“Elcy, can I ask you something?” Sev asked from his motorbike.

“Sure.” I looked up. Eleven years had passed since I had assumed guardianship over him, and so far he only used this approach if he was in trouble or if he was going to be.

“I see you’ve finally gotten the garden started?” Sev nodded several times, looking at the patch before me. “Maybe it’ll even bloom this time?” I could feel the forced effort in his laugh.

“You know what they say.” I smiled.

I didn’t feel the need to tell him I was planting vegetables—new off-planet cultures that I had just bought from the market. Ever since Sev had moved out to go to college, a lot of my responsibilities had vanished, leaving me with a large window of time that needed filling. Gardening had turned out to be a good fit; success or failure didn’t matter as much as the process itself.

“Want something to drink?” I finished loosening the soil round the patch. “I have some wine left from your last visit.”

“No, I’m fine.” He remained on his bike. “Do you think this world needs more economists?”

“Plenty.” I walked out of the garden. The mud squished between my toes. I liked the sensation. “Let me wash up quickly.” I headed to the water reservoir by the house.

“Still no water system.” Sev sighed. It was one of the reasons he had moved to the city. “The tech hasn’t changed since I started school.”

“I like it the way it is.” I started the hose. The water was cold, but felt nice on my feet. “How are things at university?”

“Fine.” I could tell by the change in intonation that they weren’t. “Passed my third round of exams. I’ll mail you the results sometime.”

“It’s okay.” I stopped the water. “So?”

I looked at him. As much as I liked the talk, I knew he hadn’t come all this way just for that. My authority of guardianship gave me the power to look through all his university reports, as well as inquire about his development. I had chosen not to. When he had set off, I believed that to be the correct course of action. Now I was twenty-seven percent uncertain.

“I’m thinking of moving to an arts program.” Sev looked away as he spoke. “I don’t see myself as an accountant.”

“Advanced economics is hardly accounting. There are lots of—”

“Stop it, okay?” A note of anger echoed in his voice. “It’s the same every time! It’s like I can’t lead a proper conversation with you!”

“That wasn’t the case up until five years ago.”

“Look, Elcy, I get it. You made a promise to my mother to look after me and that’s what you’re doing. I know I’m just another mission to you, but for once in your life I’d like you to actually hear what I’m saying.”

The university phrases in his speech were obvious. He wanted to show his independence, but still lacked the courage to do so. Human puberty was a puzzling thing. It was almost like having a captain-ship role reversal. When I had taken custody of him, I was the ship in the relationship. An year into university, Sev started striving to make his own decisions, knowing I’d rush to help when things went wrong. Wish you could give me some advice now, Cass.

“What do you want to say?” I asked.

“Just forget it!” He put his helmet on. “It was a mistake coming here.”

“Words can’t hurt me, Sev. I’m a battleship.” That was mostly true. Retirement and an organic body, however, had slightly shifted my perspective of the universe. “Tell me.”

Sev remained still for several moments, then slowly got off his bike. If I were a ship, I would be tempted to start a long conversation with the vehicle’s AI. It was both sad and ironic that the gift I had bought him for entering university knew more about Sev than me.

“You won’t laugh?” He asked, the question addressed more towards himself than me.

“I won’t laugh,” I reassured him. “Look, I’ve been a battleship five times longer than you have been alive. I’ve heard pretty much everything there is to hear.”

“Fine,” Sev said, as if he were doing me a favor, and tossed me his datapad.

An example of average fractal art stared at me from the screen. I never was into art, but I could tell Sev had a certain flare. In this aspect, he seemed to be like his mother; Cass enjoyed taking photos of planet landscapes, even if I was the one doing the actual work. That had led to many annoyed conversations between us, but as captain, Cass had won each time.

“They’re just first attempts.” Sev looked over my shoulder. “Just something I’ve been doing in my spare time.”

I cycled through the pictures. A few of them stood out, but they were nothing I would put on a wall. The digits at the end of each file name told me Sev had done hundreds, and was prepared to do thousands more.

“They’re nice.” I scrolled back to the only interesting picture—a group of six DNA-like fractals twisting into infinity. With a bit of imagination, they could almost pass as humans. “They’re very nice, Sev.”

* * *

“Take another closeup of seventy-five,” Ally said through the comm. “It looks different from the rest.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” I swung closer to the section in question. “Sending you a high def series now.”

After proper communication had been reestablished, Prometheus had managed, with my help, to get my suit’s software functioning to a certain degree. The display and internal sensors had remained inoperable, but all light and camera functions were back online.

“Is the resolution okay?” I tried to remain as still as possible.

“Everything’s fine!” Ally almost shouted with excitement. “Now just do a closeup of seventeen, twenty-nine, forty-nine—“

“I can do a closeup of the entire surface if you want.” I’d have laughed if the process hadn’t become so exhausting. Hanging over two hours on a makeshift harness was taking its toll. The level of discomfort remained tolerable, but I preferred not to waste my time with useless commands.

“No, it’s fine. Just get me those and you can come back up.”

“Will do.”

As I streamed images to Prometheus, I ran through the symbols in my head. So far there had been three hundred and twenty-two, all composed of the same elements that made up the artifacts: lines, arcs, circles, and triangles. It was interesting that there weren't instances of squares or parallel lines. Whoever the creators were, they either didn’t acknowledge the concept, or preferred to avoid it altogether.

Do they seem fractal to you? I asked Prometheus. The dimensions are very precise.

You don’t have the clearance to discuss the findings with me, the science ship grumbled back. But no, there’s nothing fractal about them. If you had a few more cores you’d clearly see that.

I see a high amount of similar pattern variations. It didn’t take a dozen cores to do a simple image analyses. From what I could tell, all symbols fell in four categories. Based on the estimated size of the structure, I estimated the final number to be between twelve and nineteen.

You seem to have an issue with following orders.

Relax, Poseidon, you’re doing great. I finished with two of the symbols, then moved to the last. It would have been substantially easier if I had a hand scanner. Any chance mission control could sign off on that? And some weapons?

Just finish what you’re doing and get back up here, Prometheus sighed. After this mission is over, I’ll make the case to my captain never to take cadets onboard, especially ex-ships.

That’s your right, but you’ll just get bored.

My work continued for another twenty minutes. Just when I was done with one symbol, Ally would ask me to do one more. Apparently, three labs on Prometheus had been transformed into live think tanks that went through theories as termites through wood. When I inquired more, however, both the major and Prometheus had stepped in, reminding me that I—the mere cadet I was—was neither cleared nor qualified for such discussions. The only thing I was allowed to do was wait for further instructions. When the instructions stopped, I was ordered back to the science ship.

Getting out of the shaft was much faster and more comfortable than getting into it. The expos had widened the upper shaft enough to get heavy equipment into the cave system, then had proceeded to light up and clear the entire underground cavern. Every crystal formation was cleanly cut out, tagged, and wrapped waiting transport to the Prometheus, where I expected it would shipped off elsewhere to be reconstructed. Shiala has been given the thankless task of carrying the containers onto the pod, a task he made apparent he didn’t enjoy. I waved to his exo as I made my way to the lift only to be completely ignored.

“This is Cadet Elcy, heading up,” I said in open channel. “Any orders before I head to the pod?”

“You’re good for the day,” the major replied. “Don’t break anything on the way back.”

“I’ll try my best, Major.” Nothing like a bit of military humor. It was very much appreciated, although it felt a bit off coming from the major. “You sure you don’t want me to help out with the quartz packaging?”

“There’s time for grunt work. Right now I want you tested.”

Tested. Back when I was a ship, I used to undergo tests on a weekly basis. Fleet regulations demanded that hull density and internal systems undergo a complete stress test every ten days. My first captain insisted on doing it once every five. Of course, he was mostly interested in my weapon and cyber security systems. “Breaches come and go, but a system cascade happens only once,” he’d often say. To this day, I have no idea what exactly he meant, but was glad I never got to find out.

The flight back was long and cramped. The pod was packed with quartz containers, leaving just a single spot for me. I had to admire the efficiency of the setup, even if I was forced to crouch in a corner the entire time. My thoughts returned to the third contact symbols. Something about them seemed familiar. I categorized them by group, then by relative position, frequency, and number of elements. Of the samples gathered, twenty-three were unique, with the rest having up to five duplicates. Replaying the events, all of the symbols had appeared once I had hit the cobalt surface.

if only I had my cores. I sighed. If I had the processing power, I’d have my subroutines analyze the heck out of the symbols. Likely Prometheus was doing just that. The question was had he come to any conclusions? And if he had would he tell me?

Prometheus, are you transmitting the data for further analysis? I asked.

There was a long silence. At first I thought he was ignoring me as usual. After four minutes and a half, a single word was transmitted back.

No. there was another thirty second pause. The information is quarantined.

I see. That explained his unusual reluctance. To my knowledge, I had never been info quarantined, but it was said to be a common occurrence on the Scuu battlefront. According to rumors, two fleets had been lost because the Scuu had managed to infect a few scouts with a self-propagating virus. By the time fleet safeguards had kicked in, hundreds of ships had been compromised. Or so it was claimed. Do you think the symbols might be some type of physical subroutine?

Elcy, I accept that you were once a battleship, but you aren’t anymore. The only reason I’m telling you this is because there’s a chance we are infected and I thought you should know.

Okay. This wasn’t the talk I was hoping for. Immediately, I stopped my symbol analyses and restricted all information behind a firewall. Thanks.

The first place I did after getting onboard was pass through enhanced decontamination procedure. My space suit was taken, again, and sent to be analyzed. Immediately after, I was taken to the medbay. Normally, the procedure was the same boring procedure that I knew by heart. This time, the equipment was completely different.

“Hello, Elcy,” the doctor welcomed me. “Seems we are destined to meet in desperate circumstances. Yet it’s but such moments that leave flickers in our lives.”

“Hello, Doctor Sim.” I opened his personnel file. The doctor had been onboard longer than anyone else, seeing three captain rotations. Neither his scores nor his life were remarkable: he came from an family of entertainers, graduated in the top quarter of his class, then accepted an assignment on the Prometheus, where he had chosen to remain ever since. “I don’t recognize the quote.”

“I’d be impressed if you did,” the man laughed. “It’s from my play, The Flight of the Echidna.” He picked up a large container of liquid and handed it to me. “I wrote it back in high school, when I believed I had a future in literature. Drink that up, please.”

“Yes, Doctor.” I looked at the substance: it was clear, with distinct traces of nanites inside. “Do you need my consent?”

“Oh, I’m not poking in your memories.” He waved a hand. “I just need those for better scanning results. This time you’ll be brought through the grand tour: deep full body scan. Your head will wait till later.”

I nodded and started drinking. The liquid felt dry and bitter, almost like powder.

“You don’t have to do it on one go,” the doctor said. “There’s no hurry. Your debriefing is hours away. Besides, quarantine procedure trumps everything.”

“Am I being quarantined?”

“No, but the captain doesn’t need to know that,” he laughed again.

I tilted my head. Apparently, after seventy years, all ship doctors had gone insane. The ones that had served on me would never had displayed any sense of humor. If anything, two of my captains used to joke with me that having humor surgically removed was a requirement for the medical profession. This new generation was the polar opposite.

It took me seven gulps to finish the container. When I did, Doctor Sim took it and threw it directly in the recycler.

“Have you been in one of those before?” He glanced at the large tube-like device that filled the room.

“No.” I wiped my lips with the back of the hand. “I don’t think I’ve seen one before.”

“Right, you were Cassandrian fleet.” He nodded, stroking his chin. “Most ships had them in after the early stages of the Scuu war. There were a lot of scares back then. Nowadays, you mostly find these on a science ship, and I’m one of probably a million people who use it on a regular basis. It’s quite the device. Almost entirely mechanical. The only electronics are the on and off display.” He laughed again. Despite his joking, I wasn’t able to find any information about the device in my database. “Please undress and lie inside.”

“No neurocables?”

“None. That’s the beauty of it. Oh, you can take your clothes off there,” he pointed to a curtain in the corner of the room.

I complied. Taking off my clothes, I folded them neatly on the floor, then walked to the device. The doctor opened what could be best described as a small hatch on one side of it and waited for me to crawl feet first.

Now I know what a torpedo feels like. I slid along a cold metal surface until I was all in. The tube around me light up in a faint green glow. Seconds later, Doctor Sim closed the hatch behind me.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I hear his voice echo in the tube. “The only thing you’ll experience is a low humming noise. If at any point you feel headaches, nausea, or blurred vision—”

“I know the drill.” I tried to make myself more comfortable. “How often will I have to do these?”

“On every return, I’m afraid. Also, while you’re in there, you’re cut off from all communication lines. The only person you’re able to talk to is me.”

“At least there’s no lag.” I closed my eyes.

“A ship with a sense of humor. Where have you been all my life?”

As much as I wanted this to be over, I had to admire his efforts to make me feel at ease. He was completely wrong, of course; the method he used could only have worked on an actual human. The gesture was nice, though. Thinking about it, my crews would have benefited if I had taken a similar approach. Back at the time, I had the humor and subroutines to engage in banter with each and every one of them. Yet, I hadn’t even considered the option. The arbiter was right. I was an arrogant piece of metal.

“Doctor, can I talk while the scan goes on?” I asked.

“No, but the device takes a while to heat up. I’ll tell you when you need to be still.”

“Can I ask you something? As a patient?”

“Umm, well...” His voice sounded slightly different. “I don’t usually get asked. Technically, I don’t see why not. You are an active part of the fleet and assigned to this ship. You’re also, legally speaking, human.”

“If it’s okay with you, I have a question.” A faint hum was starting to build up.

“Well, you’ve made me curious, so go ahead. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to answer.”

“Have you ever heard of a ship accessing their restricted memories?”