The Light has no will,VIFAI recited.
Don’t I know it.“But,” Iris continued, “peoplearekind and generous. I have yet to be proven otherwise, Dr. Alo.”
Still making friends with the jar of honey, Iris watched Ishtan and Riyu study the photographs taken of the murals on the upper deck. They spoke at length about their peculiar nature and their academic significance, and never once about their subject matter. Their voices rose higher and higher, resonating with excitement over the new discovery. The engineers were nowhere to be found; Iris assumed that under Yan’s supervision, theyhad embarked on their quest to mutilate some other important part of the ship. Station security was also absent, but that gave Iris far less worry.
Have you been tracking our movements along the map?he asked VIFAI and received an affirmative ping.Can you do me a favour and mark all the spots where I had sensed that pulse and project that onto the map?
VIFAI did just that. It took it nearly thirty seconds, about twenty-five seconds longer than it would any other construct, but both Ishtan and Riyu were still busy gushing over the photographs, and Iris allowed VIFAI to work at its own pace.
Can you project the decks on top of one another?
VIFAI did.
Looking nowhere in particular, Iris scanned the three-dimensional map, noting the glowingXs placed where the pulse had been most prominent.
Can you mark down where you received the ping?
VIFAI did, and Iris blinked hard in realisation. All theXs aligned in a slightly imperfect line right down the ship’s centre, right where its “brain” would have been. Iris remained unmoving and sipped slowly at his tea, careful to contain his growing unease.Are you certain that whatever pinged you was so simple it wouldn’t know it was sentient?The mural lay right above the centre of the ship, the closestXto the imagined centre line that cut through the “brain.”
There was a pause before VIFAI’s response, then it said, with a familiar edge to its electronic voice,Alive. It wasn’t aware that it was alive.That was another distinction Iris couldn’t fathom existed. No part of his Starlit training had prepared him to contemplate the difference betweensentientandaliveas it pertained to non-organic things. He risked offending VIFAI.What would be the difference between the two?
Iris swore that his companion audibly scoffed at his question.Even in in-organics, a thing alive doesn’t need to be sentient; a thing sentient does not require to be alive, in the moment, to still be sentient.
Therewasa difference then. A stark difference that Iris himself had failed to see before. It shamed him greatly to think that at one time, not that long ago, VIFAI had been, conceptually, no more than a faceless, albeit entertaining, assistant to him.
Iris pondered the difference for a moment.Like the final signals of a brain as someone passes?
Could be, VIFAI conceded and added nothing more on the matter.
Something in the brain of the ship wasalive, in a matter of speaking, or at the very least, animated enough to be interacting with VIFAI. Then again, it could have pinged it by accident or on instinct alone. In any case, this peculiarity was outside of Iris’s expertise.
“Vessel?”
Iris stared wide-eyed at Riyu’s round face, not a metre away. She was close, far, far too close. He played off his surprise and took a final sip of the cooled tea.
“Where did you go, just now?”
The lie escaped Iris before he could stop himself. “Sometimes when monks meditate, we can reach states that are far removed from common reality. I must have lost myself in the vastness of the cosmos for a moment,” he said with a small smile. “I apologise, Dr. Alo. Did you wish to speak with me?” Riyu’s eyes were running along his face, searching for any tell of a lie, or anything worthy of her concern. But Iris was long accustomed to telling small lies of omission and manifesting the neutral facial expressions he needed for work.
There was no sense in worrying those around him anymore than they needed to be, and for now, he could continue pretending there was nothing at all to be concerned about. What he needed was to speak with the engineers without anyone listening in. He didn’t want to start a panic or have witnesses for when Yan cussed him out, or worse.
“Ishtan just said that you were quite distressed by the idea of taking down the murals,” Riyu said.
“Quite,” Ishtan said.
“Must you?” Part curiosity, part apprehension returned Iris to the moment he first had sensed the ping. The difference betweenaliveandsentientnagged at him. If there was even a small chance that something aboard the ship was cognisant enough of its condition, would it be not that something’s prerogative to decide what was to become of the ship?
“The relics mean little out here, but at Sychi, they’ll offer us glimpses of ancient history,” Ishtan said. “Moreover, they’re quite meaningful to those with the purse strings. Institutes will spare no expense to acquire them.”
Pragmatic, all of it. So unlike the teachings Iris had absorbed since he was a child. Tread carefully. Leave things be. Value them only for existing, not what they may do for you.
“Sychi has an entire legal team ready to fight for ownership,” Riyu chimed in with a mischievous spark. “They can make lives very difficult for people if they’re competing for an artifact. I’ve seen it happen before.”
“Who else would compete for theNicaea?”
Riyu got to counting on her fingers. “Oh, Doshua Station, another institute, even your temple might be interested, Vessel.”
“The Starlit?”
