“The boss talks to it,” says Left. “I’ve heard him.”
“That’s part of the problem,” says Right. “He’s probably half the reason this thing has such…strange ideas. I bet you could ask this ship to make you a sandwich and it would harvest your intestines to do it.”
“See, you’re hungry! If we could just get to dinner—”
“Which makes sense, from a certain point of view.”
“Maybe if you’re the boss. Who, I might add, is waiting dinner on us.”
Sarya runs her hand over the blackness. This ship may have torn apart multiple solar systems in its day—and yet this is the closest she’s ever been to something Human-made, and she can’t bear to step away. She’s seen it in action, she realizes—or something like it. She pictures a black shape tearing its way into reality, in the middle of a Human-led slaughter. “And it’s faster than light,” she murmurs.
Instantly, her hair begins drifting upward off her shoulders. At her feet, every blade and leaf has raised itself straight up in the air. In the treetops, she hears the swishing and creaking of thousands of branches being lifted upward.
“FTL drive online,” grates the ship. “Please input spacetime re-entry coordinates. If you would like to survive launch, please enter this ship.”
“Spacetime re-entry?” says Right. “Like, it’s going to leave spacetime?”
“No!” shouts Left, attempting to restrain its floating hair with one hand and the bottom of its small shirt with the other. “No leaving! No, uh, proceeding! Stand down, ship!”
“User not recognized,” says the ship.
Right shakes its small head. “You could tell this thing to find an empty parking space and it would launch a nanoweapon.”
Sarya takes a moment to feel the raw power vibrating the air around her. She may be small again, but strength has not lost its appeal. “Ship,” she says, “cancel command.” Her hair falls to her shoulders. Around her, the forest settles in a massive cracking wave.
“FTL drive offline,” says the ship.
Left sinks to the ground, shaking. “Let her wake up by the Human ship, I said,” it murmurs. “It’ll be dramatic, I said.”
“Oh, relax,” says Right. It turns to Sarya, and for the first time it has a smile on its face. “You hungry?”
The two lead her through the forest, their small footsteps almost inaudible even in the relative quiet. From time to time, Left will stop and think, scratching its mop of hair, then proceed in a slightly different direction.
“It’s this way,” murmurs Left to itself. “Isn’t it?”
“Hope you’re hungry,” says Right over its shoulder. “The boss has quite a spread in the works.”
“I could use a food bar or two,” admits Sarya. “Type F-forty-six, if you’ve got it. I haven’t had anything above F-thirty since…” Since Watertower, come to think of it.
“I don’t know what any of that is,” says Right, “but I’m going to guess it’s terrible. Numbered food?”
“Actually,” says Left under its breath, “maybe it’s…this way?”
The assault of memories, meanwhile, has not let up. Sarya runs her hands over the surface of these towering plants—trees, she remembers from her mother’s memories. She is almost sure there is a deeper memory under that one, one in another language or maybe without words at all. She’s touched a tree with hands, not blades; her fingers know its texture. Her nose remembers the smell of the air. Her feet understand this uneven ground, this random assortment of flora, these sudden roots that lie across her path. Her eyes know these colors, these patterns, this green-and-brown mess and medley. And as she walks, she realizes that it’s what she does not see that is most intriguing.
There is no Network here.
There are no threads, dark or otherwise. There are no minds floating in the darkness. There is no endless variety of personalities interacting and vying with one another. There are no artificial sound sources hidden in the trees, no caretakers cheerfully watering the undergrowth, no frantic transport drones whipping down the path with places to be. Unlike literally every place Sarya has ever been, this place is not saturated with the mind of Network.
It’s saturated with Someone else.
He appears slowly, in ones and twos. One moment she is alone following her welcoming committee, and the next moment there is a cheerful little figure next to her. Another follows in the next moment, on her other side. These are real Observers, with their identical gaits and identical clothes, and they flash indistinguishable smiles up at her. Her two guides, as soon as they see what is happening, seem to collapse into themselves. They hunch their shoulders and walk with their heads down, their hands in the pockets of their small mismatched clothing. Soon the three of them are at the center of a roaring torrent of Observer, all heading the same direction.
“How was the welcome?” asks an Observer. “Were you sufficiently wowed?”
“You don’t have to answer,” says another, bouncing up. “I saw the whole thing.”
“What do you think?” asks a third. It gestures toward Left and Right, who seem to be huddling together as they walk inside Observer. “Are they ready to join Me?”
“I—um.” Sarya is not sure how to answer the question. “Sure?”
“Good!” says Observer, as if that decided it. “That’ll be two more for tonight.”
She regrets her blithe recommendation when she sees Right’s bald figure shudder, but her mind is in a strange sort of disconnect. It’s an odd thing to identify with a gigantic group mind over an intelligence more your size, but here she is. Sarya may be small at the moment, but she’s been large. She may not feel potential around her right this very second, but she knows what it feels like. She’s been millions strong, she’s seen reality from a higher vantage point, and she is at ease in Observer’s presence. But at the same time, she understands the discomfort Left and Right must feel. They press toward each other, alone together in the midst of a greater mind. Goddess knows she’s been there too.
She glances up through a break in the canopy, at the featureless blue ceiling. “How big is this arboretum, anyway?” she asks.
“Arboretum!” scoffs an Observer. “I mean, it may be homemade, but a planet is a planet.”
The word sends a shiver up Sarya’s spine. For the first time since she arrived, she feels a hint of fear. “I’m on—I’m on a planet?” she asks.