42 C: Tears
Rafaela glared at the plump figure on the main display screen, but that didn't stop her from pulling on her clothes and grabbing the container of hot food that the dispenser provided before she made it to the chair.
"You are genetically impaired," her ship informed her reluctantly. "And the medical pod doesn't have the supplies needed to fully repair your DNA."
She paused with the first bite still held in front of her mouth. "What do you mean? Do you mean the incompatibility between my L and M genes?"
The plump anim shrugged. "Your lifespan is greatly reduced compared to the average span for humans according to the medical system," it announced soberly. Rafaela took a deep breath, but the ship continued, "However, I think that most of the humans currently living in this system probably share the same lifespan limitation, so it's likely that you inherited it from your father."
After a moment Rafaela finished moving the bite of food into her mouth, and chewed and swallowed it before asking doubtfully, "Presuming that the medical pod is correct, why would a shorter lifespan cause it to mistake my state of consciousness?"
"It's just one of the more dramatic differences," the ship explained. "Your data seems to vary from many of the medical system's baselines, but not all of the differences are bad."
"You've never mentioned anything about this until now?" Rafaela pointed out questioningly.
The friendly, matronly, little face that had become so familiar wrinkled into a distressed expression. "I haven't wanted to cause you distress when there's nothing I can do about it."
She knew that the image was nothing but an artificial construct, but it still affected her, so she closed her eyes for a moment to clear her mind. Her stomach insisted that there were more pressing needs than complex worries about the average lifespan of humanity, so she took another bite. After a few more bites, she opened her eyes again and looked at the worried avatar on the screen.
"What's our average lifespan supposed to be then?" she asked.
"According to the medical system, an average human can be expected to pass their 21st Rep-digit celebration, but in this system the longest lived individuals have barely passed their 15th Rep-digit," the ship replied after a moment.
For a moment the difference didn't sound that large, but while at first the Rep-digit celebrations repeated at a little over a hundred million seconds, or a bit over 3.5 years, after the tenth they only repeated at over a billion seconds, or over 35 years. After the 20th, the gap would be over 10 billion seconds, or more than 350 years.
"People can live for more than seven hundred PiYears where you were built?!" Rafaela demanded incredulously.
The ship's reply was even slower, but it finally agreed hesitantly, "That is true according to the average reported by the medical system, but I don't know. Hopefully we'll be able to obtain more records from the original core when we arrive at our destination."
Rafaela concentrated on finishing the plate of food, and then asked for another, before announcing, "I want to consult Schmidt and Bellamy first."
"We just delivered the water!" Tyr Schmidt exclaimed cheerfully after their greetings had been exchanged. "That is why you're calling, right?"
Rafaela blinked. "Actually, no…"
Vache Bellamy waved him aside with a knowledgeable expression, and Schmidt yielded the forefront good-naturedly. "What's the kid like?" she asked with interest.
"Kid?" Rafaela repeated blankly. Her mind caught up as Bellamy's expression changed from curiosity to concern. "The prince? Um… Brendan seemed… surprisingly normal I guess?"
Bellamy's, "Normal?" was mixed-up with Schmidt's, "Seemed?" and it took Rafaela another moment to respond to either of them.
Thinking about the amount of things that had happened to her since she'd first docked with the station that was now millions of kilometers behind her, which neither of the SkyWater technicians knew anything about, made a wave of exhaustion wash through her. "Things got a little complicated," she explained without explaining anything. Her eyes moved to the figure trapped in the corner of the display screen.
"We watched the announcement, it was short, but didn't seem especially complicated?" Bellamy informed her questioningly.
"What's wrong?" Schmidt asked more sharply.
Rafaela threw up her hands and admitted, "I'm currently on my way back to Brennant's station to let the ship attempt to recover more data directly from the original core. All he sent me was a bunch of anim files that weren't even anims. I'm low on reaction mass, and I ran away instead of trying to help Brendan and his brother rescue Doris from the Eks Corp Security team that led her and the scary guy away from my ship."
There was a long moment of silence. One SkyWater MOUSE looked at the other, and then they both turned back toward the screen to look at her again, before the conversation erupted.
--
"You just left?" Bellamy asked again.
"It was a good choice," Schmidt insisted.
"I couldn't think of a better option," Rafaela admitted uncomfortably. "I… killed several of the Security Officers… in a fight before the announcement ceremony. But I'm still not sure…"
"You what?" Bellamy asked incredulously.
Schmidt's startled expression was quickly suppressed into a more neutral one, and he laid a hand on Bellamy's shoulder.
Rafaela shrugged helplessly. "I didn't mean to exactly, it was just instinct?" She told the two of them about how the Eks Corp Security team had led her away from the main corridors and into a maintenance passage without explaining anything, and how the fight had started with the jab to her shoulder.
Bellamy flinched as she listened, but eventually nodded. After a moment of silence Schmidt said soberly, "The fight sounds like it was pretty rough on you."
"I'm not one of the ones that died," Rafaela snapped, but her eyes widened at the anger in her own voice.
"Good," Schmidt replied gently.
Rafaela couldn't stop the tears that sprang to her eyes suddenly, and began to flow in a blobby mass because her ship wasn't currently accelerating. Brendan's acceptance of her actions hadn't felt the same as that of the people who'd known her since childhood.
The tears that escaped the small sea that seemed to want to crawl into her hair were collected by the brisk ventilation ports, where their molecules were redistributed and reused. Rafaela wanted to stop crying, but seeing her own tears riding the artificial wind made her remember her mother and her tears continued to run even more freely.
"Water is life," Bellamy said softly when their eyes met, with tears in her own eyes.
Schmidt's eyes shimmered with tears as well, and Rafaela couldn't help it, she laughed. As though the tears had carried away the weights on her thoughts, her laugh was lighter than it had been in weeks.
--
When she had regained her composure, Rafaela told the two of them, " The problem that I actually contacted you for was…" she glanced at the ship's anim avatar in the corner of her screen again, "the ship's plan to recover the original system data. I don't even know how much more can actually be recovered, but I don't want to let it corrupt the existing copy."
Schmidt blinked at her from the screen, but the ship's avatar froze. "Well, the safest method is probably the one that pirate is using, collecting and transferring only identifiable data file types," he said.
"The ship wants to try to recover the data itself, which means giving it access to the original core," Rafaela explained.
The ship protested, "I just want to copy the data, I'm not planning to rewrite myself!"
"What if you recover your original mission instructions, and they conflict with everything that you've done so far?" she asked a little sharply. There were no weapons, and no military markings like the ones used in this system, but Rafaela more than half expected to find out that the ship was actually some sort of military scout.
Silence radiated from the screen for a moment too long, as neither the SkyWater miners nor the beyonder ship spoke up immediately. Finally Schmidt said mildly, "That shouldn't be a problem if it's only obtaining a copy. As it suggested earlier, the data shouldn't directly affect it unless it is written into its current system."
"I will create an isolated partition for the data," the ship assured her a moment later, "and I will not accept any orders given to the other system as valid, unless they are confirmed by my current authorized scout pilot."
