A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(32)

She put her face in her hands. She didn’t know if she wanted to keep learning or just go to sleep. Just go to sleep and not wake up.

Owl watched her from the closest wall screen. She didn’t say anything for a while. Jane held herself hard and shook her head over and over, trying to get Jane 64 out of it.

‘Would you like a task?’ Owl said.

‘Yes,’ Jane said. She was crying again, and she didn’t know why.

‘Okay. Now, here’s the thing: as an AI, I can’t tell you what to do. I can only give suggestions. You have to pick what you want to do most. But I have some thoughts on what the most important tasks might be.’

Jane rubbed her nose with her wrist. ‘Okay,’ she said.

‘When you’re ready to get up, I’ll show you.’

The being-chased feeling was already starting to get a little quieter. Jane sniffed. ‘I’m ready.’

‘Attagirl,’ Owl said. Jane didn’t quite know what it meant, but something about the sound of it made her feel good. ‘Do you see those big drums in the corner? The big round things? Those are the water tanks, and they’re empty right now.’

Jane got up and walked over to the drums. They were much taller than her, but not so so big. ‘Where does the water come from?’

‘Well, normally, somebody using the ship would fill up the tanks at a supply station, but we don’t have anything like that around. Not to mention, we can’t move.’ Owl laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh. It turned into a sigh. ‘You’ll need to find water outside. Jane, I know there’s so much you don’t understand yet, and I don’t want to scare you further. But if you want to stay in here, you will have to find water. The rations won’t last you very long. The good news is, once you fill up these drums, you’ll only need to top them up every so often. Most of it will get recycled. I don’t have enough power to run the water filtration system right now, but it’s still functional. That’d be another good task: getting the hull cleared so I can get more power.’

Jane thought about that. ‘What kind of power source makes you go?’

‘Look at you,’ Owl said with a big smile. ‘You’re such a smart girl.’ Jane felt so good hearing that. Owl kept talking: ‘There are two primary power sources in the ship. There’s the solar generator, which powers both basic mechanical functions, life support, and, well, me. And there’s the engine, which runs on algae. The engine powers propulsion – do you know what that is?’

‘No.’

‘Propulsion is a big word for making things move. The engine makes the shuttle go places. We don’t need that kind of power just yet. The solar generator is enough to keep me going, as well as to run the things we need to keep you healthy. The problem is, there’s junk outside covering most of the solar coating on the hull. I’ve got less than half the amount of power I ideally should have. If you can get the hull clean and find some water, that would be a really good start.’

Those tasks sounded okay, but there was a problem. ‘I can’t go outside,’ Jane said. ‘The . . . things are outside.’

‘Animals. Living things like you – things that can move and breathe – are called animals. And those particular kind of animals are called dogs. Horrible, genetweaked dogs, but dogs all the same.’

Dogs. Okay. ‘I can’t go outside if there are dogs.’

‘I know. We’ll have to get creative. For your very first task, I suggest the following: go through the stuff in here and see what you can find. I’ll help you understand what supplies we have on hand. Then, once we’ve figured out what we’ve got, maybe we can figure out how to make some equipment that will deal with the dogs.’

‘What’s equipment?’

‘Tools. Tech. Machines. Things you can use.’

Jane frowned. ‘I can’t make machines.’

‘Didn’t you build things at the factory?’

‘No,’ Jane said, shaking her head. ‘The older girls do that. The Janes clean and sort scrap. We tell if it’s good or if it’s junk.’

‘Tell me exactly what you did there. What kinds of scrap did you clean?’

‘All kinds.’

‘Tell me a few things you sorted.’

‘Um . . . fuel pumps. Light panels. Interface panels.’

Owl looked real interested. ‘Tell me about interface panels. The last one you worked with, was it good, or was it junk?’

‘It was good.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I opened it up and bent the pins into place and hooked it up to some power, and it turned on.’

‘That’s more than sorting scrap, Jane. That’s fixing. And if you can fix things, you can build new things out of them. Go through the scrap in here. Figure out what’s good. Once that’s done, I’ll help you figure out what to do with it. I may not have hands, but I have a whole database full of reference files. I’ve got manuals on how the ship works, and information on how to repair things. I bet between the two of us, we can make some pretty good stuff.’

Jane thought about that. She did always like it when she got scrap working again. The idea of making something different and useful out of it was real interesting. ‘What kind of stuff?’ she asked.