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Bechimo
Comm Officer’s Tower


A board pinged in the cluttered comm tower.

Joyita answered at once, full visual.

Seignur Veeoni looked up at him, the hood of a protective suit pushed back from her face.

“Excellent,” she said. “I have information that bears on our discussion of architecture.”

“I’m interested,” he said, “but—isn’t this the middle of your sleep-shift?”

“Possibly. However, I must tell you that I was misinformed with regard to the intention of the builder. He did design for sentience, but not for the primary system.”

Joyita examined her face closely. She was flushed, which could be the result of having had the hood and faceplate in place. Her eyes were sparkling, and her short hair stood on end. She seemed exhilarated, but not disordered. In fact, she seemed much as he had seen her during their last discussion—engaged, and excited by their topic.

“Why,” he asked, “would the builder design for sentience in a secondary system?”

“Because the primary system was based on timonium, and timonium has a known half-life,” Seignur Veeoni said impatiently. “You and I may see a moment or two into the future, but neither one of us is my brother, who sees for the ages.”

“The primary system was built for immediate use,” Joyita said. “As the timonium decayed, the secondary system would come online, fully a person, designed to be a station. The first system was merely—a tool.”

“Exactly!”

“But why wait? Why not just allow the station to be from the first, based on technology that wouldn’t degrade?”

“Because the second system had to have time to grow,” Seignur Veeoni told him. “The technique was—experimental. Briefly, he created cells of the crystals used to craft memory beads. He installed a growing medium of cermabronze between layers of plating, and seeded it with memory cells. If all went well, the cells would grow into a network easily large enough to support sentience.”

“But the key was that it would take time!” Joyita said, beginning to feel excited, himself. “The Enemy was pressing hard, and the station was needed for defense.”

“Yes. Looking forward, the architect built a core for the sentient station, complete with a reference matrix. That was what led me to look for these—”

She stepped back, the camera following her until she stopped by four open crates, the muffling wrap pulled back to reveal glittering orbs studded with gems: blue, green, white, and gold.

He could see a dense haze of data above each. What would it be like, he wondered, to sample, just sample

“These are the libraries meant for the networked core,” Seignur Veeoni was saying. “Where they would be available to the station as she grew in knowledge and complexity.”

“The station was designed for sentience,” Joyita said, and asked the hardest question. “Do you think she survived?”

Seignur Veeoni frowned.

“We don’t know if the crystal lattice grew,” she said. “It was an experimental design, as I said.”

“The cermabronze is intact in the breach hall,” Joyita told her. “It showed up in the scan Bechimo and I did. We didn’t know what it was, and without data from the original planting, we don’t know that it’s grown…”

“But it is intact!” Seignur Veeoni turned to look down at the open boxes, lips parted, expression rapt.

“Having discovered the builder’s original intent,” Joyita pursued, “what do you think is the best thing to do?”

She turned back to him.

“I believe that the best thing would be to take the libraries to the core, allow them to associate with the grid, and find if Station did survive.”

Joyita looked at her with delight.

“May I accompany you to observe the placement of the libraries in the core?”

Seignur Veeoni looked up into the camera, and smiled.

“I was going to ask you to do so.”


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Framed