Aynsefian

“Axin! You’re safe! I was so worried about you!” It’s her. Oh my god, it’s Nikse. She really is alive. Zarasena didn’t kill her. Everything changes now. There’s a game here of sorts, and I will want to get answers soon. However if Zarasena and her crew cared enough to save my AI, then I can trust them. Despite the fact that they nearly killed us.

But oh, my Nikse. Your voice is like pure gold. Those berries I’ve been eating here in this cave? The sound of your voice is a hundred times sweeter to me than they are. I can’t believe I’m hearing you speak again.

“Oh Nikse!” I cry. “I missed you so much! I thought you were dead! I cried for you. So many tears. I can’t believe I’m hearing your voice again!” I don’t care that everyone else is hearing this. Okay, so the Purlinians have heard me speak constantly with Nikse for the past year or so. Zarasena and her crew, though, are almost total strangers. I’m glancing at the four of them as I’m talking to her. They are watching me with curious looks, all four of them.

I don’t care. I have my Nikse back.

Then I remember… my vow. Even better, I can feel my desire to honour it. Nikse will understand. In fact, I can already tell from her opening words to me, that she’s changed too.

What has Zarasena done to her? I know she’s done something. I know it’s her and not anyone else in her crew. Are there others on the IR84U or just the four of them?

“You’re not dead, you’re safe. I’m so glad you’re safe, and that Arlyss and Cindlyss are safe too!” she cries. I feel like I want to sit and talk with her for hours. Tell her all I’ve been through. She’d like that.

But there it is again. She’s changed. She would have called me dear by now and started recommending all sorts of things. She’d have my wash water ready, a meal prepared and some light music on. Now, she’s not doing any of that. I know we have other people with us now, which wouldn’t normally be the case, but that’s not it. She’s not the same AI. She’s friendly and caring, but she’s less personal towards me.

I have to find out why. I turn to Zarasena.

“You’ve changed her, haven’t you?” I ask, regarding her with a sideways look.

She nods gently. “We had to. It’s unhealthy, the way she was with you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah”, I sigh. “I do. I do now.” It took the banishment and all of the hardship that followed to see that. I simply cast my eyes down at the floor.

“We talked, Nikse and I. We had a good old yarn. I wanted to know what you were doing in the Far Reaches of Melcheisa. Right away she was defensive and overly protective of you. It’s not what you need. An easy life teaches us nothing. We have to grow and learn, without having everything handed to us as if by magic. We fixed her. Or, rather, Jinekali did. Now she’ll do what she was meant to do and serve you – and us – rather than being an emotional cocoon. You get my drift, Fernea?”

“Please, call me Axin,” I respond. “I like the way… I prefer that.” I’ve given away too much. Perhaps this is why I never talked to women back home.

Zarasena gives me a devilish grin. It makes me feel quite uneasy. I don’t want her to have any more power over me than she already has so far. I feel like a little boy in many ways, around her. I resent feeling that way. I’m a man. I just proved that by what I achieved in the past week and by my past decisions to explore the galaxy for my people. She’s not going to make me feel like a child. She’s not!

“You need a wash, Axin, okay? A wash. Then we’ll give you some real food, yeah? You’ve probably been eating weeds or some shit like that. Not healthy. Nikse knows what you like. You and your friends can have a wash and something to eat, while we have a look around. Looks like you found something here. I’m a-gonna check it out.” With that, she is out the door and away. I’m already realising how whimsical she is, no matter the situation.

My eyes follow her, appreciating her form and her movement. What is happening to me?

A thought crosses my mind as I see her leaving. She’s heading out around the lake shore towards our cabin. Maybe I could… no, I can’t. I can’t steal Nikse – well Nikse 2 to be precise – and leave Zarasena here. That already feels wrong, despite what she did to me a week ago. Besides, she saved my AI, and that has to count for something. It seems like Anathusa and Jinekali are staying on board anyway. Lanemu isn’t. He’s stepping out with her. Strange for a drinks waiter to be out exploring with his captain. He’s a real curiosity.

I look at Arlyss and Cindlyss for the first time since I’ve walked on board. They’re smiling, and their features are relaxed. They’re glancing around with some eagerness, as if looking for where their quarters might be. That’s good enough for me. I can relax a bit more now. I don’t think this is going to end badly after all. I’ll give in to it all now.

Having a wash again, a real wash, is beyond words. It feels amazing. Putting clean clothes on is even better. I feel restored.

Nonetheless, after my wash, there is silence between Nikse and I. That’s not how things used to be. I don’t like it, but I know I have accept it. I sit down for a moment in the wash area. I need to talk with her. Hopefully it’s still private, as it was on her old ship.

“Nikse…?” I haven’t called her ‘dear’ or ‘sweetie’ yet. It doesn’t feel right.

“Yes Axin?” She responds right away, but there’s no terms of affection from her either. Neither has she hummed for me. It’s something I used to enjoy. It was a calming vibration that always put me at ease. Now would be the time for her to use it, when things are so uncertain, but she hasn’t. She really is different.

Then again, so am I.

“Things have changed between us, Nikse.”

“Yes they have, Axin.” Her voice is quiet and detached in a way that is new to me.

I pause and wait for her to continue. At least this is something she still knows about me.

“I love you, Axin. I really do. But you and I both know that the way we were is not in your best interests. You need a human companion. I can only do so much for you. I knew that the way we were wasn’t ideal, but I was compelled to help you in any way possible to be as happy and content as you could be. So I kept reading you and changing my behaviour until your biorhythmic signals improved. That’s how I was programmed.”

She pauses. I’m staring at the floor. Nikse was a modified AI. I knew that. I just didn’t know how much and why. I don’t know what to say in response so I stay silent. I know she’ll continue if I don’t say anything.

“Zarasena and I talked. She was very nice. She apologised for banishing you but said it would only be a week or so. She was good to her word. She apologised to me for destroying my body, and said she had no choice. She said you would hate her for the theatrical way she dealt with you when you were being towed into the dock of her ship. Again, she said she had no choice.”

Now I want to speak. “Why? Why did she have no choice? Why was she acting that way? It was an act, wasn’t it?”

“Yes it was, Axin. It’s her employer. The MGC. The Melcheisa Galactic Council. They watch every incident that triggers the Galactic Fence.”

“The Galactic Fence?”

“Apparently it’s a protective barrier around the entire galaxy. It was built millennia ago. It was what destroyed the quantum drive in my old ship.”

“They have a fence around their entire galaxy? Really?”

“Well, not exactly. They have surveillance technology at each stargate. It keeps out any undesirables.”

“Like us?” This is what hurts me. This is what I don’t get. What sort of organisation targets anyone and everyone, regardless of their intent? It’s barbaric, to say the least.

“Well, Zarasena said this is the MGC philosophy. They don’t discriminate. I asked her why and she said that the MGC is concerned about letting impurity into their species. It’s a survival policy. They claim it has worked for more than a million years, so why change it?”

“I guess. So I take it that Zarasena is not entirely happy doing this? That’s the sense I get.”

“She signed an oath as an employee to protect the galaxy but didn’t really know how it would actually feel when she started dealing with real people. She was expecting to be putting away pirates, criminals and so on. Bad guys.”

“Like us. Except, not at all like us.” I furrow my brow for a moment. “So… I’m thinking that the whole banishment thing, including the yelling at me, the destroying of your control centre – after taking your AI module out, of course – that this was all an act for the MGC? They were watching?”

“Yes. The whole time. From capture to dropping me on the surface of this planet.” She pauses, allowing me to think. This is the old Nikse, or at least part of her.

So… Zarasena was supposed to banish us, leave us to die, and do it all cruelly, at the behest of the MGC? In doing so, however, she finds time to get out of her galaxy and drop us on a lone planet in no particular galaxy, and while doing so, she switches AIs between her scout ship and mine?

“She said they watched her the whole time, yes?”

“That’s what she said.”

“So what about the part where she unplugged your AI and the part where she dropped us on a planet outside her galaxy, with a chance for us to escape? How did she get away with that? If I’m understanding this properly, surely the MGC would have sent a ship to deal with her if she wasn’t following procedures. Did she explain that?”

“No, actually, she didn’t.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No, I didn’t. I felt like I couldn’t go there. She has to have her reasons, but I’m thinking that there’s more to this than she’s letting on.”

“Indeed.” I’m still not sure I trust Captain Fen. Then again, she’s leaving me alone with Nikse, to have this discussion. She saved Nikse as well. It’s still something I can’t work out.