Von Squidgie Worth The First Esquire. A name that was given by the wonderful miss Aleph. But despite finding many services and things that could be done for the wonderful mistress it was obvious to Squidgie that this was hardly consequential or meaningful contributions.

At first the young clerk had thought they were capable, useful, well and easily measurable as superior to miss Aleph and that she was improved handily by their contribution and favor.

But there had been a great many adjustments needed for misapprehensions performed in those heady youthful shifts when first entering her service.

Further investigation and speaking with the custodian ▙◀ and the Ship Mistress Pylo on the matter cemented the grim reality further.

For all of Von Squidgie Worth The First Esquire’s attempts and services they amounted to something that either of those two beings could have spun up a simple toy to replace them and every single service they could so far provide if Aleph simply asked.

That she did not was wonderful, beautiful and miraculously charitable.

And she deserved to have someone USEFUL to help her.

Not some poor clerk struggling to fill the role that none-sentient peripherals could satisfy.

And Squidgie suspected that just maybe they had realized a way. It had come up in other classes with ▙◀ that there needed to be. Some one to say something. To bring attention to... things that did not add up. And also things that nobody wanted to be the one to say. Those two things seemed to be a problem. But those were symptoms of a larger lack Squidgie was sure.

This last class in Numeracy was just bringing it all the more to a head. But Squidgie was not yet certain on precisely what the niche was. What was it that Aleph and the other terrans and by extension the two vast and powerful beings as the custodian and shipmistress actually were missing?

What sort of person could fill the gap?

Squidgie did not yet know.

But they would throw themselves into the study with every fibre and ganglia of their being. Now how to begin?

Well when it doubt there were always lists and charts and historic manuals!

In this case Ship Mistress Pylo was literally a Ship Mistress and custodian ▙◀ was effectively void craft crew. Miss Aleph, Miss Quarti and Miss Omega were long term passengers. That at least narrowed down the massive scope of documents to review.

Being in the upper ranges of cruising velocity also would narrow things down.

The further specificity of Tunie’s own breed and species would help narrow things as well. There were simply not the same considerations on one of her kind as on comparable living vessels or pure dead tissue canner style types. Although with how small her crew was, it might be worth looking up the ones from smaller craft as well.

However that body of knowledge just on a cursory survey represented more information then all of Redweed contained. Naturally Tunie herself and those aboard her would not actually have a full encyclopedic registry of all relevant information. But there should be at least references or aggregations that contain connected lists or even vague descriptions.

More so the Ship Mistress likely had her own archives of important trivia and details that could be assumed to more properly filter everything.

Yes that was definitely the place to begin!

Now to track down the relevant summaries of the summaries of the schools of thought of the ecological research of void ship crews of whatever kind was available on the ship’s cargo!

A quick message sent to the Custodian and Squidgie had a decent map of the likely places to find the data involved.

That...

Honestly that was still a daunting monumental task for a little clerk! Just the most cursory requests for catalogues on where the relevant data was being stored and what formats it might be contained in was going to take Squidgie a hundred shifts to even reach and survey all of them!

Well Miss Aleph had only a minimal work load for Von Squidgie Worth The First Esquire! This could be fitted into the space between. Now what readers and translation tools would they need in order to properly transcribe and unify the archives in turn?

Once again the Custodian provided.

Oh.

Oh dear. It appeared that there were not surviving readers for almost three quarters of the noted archives aboard the ship.

This was going to take significantly longer than anticipated. Well just the ones that there WERE surviving readers for first, then the others later. That could be done.

Well then work to be done!

Squidgie galumphed off to begin the great excavations of the ship archives. To start with they would review the ones they were completely fluent with. The Redweed and Terran data stores should at least have SOME version of the information needed. Ship crew policy and ecology was a very widely studied topic as far as Squidgie could determine.

There should be thousands of codices and complexes of the broad subject in every port that Ship Mistress Pylo visited.

Surely she would have sensibly kept up to date versions of the latest care and treatment of ship data as a redundancy if nothing else?

Motiles weaved and wove in flipping loops around Squidgie as they crawled and heaved up and over hillock after hillock of the Ship’s surfaces. It was exhausting but fortunately there were plenty of places to top up with a minor injection of fresh consumables.

Ship mistress Pylo was a high grade calorie requiring species. She readily consumed many thousands of times more raw energy then Squidgie or the Terrans would ever be able to survive let alone require.

Literal fortunes of grist were freely available everywhere within the Ship for Pylo’s comfort and care.

Granted it was not quite so omnipresent to compare to what the Terrans often complained about wanting to do. Filling Tunie with incredible tonnage of oxygen and nitrogen.

But it was convenient for simple little low calorie requiring bodies like Squidgie.

It made these physically exhausting and taxing traversals of the ship on various errands and quests possible. If not particularly pleasant.

Ah if only Squidgie had limbs and legs like Mistress Aleph. They could pivot and bound these halls so much more efficiently then.

Hum.

Another project to consider!