Confluence 2: Remanence

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  “Yeah. So?”

  She frowned. “Are you sure that’s safe?”

  He huffed. “It’s not a HERF gun or anything. It’s low energy. Cataracts later in life are the worst I can expect, and the risk of that is minimal as long as I stay at the edges of the EM field. It’s worth the trade-off for me.”

  “It hinders communication. I couldn’t reach you.”

  “There’s ship-wide communication. You could have used that.”

  She nodded slightly. She could have, but it was impersonal and felt…egregiously demanding. She didn’t want to lead that way. “But why?”

  His jaw tightened. “You know why. It’s simple. I don’t want him in my head.”

  She slumped a little inside the suit. This wasn’t going in a good direction, considering the reason she was here. “He’s trying to do better, Alan. He’s learning about us, what we need, what we can handle. If you’d let him—”

  His lips tightened. “He is doing better. But I don’t want him in there when I’m not in control of what he sees. My brain. My thoughts.” His voice had turned into a growl.

  “Okay,” she conceded. She wasn’t going to change his mind about it now. She needed to figure out how to broach the squillae topic. “I’m curious. Did you build this device before or after we went to Atielle?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face again. “The idea came to me the day you came down to Tech Deck and experienced the dropout in signal. It’s a fairly simple device. It was just a matter of designing and 3-D printing a magnetron and using a DC power source I salvaged from the Providence. I tinkered with it in my spare time. Tuning it to the right frequency and modulation was the hardest part. I started using it whenever I slept right before we got to Atielle.”

  “I see,” she said in as neutral a voice as she could manage. He was so smart it was mind-boggling. Designing and printing a magnetron—whatever that was—was a simple matter?

  “What did you need, Jane? You came down here and woke me up for a reason. It wasn’t to find out about my anti-brain-fuck machine.”

  She cringed, but kept her voice steady. “No. It wasn’t. We have a new problem. Several, actually, but only one that I need your help with right now. Have you had a chance to look at Brai’s squillae?”

  “Ah, that? Yup. I looked it up in the ship’s database a couple days ago. That’s some messed-up shit, Jane. I’ve been meaning to write up a report for you, but I wanted to consult with Ajaya first and we’ve both been busy.”

  “Ajaya? What did you find? What’s wrong with them?”

  He hauled himself off the bed and went over to the desk that housed a sectilian computer terminal against the opposite wall. “This really can’t wait?”

  She didn’t answer. She was wishing he’d put on a shirt. It would help her to keep her thoughts from meandering away from the urgency of the situation.

  He rummaged around in his piles of electrical components and personal items until he rooted out a laptop and sat back down on the bed to open it. “Based on what I saw, their programming was completely different from the other types of nanites on the ship.”

  She edged closer to him. The suit was so awkward. She wished she’d changed out of it now. He didn’t seem to notice. “In what way?”

  He stared at the screen hard. Apparently he’d found a way to interface with the ship’s system. It was scrolling sectilian code. “Well, it’s a lot more biologically related than I was expecting.” He highlighted a section, though he had to know she didn’t comprehend it. “There seems to be two main objectives for these nanites. One is to harness the power of the Squid’s natural regenerative ability and keep him in a peak physical state for as long as possible. The other is to stifle his emotional states—to keep him as stoic as possible via manipulation of neurotransmitters. My guess is this was to enhance performance.”

  “Really,” Jane breathed.

  “Yep. The Sectilius can be stone-cold bastards.”

  It explained so much. How Ei’Brai’s behavior had changed so dramatically after the EM pulse. Why he was in such dire straits now, healthwise.

  “Alan, can you change this code?”

  He looked at her skeptically. “You do know who you’re talking to, right?”

  “How long would it take you to delete the stuff that inhibits his emotions? Keep just the stuff that maintains his health?”

  He blinked slowly. “Could I get about four hours first? It’ll take half the time if I get some sleep.”

  She looked at the floor, trying to keep her emotions in check. She managed to say, “He’s dying.”

  “Shit. No wonder you’re so freaked out.” He closed the laptop slowly. “In that case, you shouldn’t worry about the code. Just get nanites in him as soon as possible. I can comb through the code later and upload the changes, easy.”

  He rose, leaving the laptop on the bed, and returned to the desk to dig for something. He pulled out a data stick, stuck it in its slot, then searched for the correct file to upload. When he found it, he transferred the file and handed the stick to her. “You’ll need this to make the right kind of nanites for him.”

  She took the data stick gingerly and slipped it into a compartment on the suit. “Thank you. I appreciate this. I know that things are strained between the two of you—”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want him to die, for fuck’s sake. You want me to go down with you? Help you get it started?”

  Yes. “No. I’ve got this. You get the sleep you need.”

  He looked at her wistfully and reached out a hand to lightly touch her arm for a split second. She couldn’t feel it, of course, but she wished she could. “Okay. I did find something unusual on Tech Deck today. I think it might be a big component of this yoke business, but I need some sleep before I dive into it and really start tearing shit apart. You still sure you want me to do that?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes. I do.”

  “Alrighty then. More power to Cap’n Cthulhu tomorrow.” He yawned and rubbed at his beard.

  “Thank you, Alan,” she murmured. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’d do without me either.” He smiled and pointed at her lazily. “You look pretty rad in power armor, you know. If you weren’t in such a hurry I’d be trying to seduce you right now.”

  Her lips quirked up on one side. “Save that for later.”

  He groaned and sat down heavily on the bed again. “Yeah. Story of my life.”

  Jane clomped over to the door and triggered the lights to go off. Ei’Brai surged back into her mind, now a mute, withdrawn presence. She paused for a second until the vertigo passed. She half turned and raised a hand. “Goodnight, Alan.”

  He was already splayed out on the bed. He waved limply, then threw an arm over his face. “Goodnight, Jane.”

  42

  Jane sat on a low bench in the antechamber of her suite, impatiently waiting for the sectilians to get on with things. The room was large, with seating scattered in conversational groups, and dominated by the former Qua’dux’s paintings. She liked to use it as an informal meeting place. They’d just shared a meal and Tinor was supposed to be making ius announcement, but iad was upset and the proceedings had not yet begun.

  Tinor was complaining quite loudly that it was customary for every member of a tribe or compound to be in attendance. The only person missing was Alan, who was still sleeping. Even Pledor was there, looking grim and sullen, but no worse for wear from the excitement earlier in the day. Schlewan must have given him leave from the sanalabrium to attend.

  Schlewan was urging Tinor to understand that sometimes as an adult one had to accept disappointment in others’ performance and persist in one’s commitments despite that disappointment. This argument seemed to be falling on deaf ears.

  The rest of the crew meandered around, examining the murals that Jane’s predecessor had created on the walls and talking in subdued voices. Everyone was carefully pretending they couldn
’t hear Tinor’s complaints. Word had spread about Brai’s health and it had cast a pall over all of them.

  Jane fidgeted. This wasn’t the celebratory occasion she’d hoped to give Tinor. She doubted that in his fatigue Alan had really put much importance on attending the ceremony, though she wished he had because all Jane could think about was that the squillae would be ready soon and she needed to go pick them up and inoculate Brai with them. Alan was rightly more concerned with the integrity of the ship and all of the other duties she’d tasked him with.

  However, Jane was also very aware that for Tinor, this was possibly one of the most important days in ius life. Jane didn’t want to be rude, but if things didn’t start moving along soon, she’d be forced to make apologies and reschedule, and she was sure that would only upset Tinor further.

  The gifts were laid out nearby, ready for their presentation to the new adult. As Jane understood it, this was one of the few times in a sectilian’s life when gifts were routinely presented—to mark the passage from childhood into adulthood. Traditionally they were practical items to help an individual begin their new life, but given that Tinor didn’t expect the same challenges on a ship as iad would have faced on ancient Atielle or Sectilia, it was acceptable to present gifts that were more sentimental in nature. Jane had urged her crew to consider giving Tinor something uniquely human as a way of symbolically demonstrating acceptance into their culture as well.

  Ryliuk sat down next to Jane. She pushed back as the dense cushion sank under his weight, so she wouldn’t be pulled over to lean into him.

  He didn’t speak aloud, but sent a thought, mind to mind without the inclusion of Brai, which seemed to be his default. “We must discuss this new development regarding the kuboderan.”

  Jane lifted her chin and couldn’t stop herself from scooting over a couple of inches. Even sitting, Ryliuk towered over her. She didn’t know for sure if the Sectilius sometimes conducted power struggles with relation to size and height in the same way humans did, but she suspected there was a similar element in their culture. Something told her he was using proximity as a way of forcing deference. What she wasn’t sure of was whether that was a conscious choice or not. Nor was she certain of how to tell him that made her uncomfortable without creating new problems. The language had come easily to her, but these sorts of social constructs had to be very carefully learned.

  “Everything that can be done is currently being done,” Jane said out loud.

  “With all due respect, Quasador Dux, that is not the case.”

  Jane stared at him and said nothing. She began to dread where this conversation was going, but carefully kept those thoughts to herself. Brai had warned her about Ryliuk’s anipraxic ability being stronger than that of most mind masters. She would heed Brai’s advice and keep herself closed off to Ryliuk.

  Suddenly Alan’s EMF device didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

  Ryliuk continued, leaning toward her. “I feared just this sort of consequence when you related that you’d been forced to destroy all of the squillae on board in the course of eliminating the threat against your people. I could sense you had no idea of the full ramifications on the kuboderan. I was not gratified to find those fears were realized.”

  Jane nodded slowly. “The effects on his health are concerning. I’m hopeful they will be reversible.”

  “They will be. In any case, a good kuboderan will work until dusk takes them in order to honor their Quasador Dux’s wishes.”

  Jane shook her head. She was pleased to hear the certainty in Ryliuk’s mental voice that Ei’Brai’s health would be restored, but the rest of his statement was problematic. It galled her. Brai wasn’t a commodity whose life she would spend on a whim. She was starting to get angry, but held herself in check. Patiently, she said, “Ryliuk, our cultures are very different. You should know I would never ask that of him.”

  “And this concerns me greatly.”

  Jane stood without thought, just as a sectilian would. Now she towered over him. He started to rise, but instinct moved her forward to push on his personal space. She was challenging him now, reestablishing who was in charge, despite the fact that he was easily twice her size.

  He averted his gaze. “Ei’Brai is beholden to you. I must insist that you command him to submit to reconditioning. You are an outsider. Whether you can see it or not, this is necessary. Waiting to do so will only incur more trouble with him.”

  Jane explored that word carefully: reconditioning. He left it open to her in his thoughts, giving her a taste of what that would entail—the level of strict compliance Brai would be forced to adhere to in an unrelenting, repetitive series of lessons and tests over an extended period of time, purely for the purpose of putting Brai back in a place of subservience. It turned Jane’s stomach. Based on Ryliuk’s mental conception of these exercises, she was sure that he didn’t view them the same way. She also knew that no human or kuboderan would relish being subjected to them. To her, the process seemed to be nothing more than an application of extreme humiliation, meant to strip the kuboderan of personhood. There was no other way for her to describe it.

  Jane stared at him hard.

  Ryliuk glanced up once, but his eyes rolled away again. Now he was the submissive one. She needed to make him feel that. She needed to remind him that this was her ship and that things would be done her way. She had to protect Brai from these misguided and antiquated ideals.

  “You are a product of your culture, Ryliuk. I do not condemn you for that. But my duty at present is to Ei’Brai and his needs, not the culture of the sectilian mind masters. You remind me that I am an outsider. I’ve not forgotten that. I believe I see this situation with more objectivity from the outside than you can. While your people have given the kuboderans in your care many gifts, you have also stripped much away. It is not an equitable exchange to my way of thinking. You do not have my permission to perform any kind of reconditioning on Ei’Brai. Not while I am Quasador Dux of this vessel.”

  He kept his gaze carefully averted. “Your compassion for him will be your undoing.”

  Jane stepped back involuntarily, shocked and surprised, despite her training. She kept her mental voice low and even. “Is that a threat, Ryliuk?”

  His ears pulled back. He sounded contrite now. “No. It is a prediction based upon what I know of the facts at hand. I will defer to your judgment in this because that is my place. But I do so with objections.”

  “Your objections are noted,” Jane told him coldly and moved away. She hoped she hadn’t just made a terrible mistake in challenging Ryliuk, but she couldn’t let him do that to Brai. It went against her every value and instinct.

  Tinor was still remonstrating with Schlewan and anyone else who would listen. Jane impatiently checked the time through her connection with Brai, just as Schlewan made eye contact with her. Jane sensed that Schlewan was about to ask Jane to wake Alan, so Jane stepped decisively into the midst of it.

  She addressed Tinor quietly, but firmly. “If you wish to have your ceremony today, you must begin now because my duties will soon call me away. We all have work we should be attending to. If you want to, you can reschedule, but ship life is busy and since we don’t have a sun to remind us when to wake and sleep, people will work and sleep at all times. I may never be able to bring together the entire crew all at once, unfortunately. I’m sorry for that, Tinor, but this is how it is here.”

  Tinor looked down, chastened. Then the child moved to stand next to the table bearing the gifts. Iad stood silently for a moment, unmoving. The low buzz of conversation hushed and all movement stilled.

  Tinor began to speak the ceremonial words. “I am Tinor Fotep Sten, a child of Atielle, of Sectilius, and of the stars. Logic and science are my guides. I was a student. I am a student. I will be a student until I meet dusk.”

  An undercurrent of surprise ran through the sectilians as Tinor deviated from the standard dictum by adding the phrase “of the stars.” Brai wasn’t surprised thoug
h. He’d told the adolescent that some individuals added those words aboard ship.

  Tinor continued. “I am ready to be included, to join, to work toward the goals of my species, to ally myself with others. I have reached the age of pubescent change. I am female.”

  Schlewan spoke. “Tinor Fotep Sten has been confirmed as a documented citizen. She has been free to explore gender without bias or influence. She is female.” Schlewan turned to gaze at Jane.

  That was her cue. As the highest-ranked individual, she would give the first gift. She strode to the table and picked up a thin box containing the chain necklace that was one of very few things she still had from Earth. She’d racked her brain trying to think of an appropriate gift, but this was the only thing she could come up with—a gift from her grandparents upon her own sixteenth birthday. She hated to part with it, but it was appropriate to the occasion.

  She stood next to Tinor and smiled. “I pass on to you a gift given to me at my own coming-of-age ceremony, of sorts. I’ve noticed that the Sectilius don’t tend to adorn themselves the way humans do, but I hope you will enjoy this trinket.” She opened the box and held out her hand.

  Tinor timidly reached in and picked up the necklace. She held it out, pinched between two fingers, looking perplexed.

  “May I put it on you?” Jane asked.

  Tinor nodded. Jane took the chain from Tinor, opened the clasp, and draped it around Tinor’s neck before closing connecting it. Jane patted the young woman on the shoulder and stepped away.

  Tinor looked deep in thought and fingered the chain. As Jane passed by Schlewan, Schlewan shot Jane an intense look that Jane didn’t understand, but Schlewan was already moving forward as Tinor’s next of kin and the next-highest-ranking officer in attendance. She presented Tinor with a small handheld emergency cauterizing tool, then turned to gesture at Ajaya.

  Ajaya stepped forward to hand Tinor a fun-sized Snickers bar she’d somehow saved. “This is food from Earth inside this wrapper. It’s very special. I hope you enjoy it.” Tinor turned it over in her hand with a dazed expression on her face.