Tinsori Light
Recovery Deck
“Run!” Jen Sin shouted, pivoting, boots slipping on the frosty floor. Running had never altered the final outcome, but he always did, rabbit that he was.
This time it was not the incandescence of unraveling that stopped him, but arms wrapping around him and crushing him to a massive chest.
“Be careful,” a deep voice growled over his head.
“Cousin Jen Sin!” Tocohl cried. “It was a stiff relay! I swear to you; I fused all the beam ports, and disabled the engines.”
He sagged inside the large embrace. Of course she had, sweet lady that she was, and true. He was a fool.
“Thank you, Cousin,” he whispered into the leather under his cheek.
“Pilot?” the big voice again—Hazenthull nor’Phelium, he realized. “Are you able? Should I release you?”
“I am able,” he said, which would do for the moment. “Please release me.”
She complied at once, and looked down at him, her broad brown face grave.
“The floor is slippery with the ice,” she said, from which he learned that he had been rescued from a fall.
He bowed as between comrades.
“My thanks.”
“It was no trouble,” she assured him, and it was then that he noticed Seignur Veeoni, her spare frame entirely upright, marching deliberately across the slick decking toward the first cubicle.
“I would like the attention of Mentor Jones and Light Keeper yos’Phelium on this,” she said, not bothering to turn her head.
Jen Sin felt his arm touched, and looked into Tolly Jones’s face, which wore an expression of careful sympathy.
“Tinsori Light really is dead, Pilot,” he said, sounding perfectly matter-of-fact.
“I know that, but my reactions do not,” Jen Sin said ruefully. They turned together to follow Seignur Veeoni, Hazenthull nor’Phelium at their backs. “Korval breeds for rabbits, after all, survival being our foremost talent.”
“Comes to specifics, I’m fond of surviving myself. Here we are.”
The last was as they stepped into the cubicle, Hazenthull remaining without—an excellent decision, given the lack of room, and the fact that she could see over the half-wall.
Seignur Veeoni was bent close to the unit, studying the display panel. She glanced up as they approached, and straightened, her gaze sharpening.
“Do you recognize it, after all, Mentor?”
“Duplicating machine, is what I know to call it,” the mentor answered readily, his voice as easy as ever.
“So the salvage crews have it, yes.” She looked to Jen Sin, and inclined her head.
“You are correct in your description of the device’s function. It stores a copy of a personal architecture, and will reproduce that precise architecture on demand. There are limitations. While the copy is alive and receptive—by which I mean that it has a functioning brain, and can be taught—it does not have an ongoing memory of a former existence.”
“Of course not,” Jen Sin said. “It is a copy.”
She gave him an approving nod. “Precisely. This device has been altered from what we usually see, in order to accommodate the second step.”
She paused.
“You understand that single units such as we see here are something of a rarity, as they are not an economical way to produce copies. In the Old Universe such were produced in batches, which required multi-bed devices in large facilities where waste could be kept to a minimum. The salvagers most often find the single units among the wreckage of ships, where they would have been put to use when it became necessary to replace a member of the crew.”
Her eyes strayed to the control panel, and she was silent for a moment before looking up and continuing.
“In both large batches and small, the second step in the process is to imprint the copies with necessary information, as previously compiled by the operations manager. This typically entails removing the copies to a learning unit and running the specified program.
“This unit has been modified to combine the reproduction and learning steps. I cannot be certain without testing, but it follows that each unit here must be dedicated. Which is to say that one unit was tasked with preserving your sample, Light Keeper, and producing a new vessel when required. A second unit would hold Lorith’s material. The third unit—was there a third light keeper?”
Jen Sin raised his hands, showing empty palms.
“The Light was originally kept by three initiates of the Sanderat Order—this told to me by Lorith, who was alone when I came on-station.”
“What became of her sisters?”
“The first died during the transition—the storm, Lorith calls it. When they found themselves in new space, the second took their vessel out to find where they were, and never returned. After she had been gone long enough to assume that she was not returning, Lorith attempted to call her back from the unit, but as she did not wear beads, she did not know herself, nor anything, I expect,” he added, feeling a sour taste in his mouth, “that was of use to the Light.”
“Was she never wakened again?”
“Not during my time,” he said definitively, and, in response to reality added, “that I recall.”
“Granted,” Seignur Veeoni said, and glanced back at the unit. “Whose cubicle is this?”
“Lorith’s.” He waved a hand. “Mine is innermost.”
“So. To sum up: Finding itself in need of one or the other of the light keepers, Tinsori Light activates the appropriate unit, which performs its function. Given the use of the beads, I theorize that the unit produced not merely an identical physical architecture, but psychological, as well. Thus, it would be more efficient to download the data gathered by the beads into the replica, also ensuring that less was lost to compatibility issues. This accommodates the existence of the nonstandard programming I found in the beads you have been wearing. The beads gathered and stored your memories, and also banked them in the proper dedicated unit.”
Jen Sin stared at her; his chest icy with dismay.
“So, I am not who I believe myself to be—in any way?”
Seignur Veeoni frowned. Of course.
“You are the Jen Sin yos’Phelium who is available to us in this present,” she said briskly. “Whether you are the precise Jen Sin yos’Phelium who arrived at Tinsori Light two hundred Standards ago is a question I cannot answer.”
“Couldn’t be,” Tolly Jones said surprisingly. “People change. The pilot who arrived on-station all those Standards back hadn’t taken the decision to stay and try to do what he could to contain a bad situation. That’s a change-point, right there, never mind how many times you woke back up from dying.”
Jen Sin swallowed in a dry throat, as another thought assailed him.
“The machines—the timonium is degrading—”
Tolly Jones caught his point.
“You’re thinking the quality of the work’s gone down? That’s a reasonable concern. You look hale and fit to me, but we can make certain of that, if Seignur Veeoni will let us use her equipment.”
“Certainly. It will be an interesting data point.” The researcher raised her head to look at him. “Do you know how many times you were wakened?”
Dread filled him, as if the question had triggered it. He took a breath, forcing the sensation aside, and made himself say, evenly, “I regret.”
“No matter; I can likely extrapolate from the onboard records.”
Jen Sin took another breath.
“I fear you have lost sight of the goal,” he said, gently. “These units—all of them—must be destroyed.”
“I agree that they must eventually be deactivated,” Seignur Veeoni said, “but not before they are properly studied, and the data they hold analyzed.”
“Light Keeper Lorith is arriving at this location,” Tocohl said.
“Excellent,” Jen Sin said, absently, before again addressing Seignur Veeoni.
“As light keeper, I insist that these devices are hazardous to the well-being and continued survival of the station. They cannot be allowed to remain, or indeed, to exist. If you find yourself unable to destroy them, I will destroy them myself, as part of my duty to this station and the universe beyond.”
Seignur Veeoni failed to look in the least bit cowed. One might almost say that she was amused.
“Old Tech’s hard to kill,” Tolly Jones murmured.
Jen Sin turned to him. “I don’t doubt that my method will be wasteful, but it is within my power to destroy this room and everything in it in the next hour. I would do better, if I had the assistance of an expert, but the work can go forth without.”
“Light Keeper, think of what that data may tell us,” Seignur Veeoni said, as one scolding a slow student. “To destroy them out of hand—”
“Jen Sin!”
Lorith strode into the cubicle, robe fluttering in her haste, feet bare against the slowly warming deck.
“Jen Sin, what are you doing?”
“Speaking with Seignur Veeoni about these units,” he said, turning to face her. “I had said that I would.”
“You are not wearing your beads.” She turned to Seignur Veeoni. “He must have his beads back, Researcher. They are his memory. He will not wish to forget anything, especially in this time of transition.”
“I agreed to study the beads, of which he had some concerns,” Seignur Veeoni said calmly. “I am proficient in bead technology, and may be able to extract a clean copy of his memories, uncompromised by timonium decay.”
That sounded fairly wonderful, Jen Sin thought, and everything that was innocent. Indeed, he felt himself comforted by the level reasonableness of it.
The effect on Lorith was not the same.
“You must not tamper with the beads!” she snapped. “Only return them and cease to meddle in matters that do not concern you! You are here to perform needed repairs, and you serve at the pleasure of the light keepers!”
She spun toward him.
“Jen Sin, come away.”
“In a moment,” he said, calm in his turn. “There is a discussion ongoing.” He turned to Seignur Veeoni.
“Surely, Researcher, you see the need to destroy these units. I understand the impulse toward scholarship, but—”
He saw the movement from the corner of his eye, spun and ducked. The thrust missed him entirely, but Lorith was whirling again, a thing of lethal grace in this confined space, the knife gleaming in her hand.
In all their time together, they had never sparred, or contended against each other. She was a warrior trained, taller than he, and very quick.
He was a yos’Phelium pilot—no stranger to port-brawls and desperate situations.
She feinted. He countered, his hand flashing out to snatch her wrist, twisting, forcing the knife down—
There was a small sound, percussive, almost apologetic.
The knife fell to the deck with a clatter, and Lorith crumpled after it, a dart protruding from her chest.
“No!”
He spun to stare at Seignur Veeoni, who held the gun expertly in thin fingers, her face displaying nothing other than her habitual frown.
“She is wearing her beads,” she said negligently, “and can easily be called back. Unless you still insist on destroying the units.”
Ears roaring, he looked down at Lorith, crumpled and still, his only companion in horror and in determination. They had kept each other…rational, if not precisely sane, and on-task. They had connived together to cheat the Light, and build a safe-place against him—
“Do it,” he heard himself say. “Bring her back.”
“Light Keeper.” If it were not impossible, he would have said that Tocohl was breathless.
“Something is on an apparent intercept course for the Light. It broadcasts no ID. It does not answer hails. It has not requested permission to dock. It shows what may be three running lights which indicate a slight spin around axis. No overt actions other than a powered approach.”
“Shields,” Jen Sin said, attention snapping to this new emergency.
“Increased to maximum in the likeliest area of impact. But—the weapons—”
“Yes.” The weapons were not under the Light’s control. He had made certain of that.
“I—”
He half-turned to look again at Lorith—
He felt a warm touch on his arm, and looked up into Tolly Jones’s solemn, sympathetic face.
“I’ll take care of her,” the mentor said, gently. “Go. The station needs you.”
“Yes,” he said, and left them at a run.
“That was a risk,” Tolly said, dropping to one knee on the deck, as Haz entered the cubicle. He picked up the knife and handed it to her over his shoulder; removed the dart, glanced at it, and tucked it into a pocket. Shaking his head, he looked up at Seignur Veeoni.
“What were you gonna do, when he noticed she was still breathing?”
“There is no reason to discuss events that did not occur,” Seignur Veeoni said, slipping the gun away. “Something had to be done. She was trying to kill him, and, as we are all aware, he is not wearing his beads. We need Jen Sin yos’Phelium, Mentor. Surely you agree.”
“She was only half trying to kill him—and it wasn’t enough,” Tolly said, getting to his feet. “He disarmed her before you got your shot off.”
“The knife’s edge is undamaged,” Haz said.
Tolly nodded. “Keep it for her, right?”
“Yes.”
“One does not cast away a bargaining chip,” Seignur Veeoni said primly, her gaze dropping to the duplicating machine. “I must study this nonstandard architecture. To destroy them out of hand would be foolish beyond permission.”
Tolly sighed.
“What about Lorith? She might not be dead, but she’s not going to be feeling any too good when the tranq wears off.”
Seignur Veeoni waved a hand. “Take her to my lab. M Traven will let you in, and show you the autodoc.”
Tolly tipped his head.
“Way I understand it, Light Keeper Lorith is from the Old Universe. Not likely to be a file for her in the ’doc.”
“There is in my ’doc,” Seignur Veeoni said with asperity. “Have we other business at this time, Mentor?”
“Can’t think of a thing,” Tolly said, stepping back so Haz could pick up the light keeper’s long body. “We’ll just be going now.”