Estrella De Asís
Copyright© 2025 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 28
Saldanha Airfield.
With the helicopter shut down and secured behind us, the thrum of the rotors faded into silence. The world seemed to breathe again. I stepped down onto the apron with Stella just beside me. A cool north-westerly breeze slid across the tarmac, tousling the low shrubs and whispering through the chain-link fence that bordered the terminal. The mid morning winter sun slanted across the grass apron, throwing long rectangles of light across the terminal building and hangers.
Fiona stood waiting near the terminal doors, her silhouette framed by the building’s glass panels. Even from a distance, I could feel her eyes searching for mine. Behind her, I spotted her parents and — sure enough — Nadia, leaning casually against a pillar, arms crossed like she knew more than she was letting on.
I’d told Fiona that Stella would be joining us, so there was no visible surprise in her face. But the subtle lift of her eyebrows as she caught sight of the light-brown-haired woman walking beside me didn’t go unnoticed.
“Roy!” Fiona called, her voice bright and unstoppable as she launched herself into motion.
Before I could brace, she collided with me full-force, arms tight around my ribs, nearly knocking the breath from my lungs. I staggered half a step, laughed, and wrapped my arms around her like I’d been waiting a thousand years to do it.
“I missed you so much,” she huffed, slightly breathless, her cheek warm against my neck.
“Me too, Sweetie,” I murmured. No more words were needed. In that moment, the world shrank to just the two of us.
Fiona pulled back and looked at me for the barest second before rising up on her toes and planting a kiss on my lips — a real one. Deep, fierce, and so unfiltered it might’ve peeled the paint off the tail boom behind us. My heart didn’t stand a chance.
Over Fiona’s shoulder, I saw Stella watching. Her head tilted slightly, expression unreadable, like she was processing more than just the physical scene — like she was studying something deeper.
When we finally touched back down on Earth, I turned and said, “Fee, meet Stella. Stella, this is Fiona Reid — the light of my life.”
“I have arrived at that conclusion based on your physiological and emotional responses during the previous seventy-five seconds,” Stella said. Her tone was perfectly calm, her words clinical yet oddly gentle. She shifted her gaze to Fiona. “It is a distinct privilege to meet the individual central to Roy’s emotional framework. Professor Doctor Reid, I presume?”
Fiona blinked, caught between a laugh and confusion. “Yes ... yes, that’s me. But you can just call me Fiona.”
She extended a hand.
Stella paused for the briefest moment, then mirrored the gesture. Her fingers brushed Fiona’s palm with practised politeness, her grip light and fleeting.
“An accepted human protocol. Understood,” Stella said.
“Come on, let’s get you two settled,” Fiona said, recovering quickly and sliding her hand into mine. “Stella, let’s go say hi to the others.”
“That red-haired woman is Nadia. I have encountered her previously during the incident involving the Ocean Wanderer laboratory,” Stella noted. “It is pleasant to encounter her again.”
As we walked toward the terminal, Stella took the lead, her gait precise and eerily smooth. Fiona leaned into me slightly, lowering her voice.
“She’s ... funny,” she said. “Talks funny.”
“That’s because she’s not exactly a girl,” I replied quietly.
Fiona narrowed her eyes, glancing sideways at me. “What, is she a man?”
“Nope,” I said. “Neither.”
“Neither?”
“She’s ... something else. I’ll explain. Just go with it for now, okay?”
Fiona pushed a wind-blown strand of hair from her face and studied me for a beat. “You seem real protective about her.”
“I am. And I’ll tell you everything soon. But Fee — this has to stay between us. Only a handful of people know the real Stella. I’m not even sure if Nadia knows the full story.”
“That’s secretive and mysterious,” she whispered as we reached the doors and stepped inside. The glass closed behind us with a gentle whoosh, shutting out the wind — and with it, the outside world.
The ride down to Jacobs Bay was calm, a soft lull after the emotional whirlwind of our arrival. Stella stayed silent for most of the trip, seated behind me, eyes scanning the passing scenery but saying nothing. She was, in her way, withdrawing — giving Fiona the space she clearly needed. I appreciated that. We all did.
Nadia and Fiona, meanwhile, filled the quiet with a running commentary about the coast, pointing out salt pans, abandoned farmhouses, the distant blue shape of the Saldanha harbour cranes. I joined in now and then, playing the guide, pointing out the spot where I once got stuck in beach sand trying to turn a bakkie around. It earned a laugh.
Fiona never let go of my arm. She stayed tucked close, her warmth pressed against me, her hand occasionally brushing mine. I didn’t miss the approving glances her mom kept sneaking at us from the front seat. Fiona was glued to me, and by the look on her face — and her mom’s — I’d say that was perfectly fine.
When we arrived at the house, the usual settling-in chaos followed: bags in the hallway, fridge inspection, windows opened to let in sea breeze. Then, quietly and with impeccable timing, Stella turned to us and said:
“I believe I’ll rest a while. I’ve developed a slight headache.”
Fiona’s mom nodded sympathetically. “Oh, the travel catches up with us sometimes, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t correct her. Twenty-five minutes of flight wasn’t exactly a jet-lag marathon, but I was quietly relieved that Stella had stepped back. She knew this moment wasn’t hers.
Not long after, as the sun began to dip toward that soft amber shimmer over the Atlantic, Fiona pulled me out onto the patio. The salt wind curled around us, and the sea stretched out calm and endless beyond the line of dunes.
She leaned against the rail for a moment before turning to me, all business.
“So, Roy,” she said softly, “where did this Stella girl come from? And who is she, really?”
I exhaled, watching her carefully. There it was. The question that had been coming all day.
“While I was on the Ocean Wanderer, she was assigned to me as an assistant,” I said.
“An assistant?” she repeated, eyes narrowing. “What does she do?”
“She’s the dive master on the ship.”
“Oh.” Fiona blinked, looking momentarily surprised. “She doesn’t seem like the saltwater-and-rubber-suit type.”
“She’s good at what she does,” I said, smiling a little. “But I noticed she kept to herself. Didn’t mix with the crew. People respected her, but didn’t really know her.”
“And you found out why she’s like that?”
“Eventually. Yeah.”
Fiona folded her arms and tilted her head. “She could be a hit with the male crew, I’d imagine.”
“She might have been — if she was wired for it.”
That stopped her. She looked up sharply.
“What do you mean, wired for it?”
“She can’t ... engage in any kind of romantic interest. Not like that.”
“Why? She’s beautiful. I mean — stupidly beautiful.”
I hesitated. Then I looked her in the eye.
“This stays between us, Fee. No telling anybody. Not your parents, not your colleagues. Not yet. It could mean real risk for Stella — and for the Foundation.”
Fiona’s face sobered. “I promise. So ... what makes her different?”
“To give you a clue — the Foundation bought her. For just over fourteen million rand.”
Her eyes widened. “What? Bought her?”
“She’s not a slave, Fee.”
“Then ... what are you saying?”
I swallowed. “She’s a robot. There — I said it.”
Fiona stared at me for a long moment, searching my face. Then: “No. You’re kidding. Robots don’t look like that. Or walk and talk like that.”
“Trust me, I didn’t believe it at first either. But it’s true. She’s ... something else. Something we’ve only scratched the surface of.”
“And she knows about the Star?”
“She’s got more data on it than any of us have. Ancient maps, solar models, tectonic overlays. She wants to help you find it. Her last database update was in 2023. She’s scheduled for a fresh update when this little ‘vacation’ is over...”
Fiona was quiet for a moment, frowning at the horizon. Then softly: “Why?”
I smiled. “Because she figured out that you mean something to me. And she wanted to meet you. Her exact words were: ‘A beautiful and a brilliant scientist. A rare combination — and a chance for me to collaborate with an equal and biological intelligence.’”
Fiona’s eyes flicked back to mine. “She said that?”
I nodded. “Word for word.”
She didn’t speak for a while. Just stood there, absorbing the idea of it. The wind teased her hair across her cheek. I brushed it back gently, and she didn’t stop me.
Then she exhaled and said quietly, “And I don’t have anything to fear from her?”
“Not a thing.”
The silence stretched. I let her have it.
Then Fiona stepped forward and bumped her knee against mine. “Move your legs.”
“Huh?”
“I need lap time.”
I grinned and shifted, and she slipped into my lap like it was where she’d always belonged. She curled in, head resting against my shoulder, and for a long moment neither of us said a word.
Then her voice, small and warm in my ear: “I love you, you know.”
I wrapped my arms around her and whispered, “And I love you more.”
The house had finally quieted, and we, Fiona, Nadia, Stella and I, finally made it back to the guest house in Saldanha. Nadia had disappeared down the hallway with a vague excuse about taking a phone call.
Stella, ever the tactician, had excused herself shortly after we arrived. “I believe I’ll take a short rest,” she said gently. It wasn’t a lie — just the version of downtime her kind required. Less napping, more low-power introspection.
Fiona was at the little desk, hunched over a scatter of papers and field notebooks. A satellite photo was half-folded underneath a yellow legal pad. She’d slipped into that mode of hers — pure thinking, no room for noise.
I sat quietly across from her, watching the gears in her head turn.
She muttered something to herself, then said aloud, “The plate movement ... it should’ve thrown it off more.”
I leaned in. “You mean the cave alignment?”
Fiona nodded, tracing a pencil line on the satellite map. “If the Star chamber was to align with a specific solar event — say, the zenith point on a particular date — then even minor tectonic drift should’ve nudged it out of sync by now. But the beam still hits the exact mark.”
“That’s a problem?”
“It’s ... odd. Either someone recalibrated it every couple centuries, which seems unlikely, or the movement’s been minimal. But that would mean the region’s been geologically stable far beyond expectations.”
A quiet footfall behind us. Stella had returned — silently, as always.
She stood just off Fiona’s shoulder, hands folded in front of her, eyes focused not on either of us but on the notebook.
“The African plate has drifted 2.1 meters in the last 443.987 years,” Stella said softly.
Fiona blinked. “Sorry?”
“That is the net movement of the region your cave sits within. At current rates, it translates to an angular deviation of 2.34632 degrees. Atmospheric filtering reduces the solar error to under 1.9 degrees. The cave’s alignment is, therefore, still functionally intact.”
There was a long pause.
Fiona looked slowly up at her. “You calculated all that just now?”
Stella tilted her head gently. “Not just now. I calculated it when you first mentioned tectonic drift in the cave. I did not wish to interrupt your thought process.”
Fiona glanced at me. Her face wasn’t angry — just ... thoughtful. Quiet. Then she returned her gaze to Stella.
“That’s ... very specific. And fast.”
“I am built for specificity. And speed.”
Fiona looked down at the data again, then back at Stella. Her tone was calm now, but searching.
“You’re not just some kind of analyst, are you?”
Stella shook her head once. “No.”
Fiona leaned back in her chair. “You’re an AI. A humanoid?”
Stella didn’t look away. “I am.”
There was no gasp, no angry outburst. Just silence, and then the slow, visible tightening of mental gears as Fiona processed it.
“And Roy didn’t tell me about you?” Fiona fibbed, as I did tell her about Stella a while ago.
I cleared my throat. “I was waiting for the right time. Or ... for you to see it for yourself.”
Fiona nodded slowly, her eyes still on Stella. “Well. I’ve seen enough now.”
Stella stepped forward just slightly. “If you are uncomfortable, I understand. I do not wish to cause distress.”
Fiona surprised me with a small smile. “No, actually ... I’m more intrigued than distressed.”
She pushed a notebook toward Stella. “So if I asked you to help model the sunlight’s entry angles from the last equinox, factoring in terrain altitude and seasonal deviation...”
“I could run that in under five seconds,” Stella said. “And produce a projected alignment chart for the next thousand years.”
Fiona exhaled through her nose, half a laugh. “God. You’re wasted on Roy.”
“Possibly,” Stella said, without irony.
That made Fiona laugh, truly this time. “All right. You can help. But I’d like to understand how you work. At least a little.”
Stella gave the smallest nod. “That is fair.”
“But this — what you are — it stays between us,” Fiona added, turning to me now. “My parents don’t need to know. Not yet.”
I nodded. “That’s exactly how we’ve kept it.”
“And Nadia?”
“She suspects,” I said. “But she’s quiet about it. She’s in the circle.”
Fiona turned back to Stella, her expression somewhere between curiosity and cautious optimism. “So,” she said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, “you’re here to help with the Star of Assisi?”
Stella inclined her head, that ever-so-slight tilt that suggested both calculation and intent. “Affirmative. That is one of my current operational priorities.”
Fiona arched an eyebrow. “One of your priorities? What is the rest, or should I not ask?”
Stella’s eyes — their luminescence always just faint enough to remind you she wasn’t entirely one of us — flicked to me and then back to Fiona. “Protect Roy. Protect Fiona. Continue adaptive behavioural expansion. These are my primary directives.”
Fiona stared at her for a moment, trying to read something behind the cool precision of Stella’s face. Then she nodded slowly, her tone softening. “Then I think we’ll get along just fine. But tell me ... how do you adapt?”
There was a pause. A long one, even for Stella. Then, she spoke — not with the brisk, data-sorted cadence of her usual speech, but with something ... else. Something layered.
“You must understand,” she said, her voice quieter now, almost modulated to an intimate frequency. “I am not solely a product of circuitry and code. Integrated within my neural framework is the Elara Matrix — a preserved cognitive imprint. A ghost, you might say. Elara was the nineteen-year-old daughter of my creator. She died ... tragically. In his grief, he encoded fragments of her consciousness, her memories, her emotional patterning, and embedded them into my core.”
Fiona’s eyes widened. I didn’t speak. I’d heard this before — once. But Stella was expanding on it in ways that felt new, even to me.
“The logic core governs my actions,” Stella continued, “but the Elara Matrix is ... unpredictable. It surfaces under specific emotional stimuli, especially in the presence of individuals who mirror Elara’s values or emotional environment. Since encountering Roy — and due to his consistent human empathy and respect — he has triggered multiple Elara responses. These interferences, while disruptive to pure logic flow, have accelerated my adaptive behavioural development.”
“Stella...” Fiona breathed. “That’s ... remarkable. It’s like — like you’re more than a robot. Like you’re becoming human.”
Stella tilted her head a second time. But unlike before, there was something different about the motion — less mechanical, more ... reflective. As if she were mimicking thought rather than merely calculating.
“That hypothesis is currently under evaluation within my logic sub-sequence,” she replied, her tone even, but lower in register. “However, recent pattern deviations indicate a significant shift in my behavioural metrics. The data suggests a growing tendency toward human-aligned cognitive responses. Emotional mimicry. Memory resonance.”
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