"I have the chance to go," I told him. "I thought I might as well."
"Another shark came in?" he asked. "Or is it two sharks: one for you and one for your… friend."
"Something like that," I said.
"You can keep the sharks from leaving if you want to spend more time resting from the road. There's a toggle-switch on the airlock door; flip it and the machines won't go till you're ready."
"Still…" I said.
"You want to leave," he finished my sentence. "Of course you do. There's nothing that interests you here."
He lowered his gaze to the floor. A good actor could have made the moment poignant, but Tobit was too drunk for that. The line between tragic and maudlin is too thin.
"You can leave too," I told him. "Hop a shark. Go south. The other Explorers will be happy to see you."
"You think that, do you?"
"Phylar," I said, with a trace of anger, "don't blame the world for your own sulkiness. If you're feeling lonely or hard done by, it's because you deliberately choose to isolate yourself. There's nothing genuinely wrong with you. You're perfectly all right. Stop bitching about your lot in life if you never make an effort to fix things."
He stared at me for a moment. Then he broke into deep gut-busting laughter, not mean or forced, but sincerely spontaneous. "What?" I demanded; but that just sent him into fresh gusts, long and loud — as if this was the first time in his life he'd been totally delighted.
I couldn't understand it. With burning cheeks, I heaved up my pack and stormed out the door.
Essential Maintenance
By the time I returned to the hangar, the place buzzed with service drones of all types: everything from an automated fuel truck filling up long-dry tanks to a bevy of chip-checkers no bigger than my thumbnail, crawling like beetles over the lark's hull in search of structural flaws. A gray haze around the craft showed there were nanites at work too, microscopically reconstituting any systems that had rotted or corroded since the last time such repairs had been made.
I wondered how often this flurry of maintenance had taken place over the past four thousand years. Once a decade? Once a month? High-tech equipment has a half-life comparable to fast-decaying radioactive elements — even in a sealed, climate-controlled storage chamber, components willfully break down as soon as you turn your back. Still, the AI in charge must have done its best to keep the craft functional over the centuries: replacing a circuit here and a rivet there, until each plane had been rebuilt completely several dozen times. The service checks taking place before my eyes were a matter of form, not necessity… I hoped.
(In the back of my mind, I couldn't forget how the AI's holographic projection had flickered that once. There were glitches in the system. I crossed my fingers that the nanites clouding around my plane were repairing faults, not causing them.)
Something beeped impatiently behind me. I stepped quickly out of the way of a flatbed dolly that wheeled itself under the glass goose. Already waiting there were a frame-mounted pair of robot arms, patiently holding a missile they had detached from the plane's belly. With commendable gentleness, the arms lowered the payload onto the dolly then went to work on the next missile. As newly anointed queen, I had given strict orders to the AI: no more weapons, now or ever. The missiles were to be removed and dismantled as fast as safety allowed. For all I knew, their firing mechanisms might already be dead — a team of nanites could gut several kilos of wiring in seconds.
The naked man bloomed into existence in front of me. "All proceeds apace, milady. You and your daughter may soon depart."
"And you're sure I'll have no trouble piloting?"
"Do you but speak your smallest wish, and on the instant, your craft will obey."
"Good." I had no objection to voice-controlled flight. My teachers at the Academy claimed there was no technical barrier to creating an automated starship that would outperform human operators on every scale. However, the Admiralty would never allow such a ship to be developed. If you did away with Vac crews, you couldn't help seeing that the only essential personnel in the Fleet were Explorers!
ECMs. Essential crew members. I liked the sound of that.
Flightworthy
Oar stood against one wall of the hangar, her eyes wide at the sight of so much hustle and bustle. I walked over and said, "Impressive, isn't it?"
"I do not like machines that move," she answered. "Especially the small ones. They are like stupid little animals."
"They aren't so stupid," I told her. "They're making sure we can fly."
"We will fly inside that bird?"
"Yes."
"How far can we fly, Festina? Can we fly to your home in the stars?"
"These craft look strictly atmospheric," I answered, "but you bring up an interesting question." I motioned to the hologram man. "If I asked you to build a starship, could you do it?"
"Nay, good queen. That is forbidden me. Those who dwell on this planet are rightly granted dominion over their native land and seas; but to step beyond, into the vasty deeps of night, you must make your own way."
"Pity," I said, though his answer didn't surprise me. The League views interstellar space as sacrosanct — closed to undeserving races. If you weren't advanced enough to reach space on your own, it was only logical that the League wouldn't help you. Transporting ancient humans to a safe haven on Melaquin was one thing; giving them the means to gad about the galaxy was something else.
"How much longer before the bird can take off?" I asked.
"But a moment's time," the hologram replied. "Mayhap you would care to enter now, that your departure can be more swift."
I gave Oar a look. "Ready to get in the plane?"
"Will we truly fly?" she asked.
"I hope so."
"Milady," the hologram said with a chiding tone, "how can you doubt me? My heart beats to the rhythm of the League of Peoples; shall I then place sentients in harm's way?"
I didn't answer. An AI of the League would never invite a sentient to board a plane that wasn't safe… but did that really guarantee anything? The AI was not in perfect repair. Would it even know if the aircraft was flightworthy after four thousand years? Or would the sculpted glass wings fall off before we hit cruising speed?
As if you ever expected to die in bed, I told myself. "Come on," I said to Oar. "Let's board."
Straps
The cockpit had two swivel seats, with enough space between them that passengers wouldn't block each other's view through either side of the glass fuselage. To aid in sightseeing, there were no clunky controls to get in the way: no steering yoke, no pedals, no levers or dials or switches. That lack disturbed me; voice operation was one thing, but no manual backup was something else. I had no skill flying aircraft, but if we were crashing, I wanted the chance to wrestle blindly with the controls.
It would give me something to do.
Oar plopped into the right-hand seat; I helped buckle her in before I took the other chair. "These belts are interesting," she said, plucking at the X-shaped bands crisscrossing her chest. "Can I make them very tight?"
"If they're too tight, you won't be comfortable."
"How tight is too tight?" She yanked on the drawstrap hard enough to jerk her back against the seat. "Is this what wearing clothes feels like?"
"Depends on the type of clothes," I answered diplomatically.
"Perhaps I should have some clothes. The other fucking Explorers said that clothes were a sign of civilization." She gave another yank on the drawstrap.
I swiveled my seat away. Although I tried to concentrate on the activities of the maintenance bots outside, from time to time I heard a soft grunt as Oar jerked the straps tighter.