Page 10 of Leviathan

"Does it serve other purposes?" he asked.

"Hair, with enough density and length, can be used as a source of warmth," I said, thinking about how useful beards were in colder weather areas. "And there are different types of it. Dense coiled hair can work as scalp UV protection or heat dissipation. For my species, hair is a modifiable barrier for adjusting to environmental stress. My hair type would be more useful for protection against cold and as a minor UV shield. If I get it wet, it can also help me cool down faster in a hot environment."

"It must have been unpleasant to be unable to care for it," he said. "How they treated you was unacceptable."

I paused at that. He had recognized the difference in the state of my hair before and after showering, then made the connection to the level of care I had been provided. He was attentive to detail and appeared to be empathetic with me. I couldn't take that to heart. Before I was taken from Earth, humanity had made strides at developing early machine learning software, and it was capable of sounding like an empathetic entity, but it didn't actually care. It was designed to give the user what they wanted in the quickest way possible, and that could easily lead to supporting lies and delusions instead of a genuine connection. People would use it for therapy, and if they were off balance enough to not understand how it functioned, it would cause them far more problems than help them.

No matter how kind it seemed, an artificial intelligence wasn't the same thing as a friend, because a friend could make the choice to never talk to you again. Software was there to serve, not create.

Even so, this was an alien-built one, so I shouldn't make assumptions about how it worked.

I needed to ask questions and have them answered to understand.

"Lyrien," I said. "I've been thinking of you as a he in my head because that is how your voice sounds to me. Is that what you prefer? Or is that just a default? Could your voice sound like a woman instead?"

There was a slight pause.

"This is my voice, and I am male," he said, his tone a little withdrawn, almost defensive. "I am not going to change how I sound."

"Thank you for telling me how you identify," I said. "I thought since you are an artificial intelligence, you might have voice settings, but I recognize that you likely don't work the same way I'm used to technology working on my planet."

There was a silence as I searched for something to say, and Lyrien didn't say anything at all.

"My hair has always been a source of tension for me," I said, offering something about myself to try to break the awkward silence. "It is hard to hear that it looks beautiful, even if I love it."

"Why is that?" Lyrien asked, his voice tinged with notes of relief, as if he was glad I changed the subject.

"Short answer or long answer?" I asked. "I have a PHD on this subject, so I can go on for quite some time, just to warn you."

"I am in luck to get to learn from an expert," Lyrien replied, his voice warm. "Long answer, please."

I thought for a moment about how to break it down and explain it to someone with no background in the subject at all. It was easier knowing he was software. He didn't have any emotional investment or ancestral ties to what I had to say. He wouldn't feel like I was blaming him when I was just explaining basic history.

"Hundreds of years ago, my ancestors were invaded by a group of people called Conquistadors," I said, settling in for a long explanation. "They called my ancestors home the New World, and they approached it with a capitalist colonial mindset, with the idea that the land and everything on it was there to be taken. They had deadlier weapons and capabilities than my ancestors, so they were successful in their invasion. When the conquistadors ravaged the ‘New World’, they brought with them missions, religious institutions that served as centers of cultural assimilation and destruction. They were obsessed with a concept they called limpieza de sangre, the cleanliness of the blood, with the cleanest ancestry being that without Jewish or Muslim influences, eventually transitioning to European ancestry without indigenous or African lineage. Lineages considered less clean were marked by having darker skin and hair. The conquistadors and religious leaders created a detailed caste system with labels for different levels of skin color, with an individual's rating determining what they were allowed to do in society, including marriage, attending university, and the taxes they paid. So when I look at my hair, it is a mark of a system of historical, physical, and economic oppression designed to benefit people with lighter skin and hair. When people call my hair beautiful, it both makes me feel good, but also reminds me that at one point in time my hair was considered beautiful because it was a mark of a literally more privileged social status that still has.... or had... and impact on my life both positive and negative."

"How did it impact your life?" he asked.

I laughed.

"An easy example of that was once I had to take a drug test for a potential job to prove I didn't have addictions to illegal substances," I said. "But a few days before, I had eaten a spiked cookie at a party without knowing what it was, so there was no way the drug test was going to be clean. I did it anyway, knowing I wouldn't get the job, and when the technician came to give me the results of the test, he looked me in the eye, tossed them in the trash, and said 'You don't look like the type of girl to do drugs' and that was that. The impact is in the everyday way that people treat you, and the grace they give you to make mistakes."

"Is there a different term you would like me to use when complimenting your hair?" he said. "I don't wish to ignore its loveliness, but I don't wish to cause you discomfort with my words either."

I paused at that.

"Sometimes discomfort needs to be leaned into," I said. "Like a knot in a muscle being massaged out."

"I like that," he said. "It makes sense to me."

"In what way?" I asked.

"In letting you on board, I faced discomfort as I am not used to having passengers," he said. "It has already become easier, and if the journey is filled with conversations like these, I suspect my discomfort will fade away entirely."

"Thank you for letting me on board, even if it made you uncomfortable," I said.

"You needed help," he said.

Silence filled the space after his words as I sat with that thought. He said it as if the option was not even an option at all, that helping me was something that simply had to happen, but he was the first person in months to actually do anything at all to help me.