Oh. Right.
She walks across the room and settles into the farthest seat, facing the hatch. She feels it adjust slightly behind her back and beneath her thighs, fitting her perfectly. She lays her arms on rests at the ideal height. More holograms appear around her fingers, split into five sections for her five Human fingers. She laughs, an odd little huff of air through her nose. This seat is not the generic multi-species design of Network. This seat was, quite literally, made for her.
Right and Left scramble into the seats on either side of her, sticking to their namesakes. They scoot back on the cushions, their legs straight out in front of them. The armrests are nearly above their heads, and the holograms that flicker into existence are nowhere near them.
“Look at me,” says Right. “I’m a Human!”
“I don’t think you’re taking things seriously enough,” says Left.
“Come on, you’ve always been full of jokes. How about when you’re Right you’re Right, or—”
“No,” says Left, crossing its small arms.
Right sighs. “Sometime I hope the boss almost gets you,” it says. “It’ll put a very different spin on life.”
Roche is next in the door, the central mass of holograms reflecting in his lenses. “It pains me to admit this,” he says, slowly turning to take in the entire room, “but I do not understand what I am seeing here.”
“Ship said it’s a control room,” says Mer from behind him.
“I heard that,” Roche says, choosing a seat by the hatch. He settles into it, his anatomy reconfiguring, with clicks and whines, to match its surfaces. “But what does it mean? Surely not manual control.”
“I bet that’s exactly what it means,” says Mer from the doorway. His eyes run over the seats, the holograms, the display in the center of the room, and finally stop on Sarya herself. “I don’t know a lot about Humans,” he says, “but I know they like to be in control.”
“Don’t we all,” murmurs Roche.
“Nah,” says Mer, entering sideways. “In the Network, nothing is ever under your control. Makes it real hard to do something stupid.” He bends several armrests up and settles into two seats, their anchors creaking dangerously beneath his weight as he gazes around the room. “These guys, though, I dunno. I’m starting to think Humans always like to have the option to do something stupid.”
“Is every Network mechanic so philosophical?”
“Just the good ones.”
Sarya watches the holograms play around her fingers, considering the wisdom of Mer’s words. Humans always like to have the option to do something stupid. She already did something stupid, as soon as she got a little power; she let Observer manipulate her into breaking hundreds of solar systems off the Network. Now she’s going to do something else stupid…but at least it’s stupid for a better reason. Now she’s about to fly a gigantic, incredibly lethal Human ship through a massive supermind in order to steal an entire species—
That’s the kind of stupid you can be proud of.
“Ready for departure,” says the ship.
She is calmer than she would have expected—not that she has ever pictured herself in this situation. She glances around the room, at the other five figures currently taking up six seats. None are comfortable, clearly. Left and Right sit on either side of her, close enough to touch her. Roche and Mer sit on both sides of the hatch, constantly rearranging their respective anatomies. Sandy blinks out of the depths of the seat next to Mer. Not for the first time, Sarya wishes she was able to read those blinks. What do you think about this insane plan, Sandy? How would you feel if you were responsible for a sector-wide Network failure? Hell, maybe Sandy is responsible. She owned the ship, she took Sarya to the Blackstar where Observer was waiting. And if it’s her fault, then Sarya doesn’t have to go through with this insanity—
No. This is on her.
She draws a breath, and it seems to take forever. The sentence that is being formed in her brain, the one that’s about to be sent to her lips and vocal cords? Ridiculous, says her mind. One does not simply fool a mind the size of a thousand planets, no matter how drunk He is. Roche is right: everything she has done, Observer has expected. He formed her entire species, and His trillion minds have studied her as an individual. He is drawn together here, larger than He’s ever been, which means He is more intelligent than He’s ever been. Even when they were more evenly matched, back in the Blackstar, He was able to sway her with no more than a few words.
But that doesn’t mean anything, does it? Even if all of this is useless, it is her responsibility to try. Clichéd as it is, it’s true.
The galaxy has to want to work.
“Depart,” says Roche under his breath. He is rocking forward and backward in his seat, anxious. “Take off. Launch.”
“Ship,” she says, feeling those five gazes burning her skin. Please work please work please work—
“Input command,” says the ship.
And then the hatch dissolves into nothingness. Framed in the light of the corridor is a small figure in a tunic.
“Knock knock!” says Observer with a smile.
“I was afraid you weren’t going to make it,” says Sarya tightly. She almost gets the sentence out without cracking her voice. She keeps every muscle under the tightest of attempted control, but she knows she is shaking.
“Not make it?” says the Observer, laying a small hand on its chest. “I designed tonight’s entertainment. Did you think I was going to miss the grand finale?”
It feels like a game, like two players facing off across a board. Except now, she’s not even sure who the players are. “I could take off,” she says. “It would kill every one of you on the ship.”
“Would it?” says the Observer. “You might get the ones still in the corridors, but what about the thirty-one other control rooms? The crew quarters? The hangar? Did you even know this ship had all those things? Do you even know how big it is, how many of Me can fit on it?”
“It would be a good start,” she says through her teeth.
“Fine, let’s say you do that,” says Observer. “Then you’re going to, what, fly this thing up to My Human habitat, and…steal it, I believe you said? Steal the thing closest to My many hearts?” He glances, through multiple sets of eyes, at her five companions. “And you all thought this was a great plan.”
“It was something,” rumbles Mer.
It’s only a single sentence, but it warms Sarya from head to toe. Mer believes in her—or he did, at least—and that fact gives her courage. “My species is not anywhere near Your hearts,” she says. “You don’t want us. You want what we’ll do for You.”