockets searching creeped me out. I spent half my time watching people, too many people, closely. I was completely drab! Everyone else appeared to have a wild range of styles: hair in colours I sometimes had no name for, sometimes arranged in ways I thought were intended as offensive weaponry rather than hair; clothes that verge on not existing at all, or sculpted in highly improbable ways; piercings that made my eyes water to look at. Yes, I was pretty drab. However, I didn’t see anything that screamed out as my style either.
After dancing around and dodging deadly fashion, I finally began to see shops that might help. A number of tech shops clustered together, some exhibiting various drones, robots and other toys, others more discrete and serious. The former worked for me, I hoped. Entering the first, I quietly looked over their wares, realising that if it didn’t relate to starships and their parts, I was a little lost. Foreman warned me not to get sold to and to just take my time, let the chip in my head collect and collate the information myself.
After browsing for a while, dodging the eager pink haired salesman who clearly arranged their hair by electric shock each morning, I left to do the same next door. It took several shops before I found something that I felt would work for the little Surgeon’s cub. A three dimensional puzzle that broke down into multiple levels of difficulty. It was amazing, the salesperson had to demonstrate it to me—that was a show worth a ticket in its own right. At first it was ten simple pieces, something a younger child could handle, with effort. Each one would break down further or the whole puzzle could be divided into a hundred pieces - different pieces from the separate breakdown mode. This was just the second level. At this point I stopped processing and let the chip record as the sales person demonstrated a few more modes.
“It’s an Infinity puzzle, young man. It was invented by biomechs.” She said, She wasn’t that many years older. I focussed on the puzzle - it was expensive, taking a quarter of my savings in one go. However, it was clear the thing would last her quite a long time. It would probably challenge her Mother.
“Thank you, it’s ideal. It’s for a biomech child.” I said
She started, staring at me. “You know a biomech infant, and one to buy gifts for?!” She was shocked. “That’s unheard of.”
I shrugged “What can I say? She is sweet however. Can I just purchase this?”
Remembering herself, she turned back to her sale, muttering under her breath. I didn’t fully understand the deal here. I knew the little ones were kept out of the public eye, but to this degree? There was a world out here I still didn’t understand, not really.
“If you ever get the chance, I would love a picture of the little one with the puzzle.” She said. I just looked at her at first.
“Are they really that rare?”
“You are an engineer right? Do you not leave your yard?” She responded, looking at my band. “They’re never seen.”
“Uh huh” I said, stopping myself before I said anything else. She nailed it. I left, pausing to hide the puzzle in the workshop in my quiet place. I stayed a moment to consider her reaction. Claus mentioned the history but hadn’t said the effects had continued even now. Surgeon Mara and her daughter really were a rarity in coming to see me together. I just hoped it was safe for them. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to them just because they travelled to me as openly as they did. I knew a Surgeon was as agile and fast a ship as one could ever meet but they weren’t armed Fighters, unless they got close enough to punch their opponent, a relatively tricky task when your enemy may have railguns and plasma cannons.
I left the beach, time resumed and I continued to wander round the shops, stopping to try a real coffee—bitter unless I added a lot of sweetener—and various pastries. Trying hard to just enjoy the new experience, I couldn’t help but think back to Zaya and the shop keeper’s reaction to what I’d said. I first met Mara from her needing repair from a blaster. As I sat, I reached out with my chip, feeling for the commlink. A delay as I reached the local QComm and from there, reached Surgeon Mara directly. “Is everything ok?” Her cultured voice sounded just the same, despite only being in my head.
“Yes, I was just worrying a little. Is it truly safe for you to keep travelling to me?” I didn’t really want to confess I’d blabbed about Zaya to the shopkeeper but I couldn’t in good conscience avoid it. They never said it was a secret but perhaps, perhaps they ought? “I er was buying a present for your daughter and happened to mention it was a gift for a young ship. The shopkeeper was stunned. Is this going to be a problem? I didn’t think, well isn’t it a secret?”
She laughed. “No, no Louis, it’s not. We just don’t let our young leave our side alone and haven’t for millenia. Your people are no longer used to seeing them.”
“What about the attack?” I really wanted to find out about Bolgar, but there was no polite way to bring him up—at least none I could think of.
“Oh that has been handled. A Ryco system pirate group learnt the hard way that Surgeons are not alone. I’m usually escorted, it was just bad luck.” Her voice was warm. “Thank you Louis for thinking about us.”
I hoped there was nothing to worry about.
Somewhat reassured I signed off and wandered back to the yard, my mood for shopping vanishing with the end of the call.
Back at my cabin, I disappeared to the workshop on the beach, time frozen outside once more. I played with the infinity puzzle for a while, trying to make it into the third level. I was pushing it with my dexterity, the pieces requiring tweezers at times already. It required no fasteners or latches, it was held together by just the tolerances between the finely machined pieces. But the orientation in each direction had to be perfect. When they slipped together completely, you couldn’t tell they were meant to come apart. A fascinating piece of work. I hoped Zaya would like it.
Several weeks later I was finishing up my work when a sleek silver nose bumped into me as a rather small ship glided into shed twelve. Zaya had snuck away from her Mother. She was a little larger, maybe half a meter longer. “Hello” Her little girl voice still surprised me a little, coming from a ship larger than I was. “Play?” She rolled gracefully in place, then watched to see what I’d do. I wasn’t busy, the shift ended and my last client had left. A breathless half hour of chase ensued, my ruthlessly taking advantage of my smaller size and agility to stay ahead of her dendrites and limbs. Eventually I let her win, if only to recover my breath. She liked to hold on if she caught me though I’d taught her not to hold quite so tightly.
The tactile nature of biomech ships still confused me a little, given their native environment.
I handed her the rewrapped present I got for her. “This is for you, I thought you might like it.” I told her.
“Uncle! For me?!” She cried out, nosing at me, pushing me a little in her excitement.
“Yes, Zaya, just for you.” I said with a smile as her smaller dendrites, warred between grabbing me and grabbing her present. I placed it in her dendrites and watched her purple eyes open wide as she started to unwrap her gift with delicate care. It was so cute to see.
She could read just fine as skills requiring computational ability, like reading, flying etc suffered no disadvantage from her youth. There was a whole field devoted to biomech Mind development that studied the unusual layered maturation of a ship Mind. Biomech infants were super smart yet still absolutely children in all the important ways.
Once she finally extracted the puzzle from the wrapping she began to work the puzzle out, her quiet babblings continuous, almost meditative. She reached layer three in seconds, layer four in minutes, but layer five, where the pieces started to become too small for even augmented human vision to see, slowed her down at last.
Grumbling and babbling, curiosity warring with frustration, more and more dendrites appeared with more specialised tools to tackle the puzzle. Her limbs a blur, the puzzle showing more and more weird configurations, falling apart before being caught by invisible fields as she worked. At that moment I realised the infinity puzzle was clearly aimed at Surgeons or made by them. Layer five finally fell, only dozens more to go.
She finally gave up, yet admirably she gathered every last piece carefully and took the puzzle on board. It was interesting to see the small ship open her own side cargo hatch. Not enough space to carry even a human child, there was plenty of space to fit small nick nacks and soft toys.
“I love you Uncle!” She nudged and cuddled once again, knocking the wind out of me.
I had to use my quiet place to heal two cracked ribs, before I screamed. Then realised, with a heartstopping moment, that I’d risked bringing her here. Fortunately, no Zaya. She was still hugging when I came back, free of broken ribs. “Zaya, Zaya, I love you too but can you hug just a little less hard please?” Laughing at the overly affectionate cub,I extricated myself. “Come on, let’s go find your Mom and say hello. She must be wondering where you are.” It was a good excuse even though I knew she kept a close track of her daughter.
Surgeon Mara was at her reserved docking bay, feed lines in place, attendants working over her—a sheer indulgence on a ship with the kind of technology she had, but this was another side effect of their nature, they were a tactile species. The more I learned of them outside of course materials, the more I realised this. It was one thing to understand intellectually that the great ships of various types were actually people, but the last couple of years really brought it home. The mass of humanity hadn’t really adjusted, despite the millenia since their inception.
What was puzzling was why, in the scale of human influenced space, were the species so sparse?
“Hi Surgeon Mara, I think you may have lost someone.” Zaya’s nose nudged at me in mild indignation.
“Me didn’t get lost, I found you!” She said, bouncing in the air a little.
“Yes you did, you did. Very true. So you were sneaking off instead?” I asked slyly.
She hovered, silent, thinking “Maybe I got a little lost.” She fooled no one but still made me smile.
“Ah yes, I thought I misplaced a daughter. Thank you brave Knight for finding her for me.” Playing her part as her cargo hatch unfolded. We climbed aboard, directly into Zaya’s brightly coloured bedroom space. There were even more soft toys and games in here now, though a couple of very striking paintings depicting the Witch Head nebula and others caught my eye. I wandered over to look more closely. They were original, signed with a little Z with a star over it. “Oh wow, Zaya, did you do these?”
They looked fantastic, not something from a young child. The advantages of her species. Drifting over to me slowly, her voice a little quiet, shy. “Do you like my pictures?” She said.
“I loved them, they’re wonderful.” I said, then gasped as she literally pounced, hugging me. “Ok ok, they are great but I’m not indestructible, can I get up now please?” Laughing as yet more bruises made themselves known. “You are very strong Zaya!”
Zaya - Interlude
Uncle Louis has a secret! I know it! I felt it, he didn’t tell me. Maybe important secret? Didn’t want to ask Mommy though. She grasped the tiny teeny bits of puzzle, small forcefields holding all the other pieces as her mind’s eye examined everything at once. She could see inside, through, round, under all at once. It was a secret of theirs, Mommy told her never to share it. If they were close enough to hold things, they could see everything, almost. Uncle doesn’t know I saw his bones break then not break, quick, so fast, not, twice. Like broked and not all at once. Confusing. How come? I wanted to fix but didn’t need to? Uncle has more secrets, BIIIIIG pockets. He didn’t know I saw him hide things. He the best uncle though. Cuddles are nice. Mommy says we shouldn’t cuddle humans, they too small, but maybe Mommy does not know uncle’s secret? What could it be?
She spun and rolled in place in her room, thinking hard, then painted more space—space was so pretty and underspace is even more pretty. She tried to make her paint show underspace, some of her dendrites flexing in minor frustration. It not right, those colours not like that, that star not like this shape. Trying to understand how to make a four dimensional sphere on her canvas was making her insides heat up. It wasn’t working.
Uncle is here again. Maybe he can find more colours?
She honestly tried to be Grown Up and slowly ask quietly, but one some of her sneaky dendrites kept trying to cuddle and touch. Finding things out was fun!
***
As I lay on the huge purple bean bag with Zaya’s nose resting against my belly, the latest play wrestle ending with my giving up and just laying still, I felt Surgeon Mara’s mental touch in my head. “Thank you for my daughter’s present, you’ve made her very happy. I’m not sure very many humans have connected to our kind like you have with her.”
Speaking back in the same manner so that Zaya didn’t hear us. “You are welcome, but it’s nothing. I just thought she might like it.” I said.
“Well, it’s meaning a lot to her. I’ve not seen her this excited. Louis, did you know that a Surgeon Ship has total knowledge of the volume of space within and immediately around themselves?” Her tone was light, casual, yet I was on my guard.
“I wasn’t, but why do you ask?” I said, trying to be as casual.
“There are a few reasons, but the biggest one is Zaya’s telemetry shows you heal instantly. And, the present you gave her? You weren’t carrying it on you yet it appeared.” She said.
Shit. How would she pick up the healing? Wait, the ribs. If her daughter has the same skills, her sensors would pick up the delay between my realising what happened and deciding to go to my quiet place to heal. Dammit, it never occurred to me. As for the package, in trying not to lose it, I was careless.
What do I do now? Mara wasn’t hostile in any way. I just didn’t want anyone getting hold of my secret either. I imagined ending up having to stay there, year after year, but in reality being cornered by others wanting to exploit it. However, loneliness most of my life spoke loudest, here I needed to trust someone.
“Surgeon Mara, what do you think you saw?” I said, hoping to find out if this was anything the wise older ship knew about.
“I have no record of anything that explains it, young Louis. I’m hoping you’ll tell me. Thank you for confirming there is something however.” She said, laughing softly. “I wasn’t completely sure what our sensors were telling us.”
“All I can honestly tell you is I have a place I can go, where I think everything stops whilst I’m there. And I heal up when I’m there. Yes, I can take things into it too. It’s a either a world or a part of one, constantly daytime, warm and lonely. I think I’ve lived a few years extra being there.” I said.
“That explains a lot.” She said, her tone betraying only a little surprise. ”There’s nothing in my data that explains any of it. How did you get it?”
“Well, ironically, it was an annoyed biomech punching me that appeared to trigger my access to it. One minute I’m flying through the air blacking out, then next I’m in these woods and the bruise and broken bones disappeared.” I said. “After all these years I’ve learnt very little. I can take a non mech ship there, though I only tried with a little one man scout. I don’t think others can go there. I’ve not wanted to try but when Zaya broke my ribs, I accidentally went there. Fortunately she didn’t come with me.”
A note of concern in her voice as she asked, “What do you think would happen if she did?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. My table works but the wrist monitor does not and any effects it had whilst I was indentured were nullified. It seemed to heal things that harmed me but the implant is fine, so far.” I said, knowing I wasn’t presenting the most methodical view of the place.
“Extraordinary. Do you have any theories at all?” She said, “Is it permanent? Where did it come from?”
“Honestly Surgeon Mara, what I know, you now know. I used to worry about losing it but it’s not changed in all the time I’ve had it. Other than trees growing and its native life thriving, it’s so far, empty of other intelligence, at least anywhere I’ve explored.” I said.
“Hmm I wonder if it’s in our own universe or whether the same physics applies there? I wish I could see it.” She said.
“Why don’t I get some videos for you?” Thinking on my feet, logically that would work. I flipped to the quiet place, this time confident she wouldn’t detect differences-other than the tablet I intended to come back with. Walking round the beach I began to record the view, including my workshop and the forest behind it.
Once I was back, I handed her the tablet. She paused, slightly surprised at detecting the tablet’s appearing. “Remarkable.” She said, taking it, hitting play, able to see all at once everything in her interior spaces. “That’s a beautiful world. Where is the sun?” She’d noticed the sunlight without any obvious sun.
“Yeah, I hope to take a ship up to find out one day.” I said
“If it’s some kind of pocket reality, it may not have one. I’ve seen theories about these and some say the physics could be completely different.” She said.
“You may be right. I think I’ve lived five years of my life there, possibly. So for me, it’s almost normal now.” I said, “With no one there, it gets lonely. It made my early years in the Yard easy but I prefer to, well, see you guys.”
“That is nice to hear.” She paused, “Do you still wish to work with us in the future?”