They could have used video, of course. They could have even each carried a small camera with them, but Asil had preferred imagination from the beginning. After the first trial, Al Shei had to agree. She thought in pictures anyway. With the diaries she had a whole memory full of pictures of her growing children and her steadfast beloved.
“I live two lifetimes,” she’d told him once. “And both are full of what I love.”
When the entry faded into silence, Al Shei opened her eyes. She sneaked a look at the door and the intercom. Both were silent and blank.
I can indulge. “Recall file,” she said, stirring her curry. “Mirror of Fate.”
In the next heart beat, a blue-line schematic for a packet ship flowed across the wall screen. This was the Mirror of Fate. It was almost twice the size of the Pasadena. Even without the crew, it had a Lennox rating of B. With a good crew, it would be A rated. She ordered the intercom to scroll through the diagram to the family quarters. The ship had room for Muhammad, Vashti and up to four other children, if any of her crew had families to bring along. In the Mirror of Fate, she and Asil would have one lifetime.
Next to the diagram the wall printed a tidy row of figures. Current savings, projected income from this trip, projected amount to be added to savings, remaining balance before they could have Mirror of Fate commissioned.
She had designed the ship. Asil had designed the payment scheme. With him, money was not just a commodity to be tracked and traded. He saw endless possibilities embedded in what to her were meaningless statistics. Maybe that was how she had known she loved him, when she saw that he found possibilities in accounts the way she saw them in a ship’s systems and that like her, he lived to realize the possibilities he saw in his mind.
Mirror of Fate represented the grandest of all those possibilities. Freedom. Asil and the children and their possibilities in a home she had made and a ship that worked under her hands and eyes and inner vision. She’d dreamed this ship all the years she was learning her trade. When Asil entered her life, they dreamed it together and together, no matter how long the runs lasted, they still dreamed.
It was a sweet dream and she savored it slowly, like fine coffee. She sipped it gently and let it roll across her senses and warm her from the inside. It would happen. Another two years’ work, three at the very outside. Pasadena’s upgraded rating would bring in…
“…so you tell the Ninja Woman I am not going to put up with…”
The strident voice jolted Al Shei out of her reverie. She started and dropped a forkful of curry onto her plate. “…this kind of crap from a bunch of bigoted…”
Yerusha. The stun bled away and Al Shei was able to identify the voice clanging through the intercom.
“And the thunder crashed in a mighty cacophony and all did tremble and shake at the oath that could make the stars ring!” There was a shuffling of cloth and silence. Dobbs. Whatever she had done had caught Yerusha so off-guard she wasn’t able to respond.
“Intercom to Yerusha,” said Al Shei. “Yerusha. The com’s on and I want to talk to you and whoever you’re yelling at with the Watch Commander.”
More silence. “Yes, Engineer,” came the answer finally.
“Intercom to Watch Command,” said Al Shei.
“It’s okay, Engineer,” came back Schyler’s voice. “I’m the one she was yelling at, myself and the Houston.”
“Obviously, there is a problem with the intercom,” said Al Shei dryly.
“Obviously,” cut in Chandra, “unless you really meant this conversation to hit the galley.”
“Walls are supposed to have ears, but tongues…” chipped in Dobbs. “Do you suppose they gossip about us during the night shift too?”
“All right, all right,” said Schyler. “Obviously we need a meeting, now.”
“Obviously,” agreed Al Shei. “Lipinski, who’s on comm watch? I want whatever’s wrong with the intercom routing fixed. I’ll meet all of you in the conference room. Intercom to Close.” She looked regretfully at the Mirror of Fate. “Store file.” She stuffed another forkful of curry into her mouth before she closed the box lid and popped it into a drawer. “Why do I have the feeling this is going to be one of my more interesting runs?”
She changed back into her working clothes and wrapped her hijab back around her face.
By the time she reached the conference room, Schyler, Lipinski and Yerusha were already there. So was Dobbs, Al Shei noticed as the hatch cycled closed. The Fool, disdaining any of the available chairs, sat cross-legged in the corner, resting her elbows on her knees. Al Shei suppressed a sigh. According to contract, the Fool could not be excluded from any crew meeting, including disciplinary hearings, but Al Shei really could have done without her presence.
Yerusha sat with her arms folded and a look of studied blandness on her face. Lipinski was frowning at the pilot and giving her a look that could peel paint. Schyler had one hand laid on the table-top and was dividing his attention between the two recalcitrant crewmembers.
“All right, Watch.” Al Shei leaned rested her hands on the back of one of the chairs. “What happened?”
Schyler turned towards her. There was an odd light in his eye that Al Shei couldn’t quite interpret. “Pilot Yerusha was found to be working with an unregistered hardware/software interface using the ship’s systems…”
Yerusha sat up straighter in her chair and unfolded her arms. “I was testing a wafer stack to make sure it was intact,” she countered. “In my own cabin, on a secured, internal…”
“You were letting an AI loose in my system!” thundered Lipinski.
Yerusha started to her feet. “You have no right to spy on a secured…”
“It’s my job to make sure there’s nothing here that’s not registered…”
“So what made you decide to keep a special eye on my line, you ground hugging…”
“Enough!” Schyler slammed his hand against the table. The pair subsided.
“Thank you, Watch,” said Al Shei. She turned a little so she could face Yerusha but still keep her eye on Lipinski. “Have you got an artificial intelligence rated wafer stack with you?”
Yerusha bridled. “You do not have the right to question me about legal possessions.”
Al Shei inclined her head. “You’re right, of course.” She turned towards Schyler. “Has she got an AI wafer stack?”
“I saw her carrying something that could have been an AI. From the stats Houston showed me, it’s very probable she had it cabled into the system.” Schyler answered blandly.
Al Shei nodded and faced Yerusha again. The woman’s cheeks were starting to pale and her hand clenched into a fist at her side. “Is it your foster?” Al Shei asked.
Yerusha jumped like she’d been stung. “What do you know about our fosters?”
“It is one of the Freers’ more…publicized goals.” Al Shei kept her voice level. “I know they’re AIs assigned to, sorry, adopted by, individual Freers who want to have a go at creating an environment which could hold a human soul. I know a departed human soul making a home in an AI environment is considered to be the root cause for the AI breakouts like the ones on Edgeward and Kerensk. I also know there’s some sort of lottery involved in who gets to be a ‘parent.’” I also know you’ve never had a single success with it, which is why you’re still sitting here talking to me and not confined to quarters with the thing in Lipinski’s hands. She let her eyes narrow. “It’s not a very popular program in some circles.” She very deliberately did not look towards Lipinski.