They stood in the quiet ship, waiting.

“Nim?” Val tried again, her voice shaking.

The man by her side shifted uncomfortably, looking around as the lights came back, one by one.

“He’s gone.”

Kaine rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.

“Maybe not.”

Val gestured toward the ship around them.

“Then why isn’t he responding? He’s gone, I tell you! I lost him. Again.”

There was anger in the woman, but also anguish. She could feel tears welling up, but she held them back. She would not break down. Certainly not in front of this guy.

“I meant to say... I meant I might be able to bring him back.”

“What? How?”

He started walking down the hall as he talked, and she followed him.

“He’s not completely gone. I mean... If your friend was uploaded into the ship the way I think he was—well, it’s really the only way it could have been done, that I can think of at least... Then his presence in the system does not require power.”

“I don’t understand.”

They both walked at a quick pace. Val had thought he would head for the bridge, but she could tell now that was not his destination.

“Nim needs power to operate, but not to exist.”

“Shouldn’t he then have come back online when power returned?”

“Not necessarily. When they shut everything down, it would have severed some of the connections between... well, the place where Nim is, and the ship itself.”

“Where he is? You speak as if he still had a physical body.”

Kaine shook his head as they turned into a new corridor.

“No, no.” He waved his hand around. “A ship this complex is run by thousands, maybe millions of different routines and subroutines. The onboard AI normally handles these. But each routine needs to be housed somewhere. Not in a physical sense, but it does have a space in the network, if you would.”

“The onboard network!”

“Yes.”

“But... Wouldn’t a regular AI have come back online with the power?”

“Well, yes, but that’s part of its coding. Your friend Nim does not have such coding. So we need to bring him back manually.”

Val could tell now they were headed toward the core.

“And you can do this?”

“If I can locate where in the network Nim is, yes.”

“And how will you find him?”

Kaine stopped as he reached the sealed panel that protected the ship’s thilium core.

“With a little help from this thing.”

He pointed at the column in front of him.

Val frowned.

“How can the core—”

“No, not the core.” He moved to the side of the column, and approached a small black screen. He touched it and it lit up, displaying a series of undecipherable characters.

“What is that?”

“No one can get into the core—and for good reasons. Only a scientist could repair that if it failed. But there are ways to control it, to some extent, using this little beauty. But...” He held up a hand before she could say anything. “That’s not what we want. The network is also powered by the core, so I can access it directly through this.”

“We can do that from the bridge, too!”

“Some parts of the network, sure, the ones you need to fly the ship. But what we need now is of a different nature.”

He started tapping on the screen, sliding his finger across its surface, swiping, and tapping again. His expression was now one of intense concentration, so Val fell quiet as she watched him.

Did he really know what he was doing?

Well, he’d known about this touchscreen, so that was something.

After a few seconds, she thought she heard a distant humming. She perked up her ears, but there was nothing. At least not for a few more seconds. Then it returned, louder now. It seemed to reverberate throughout the halls.

“What is that?” she asked.

The sound became more high-pitched, then sharper, then high-pitched again.

“Kaine!”

He blinked as he glanced back at her.

“I need to test routines as I come across them. That’s the only way I can figure out what they are.”

“What if you set off the self-destruct mode?” she asked with a frown.

His fingers kept dancing on the screen.

“If I do, I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

“Not funny.”

The pitch and tone of the sounds were changing so fast now they sounded like music.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Not really,” he said with some humor.

Val grunted.

“Do you have a better idea?” he asked.

She didn’t, so she remained quiet.

“Hello?”

Her head snapped to the right.

“Nim?”

The music stopped and they were plunged into silence again.

“That was him! I recognized his voice...”

Kaine pulled away from the column, frowning.

“I think I found him.”

“Then why isn’t he talking again?”

He glanced at her, then back at the display. He pointed toward it.

“I’m not sure what happened, but he got merged with another routine.”

“Nim is not a routine!”

“Sorry. Poor choice of words. But you get the idea.”

“Not really. What do you mean by ‘merged’?”

“Well... They share the space, if that helps.”

She wasn’t sure that it did.

“Can you unmerge them?”

Kaine scratched his head, still staring at the screen. He didn’t answer, seeming thoughtful for a moment. Then, he approached the column again and slid the tip of a finger across the surface.

The screen turned to a bright green, though she could see a red flashing button at the bottom. Kaine’s finger hovered over it, hesitating.

“What is it?” she asked with concern in her voice.

He glanced at her, with his finger still hovering.

“If I hit this... it will untangle them, but I have no idea which will win.”

“Win?”

His finger went down as he turned to face her.

“Poor choice of words again, sorry. But it’s hard to explain.” He paused, thinking. “The merging has probably damaged both routines... I mean, Nim and the routine that shared the same space.”

“Probably?”

“I can’t be sure, not until I press that button. But if there was damage, there’s a good chance one will be more damaged than the other.”

“So it could just be the routine that’s damaged, and Nim who’s fine?”

“Well, yes, that’s a possibility. But—”

“And if we don’t press that button?”

“Then Nim stays stuck and—”

In two quick steps, Val moved up to the screen and pressed the red button.

“There,” she said. “Now you don’t have to feel guilty if it doesn’t work.”

Kaine blinked, looking from her to the screen.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Nim!”

The disembodied voice sighed.

“You can hear me! I’ve been trying to talk to you ever since you boarded the ship.”

Val grinned. She looked at Kaine as she pointed to the ceiling.

“See? He’s fine. Told you!”

Kaine quirked a brow but nodded.

“Come on, let’s get off this rock.”

Without another word, she raced down the hall toward the bridge.

Kaine watched her go, then glanced back at the screen with a frown.