Chapter 13

After dinner was cleared away and recycled, we rose one level farther.

Mother had told the truth: the dome at the top of the tower was completely clear, allowing me to look directly overhead at last. A ramp from the open capsule doors took us up to a square sleeping platform in the center, from where I could see the city spread out beneath us and the darkened habitat beyond.

Immediately, I felt much more comfortable. Standing above the center of the ringriver allowed me to observe it as I never had before, a great curve of water arching around me but hidden below my feet, the closest I could ever get to being at the center of all things.

“There is one more thing that needs to be done,” Mother said as she stood beside me, looking into the night. “I’d make it an event, but it’s only the two of us. Ceremony is for other people.” She looked at me. “Are you prepared to take command?”

I swallowed. What was I supposed to say? My entire childhood had been spent training for this moment. She’d reconstructed an entire city for me. I couldn’t disappoint her.

I nodded.

There were no words. Instead, it was a feeling, akin to emerging from a small, dim grotto into a bright sunlit valley: a sudden, swift broadening of awareness.

Looking up, I felt the keys to the locks of a hundred thousand doors raining down into my mind. Longshot’s subsystems ⁠— helm, power, navigation ⁠— began to report their statuses, whispers in my brain. I could reach a factotum at the edge of the city and tell it to dance a jig.

Fingers feeling for an edge, I sat down heavily at the edge of the platform. My mother crouched beside me, stroking my back. “It’s okay,” she reassured me quietly. “I had the same reaction before you were born, when Ship opened up to me. You’ll get used to it.”

“There’s ... so much of it...”

A water pressure valve in a pump deep in the bow, one of 328, flagged a slightly higher flow rate than nominal and recommended inspection. Humidity and temperature data from sensors in every square meter of the habitat’s surface reported in. Crouched apexes eyed the population level of a herd of musk deer. Liquid nitrogen levels in an aft tank dropped by a millilitre due to evaporation. Sets of radio telescopes on the outside of the ship monitored the parallax shift of pulsars a hundred million light years away to confirm our course.

It was like being lost in a freefall dive inside a takamakura without any focus, endless data structures streaming past me. A hundred billion pieces of information, all changing in real time.

It was too much. Impossible for a human mind to grasp even the tiniest fraction.

“Breathe. Just breathe. You’re going to be fine. You’ve got to filter.”

I struggled, grabbing for mental handholds. Found something that allowed me to push the data into the background; still there, but outside my immediate awareness, like the beating of my heart. Concentrating on just a few things in my immediate vicinity ⁠— the factotum standing motionless in the level beneath, the warmth of the room ⁠— allowed me to regain a sense of calm.

My heartrate settled, steadied. I shuddered, lungs pulling in a deep breath.

“Better now?”

I nodded shakily.

“You don’t have to see everything,” she said gently. “Ship will take care of itself, for the most part. I’ve learned that it’s best not to second guess it, usually.”

I rubbed my forehead slowly. “You’ve been aware of this ... the whole time?”

She nodded. “But I don’t step into the datastream much. For me, it’s more ... looking for absences. Gaps. It’s occupied my entire life. With your permission,” her voice lowered. “I’d like that work to continue.”

“Of course. But you don’t have to ask ⁠—”

“But I do,” she said forcefully. I looked up at her. “We’re no longer family. We are your crew. You have the responsibility of life or death over us. Do you understand?”

I nodded slowly, and she gentled her tone.

“An AI isn’t human; Ship doesn’t share our values or perspective. Once it’s made a gene selection, it largely ignores us. It’s your job to command us. You’re our captain, the future of our species, and our ruler. But you’ll have a long time to grow into that role.”

Even with the datafeed reduced to a low background murmur, I still felt overwhelmed. Mother noticed me rubbing my temples and patted my back. “Go lie down on the bed. It will pass.”

The snow-white raised platform in the exact center of the room was fit for an emperor, so large that I could not touch the edges when I crawled to the middle, even with my arms stretched above my head, its surface soft as a cloud. Rolling onto my back I could feel it compensating for my weight, gentle waves rising under the curves of my spine and neck as my body sank into its embrace.

Mother lowered the lights. I closed my eyes, summoning an engram to reduce the ache that I felt building like a dark thunderstorm in my head, breathing slowly. Mother sat beside me, gently stroking my hair as the pain passed.

After a few minutes the feed had diminished to a low murmur, something I was aware of only at the periphery of my senses, like distant, rolling thunder. The incipient headache reduced to a dull throb in my temples.

“Better now?” My mother’s voice drifted to me from above.

I nodded, eyes still closed. “Much. Thank you.”

There was a long pause. “The plan was...”

“Mmm?”

“A few years after Ananya and Hotene were born. That it would be my turn.”

“Oh.” I felt a shiver run through me, all the way to my toes. I opened my eyes, looking up at her. She was looking at my face as she stroked my hair, calm and serious. “And you...”

The whites of her dark brown eyes were luminous in the night. “Wanted to start tonight. Yes.”

“Which is why you...”

“Wanted several days. With you. Yes.” Her fingertips moved from my brow to her waist, nervously playing with the sash of her smock. “It might take longer than that for me to get pregnant, but ... I think that’s unlikely.”

“Oh,” I repeated. I turned, reaching for her, but she had already slipped away, moving to the bottom of the bed and sliding off. I raised myself on one elbow to gaze at her.

With the interior lights off, the only illumination came from the thin glowing thread of the moonline far above us. Mother pulled at the tie behind her head. Unbound, her dark hair cascaded past her shoulders, falling into loose curls as she combed it with her fingers. Her full lips seemed to pulse as she looked at me across the bed.