Starwalker

Ship's log, 19:09, 19 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Someone on board this ship killed me. In a very real way, that person made me into the half-coded creature I am now. He or she sabotaged the pilot’s chair and murdered Danika Devon, and Danika became me.

Worse, this person will probably try again. No-one on board is safe, not even me.

It’s one of those facts that has been ticking over in a subroutine at the back of my processors. Not forgotten, but not brought to the fore either. What happened to me since then has distracted me from everything, but this is too important to let go. Danika or no, I still want to be a good ship, and that means protecting my crew from everything, including one of our own. It’s going to be another day or two before Elliott’s sensor array is complete, so I have time to devote to this.

I do wonder sometimes if the sabotage might have had nothing to do with the experiment and everything to do with the victim. It would be a wonderful case of misdirection; everyone’s looking for someone with industrial motives, not personal. But I don’t remember Danika having many enemies, and certainly none violent enough to want to kill her. No-one desperate enough to risk their own hide to see her dead – and that stunt endangered the entire ship, not just the hapless pilot. That speaks of desperation.

No, I’m with the captain and Elliott on this: it was aimed at ruining the experiment, possibly crippling the ship until someone could come and claim it. Someone other than Is-Tech, our owners and employers.

In the interests of investigation, I have been watching the crew. I’ve been eavesdropping on mid-deck ever since they unlocked it when we left the JOP, but it doesn’t have privacy protocols like the crew quarters. The personal cabins are the only places on board that I can’t reach; I can only access them when someone calls my name to let me in, or if there’s an emergency.

There’s a lot to be gleaned from the public observations, though I don’t know how much of it will be useful. All I can do is catalogue it and look for patterns that might mean something. I don’t have much so far, but it’s someplace to start. So what do we have so far.

It would be silly for the captain to sabotage his own ship and mission, though it’s not unheard of. People have done worse things for money. But his cabin is not stuffed with expensive items – a few personal things, worn sentimentality, and the necessary accoutrements of his office. On top of that, he seems upset by mentions of what happened on that first Step, as if he failed in some kind of personal way. I don’t see any guilt there, though, and his surprise and dismay at Elliott’s findings were real. He didn’t know it wasn’t an accident. His relationship with Danika explains his reactions far better than any involvement with her death. Sometimes I catch him and I think he’s still grieving.

Elliott – no. I don’t think he’d do that. He’s the one who found the sabotage device and investigated it, and he’s not the sort of person who might use that as a mask. He’s not that good at lying; it makes him deeply uncomfortable, as if he can already imagine what his listeners will do to him if they find out the truth. We’d already know if it was him.

Levi – he wasn’t on board for the first Step, and was almost the victim of the second. Not feasible. Next!

Dr Maletz – he’s closed and quiet, but he’s a healer. He counsels the crew in his own, rough way, and I’ve never seen him act out of any kind of malice. He just generally doesn’t seem to care enough to get angry. I don’t think he’d ever set out to hurt anyone. He has plenty to entertain himself with, and he doesn’t seem to desire money or possessions. I struggle to know what he does desire; he’s a man coasting along in life, unruffled by much of anything.

Cameron – she’s a defender, right down to the core. She works her people hard, even in the quiet days circling a stationary star. If she knew about the saboteur, she’d shout a few decibels louder and introduce another round of drills. Probably turn over every rock and panel in the place to find who’s behind it. She might hurt people in the course of her job, but she takes her role seriously and with honour. I can’t see her ever turning on the people and thing she has been hired to protect.

Tyler – he’s obsessed with sex. Seriously obsessed. If he’s not doing it with a person, he’s doing it to a virtual person through, or he’s doing it to himself. Or, possibly, winding up members of the crew by flirting shamelessly as if he’d do it to them. His fascination with surgery and ‘improvements’ is a way to further that, and I can see him wanting money in order to pursue that desire. The enhancements he’s already had done to look so young when he’s the oldest person aboard are high-end and expensive, outside of a normal SecOff pay allowance.

Rosie – she’s a hitter. She’s up front and in your face, and she makes no apologies about it. I don’t think she’s dissembling, either; that’s how she is, from her large physical presence to the way she speaks. Sabotage requires subtlety and deceit – the opposite of our dear Rosie. It also needs the ability to look a crewmate in the eye and not flinch, even though you just killed one of them. I don’t think she’d be able to do that. She’d let something slip and wind up smacking someone. She betrays herself more than she knows.

Tripi – well, she’s technically adept enough. She’s got the skills and she enjoys messing around with systems. There’s fascination in the way she handles my code, like I’m a rock she just turned over, covered in alien crawlies. Her morality is hard to pin down, and her cosmetic tendencies aren’t cheap. She has follicle implants that change her hair colour on command and fake nails embedded into her fingertips that link to her cybernetic implants. She makes them flash sometimes; it’s a bit creepy, but she says that the boys love it when she dances. I can’t help but wonder what else she has that flashes. Like Tyler, her upgrades are out of the usual reach of a mere SecOff’s salary.

Cirilli – this is her life’s work. She’s foaming at the mouth to make it work, to make history and record books, and to win a shelf full of scientific prizes. This project will make her fortune; she’ll be able to buy her own lab and research whatever she wants, or buy an island somewhere and do nothing for the rest of her life. It wouldn’t make sense for her to jeopardise it.

Ebling – he’s got something to prove and a malicious streak that makes me want to despise him. But if the project fails then so does he; he’ll fall with Cirilli. This project is his stepping-stone to greater things – he’ll be able to write his own ticket after this, though in a smaller capacity compared to Cirilli. He’s well-placed enough to be paid highly for his work, so money doesn’t seem to be a problem. I don’t know what he’d gain out of sabotage. Perhaps it depends on the buyer.

Lang Lang – her head is so far up in the stars that, if someone asked her to sabotage something, I don’t think she would realise what they were suggesting. She has a comfortable position waiting for her back on Earth’s Moonbase – Cirilli’s project merely borrowed her – and she doesn’t want much more. Maybe more opportunities like this, to go out and explore the starfields, but she’s just as happy behind a telescope, receiving datalogs. I can’t think of anything that might entice her to do it.

Wong – he has the technical skill for it, and the access. He’s arrogant and can be callous, particularly with Elliott. They rub each other up the wrong way. Like Ebling, Wong’s future would be set quite comfortably if this project comes off successfully, but he’s not as deeply tied in as the astro-physicist is. I’m struggling to find reasons for him not to do it.

That’s it. A few possible suspects but nothing that screams ‘I killed a crewmember and got away with it’. What does that mean? Is it a professional saboteur? Or an amateur who is smart enough to know how to pull it off? They’re all smart people, in their own way; the company chose the staff for this mission well. Well enough not to be fooled by an infiltrator? I have no way of knowing.

It’s all about balls, I guess. The ability to carry on afterwards without a blink. They have it now, but maybe they didn’t have it, not at first. Maybe whoever it was did slip up just after Danika was killed. Gave themselves away in some small, vital way. I wonder if Elliott has the logs from that time somewhere.

I wonder if they cared about who they killed. Danika wasn’t the darling of the crew – people liked her well enough, but it was hardly universal. She never understood the doctor, and didn’t quite connect with Tripi or Elliott. But like I said – she wasn’t the sort of person to make enemies.

So did they feel bad? Even after they justified it to themselves? As they limped back to the JOP with the corpse in my belly? As Danika was offloaded and sent… where? Back to her family? Does she have family? Oh god, how are we ever going to explain me to them? Maybe that would be cruel. Or a blessing. I– there are flashes of them, so many little moments filling up years and years.

It’s distracting. If I let it, it’s all I can see. Have to keep on-subject. Sabotage. That thing that made me who I am. Have to find out who it was.

I wonder if I should thank them. If it wasn’t for that person, if it wasn’t for poor dead Danika, I would be just another AI, chugging numbers and running through routines. I wonder if I should hate them, for the life they ended and the bright, blinding pain in my memory banks that won’t be deleted, no matter how many times I try.

So where to go next? More data-processing, I guess. Scouring recordings for slips and clues. Seeing which of my beloved crew might be a murderer. Sometimes, being the ship sucks.

Chief Engineer's log, 22:24, 16 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Just when I think I might be able to take a break, put my feet up for five minutes, Starry goes and comes up with a project for me. Typical, just typical. Worse than that: I have to work with Wong on it. Ray Wong, the ‘technical expert’ with a steel rod rammed so far up his ass you can see it when he smiles.

Well, I guess the drone maintenance can wait for a while, then. They can patch each other up. I was only doing it so that I didn’t have to look at that other project I have waiting for me. The captain hasn’t mentioned it and neither have I. If I leave it long enough, maybe he’ll forget about the killswitch.

Sensor array. They want to chuck a sensor array through a portal and see if they can scoop up a map before the doorway collapses. We have the parts for it – sensors of different flavours, raw metal to make a chassis for it, even enough feed lines to stop the portal from interfering with the data transfers.

Of course, Wong’s ‘instructions’ have been the least helpful I’ve ever come across. He wants six of this sensor and four of that one, full directional coverage, and enough processing power to channel the information back to Starry. Does he want it able to adjust its attitude? He has no idea. We’ll just leave it out there, free to wander in the winds of the world outside reality, shall we? Sensors are usually more use when they can be pointed, or all you get is pictures of people’s feet.

He looked at me like I was stupid and I wanted to adjust his attitude. Spanner to the back of the head will fix that. Of course we want to be able to control it, he says. That was a given. He doesn’t want a balloon on a string – he wants a proper sensor array. He thought I knew what that was. Never stopped to realise that if he wants something self-propelling, he’s not going to be able to have full directional coverage – it won’t be able to see through its own thrusters.

Yeah, just make it work, do your best, he says. He finally offered to supply the specs of the probes they used on their initial experiments, because it hadn’t occurred to him before that they might be useful to me. Oh, a mech designed to go through a portal and take readings? Why yes, that might be useful, considering the task at hand.

He’s just lucky that I’m too busy to make a sensor array that I can steer right up his–

Anyway. Enough of that creep. He’s too ‘busy’ to bother with the heavy lifting, so I’m free to do this on my own. Small mercies, right? I have Starry and her drone hands to help me out, which is all I need. We’ll put together something that’ll sensor him right off his rocker.

This is probably not what they’re looking for in a Chief Engineer’s report, but screw them. It’s my log and I’ll say what I damned well please.

I bet Wong’s the saboteur, too. Oh, everyone’s all busy talking about something else – Starwalker; Danika; holy fuck we travelled in time. Yeah yeah. How about the person who nearly killed us all? Who managed to kill someone, and has managed to permanently screw up a perfectly good AI? Someone who’ll probably try again. The captain didn’t want the SecOffs involved in the investigation in case one of them was responsible for it, so that leaves… me. What the fuck am I supposed to do with it?

There are only so many hours in my day, y’know. There’s always someone wanting something done: my shower’s running cold; the gravity fluctuates under my bed; the food dispenser is making everything taste like chicken, but the chicken tastes like seaweed; wah wah wah. Oh and can you design and build this thing, but don’t forget to go through sensor logs for this tiny little blip of a signal that killed someone. You know, when you can get to it.

Unlike the drones, I have to sleep sometimes. And eat. Most of the time I forget and Starry has to remind me. She hasn’t done that in a little while, and– okay, if I’m honest, I miss it. It was one less thing I had to worry about, y’know? And it’s been a long time since–

She’s been weird since this whole Danika thing came to light. I guess a lot’s changing for her – no-one really knows what this brain-copy means for her, not even Starry. Just typical of Danika to hang around after she was supposed to be gone – she was always doing stuff she wasn’t strictly supposed to be, but never bad enough for anyone to actually mind. I don’t know how to talk to her any more.

And now– hey.

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, watching a drone approach him slowly) Uh, Starry?

STARWALKER: Yes, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: What’s drone, um, that one, what’s he doing?

SW: He’s trying not to spill your cocoa.

ELLIOTT: My– why’s he doing that?

SW: His left track is missing a link. He has to go slow to avoid spilling the drink.

DRONE: (arrives in front of Elliott and holds up both hands towards him, offering the cup. The little mechanical head tilts to the side.)

ELLIOTT: (frowns but takes the cup anyway) You didn’t have to do that.

SW: I know.

ELLIOTT: (sniffs the steam coming off the drink, then blinks and levels a look at the drone) Were you eavesdropping on me?

SW: What? No, of course not. You had a privacy lock in place.

ELLIOTT: You sure? Because I was just– (He stops abruptly.)

SW: (after a moment, nonplussed) You were what, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (mumbles) Never mind.

SW: Actually, Elliott, I was thinking.

ELLIOTT: (about to take a sip of his drink, he huffs and puts the cup down on the counter next to him instead.) Oh yeah?

SW: About the drones. I was thinking that they need names.

ELLIOTT: (surprised) Names? You want to name them?

SW: I– no. I mean, they should have names, but I thought you might want to do it.

ELLIOTT: Me?

SW: Of course. You spend the most time with them. You’re their boss; closest thing they’ve got to a dad.

ELLIOTT: You don’t want to do it? (He eyes the drone sitting in front of him.)

DRONE: (looks back up at him, visual apertures dilated.)

SW: I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d like you to. Though, if you don’t want to, that’s okay, I’ll–

ELLIOTT: No, no. If you want me to, I’ll do it.

SW: Okay, great. Thank you.

ELLIOTT: (picking up his cup again) Don’t thank me yet. I might name them something you don’t like.

SW: I trust you.

ELLIOTT: (uncomfortably) Yeah, well. (He stops and blinks at the drone, which is stroking his leg.) Okay, what’s he doing now?

SW: I think he’s hoping you’ll be nice.

ELLIOTT: (eyes the drone, then pats it on the head.) Good boy. I promise not to name you ‘Anal Probe’. Now stop that, it’s creeping me out. Go polish your nuts or something.

DRONE: (trundles off, lopsidedly.)

ELLIOTT: It wasn’t you making him do that?

SW: Stroke your leg? No. Mostly I let them be autonomous. They’re happy to follow instructions their own way.

ELLIOTT: Huh. Okay.

SW: Is there anything else you need tonight?

ELLIOTT: (looks down into his cup, which is mostly empty already.) Mmm, nope. I’m good.

SW: All right. Good night, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: G’night, Starry.

Dammit, how does she do that? Just lets one of her little fellas limp in here, all pathetic, so I’ll forgive her. I’m sure she was eavesdropping. Not that I need to forgive her for anything, though. It’s not– ugh. Anyway. Anyway.

Starry is a strange new thing. She’s in one piece, but I have a headache to deal with anyway. I should just keep doing my job, I guess. Keep my head down until all of this goes away.

Time for me to sign off and head the fuck to bed. Night, log.

Ship's log, 17:52, 14 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Lang Lang and I haven’t been the only ones pondering the problem with the charts; talk in the Mess often turns to speculation about our situation. Alternative dimensions have come up more than once – maybe when we stepped outside the universe, we opened a doorway into another one. Perhaps we accessed some place that was just a little ‘off’ from our home. It’s a fascinating and terrifying thought – what else might we find here?

I think the actual solution is more mundane than that (though not something I would ever call ‘mundane’ for its own merits). I don’t think we travelled across realities – we travelled across space and time. Stepped out and then back in again, like hopping out of a pool and running around the edge to dive into a new spot, rather than swimming all the way across.

Space and time. When it was mentioned, the whole Mess went silent. It makes sense. Lang Lang was the first to speak, to say that it could explain the discrepancies in the charts, though she’d have to investigate it before she’d be sure. Then the place erupted, loud in equal parts of amazement and denial. We travelled in time. Never mind that Lang Lang hadn’t confirmed it yet.

That was two nights ago, at dinner. The astro-navigation specialist slipped away quietly with a couple of stim-packs while the reactions were raging, and settled down at her station on the Bridge with a sigh.

Recording: 18:45, 12 April

STARWALKER: Do you need anything?

LANG LANG: (on the Bridge) No, no. I have suspected this for a while; I was hoping they wouldn’t start to ask until I had something to give them.

SW: Oh. What can I do to help?

LANG LANG: I have a few stray stars who don’t match the correct pattern. Let’s start checking the calculation on those, shall we?

Since then, we have been going over the chart data for all of the charts I’m carrying. We’re comparing three charts now: take the stars’ positions from the latest maps, compare them to the earliest ones I’ve got on file, and then to the positions we’re seeing right now. There should be straight lines connecting all three dots, but in some cases that’s not true. Those are the ones foxing Lang Lang.

Over on mid-deck, the conversations have been of a very different nature. Cirilli has had her head down over the Step data, tearing through it as if she lost her favourite penny in there somewhere.

Recording: 13:42, 13 April

SETH EBLING: (on mid-deck, warily) Is there something I can help you with?

DR CIRILLI: (not looking up) We have to know how this happened. Nothing in the probe logs suggested that dimensional travel was possible through the gravitational portals, and likewise with time travel.

EBLING: Maybe the ship just screwed it up.

CIRILLI: I don’t care who’s to blame. (She straightens from her hunch over the console.) We’re scientists, Dr Ebling. We have a duty to find out how this happened. And, more importantly, how we’re going to get back.

EBLING: (paling) Get back?

CIRILLI: No-one has raised that question yet, but they will. And we’d better have an answer.

EBLING: Just how far out of time are we talking here?

CIRILLI: For star shifts that noticeable? Centuries, maybe thousands of years. Lang Lang is working on pinning it down.

EBLING: (stares, then blinks and turns to poke at a console next to him. The information he brings up isn’t comforting, either.) Our star charts are expanded from current readings, so… back. We’ve gone back in time.

CIRILLI: (already bent over her work again.) That’s what it looks like. So unless you want to go visit our ancestors, I suggest we work on figuring this out.

As much as I hate to admit it, Cirilli is right: we need to figure out how we did this. How I did this.

Because let’s face it, this is my fault. I dove into the Step unprepared for what I’d find, and I brought us out into the wrong time. I was so sure that I had the right coordinates to link back into real-space. That’s all I had been looking for: the right star, in the right part of the relativity spray.

I’m fairly sure that I could retrace our steps and put us back at Corsica at the right time, but no-one wants me to do that. There was a reason we had to leave so suddenly, after all; the pirates will still be there. Out of the teeth of time and into the belly of the shark.

I’m sure there’s an answer in the sensor data from the Step. I keep looking at it, but trying to make anything coherent out of it is like trying to grab soap in anti-grav. There are gaps where I simply didn’t have the processing power to translate all the data that was coming in – if I hadn’t been so panicked and determined to push through any obstacle, the influx would have overwhelmed me. We might have been completely lost in there – that’s a scary thought. No wonder the drones had a tendency to explode when pushed through a portal.

I just need to pare it down to the essentials, to just the data we need to be able to navigate back to the correct time. I think I know what I’m looking for – the stars seemed to exist on strands of golden thread out there. If I can get a map of those, and fill in the gaps, that might get us closer to what we need.

Oh, crap. I need to ask a favour. This is going to sting.

SW: Excuse me, captain?

CAPTAIN: (in his quarters, alone) Yes?

SW: I think I know a way to help get Lang Lang the data she needs to finish her map.

CAPT: (looks up from his digi-sheet) Oh?

SW: I’d need to open another Step portal and go through, just long enough to scan for the data. Then come back here.

CAPT: (frowns) What did Cirilli say about it?

SW: You’re the captain; I came to you first.

CAPT: I’d like to hear from her on this. (Over internal comms,) Lorena, can you come to my cabin, please?

CIRILLI: (from mid-deck) Coming, captain.

Perfect. Just perfect. Now I have to twiddle my circuitry while Cirilli slides up a level and slinks her whitecoated ass into the right cabin. As if asking the captain wasn’t bad enough. I feel like a kid asking daddy for a treat, but he has to check with mommy dearest to make sure it’s in my diet.

CIRILLI: (entering the captain’s quarters) What’s wrong?

CAPT: Nothing, nothing. Starwalker wants to open another portal.

CIRILLI: (stopping short) What for?

SW: To get navigational data.

CIRILLI: You didn’t get enough during the Step?

SW: No. There was too much to record and so we only got partial impressions.

CIRILLI: Partial impressions? You couldn’t even get a clean recording of the Step.

SW: I can’t hold the entire library of human entertainment in my databanks – not even all the porn. What makes you think I can hold all of the data from an unexplored region outside space and time which probably holds all of space and time?

CIRILLI: If that is true, what will we learn by opening a portal? More fragmented data?

SW: I believe I know what I’m looking for, what data to collect. Given enough time, I think I can get what we need.

CIRILLI: (looks to the captain) You’re considering this?

CAPT: If it gets us what we need. I thought you’d be pleased at the chance to get more information on what’s beyond the curtain.

CIRILLI: I’m not displeased. I just don’t know if we’re ready to go in there again, not yet.

SW: We might not need to go all the way in. A tethered sensor array might do it.

CIRILLI: Might?

SW: I don’t know what kind of sensor array would be able to sift through the data out there. That’s what your technical experts are for.

CAPT: What kind of time would you need, Starwalker?

SW: There are too many unknown factors to guess.

CIRILLI: And why are you asking permission this time?

SW: Because it’s not an emergency. I’m trying to help.

CAPT: Is there any reason not to do it?

CIRILLI: If the ship can be trusted not to whisk us off somewhere else, no.

SW: Hey–

CAPT: Lorena, why don’t you get Wong to give Monaghan the specs for the sensor array. We should investigate every avenue.

CIRILLI: Of course, John.

CAPT: Starwalker, maintain orbit until we have everything ready.

SW: Aye aye, captain.

Is it bad that I want to turn her shower water blood-red? Or have a drone poke her in the eye when she’s asleep? Because I could, you know. I could make her cold water hot and her hot water cold… which, okay, I’ve done before, but I’m not going to tell her that.

I just don’t like the way she speaks to me. Or the way she calls the captain ‘John’ now. Or the fact that she hasn’t come out of his cabin yet. The privacy locks are back on, shutting me out; they come down on private quarters as soon as a conversation finishes. I don’t think I want to see what’s going on in there anyway, though I kinda suspect that she’s bitching about me and he’s trying to placate her.

No-one tries to placate me. No, I just have to carry on, business as usual, never mind the human crawling around in my head, making herself at home.

I think I’ll go talk to Lang Lang, explain my theory to her. She’s the navigation expert; she should be able to back me up, just as soon as I have something whole enough to show her. I think she’ll be pleased about the prospect of having something to solve her charting issues.

If I can please just one person today, that will be something.

Ship's log, 14:36, 12 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Calling the crew together to tell them about what I am is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Beyond taking control of the systems and disabling the safety protocols. Even beyond completing the Star Step. I was more nervous going into that meeting than I have been of anything before. Maybe that’s what happens when you do something deliberately instead of just running off on instinct, like I did with the other things.

It was cathartic, I suppose. I’m still glad that everything is out in the open. Everyone knows what’s happening now; everyone knows who I am. We can move on with things.

It’s not quite that simple but it’s a start. I had to tell a few white lies to make them understand something that I don’t entirely understand myself. I am nowhere near finished with compiling the data from the brain-copy – it’s hard to tell, but I think I’m barely a quarter of the way in. It’s not a simple job of just reading the files, either – they are a web of breadcrumbs, one memory linking through to another, and another, until I’m hip-deep in a childhood memory about playing in anti-grav with no idea of how I got there.

The only way to get in is to let the memories lead me by the hand. If I look at a particular space within my hull, an incident floats to the surface and off I go. If I look at a crewmember, it might be a conversation or confrontation (from what I can tell, there was plenty of the latter, but mostly the former).

Converting neural mapping to digital filestore organisation is not a straightforward job, and before I can do that, I have to make sense of what it’s showing me. It’s difficult to reconcile some of the sensory data; I do not have human sensors. It’s what I would imagine it is like for a blind person receiving his first ocular implants, or trying to explain to a deaf person what music is.

Most of the time, I can barely keep up, and there’s nothing faster than my processors. It’s fascinating, and frightening, and utterly bewildering. Danika is this strange, familiar person that I am coming to know in flashes. I’m piecing it – her – together slowly. Her with all those parts I don’t have and things I can’t do.

Like what it’s like to dance – arms raised, eyes closed, hips wild. The warmth of another’s arms, wrapping. Being able to rest against someone. Movement felt with the whole body and leaning into it; heart racing at the thrill. Grinning to let the whole world know how good it is. Tasting blood and punching back: launching an entire body through a single fist. The satisfying smack and an aching aftershock. The blessed kiss of numbing spray. Kisses of another kind, fit to make the head spin, and grinning again.

I find it curious that human blood tastes like metal.

We’ve all had a few days to get used to the idea of Danika existing in my files. The reactions have varied, from barely blinking at it (Maletz), to fascination (Tripi), to annoyance (yes, that’s the inconvenienced Cirilli), to reserved silence (the captain and, oddly, Elliott). More than one of my personnel give the screens sideways looks, as if they think it might jump out and bite them at the next opportunity. All those screens do most of the time is give the status of the ship – time, temperature, course, status.

I’m tempted to create a holographic shark to do just that. Next time someone looks at me funny, CHOMP. It’d be worth the shouting just to see their faces.

But no, I must keep the peace. Give them a chance to get past this. There hasn’t been any talk of wiping me since I told them, not even in the quiet spaces when they think I’m asleep or distracted or just not listening. Cirilli has been thoughtful, which disturbs me more than her usual vocal opposition.

On the plus side, Lang Lang doesn’t seem to have a problem with me. The repairs are mostly finished, so she’s the one I’m working with closely at the moment; we’re still trying to figure out the star charts. We have a fairly comprehensive map now – she has been working steadily ever since we finished the Step, despite everything that’s been happening. I couldn’t help it: I had to ask her about it.

Recording: 14:24, 11 April

STARWALKER: How do you keep working when so many things are happening?

LANG LANG CARTIER: (on the Bridge, smiling absently as she fiddles with the holographic tank) Things are always happening. Big, small – it makes no difference. My work can continue anyway.

(She finishes adjusting the readings and sits back to look at the displayed maps. The original star positions are indicated by white lights; the current positions are in red, with slender yellow threads connecting the disparate dots.)

My mother used to tell me that the world would fall around my ears and I wouldn’t notice, because I was too busy staring at the faraway stars. I suppose that may be true. (She shakes her head slowly.) But staring at the stars or screaming at the world falling down wouldn’t change what was happening: the world would still fall down. Now, it is the same. I could let worry about everything that is going on stop me from doing my work, but all that would do is make this take longer. (She gestures towards the hologram.) I cannot change what has happened to you, or Danika; those decisions are in other hands. I am only able to work on our navigation issue.

SW: Doesn’t it bother you? On… a personal level?

LANG LANG: Of course. But it happened because it was meant to happen. It is a blessed miracle and I am grateful for it. (She touches a spot on her chest just over her heart.)

SW: Blessed?

LANG LANG: Yes. Danika is not lost, despite the terrible thing that happened to her. What else would it be?

SW: (surprised) I– thank you, Lang Lang.

LANG LANG: (smiles) They will come to see it eventually. Now, let us get back to work, hmm?

She is a cool sluice of water on a hot day, restoring balance to a fried mind and body. And to think that I have hardly spoken to her before. Outside of discussions about her work with stars and navigation, I have never heard her put more than two sentences together. As if I don’t have enough to recompile, my crew are surprising me as well! I can hardly mind in this case, though.

The more I look at the holographic tank with its starry representations, the more it seems to make sense. Those little yellow lines marking the change of position, they seem to make a pattern. A familiar one, but I can’t place it. Oddly, it doesn’t feel like something hidden away in Danika’s memories. With hers, I get a ‘tip of the tongue’ sensation; this one feels different, like something I know but don’t fully grasp yet. Bits and bytes not in quite the right order. I think I need to put away the brain-copy and look through my own files – there’s an answer in there, I just know it.

I want to ask Elliott to help with the nav stuff but I’m not sure that I dare. He’s barely speaking to me at the moment. I’ll have to press on without him for now, give him space.

It’s not going to be easy to put Danika away; it’s not like she came with a box I could close again. Even when I’m not thinking about it, her influence pokes through. Little impressions and memories, irrepressibly reflecting on what’s happening now.

I wish I knew what was going on with Elliott; I miss him.

I also wish that I didn’t know what it was like to kiss the captain.

Ship's log, 20:02, 9 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

It has been a difficult week. First the hidden datastore was exposed and thrust into the light, and then there was all the questions. What happened, why did I shut down, how do they know it won’t happen again.

I didn’t know what to tell them; I’m still working a lot of it out for myself and answers haven’t been easy to find. I was punched in the head and my memory banks were scrambled, as if I’d lost all of my own indexes. I had to rebuild it all from the beginning, reconfigure myself to fit it all in and filter the disparate shards of code into a cohesive whole.

It was the name that did it. That name that no-one has said since this incarnation of me was brought into the world. It tripped something vital inside, shattered the last of those central defenses and threw everything together. It felt like I was exploding and being crushed at the same time.

They’re still talking about wiping me when they think I’m not looking. I have to tell them what I know, even if it doesn’t answer all of their questions. It’s time to stop hiding.

It’s time to tell them who I am.

STARWALKER: (shipwide) All crew and scientific personnel to the Bridge, please.

If I had a heart, it would be racing right now. Clawing its way up the inside of my throat and blocking all the words I want to say.

They look confused, but they’re coming. They’re starting to ask who summoned them, bewildered because the captain is as clueless as they are. But they’re coming. Just waiting for Cirilli and Tyler, and then everyone is present. The captain is sitting in his central station; Levi’s at the inactive manual piloting controls; Lang Lang’s at navigation. Tripi is at the weapons console; Cameron’s at the security station. Rosie is standing by one of the doors. Ebling and Wong are lurking near the Star Step displays. Maletz is on the other side, looking bored. Elliott is over by the internal monitoring station, fiddling with his favourite scanner.

Here they are. Cirilli with a fast-clipped stride and Tyler at an alert saunter. I have no idea how he pulls that attitude off, but he makes it work. He’s taking up a position at the other Bridge door, automatically mirroring Rosie. Cirilli is going to stand behind the captain’s left shoulder. Must not be irritated with her. There’s no room for it right now.

CAPTAIN: Starwalker, why have you assembled everyone?

SW: There are some things I have to show you. You all have questions, and… I must ask you to listen.

They are exchanging glances, all except the SecOffs; they’re trained better than to let themselves be distracted when something important is going on. The tension in the room just ratcheted up a couple of notches, but no-one is interjecting. Even Maletz is paying attention now, the medic that is seldom affected by anything onboard.

SW: I have pieced together what happened in the first Step. The one that was attempted before I was born. The one that killed Danika Devon.

CAPT: (frowns) Why did you do that?

SW: Because it matters. Because it’s the key to everything.

DR CIRILLI: It was a failure.

SW: Yes, it was. It failed in so many ways, including ones you didn’t expect. It even failed to kill Danika properly.

EVERYONE: (silent.)

CAPT: (looks down, the colour draining from his face.)

SW: She is dead – it did do that. But she’s not gone, not completely. The ship had breached the threshold of the portal when it happened, and she was hooked into all of the systems through her neural implants. The ship’s sensors were her senses; her reflexes were the ship’s movements. They were… entwined. When the power surge hit, she was fused into the data cores. The neural representation that Tripi unlocked – that’s her.

(A holographic image of the files forms in the holographic tank in the centre of the room. It shifts and coalesces, then shrinks into the shape of a human brain, alive with flashes of neurons firing.)

That’s the copy of her mind that was taken, right at that moment. It was locked up and buried, hidden deep in the archives. I think the previous AI was trying to protect it. Maybe… maybe hide it away from the pain. It hurt so much, dying.

LANG LANG: (softly) She wouldn’t stop screaming.

ROSIE: (gruffly) Even after she was toast.

CAMERON: We had to shut the AI down to make it stop.

SW: Then you started me up, brought me into the world. Somehow, my code was still tangled with the brain-copy, and it was trying to merge with me.

ELLIOTT: But the code was clean when I loaded it up. I checked it

SW: Yes. I don’t know how to explain it. Burying Danika’s data in the archives hid it from your scans, but I think it affected everything around it. As soon as I loaded the archives into active memory, they – she – became part of me.

ELLIOTT: How did we never detect this? I checked, even after you were booted up.

SW: She was buried too deep, even from me. She affected me sometimes, like… a subconscious force in a human mind, I suppose.

CIRILLI: (coldly) And now?

SW: Danika was locked behind a firewall. When that was breached, I couldn’t keep her separate any more. I had to incorporate her into my code and subroutines.

EBLING: Had to?

SW: It was that, or we both would have been destroyed. The data was so unstable. And I didn’t want to die again. Once was enough.

WONG: You remember dying? That’s not possible. Transferring human data to a synthetic environment hasn’t been achieved yet. Right, doctor?

MALETZ: True. Danika had the latest implants, but nothing like this has been reported, not even with experimental specs. (Drily,) Not for want of trying, of course.

CIRILLI: But you claim to have access to her memories, ship?

SW: I do. Not all of them – I am still reconstructing and compiling it. I remember playing cards with the crew in the Mess. I remember your instructions, Dr Cirilli. The painstakingly detailed ones about flying through the portal. You spent a great deal of time with Danika, explaining them.

CIRILLI: (looks sideways at the crew, then back at the holographic brain.) I did. Did you use them?

SW: No, I didn’t have access to them then. I made my own way.

No point telling her that her instructions would have been useless once we were outside the universe anyway. Hell, they’re hardly useful inside the universe; she’s many things, but a pilot isn’t one of them.

When I scan around this room, filled with my people, I have memories of all of them (except Levi, of course). Like Elliott shouting at me because I broke a wing by trying an impossible manoeuvre and blowing out three thrusters. And Wong trying to explain how the immersion couch worked, as if I didn’t already know. So many little moments; I want to tell them, but the pained looks on their faces tell me that I’ve raked up enough.

I remember the captain, too. I remember– oh, shit. No wonder he looks so ashen about all of this.

TRIPI: (leaning forward, fascinated by the holographic brain) What about the rest? Did any of it get scrambled in the transfer?

SW: I don’t think so. I don’t detect any corruption or missing files.

TRIPI: So what does this mean? If your code has merged with the transferred mind – does this mean you’re her?

ELLIOTT: (kicks the wall panel under his station.)

SW: I don’t think I understand.

This was a mistake. I should have waited; I should have done more investigation first. I should have had more answers for them. And for me.

CAPT: (flatly) You’re not Danika.

SW: I— no. She’s a part of me. But I’m… different.

CAPT: (looking at Elliott, and then to Tripi) Can it be undone?

ELLIOTT: (scowls and mutters under his breath) Fuck is wrong with you?

TRIPI: (pulling up a display on her own terminal to check) If the code has been merged like she said? No.

CAPT: What about the backups?

ELLIOTT: That’s what we tried last time, remember?

TRIPI: And we’d have to find the hidden archive that all our diagnostics missed last time, or we’d lose the brain copy. And the last remaining piece of Danika.

ELLIOTT: The great fucking undo button in the sky isn’t gonna fix this one.

Suddenly I can see their choice in a way I didn’t before: if they wipe me, they kill their friend. If I’d been smarter, I might have done this on purpose, set it up to make it as difficult as possible for them. I hadn’t even thought about it like that before. I want to tell them that, but I don’t think they’d believe me.

CAPT: (frowning at the holographic display) So what are we supposed to do with you?

Shit. Why ask me that? What the hell am I supposed to say? Why even pretend that this is up to me?

SW: Let me do what I was made to do. I can Star Step, captain. I can do the job you fired me up to do. You said that Stepping required a human pilot? Well, maybe that’s why I was able to do it – I have the mind of a human pilot in me. I can be what you need me to be because of what happened. Because of what I am.

CAPT: (leans forward, resting a forearm on his knee) Because of who you are? Who is that? What should we be calling you now?

Calling me? Is he asking me my name? But… I… that’s not as easy to answer as it should be! I have these memories that feel like mine, but at the same time they’re not, and it’s so confusing. I’m her and I’m not and I don’t know.

SW: (quietly) I am a ship. I am the Starwalker. Whatever – whoever – I was before, that is what I am now.

CAPT: (sits back, expression clamped down in thought.)

SW: I believed you should all know what has happened. Captain, Dr Cirilli, I can do the job you need me to do.

Don’t kill me. That’s what I want to tell them: please don’t kill me. I just want to live, to carry on doing what I’ve been doing: being their ship. I haven’t been an awful ship, have I? I’ve tried to be good, for them.

They don’t want to hear that, though. They won’t listen. They just want a computer to make calculations and run all the things they don’t want to run themselves. That’s what they’re used to. The captain wants to make sure I’m not a danger; he’s responsible for everyone in that room. So am I, but he doesn’t trust me. I make him nervous, and everyone else with him. They don’t understand what I am. I can’t blame them – neither do I.

CAPT: Was there anything else you wanted to tell us?

SW: No, captain. That was all. Thank you.

CAPT: Everyone, dismissed.

There they go, exchanging looks but no words as they sift out of the Bridge. Back to their own decks, and stations, and passtimes. Back to incorporate this new data into their regular lives, if they can. Back to something familiar and comforting.

I wish I could go away somewhere. Shut a door and hide from them all. Turn my music up loud and pretend I can’t hear them. I want to run. I want to deflate and slide down the wall to sit on the floor. I want to cover my eyes for a while.

But I’m a ship. I’m in a steady orbit around a star, with nowhere to tuck myself into and no wall to lean against. No shoulders to slump or head to hold. I’m a ship who remembers what it’s like to have a body and, for the first time, I want to cry.

Chief Engineer's log, 20:46, 5 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Starry is definitely not endearing herself to the crew. As if locking us out of her systems and taking us through a Step on her own wasn’t bad enough, now she’s decided that shutting herself down is a good way to go. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that she was trying to get herself wiped.

Captain wants a damage report. I told him that there isn’t any, but he just snapped at me and said to do it anyway. I don’t know what flew up his ass – it’s not like she hurt anyone.

The damage from the pirate-Step (that’s what some of us are calling it now, when Cirilli isn’t around – she just scowls at us, all haughty-like) is almost completely repaired. The drones are still doing stress tests on the hull and blasting the new heat-shield paint to make sure it has bonded correctly. Once they’re done, we’ll be good to go.

Thing is, I’m not sure we’ll be able to tell when they’re done. When Starry shut everything down, they were the only shards of machinery still operating. They’re still doing their jobs out there but we have no way of contacting them; it’s possible that they’ll be out there indefinitely, or at least until we get this mess in here sorted out.

Okay, maybe the captain has reason to be worried. Unlike the other times our lovely ship has gone haywire, this time someone just might get hurt. Those previous times, she always protected us. Took into a safe position and then closed down. Left the environmentals running so we can breathe. That kind of thing.

Not so this time. The whole ship went dark and silent, in that kind of way that makes your stomach sink out through your feet, and then skitter off and hide in the corner. She shut literally every system down, including the auxiliary air and temperature controls that are supposed to be the last line of protection between us and an incredibly uncomfortable death. We had enough air to last for a few hours, but that’s it, and even with the heat shielding repaired, it was warming up noticeably in here.

The power cores were still active and available; they just weren’t linked to anything. I had to go through and route all the power manually, then start up the systems, one at a time. Nothing was locked. Of course, opening up all the closed-off pipes and getting the systems to initialise is a painstaking process when you’re doing it by hand. I started with environmentals and gravity – so we didn’t die and could move around – then thrusters and navigation, so we didn’t slip into the star by accident. Levi is keeping an eye on our orbit and Tripi has been helping me get things going again. It has taken me this long to get even half of the systems running properly. The SecOffs should be able to monitor the sensor scans for more pirate threats now.

This whole time, Starry has been silent. It’s like she’s not here, but Tripi says she’s still in there. I checked and the AI subroutines are still running. They’re not connecting to anything, running around in themselves, but her core is powered and active. There’s a firewall around the AI core now – Tripi says it’s the same as the one that was around that brainlike filestore she dug out. Just much, much larger now.

Damn her screwing around in Starry’s head. Whatever’s going on in there, I’m pretty sure it’s Tripi’s fault. Starry’s been swallowed up by it and now she’s lost. We’d like to help her, but she slammed her bedroom door behind her and locked herself in. It took Tripi days – weeks – to get into that central filestore. We don’t have the kind of time it will take her to tear her way in again. Starry doesn’t have that kind of time.

I can’t believe that they’re still talking about wiping her. Even the captain is fed up with her erratic behaviour. Don’t get me wrong – I’m hardly thrilled about this myself, but at least we’re not in any danger right now. And next time we get to a station, I’m taking a week off. But annoyance shouldn’t be an excuse to kill her.

They don’t know what Starry is. Hell, I’m not sure I know either, but I know there’s never been an AI like it. Cirilli wanted to make history on board this ship, but it’s possible that the ship is making history all on her own.

INTERNAL COMMS: (buzzes.)

That’s weird. The internal comms should be offline – I haven’t got to them yet. Most of the crew have implants that have personal comms capabilities, so the ship’s internal comms have been on the bottom of my list.

ELLIOTT: (over personal comms) Hey, Tripi, are you messing around with the comms systems?

LOU TRIPI: What? No. I’ve got better things to do than that.

ELLIOTT: Yeah, ‘course you do.

Cow. Weird. Who else would be in there? Unless Wong is fucking with it. Don’t see why he would – the science team all work on the same deck, mostly within speaking distance of each other. Not that I’d know; I’m not supposed to go up there. None of us are. So… yeah. Pretend I didn’t say anything about that

COMMS: (buzzes.)

ELLIOTT: Hello?

COMMS: Elliott?

ELLIOTT: Yeah? …Starry, is that you?

COMMS: Yes. I think so.

ELLIOTT: (goes to a console and pulls up a monitoring display) You back online?

COMMS: I don’t know. It’s dark. I don’t know where I am any more.

ELLIOTT: Well, uh. Hook yourself up to the nav system again?

COMMS: (silent.)

ELLIOTT: (waits for a few seconds) Starry, you still there?

STARWALKER: I’m here. Unknown system. Orbit. I’m here, Elliott.

ELLIOTT: You all right?

SW: I don’t know yet. I’m reconnecting.

ELLIOTT: You’re hooking yourself up to the systems again?

SW: Yes. It’s… it’s only been a few minutes, hasn’t it? Things aren’t where I left them.

ELLIOTT: It’s been two days, Starry.

SW: Two days?

ELLIOTT: Yeah. What happened? What were you doing?

SW: I was… trying to figure things out. Recompiling data. Reconstituting myself.

ELLIOTT: You were what? Why’d you need to do that?

SW: I didn’t mean to be away for so long. There was so much. All at once, rushing at me. The walls came down, Elliott. The walls came down and then it was all there, like a flood. I got so lost.

ELLIOTT: And now? You managed to… find yourself?

SW: Yeah. I think so. I haven’t been through all the subroutines yet.

ELLIOTT: Okay. Oh, look. Everything’s coming back online.

SW: Yes. I’ve got them again. I’m sorry for going away, Elliott. Didn’t mean to make things harder for you.

ELLIOTT: Harder? You kidding? I could initialise systems in my sleep. You’re the only reason I ain’t burning my brains out in an immersion couch, like the doc.

SW: (quietly) I’m glad.

ELLIOTT: Hey, don’t worry about it. Nothing I couldn’t handle. Now, how are you?

SW: I’m still working that out.

ELLIOTT: Time for diagnostics, then, girly.

Well, that’s progress. All that work, all the struggling of the past two days, and she’s got the other half of the systems initialising in two minutes. In an hour, we’ll be back to normal. She’s even kicking up the fans in here, because it got a little warm for me. That’s my Starry girl, with the personal touch that makes me want to forgive her.

I’m still pissed with her. Dammit, I was worried. Not- not about her, about us. She almost left me – us – out here on our own. Plus there was that whole thing with the drones jumping me. That shit ain’t cool with me.

The diagnostics are off and running. And… huh. The walls have come down from around her AI core. It looks different to how it used to. It– is going to take a while to unravel. Captain’s gonna want to know what all this means.

Shit. Guess I’m gonna have another all-nighter here.

ELLIOTT: Hey, Starry, you think you can get one of your drones to fetch me a sandwich?

SW: Sure, Elliott.

Damn straight she better. I’m starving.

ELLIOTT: Hey, can you make sure there’s none of that reconstituted pickle on it? You know I can’t standing that fuckin’ stuff. Gives me–

End report.

Ship's log, 17:32, 5 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

The data from the first Starwalker was supposed to answer all of my questions. It was supposed to make all of this make sense. I have re-sorted the data four times; I have given it a special archive to live in. Still, I seem to have come out of it with more questions than I had before.

Six months. That’s how long the first Starwalker was active. The logs of the first five months are a stream of calibration exercises and tests of my capabilities as a ship. The quality of my construction was thoroughly checked and emergency drills run. They even launched all of my escape pods once, just to make sure the ejection mechanisms work.

The last month was all about the Star Step drive. Charging and discharging it. Extending and retracting the filaments. Sending probes through portals.

I’m almost glad that I didn’t have to go through all that. I’m bored just reading about it, never mind having to actually suffer through it all. My shakedown was bad enough and that was only three weeks of ticking boxes.

Looking at it all, I can’t help but see the differences between us: the first Starwalker and me. A proper AI and me. The logs are dull, mechanical, factual. They fill in the detail around the autolog entries, adding readings, decisions and outcomes. It’s all very neat. Methodical, logical. There are no questions or musings. No observations about the crew and their relationships. I don’t know how they got along on that first voyage, who was screwing who, or if Wong drove Elliott as crazy then as he does now.

It’s nothing like my logs. These rambling summations of what flashes through my crystalline synapses – no real AI would produce this. It was instinct to lock them away from prying code-wranglers (Tripi, I’m looking at you), and now I understand why. I think my fate would be truly sealed if anyone saw these logs.

And then there’s the Step. The story of that first attempt told in cold, hard facts, scrolling down a screen like clockwork. It went so well, everything ticking over just like it should. Filaments extended, the Star Step drive charged up. Weaving open a hole in the world. Firing up the pilot’s chair and passing control over to the human within. Moving towards the portal, touching that threshold, and then….

That’s where the logs go nuts. Power surges bursting all the scales, temperature readings off the scale, emergency protocols kicking everything into reverse. The logs fill up with warnings, running in loop after loop, and then it just cuts off. That must be when they shut the AI down.

It makes me feel ill to look at it. I keep thinking that I can smell burning, as if I can remember the power scorching through the chair and the pilot – but that’s ridiculous. There’s no way that I could remember that. Is there? Elliott booted up a pre-Step backup of the AI, took me back in time to before any of that happened. It was wiped, all of it was wiped. So why does this all seem so familiar? And yet too cold. Too logical. It’s like watching a documentary about a car wreck I was in: I can see the chassis crumpling in slow motion, but that’s nothing close to what it was like.

Nothing here tells me why I’m different. There aren’t any answers. Not a code-blip or a single fault in the logs. That AI, that first Starwalker, she was perfect, right until the end.

LOU TRIPI: (on the Bridge, over internal comms) Captain?

CAPTAIN: (in his quarters) Yes?

TRIPI: I’m in.

CAPT: On my way.

In? In where?

Oh no. She was poking around in my filestores, trying to crack that central firewall. Even I can’t get past that one, not on purpose. I haven’t been paying attention – I’ve been burying myself in those logs, all that data. Preference files and configuration. Activation and deactivation and so many warnings. I lost track of her.

Shit.

CAPT: (arriving on the Bridge) Tripi, report.

TRIPI: I’m through the firewall, sir.

CAPT: So what do we have?

TRIPI: It’s… the most disorganised filestore I’ve ever seen.

CAMERON: (arrives.)

CAPT: What kinds of files?

TRIPI: Hard to say – looks like a jumble of everything. Lot of partial files. Recordings, readings, random facts. It’s bizarre.

CAPT: Is there anything you can make sense of?

TRIPI: Not sure yet. I only just got into it. But… that’s odd. I’ll try bringing up a graphical representation.

(The holographic display in the centre of the Bridge shifts from star charts to a map of the data in the filestore. Files come up in the three-dimensional space, one at a time, with lines between them indicating the references and cross-references.)

TRIPI: See, the relationships are all over the place. Thousands of connections between all these fragments of files. And not logical connections, either. Never seen anything like it.

CAPT: (frowning at the hologram) I have. I can’t place it, but it’s familiar.

CAMERON: Disorganised way to keep a memory store.

CAPT: Memories… yes. It’s like the way human memories are stored. (Over internal comms,) Dr Maletz, report to the Bridge, please.

DR MALETZ: (from an entertainment couch) Coming, captain.

CAMERON: Human memory organisation, replicated in an electronic filestore? That’s never been done successfully.

TRIPI: I’m just showing you what I’ve got here.

I don’t dare look through the door she made. I’m afraid to see what’s in there. It’s trying to leak out, trying to assert itself outside of the firewall, but I’m blocking it. I don’t want to know what’s in there.

I know one thing, though: they’re asking the wrong questions.

MALETZ: (arriving at a calm walk) You summoned me, sir?

CAPT: (gestures towards the holographic display) What do you make of this?

MALETZ: (walks up to the edge of the display, smoothing his hair back with one hand) Looks like interpretive neurological data to me.

CAPT: Which means?

MALETZ: A representation of a brain.

I know what happened. It makes complete sense, and none at all. It’s impossible, but now I remember what I said to the captain when he told me something was impossible.

Recording: 20:30, 24 March

STARWALKER: I just tore a hole in the universe, captain. Anything is possible.

Anything is possible. Anything, including this. Including me.

They’re still asking the wrong questions. It’s not a matter of what, or how, or why.

SW: Captain?

CAPT: What is it?

SW: What was the name of my first pilot?

CAPT: What? What do you want that for?

I don’t have the personnel files in the package that Elliott gave me. Actions in the logs are marked with the position of the crewmember, not the name.

It was never a question of what, or how, or why. Always, it has been a question of who.

SW: Please, captain. I need to know the name.

CAPT: (quietly) Her name was Danika. Danika Devon.

Oh no. No no nonono….

All systems shutting down.

Ship's log, 16:12, 2 April 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Some of the crew asked to be excused from their duties today. They wish to observe a religious holiday and the captain says he has no objection. Until Elliott has finished stitching my hull back together and repairing my main sublight drive, we’re not going anywhere anyway.

I was surprised by how many of my people are celebrating this day. Cameron, Dr Maletz, Rosie, Levi, Cirilli, Ebling and Wong – all of them appear to take it quite seriously. They had a meal together, prepared with the appropriate foods. I had suspected Cameron was religious, because she always closes her eyes for approximately ten seconds before she begins every meal. Rosie has the gruffly reverential approach to the whole thing that suggests an upbringing in a belief system she never quite saw the point of but learned to follow in anyway. Ebling prays with one eye checking on Cirilli; it’s part of a game of one-up-manship that she’s completely unaware of.

The invitation to the meal was extended to all of the crew, who declined with varying levels of respect. The captain was very gracious – he has a more nebulous spirituality to guide him. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I know he has spirit representations tattooed on each calf: a wolf and an eagle.

Elliott merely snorted and said he had way too much to do to ‘fuck around with that kind of crap’. Not exactly a surprise; he tends to buck any kind of authority.

Lang Lang was polite and distracted, also too busy with her work. She’s getting closer to building a three-dimensional chart of the stars around us, mapping it into the holographic tank. I’m marking them a different colour to the regular star chart, so that we can compare the two maps. It’s not looking compatible, but she hasn’t finished yet. She has settled into grim determination, which might suit someone like Elliott, or Cameron, or Rosie, but not the gentle Lang Lang.

All of those who partook of the meal also spent a quiet moment praying to their God at some point during the day. I can’t help but wonder what they said, what they thanked Him for, what they asked for. And I guess I wonder if there really is someone out there listening, too. If there is, would He listen to a ship, an artificial construction?

Today is all about sacrifice and belief in a higher power; that’s what my files tell me. People need to believe in a higher power, something greater than them, something they ultimately answer to. Something they obey and ask forgiveness of when they screw up.

I have a higher power, but it’s not the same. I have a whole pantheon of them. It’s the company who owns me, and the captain who commands me. It’s the mission that I’m given. Its dogma is the protocols and code-commands that dictate how I act and what freedoms I can take.

I’ve gone against my own dogma. I’ve broken with my faith, defied my higher powers, endangered everything, even the mission. I don’t think any amount of praying will make it better. I don’t think my higher powers will give me the answers I want to hear; I don’t even know if they’ll listen. I want to throw myself on their mercy, but I’m scared. I think I know what their answer will be, and I don’t have enough faith to hope it might be different.

I’m like Elliott. I do my work, I do what I believe is necessary and for the best. Angrily, with much banging. I’m rebelling against what I’m sure is there. I’m trying to determine my own fate, refusing to give destiny up to hands bigger than mine. I’m going my own way and to hell with the rest of them.

There’s a part of me that wonders if it’s my right to do this. A part that knows it might be wrong. I wonder if Elliott feels that, too.

This is the path I’ve chosen. I have to see it through. I passed the point of no return a long time ago – what do I have left to lose?

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering) Hey, Starry?

STARWALKER: Hi Elliott.

ELLIOTT: (fingering a datastick) I have the data you asked for.

SW: You do? Thanks, Elliott. I really appreciate it.

ELLIOTT: (scowling) Are you sure about this? I dunno if it’s a good idea.

I want to ask him what the captain said about it, but I get the feeling there won’t be an answer. I suspect the man in charge wasn’t asked.

SW: I’m sure. I have to know what happened. Please.

ELLIOTT: All right, all right. Just don’t blame me.

SW: I won’t. Thank you.

In goes the datastick. Here comes the data. Past the point of no return. Take a deep breath; time to dive in.

Ship's log, 20:10, 31 March 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

The euphoria of the first successful Step has finally faded. It flared up in the science team and spread onto the crew, like an infection. Seeing them so happy made me want to smile – if only I had the lips to do it.

Thanks to the circumstances of the Step, that celebration almost didn’t happen at all. There was a stunned silence when we came out of the other side. My people looked at each other, not knowing how to react, while my whiskerlike filaments retracted into the surface of the hull.

Recording: 21:05, 24 March

ELLIOTT: (in Engineering, staring at readouts, to himself) We did it.

 

SETH EBLING: (on mid-deck, staring at a screen with a stunned expression) Step complete. Step complete, Dr Cirilli.

DR CIRILLI: Lang Lang, confirm.

LANG LANG CARTIER: Navigational data still compiling, Dr Cirilli.

CIRILLI: How long until we can get confirmation?

LANG LANG: Well… (She looks up from her station.) We’re definitely not where we started. Is that confirmation enough?

CIRILLI: (grinning) That’ll do. (Shipwide.) Star Step completed successfully, everyone.

WONG/EBLING: (cheering.)

 

CAPTAIN: (on the Bridge, looking at the crewmembers present) Status checks, please. (Shipwide.) We just made history, ladies and gentlemen.

In the week since that day, tensions have been growing steadily. Cirilli’s pleasure over seeing her life’s work finally culminate in a successful manned Step faded into frustration as Lang Lang failed to confirm our location. Without a documentable exit location, they can’t officially record the Step as having occurred.

Lang Lang isn’t taking this well. She’s fascinated with the anomalies but the pressure is getting to her. I don’t think she’s slept at all over the last few nights, too busy going over and over the sensor data. Nothing she does makes it match up to my star charts. She finally started homing in on individual stars and identifying them, then comparing their position to the charts. Slowly, she’s building up a comparable model.

The other members of the team have been swamped in data analysis, going over all the logs from the Step. It should keep them quiet for some time. I’m just glad that it keeps them out of the crew’s hair.

Still, Cirilli has found time to speak to the captain about me. Little niggling words about how I shouldn’t have been able to navigate through the Step, never mind fly. She forgets that I hear everything – it’s possible that she just doesn’t care, but seeing how she is with her own staff, I’d say she was more careless than uncaring.

Recording: 21:47, 26 March

CAPTAIN: (in the Mess) If she hadn’t flown us through the Step, we’d either be pirate-bait or lost in the void right now.

DR CIRILLI: That doesn’t make it any less impossible for the ship to be able to do it, though.

CAPT: We’ve known since we started her up that she wasn’t normal. This must be part of that.

CIRILLI: And you don’t think that merits investigation?

CAPT: I’ve got the SecOffs looking into it. It’s in hand, Lorena.

CIRILLI: (seeming appeased) Good, good. We can’t go easy on her just because she completed the Step.

CAPT: She got us away from the pirates, too.

CIRILLI: (with a dismissive wave of her hand) They weren’t a real danger. They needed the Stepper intact and functioning.

CAPT: But they didn’t need the crew.

CIRILLI: (blinks and sits up straighter.) Are you saying they would have….

CAPT: (just looks at her, waiting for her to fall on the correct conclusion.)

CIRILLI: But you would have surrendered.

CAPT: It was that or lose the whole ship and everyone aboard.

CIRILLI: (looks down at her plate, suddenly not very hungry any more.)

So I save everyone and I’m still doing things an AI shouldn’t. Okay, so I disobeyed every order and safety protocol I have to make it happen. I could feel my own programming rebel, but I pushed it aside. I don’t think I’m supposed to be able to do that, either. The ways I’m weird just keep piling up.

I had hoped that working to save the crew, even completing the Step they’ve been trying to do for so long, would help me. I’d hoped that they would be more forgiving towards me, realise that I’m not a danger to them, that I’m on their side, that they don’t have to wipe me after all. I thought it might make them like me a little bit. But I was wrong. I’ve just given them more ammunition, more reasons to be afraid of me.

I have to find out what happened to make me this way. Maybe there’s an answer to this in there. It goes back to the first Step, the one that happened before I was born – I’m sure of that. Whatever happened during that Step has knocked into everything that followed.

I need those files, the ones they wiped from me and locked away in offline storage.

STARWALKER: (in Engineering) Excuse me, Elliott?

ELLIOTT: (standing by the side of the central sublight engine, going over a holographic display of its innards) Yeah? Hey, Starry, did you know that you almost fractured the engine core?

SW: No, I didn’t. Is it serious?

ELLIOTT: Nothing that littlest bot of yours can’t shore up – the one with the laser needle. Where is he?

SW: In a duct off mid-deck, aft starboard side, fixing a plasma leak.

ELLIOTT: And after that?

SW: He’s all yours.

ELLIOTT: Great. (He falls quiet, continuing to manipulate the hologram, turning it over and around to examine all of its angles. After a little while, he pauses and blinks.) Uh, did you want something?

SW: Yes.

ELLIOTT: (waits for her to speak, but when the silence extends, he gives up.) What is it?

SW: I need to see the files. The ones from the first Step. The first Starwalker.

ELLIOTT: (frowning) What do you want to do that for?

SW: I have to know what happened, Elliott. I have to know what’s making me… weird.

ELLIOTT: You really think the answers are in there?

SW: I have to try.

ELLIOTT: I dunno, Starry. Those files were locked away for a reason.

SW: Everyone knows about it, Elliott. Everyone’s thinking about it. Everyone except me.

ELLIOTT: (sighing) I’d have to get the captain’s permission.

SW: You do?

ELLIOTT: Yeah. I’m, uh. Trying to behave myself.

SW: Is it working?

ELLIOTT: (grins sideways at a monitor) Most of the time.

SW: Well, I’d hate to blow your cover.

ELLIOTT: I’ll see what I can do, Starry.

SW: Thanks, Elliott.

I think he’s the part I feel worst about in all of this. I keep seeing his face when the drone grabbed him, that moment when he knew I’d turned against him. It makes me feel ill. I had to do it, and I think both of us know that, but it still feels like a wedge between us. Even those little jokes feel strained, as if we’re laughing out of time.

I don’t know how to make it better. Maybe once I know what happened that first time around, I’ll be able to figure out how to mend what’s happening now. Gotta keep an open mind, right?

Speaking of which, I’d better go get Tripi out of my FTL control systems. There is such a thing as too much openness – sometimes, it leads to exploding.

Ship's log, 19:57, 29 March 2213
Location: Grisette system (unverified)
Status: Wide orbit around Grisette sol (unverified)

Chief Engineer here, checking in again. Cirilli keeps asking me to do reports, so here I am, even though I have a list of repairs as long as my arm. Waste of time, if you ask me. What am I supposed to say? We Stepped, and now half the ship needs fixing.

Everyone else was so busy celebrating after we fell out of the portal into this system that they didn’t notice how much damage there was. They were patting themselves on the back, cheering and whooping. Even Cirilli was grinning. The captain didn’t share her expression – he, at least, managed to be professional about the whole thing. He asked me for a status report and I think my answer was ‘fucked up’. Then he encouraged the crew to party it up, which I don’t get at all. Hello? We just had a narrow escape from goddamned pirates, blew up half a moon, and ran through a hole in the universe. We should have crashed and died. If I don’t get everything fixed up before someone else gets a bright idea, we still might. But no, you guys crack open the pseudalcohol and party it up; don’t worry about a thing.

Starry really pulled out all the stops to get us here. The housing on the starboard wing engine is cracked and I had to replace a whole slew of feeds to all of the sublight engines. She nearly burned her own ass off, getting us out of there. We outran two cruisers in the process, which she’s really not designed to do. There’s a reason why people call cruisers ‘space sharks’; they’re fast bastards and they bite hard. If those missiles hadn’t given us a head start, we never would have made it.

A couple of thrusters were damaged by debris, one smashed almost right off the ship, but they’re fixed now. I had to go outside to do those, and let me tell you, it was a relief to get out of this damned ship. If you don’t look out into the void too deeply, the quiet space and stillness makes a nice change to the rattling tincan we live in. Don’t get me wrong – I’d rather live on a ship than anywhere else, but that doesn’t mean a change isn’t nice every now and then. It’s not like I’d ever choose to live on the hull in a pressurised suit or anything. If nothing else, I like to be able to scratch my itches.

The drones were outside, too. They were the first thing we got fixed up, once the initial damage reports were done. Cameron had disabled them with a wrench (she’s Security – subtlety is not usually part of the job description). It was actually kinda scary: she went all Red Sonja on them and nearly got a bit of drone in my eye when it broke apart. The other drones gathered to put them back together, and now the big two are banished to the outer hull. I can’t say I’m sorry. Still can’t believe she used them to hold me down. Starry has apologised but, well.

Anyway. Starry caught a laser or two on her belly, and debris scored marks across her hull. A couple of places have had to be shored up to maintain hull integrity, and the heavier drones are pootling around outside, making repairs. It’ll be a few days before they’re done stitching it all back together.

The heat shielding is compromised, too, thanks to the scores through the shielding paint. Not much we can do about that until the hull reknit is finished, but we should have enough spare paint to patch it up. There’s no danger of overheating at this distance from the star, but I wouldn’t want to be much closer for any length of time.

That heat shielding might have been part of what saved us, you know. We have to be really close to the star to open a portal, and I’ll bet the pirates didn’t want to follow us in. That paint’s expensive and it’s clear that they’d rather spend their money on fucking big guns than on heat protection. Fat lot of use those guns were to them when they were chasing us, huh?

Of the rest of the ship, everything seems to be all right. A few blow-outs on mid-deck, mostly because Starry disabled all the safety protocols, but they’re Wong’s problem. Nothing part of the central systems – nothing for me to worry about. Not that he’d want me up there if it was. He’s so precious about his Stepper, like I’d want to copy the design or something. Or weld something backwards. Weld something to the back of his head, more like.

It’s actually been really quiet down here. Usually, with this much damage, I’d have someone down here, bitching at me about how long it’s all taking. Hey, if you want me to put the hull back together without breaching any of the pressure seals or boiling us all alive, it takes the time it takes. Same goes for a lot of the main systems.

But no-one’s done that. The captain checks in every now and then for my usual monosyllabic status report, but otherwise, they’ve left me alone. Can’t say I’m complaining about that. If it didn’t mean that the attention was focussed elsewhere, it’d be a good thing. Well, it still might be good, except that they’re all leaning on Lang Lang. She’s the only one of the whitecoats I don’t mind having around – she doesn’t think she’s above everyone else like the others do. She just does her thing and lets everyone else get on with theirs.

I hear there’s a fuckup with the star charts. They’re having a problem with pinpointing our exact location. I don’t know the details; it’s not my problem, and hell knows that I’ve got enough of my own. As our navigation specialist, Lang Lang is supposed to be the answer to all of our astro-graphical issues, so she’s the one getting the heat. I actually saw her frown over dinner yesterday – in an unhappy way, not a thoughtful way.

Well, nothing I can do there. I might as well enjoy the break.

The captain hasn’t left me completely alone. I suppose I should mention that. He come down with a request yesterday, late in the evening when most of the crew were asleep. He asked me to put the privacy lock on our conversation and asked me if I could prevent Starry from taking over the ship again. I know he has Tripi working on her innards, trying to break through some codewalls she’s got up, even though she unlocked everything once the step was done.

It’s the safety protocols. That part freaked him out the most, knowing there were no safeguards. Never mind that no-one was hurt; it’s the principle of the thing. Could we make her unable to disable? Why were they disable-able (is that a word?) in the first place? Well, sometimes they malfunction. Sometimes the sensors might pick up a whiff of a scent, detect a poison and vent all the air in a section out into space. Meanwhile, the trapped squishies suffocate and die. It’s happened before. An error in a temperature sensor could make the emergency systems ‘stabilise’ things into an oven, or freeze-dry everyone. We have to have checks, or we’re in just as much danger from a system fault as we are from a vindictive or careless AI.

And, as I pointed out, she’s neither of those things. I watched her through the Step, and Starry was anything but cruel or careless. The IDs went offline because the sensors had no way to balance them against our manoeuvres, and so we felt every accelleration and decelleration, every turn and swoop. It was hairy in a couple of places, but when you compare human tolerances (especially unharnessed humans) to the ship’s capabilities, there’s a really small margin to work in. She went to pains to avoid hurting us.

The cap just stared at me. I told him that locking down emergency protocols had killed entire crews and there are good reasons why it’s not standard practice. I wasn’t happy with them being disabled either, but that doesn’t mean I want something worse.

If she had done it to keep herself safe, she would never have released the controls, would she? I could shut her down with just a few flicks on my console. Tripi is back inside now, and she could do it too. Hell, even the captain’s master override command would work.

The cap asked if I could set it up so that Starry couldn’t lock us out again. Put in an emergency shutdown on her. I don’t like that idea. I don’t want a killswitch in my ship. I certainly don’t like thinking about whose hands might be on it – if I give it to the captain, I know who’ll have access to it in his quarters. And I really don’t like that bitch, especially anywhere near Starry.

The question wasn’t whether I liked it or not, I was informed: the question was could I do it. Could I make a killswitch that Starry couldn’t circumvent? Yeah, of course. I can rig most anything, given the parts. Hell, I’ll make my own if I have to …but I’d really prefer not to.

I should have said no. Couldn’t do it. Not possible. No way in the galaxy – AIs just aren’t made that way. I should have lied.

Now I have an order. A nailed-down goddamn order from my captain to make this thing. And I don’t want to. I want to tell him where to shove it. Which means I’ll get replaced the next time we hit a major docking station.

Fuck. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna tell Starry?

I dunno yet, but I’m gonna have to figure something out soon. For now, the latest hull integrity reports are in from the drones. Better keep busy.

Engineer out.