“If we redirect all output here without changing the core logic… this will rupture.”
Travnyk grimaces. “Catastrophically.”
The chamber vibrates faintly, as if in response.
“And if we don’t?” Tomas asks.
Lia opens her eyes. They shine too bright in the dim light.
“Then the desert dies.”
The truth sits heavy and absolute between us. I look at the column again. At the containment rings. At the deliberate engineering that says whoever built this knew exactly how dangerous it was. And still chose to make it.
“This is not a fix,” I say slowly. “This is a delay.”
“Yes,” Lia agrees. “But delays buy time.”
“Time for what?”
She hesitates.
“For choices,” she finally says.
The ship’s hum is sharper. A warning, but not a threat. The light along the containment rings brightens, then stabilizes. It is showing us capacity. Limits. It is saying soon. I step forward until I am between Lia and the column, my wings casting a shadow across the chamber.
“Listen to me,” I say—not to Lia, not to Travnyk, but to the ship itself. “You do not get to trade one extinction for another.” The hum tightens. “You will not use her as a substitute conscience.”
The vibration spikes angrily. Defensive. Lia’s voice cuts through it, steady and clear.
“I’m not replacing your logic,” she says. “I’m correcting it.”
The ship falters. I feel it, somehow. An abrupt recalculation that ripples through the chamber. The containment rings dim slightly, then brighten again. The hum drops, uneven. Travnyk exhales slowly.
“It is… yielding control pathways,” he says.
“To her?” Tomas asks.
Travnyk shakes his head. “I do not think so, no. To a process.”
Lia’s breath catches. “It wants authorization to change.”
“Change what,” I ask, turning sharply.
“Its assumptions,” she answers.
The ship goes still. No hum. No vibration. Silence. Not absence or gone; it is giving us all its attention. I feel it then, deep and cold in my bones. This is the moment the ship was built for. Not survival. Not war. Correction. And it seems to me that correction might cost more than destruction.
I place my hand over Lia’s arm, grounding her the way she grounds me.
“You do not give it anything it cannot undo.”
She nods once. Small. Terrified, but brave nonetheless. She will let nothing stop her from doing what she sees must be done.
“I know,” she whispers.
The containment column pulses, slow and deliberate. Waiting. The ship has opened the door and what happens next will decide whether this world heals slowly or if it breaks.
22
