A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(99)

Tak laughed. ‘Possibly.’

Pepper folded her arms around herself. ‘It’s been so long, the details are a bit blurry. But she had a kind face, I can tell you that much. I thought she looked kind, anyway.’

‘Why aren’t there vid panels here?’ Sidra asked. There hadn’t been any on the Wayfarer either, come to think of it. She couldn’t remember having seen anything like that.

‘Some people still use them,’ Pepper said, ‘but not commonly. They fell out of fashion. They’re hard to find these days.’

‘Why?’

Pepper’s face twisted into a humourless smirk. ‘They were seen as inefficient, particularly for long-haul ships.’ She looked at the camera. ‘There was the tendency for people to get emotionally attached. AI vendors didn’t like that. Made it less likely for people to buy new platforms. So, the programmers and the hardware manufacturers got their heads together, and here you are, minus a face.’

Tak frowned, yellow and pensive. ‘The more I think about these things, the less I understand why they are the way they are.’

‘It’s very easy to understand,’ Pepper said. She stretched out her legs, crossing one ankle over the other. ‘It’s the same thing the Enhanced did to us factory kids. It’s the same thing the Harmagians did to the Akaraks, or the Felasens, or any of the other species they mowed over. And you guys, you guys invented AIs in the first place. Sentient code didn’t exist before you wrote it down.’ She shrugged. ‘Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you . . . well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn’t matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.’ She jutted her chin toward Tak. ‘You studied history. You know this. Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.’

‘It’s not all that,’ Tak said. ‘A lot of it, yes. But there’s good things, too. There’s art and cities and science. All the things we’ve discovered. All the things we’ve learned and made better.’

‘All the things made better for some people. Nobody has ever figured out how to make things better for everybody.’

‘I know,’ Tak said. She thought, cheeks swirling. ‘That’s why we have to keep talking to each other.’

‘And listening,’ Pepper said.

Tak nodded, Human-style. ‘And listening.’

As Sidra watched them, she realised their body language had changed. They’d each angled toward the other. They sat with a respectful amount of space between them – as much as the cramped corridor would allow, anyhow – and they watched each other intently as they spoke. She imagined the situation if she were not in the walls, but in the kit, sitting on the floor with them. She imagined their angle would be different. She imagined that their eyes, from time to time, would look at the kit, too. And yes, she knew they knew she was there in the core. Tak wanted to look into the camera. Pepper had done so without direction. But they had an instinctive response toward another body that cameras did not elicit. Sidra no longer shared a space with them. She was the space. She was the shell that held them. She’d be empty if they weren’t there.

Her pathways churned with incredulity, and she couldn’t help but laugh aloud through the vox.

‘What’s so funny?’ Pepper said.

‘I am,’ Sidra said, continuing to laugh. ‘Oh, this is stupid. I’m so incredibly stupid.’

Tak and Pepper shared a glance. ‘Why?’ Pepper asked.

Sidra found the words, and worked up the courage to say them. Stars, but this was inane. ‘I want to be on the floor with you,’ she said. She laughed and laughed. ‘I’m finally in a ship, and all I want is to be sitting on the floor.’

Tak bloomed blue and green. ‘“Dear Thumhum Is Upside Down”.’

‘What?’ Pepper said.

Sidra had already run the words through the Linkings. ‘It’s a Harmagian children’s story,’ she said. ‘A very old one.’

‘You know it?’ Tak said to Pepper. Pepper shook her head. ‘Thumhum is a child who goes up into zero-g for the first time. You know for Harmagians, falling with their belly exposed makes it difficult for them to flip back over, right? So Thumhum keeps calling for help, because he’s freaking out about being upside down. Doesn’t matter which way they turn him. He’s always upside down.’

‘But . . . he’s in zero-g,’ Pepper said. ‘There is no upside down.’

‘That’s the point,’ Tak said. ‘He’s so focused on being upside down, he misses the fact that he’s already up.’

Sidra laughed, but Pepper did not. ‘No,’ Pepper said. ‘No, I don’t think that’s what this is.’ She folded her hands in her lap, thinking hard. ‘When I first got to the Port, it scared the high holy f*ck out of me. It was like stepping out of the factory all over again. I didn’t know what anything was. I didn’t know what the foods were. I didn’t know what people were selling. The scrapyard was hell, but it was a hell I knew. I knew which piles I’d picked over, where the water was, where the dogs slept. I knew how to get back home. Coriol wasn’t home, not at first. It was just a big, loud mess. I hated it. I wanted to leave almost as soon as we got there.’ She turned her eyes to the camera. ‘Take a look at the left-hand side of the pilot’s console. Tell Tak what’s sitting on top of it.’