by DC Bastien
"You tease!"
"Catch you later, Nessin."
"As ever, a pleasure."
When the screen cut out, Saidhe turned her chair around. "You want to be careful, Cap'n. If she sets her sights on you, it'll be difficult to change her mind."
"That Hleen advice, or...?"
"No. Just... her type." Saidhe blushed just slightly. "And you might also remember that Hleen are less... uh..."
"Monogamous?"
"I was going to say 'binary'. We're no less monogamous than Humans are. We just are more open to brief assignations than some species."
"Wait... you're saying she'd want in on me and Ith? I thought that was just spacer nonsense!"
Saidhe held her poker face for all of thirty seconds before she started to giggle uncontrollably. Loap, who had been silent throughout the conversation, got up to clap him on the shoulder. "She's teasing you, Captain. The Hleen are as monogamous as Humans are, with the obvious variations. It's actually Roq who are more flexible about their bed-mates."
"...wait, Loap, please tell me you're not hitting on me?"
He had to be doing it deliberately now, surely? There was no way anyone could have asked that seriously.
"Would you accept?"
"Okay... you know what? Both of you are grounded. Space grounded. And it's only because I need you to fly my ship that you aren't confined to your rooms. Though, there's a thought. Wonder if I could get Twinkle to put your console in your room. Then I wouldn't have to put up with your ridiculousness. Both of you! You're bad influences on one another."
"Don't complain. For a moment, you thought your dream of making sweet love to two people at once might come through," Saidhe managed to get out between giggles. "It's cute."
"I have enough on my hands with one!"
"But you'd consider it?"
"Stop! Stop with the discussing my sex life!"
"I did not realise you were such a prude, Captain." Loap had the most wonderful deadpan voice and face ever. Sadihe was officially in love with how much of a bastard he was. "Amongst my people sexual reproduction or physical intimacy is as easily discussed as food."
"Yeah, but you guys practically fetishise food consumption," he grumbled. "You probably have a Karma Sutra dedicated to the various things you can do with root veg—okay, no. Not a mental image I wanted."
"Would you like me to prepare tonight's meal?"
Loap was going to get shot at this rate. Although as Vadim threw Xaix at his head – letting the Ru land flat on his face with a yowl – that was probably worse in the Captain's opinion.
"If I could ban you from eating, too, I would. Keep this up and I'm cooking your food for the rest of the month. And you will eat every. Last. Bit."
"Alright... we're sorry," Saidhe promised. "We are. Just thought it would help you cheer up."
"Because what every man wants is an offer of various, not-possible threesomes to cheer him up?"
"She still might put out, if you ask nicely."
"...and I'm out. Call me when we're close. Okay? You two sexual deviants have fun. Have fun without humping my chair, or any other part of the ship."
"As you wish!"
***
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Mission: Preservation
Dinner went as swimmingly as dinner could go when you were the victim of a kidnapping and your host was your captor and all the topics of conversation you wanted on the table were as banned as your feet were.
In the end, Ithon opted for just non-answers and non-verbal responses where possible, ploughing through the meal to get something warm and filling in him. He didn't really think Baudeline would try to starve him to change his mind, but he might stoop to prison-cuisine.
Pax hovered in and out of the room, adding another layer of surrealism to the situation. Eventually, he had to ask:
"Is that AI new, or do you like talking to a brick wall?"
"I like my interactions with non-real entities to be functional, not emotional, Ithon."
"Why?"
"I'm not looking for a friend. I'm looking for a clock that can serve me breakfast and schedule my diary."
"Well, as you apparently need to resort to violence to acquire new friends, maybe you should reconsider your taste in AIs, or your behaviour towards your potential companions."
"Enough!"
"Why? Why do you get to say it's enough? Because I'm a prisoner?"
"Ithon... you were going to go to jail."
"Yes. Of my own free will. For a crime I committed then concealed. For my part in allowing you to rove around the galaxy unchecked."
"Why are you so convinced that I'm evil?"
"Baud... Baud, please. You put that fake-Cil up to taking over the whole Sianar race? You probably had a lot to do with the Ur-Hleen problem, and the Whales, I'm guessing. Not to mention all the competition to your criminal enterprises that were conveniently prosecuted, leaving you free to conduct your own affairs."
"The Sianar regularly have internecine, consanguine warfare, Ithon. Do you really think there's a straight line of succession from their first Za to the current one? They're even more bloody and gory in their history books than the early Human monarchies."
Ithon felt his jaw tighten, his right hand flexing in and out of a fist. It was the last resort of the foolish, to want to punch someone. It was a pre-rational, hindbrain response, but he couldn't help the rush of adrenaline through his system. "So you admit to playing a part in it?"
"I knew it was going to happen. I didn't orchestrate it, at least not how you assume I did."
"You knew it was going to happen, and you didn't stop it? Even if you didn't put the gun in his hand, leaving it on the table fully loaded near a child is still a crime. Why? What could you possibly get out of it?"
"Ithon, you... you wouldn't understand."
"No, you're right. I don't. But I definitely won't if you don't try to explain to me. Why? You had a good job. A reasonable salary. If you wanted to earn more, there were other, more lucrative fields to go into. You could even go into them wholly legitimately. There was no need to dirty your hands with criminal scum."
He really didn't understand the older man's motivation, and that was maybe the hardest part. There wasn't a really obvious end game (like, say, promote a political ideology or take control of a company or become a world leader). It all seemed a bit too ethereal and intangible.
Baudeline considered, then. His hands steepled in front of him, chin dropped onto his fingers. A flicker of tongue in and out as he tasted the air, as if it would tell him the words to say. "I'm a long-game player. I like to... I like to tinker from afar."
"To what end?"
"Why does there have to be an end?"
"There is always an end."
"Truly? The worker who slaves away picking fruit by hand for jamming... what is their end?"
"Jam?"
"But why jam? Why jam, instead of cider? Why fruit, instead of grain?"
"Maybe there's only good fruit-ground where they live. Maybe there's enough grain farmers around. Your analogy isn't really working for me, Baud."
"Why do they make jam at all, though?"
"Maybe they couldn't get another job? It's not like every fruit-picker is pushing some great, universe-spanning fruit conspiracy."
"Exactly."
"No! Exactly not! They jam because people want to eat jam! You meddle because... who wants your meddling? I can tell you now that the Sianar as a whole did not. Nor did the Ur, or the Hleen. And the Whales don't, either. You're not providing a product for which people pay you. You're not filling some niche hole in the market by being a monumental dickhole."
"You misunderstand. I am providing a service. Maybe the jam-maker never considers the quality testing person who runs taste-trials, working out the optimal blend of fruits to sugar. Or the marketing guru who comes up with the name. Or even the man two planets over who cultivates the yeast that will go into the bread that will make the toast that will need the jam. O
r even better, do either of those people realise that someone, somewhere, sets the inflation of the currency that purchases jam or bread? Or the person who does things they never even considered needed doing?"
"No. No! You don't get to make up some bullshit story to justify your actions. Laws are laws."
"And how many have you broken?"
"That was why I was going to prison."
"Really? You think your relationship with me is your only crime?"
"The only one that carries a potential for a custodial sentence, yes."
The conversation ground to a halt, then. Ithon saw Pax whirring up and down on its internal spine and he wondered if it was simply the physical equivalent of a screensaver, or if the AI actually had enough sense to feel discomfort.
"I provide a service. Whether you like it or not. I do not actively break any laws. Indeed, I am regularly on the side of keeping the law. But you seem to think that I must be some paragon of virtue, or that I must have some deep, underlying reason behind my actions. The jammer makes jam to feed themselves. They do not make jam because jam is a moral good."
"You were a Judge, Baud. Judge. It was supposed to mean something."
"And if I tell you there's nothing on my copy book you'd not be able to balance out?"
"There shouldn't even be a question about it. Your scales shouldn't be level with good and evil. You should be the one holding the scales that the world pivots around."
"I'm... sorry. I truly am."
"You knew what I believed in. You knew what my feelings were. Why did you... why?"
"You're asking me why... what?"
Oh, don't be an asshole, Ithon thought. There was no need to play coy now.
"I..." Baudeline pushed his chair back from the table. "Thank you for your company, tonight. Pax will see you back to your room."
"Fine."
***
[Ashroe: By any chance are you hungry?]
[Sianor: Uh, no?]
[Ashroe: Oh. It's just there was an awful lot of jam, there.]
[Sianor: It wasn't literal jam.]
[Sianor: You know when they go off on a tangent and you have no way to control them?]
[Ashroe: I call that 'Writing With Ash'.]
[Sianor: Did I make you hungry?]
[Ashroe: I'm always hungry.]
[Sianor: You ate like – everything today!]
[Ashroe: I got excited. When I get excited, I eat. When I get frustrated, I eat. When I, I eat.]
[Sianor: When you what?]
[Ashroe: No, just when. When I exist.]
[Sianor: Hmm.]
[Ashroe: Okay, also you have weird foods. And I want to try them all.]
[Sianor: We're not that weird.]
[Ashroe: You kinda are!]
[Sianor: I know we should sleep so we get up tomorrow early for day two.]
[Ashroe: Yeah, we should.]
[Sianor: Buttttt...]
[Ashroe: No way in hell am I sleeping yet.]
[Sianor: I don't think I can write any more tonight, but I agree.]
[Ashroe: We could go through our con photos?]
[Sianor: Yes! And take terrible phone photos of our photo ops.]
[Ashroe: You want to post those?]
[Sianor: Oh, I forgot. You don't post pics of your face much.]
[Ashroe: Not really.]
[Sianor: Okay, scratch that. But yes, our con photos.]
[Ashroe: I've also been trying to work out the optimal time to queue for the panel on Saturday. Which I totally can't believe they got a Saturday slot. Even in one of the smaller rooms.]
[Sianor: Sweet, sweet mathematics?]
[Ashroe: Yessss.]
[Sianor: And then Sunday we get – we get...]
[Ashroe: Breathe!]
[Sianor: WE GET. TO MEET. THEM.]
[Ashroe: Yep!]
[Sianor: But... but we get to SEE THEM. In the real. Like. Breathing. Breathing AIR.]
[Ashroe: I'd be worried if they were breathing something else.]
[Sianor: I've never met anyone I've been like, a fan of before. I mean, I've watched interviews and behind the scenes stuff, but I've never been face to face with them. Or so close I could lick them.]
[Ashroe: General rule: don't lick the actors and actresses.]
[Sianor: Darn, there goes my photo op idea.]
[Ashroe: Fake-licking with consent might be acceptable.]
[Sianor: Wasn't reallllly planning on applying my tongue to them.]
[Ashroe: Good. It's my tongue!]
[Sianor: Are we going to go in with pose ideas, or see what they come up with?]
[Ashroe: Well, if we go in with something in mind, it might be good. Like, we could get something cutesy. Especially if we're going in cosplay.]
[Sianor: It's a shame we can't get Davey and Henry in the same shoot together.]
[Ashroe: Oh, but we could have our photoshoots with them echo one another!]
[Sianor: Oh yes! Like, when you're Ithon with Davey, and then I'm Kip with Henry?]
[Ashroe: PERFECT.]
[Sianor: Are you going to ask any questions? At the panel?]
[Ashroe: No. I mean, I don't think so. Did you have any in mind?]
[Sianor: Not off the top of my head, but I might work on one.]
[Ashroe: You could ask if Ithon's ever coming back >:D]
[Sianor: Oh don't tempt me!]
[Ashroe: Let's get these photos processed and then put something on the telly.]
[Sianor: Telly?]
[Ashroe: TV.]
[Sianor: Ah! Yes. D'oh.]
***
Kre wasn't sure why Mes insisted she come to the rec room. They hadn't been in there for any significant amount of time in a long while. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time they'd all met up here. Things had just... run away from them. If it wasn't one attempt on a life, another, or a war about to brew... you just coasted through hectic days and crashed asleep at night.
So when she came in and found Biann waiting at the threshold, all but bouncing with the gloves and VR helmet in her hands, she was even more surprised.
"What's this for?"
"We're going to do some bonding," Biann insisted.
"Bonding?"
"Yes! That thing where we unwind! Do stuff! Everyone's been super cranky, and I am sick of tiptoeing around the ship. So. Bonding."
"You recall what happened the last time we used the Virtual Reality suite, don't you?"
"I do. Which is why this time we're totally fine. I completely debugged it and tested it myself this morning." Biann waved the items enticingly, then shoved them into Kre's arms.
Kre had no choice but to take them, or else they would all fall and that would not be good. "Biann, I'm—"
"Mes has assured me we got at least four hours before she even needs to check our Whale is still on course. And that's her check. Not Saidhe's. So you can give me two hours of that. Two bursts of forty-five minutes, with a half hour break for regroup in the middle."
"...just us?"
"Nope. Everyone's getting in on it. Even the Captain."
Kre ran her paw over the Sianar-shaped gloves. Escape. Even for a few hours. Back to how it had been before all the attempted murder. Back when she was Kre-Nappre, an eccentric scientist with a bunch of slightly more eccentric crew-mates. "I'm not sure he will be in favour of it," she said, instead.
"He won't have a choice!"
"Who won't what now?" Vadim asked, getting to the party late. Biann was already shoving his VR gear at him.
***
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Mission: Metafiction
Biann's game world was clearly a re-enactment of her favourite action franchise. Loap had actually introduced the ship to it during one of their movie nights, but Biann had fallen in love with it. It was one of those multi-media offerings with movies, games, books and all sorts of linked in elements; making it hard to classify it as one form of entertainment or another.
Kre had to admire the holistic approach.
It meant you could consume the fiction and world in whatever medium appealed most to you, and pick and choose from the other parts. There was still an uber-story, but you didn't need to purchase every element to enjoy that. (But if you did, there were scattered in-jokes that made the experience even more rewarding.)
Mes had assigned them into two teams, ranking them by their predicted skill in the current scenario. Kre was teamed up with Biann and Loap, whilst the Captain, Judge and Saidhe were their opponents. Kre wasn't sure why the split had fallen that way, but she thought that meant she and Biann were roughly the equivalent of the two with Ur training. Biann might not fight very often, but she did enjoy her virtually-hosted violence.
"You remember the rules and stuff, or you want a recap?" she asked.
"...please, for the sake of my memory?" Loap asked.
