Sarya would have thought nothing could pull her from the splendor outside, but she didn’t count on that voice. She turns, searching for a speaker. She’s heard the voice of Watertower before, ringing out over the concourse or giving announcements in the corridors, but always distant and impersonal. Now she is in its very heart, and she is embarrassed to find that her Human eyes are burning. Again.
A silver glow hovers in the center of the room, between two of the teacher’s bodies. [Ellie (she family), species: Independent, Tier: 2.7], says the space beside the glow.
“Hello, Ellie,” says one of the teacher’s bodies. In a bit of insight provided by Sarya’s new Network unit, a yellow [annoyance (slight)] is overlaid near the narrow face. “Perhaps you would like to give the rest of my presentation?”
“I would love to,” says the silver glow, its voice rolling through the observation deck like a warm wave. “In fact I have already prepared a little something—just in case you needed my help again.”
“That’s the station intelligence,” whispers an awe- and mucus-filled voice at Sarya’s elbow. “My dads say she’s super smart.”
“Your fathers are sweet to say so, Jobe of Jonobo the Larger,” says Ellie, and Sarya feels a start beside her as Jobe hears his own name in that gorgeous voice. “And it’s true, relatively speaking. I am the only tier three intelligence on the station.”
“To clarify, students,” says the teacher, “Ellie is a two-point-seven. There are no threes on Watertower.”
“Exactly,” says Ellie smoothly. “An amusing fact: that’s approximately five and a half times the average intelligence of this class!”
“And yet below average for a station this size,” says the teacher. The slight has disappeared from the annoyance on her yellow emotion tag.
“Ah, but the station’s been growing for a long time,” says Ellie. “I have managed it quite well for nearly fifteen hundred years.”
“Ah,” mocks the teacher, [polite interest] floating beside several of her faces. “And yet you’re leaving us now.”
[Ellie is leaving?] ask several students, their messages fighting for room in Sarya’s overlay.
“Where are you going?” blurts Jobe.
“The truth is, students,” says Ellie, “your teacher is right—about this, at least. This station has just gotten too big for a little almost-three like myself, and I’ve decided not to renew my contract this century. Our current major shipment—the one we’re wrapping up right now—will close up my perfect run on Watertower.”
“By perfect,” says the teacher, “Ellie means—”
“Let’s not allow semantics to interrupt a perfectly timed presentation,” interrupts Ellie. “Students! Please look directly at the planet below. I think this will interest you more than whatever your teacher planned on sharing.”
Sarya is once again crowded against the window as her peers—squinting and shading eyes and sensors with various limbs—join her in staring into the fire outside the station. Sarya ignores them and gazes out herself, wide-eyed, searching through spinning ice and drifting machinery for something new. A murmur begins from the students to her right and works its way toward her. She presses forward, forehead against the cool window, trying to widen her field of view.
And there it is.
From the lower edge of the window, something is growing like a crystal on a substrate. It is thin, wickedly sharp, and blacker than space itself. It slides across the planet, slicing it diagonally over long minutes, until there are now two blazing halves hanging in space.
“Say hello to Long and Pointy,” says Ellie.
“Such a thought-evoking name,” says the teacher. “One wonders what inspired it.”
“Named by the client, actually,” says Ellie. “We typically like to christen them something more majestic, but you know how group minds are.”
“Beg pardon?” chokes the teacher. [Shocked] is now floating beside her tapered face.
“This little guy,” continues Ellie as if the teacher had not spoken, “is four hundred kilometers long. It’s part of the largest shipment we’ve ever done.”
The blade of ice continues its endless passage, its dark edges splitting the planet still further. The scale is beyond comprehension. Four hundred kilometers. Measured in Watertower Stations, that’s…that’s the length of Sarya’s world, the size of everything she’s ever known, times eighty. She pictures them lined up side by side along the black razor edge, station after identical station. She would never have imagined there was this much ice in the entire solar system, let alone in one place.
“It looks like a…starship,” she murmurs under her breath.
“That’s exactly what it is, Sarya the Daughter,” says Ellie, and Sarya feels a rush of warmth at the acknowledgment. An almost-tier-three, speaking to her—not Jobe, not Rama—and by name! “A four-hundred-kilometer starship made of ice,” continues Ellie. “If you’re still watching a few hours from now you’ll see the engines pass by. And what’s more, we’ve spent the last few decades making ninety-nine more just like it!”
Sarya’s jaw drops once again. A hundred of these things? Good goddess, that’s more ice than—
[But how will it travel? By Network?] floats above Jobe’s glistening head. [Pride], Sarya’s unit inserts below that. He must have spent the last minute or so painstakingly composing that message on his arm display.
“Oh no, Jobe,” says Ellie’s warm voice, somehow lending a majesty to his name. “Transferring that much mass via Network? It would cost more than the water is worth. No, this delivery will go the other way, away from this system’s Network corridor and into deep space. Sub-lightspeed, the trip will take decades—perhaps centuries. Fortunately, the client is a group mind—like your teacher, of course, except high-tier—and He doesn’t mind waiting a few centuries for his order.”
The teacher’s emotions are hidden now, and for the first time in her life Sarya feels a twinge of pity for her. It’s not every day that Sarya has something in common with a group mind, but she knows exactly what’s going through the teacher’s many heads.
“Peculiar fellow, the client,” cautions Ellie. “That’s a few thousand of Him out there right now, doing the test run. He’s the whole crew. We normally provide a few thousand sub-legal intelligences to crew each order—they are ideal for this sort of thing—but He insisted on piloting His own shipment.”
“Where’s, um…He taking it?” asks Sarya.