Network Effect

Later, when everybody had settled down and Pin-Lee was consulting with Karime and Iris about documents to dispute Barish-Estranza’s claim on the colony, I got to talk to Dr. Mensah semi-privately. (Semi-privately because ART was impossible to avoid.) (But I was used to that.)

She came and sat down next to me in the lounge and I adjusted a drone to be able to get a view of her face. I had things I wanted to say but had no idea how, so I blurted, “Did you get the trauma treatment?”

Now her voice sounded very dry. “I had the first set of appointments, yes. Then my daughter and my brother-in-law and my friends were kidnapped and I had to drop everything to mount a rescue mission.”

That was fair. “Was it…” I didn’t want to ask how she had been without me there. Okay, I did want to ask, obviously, but it was awkward, plus I was still aware of what ART had said about violating her privacy by talking about the therapy.

She waited, eyes narrowing, then evidently decided that was as far as I was going to get. “It’s been fine. I know it will take time. But I’ve been fine.” Her expression turned ironic. “Right up until the mass kidnapping incident.”

At least that part wasn’t my fault. Then, before I knew I was going to, I said, “Did Amena tell you about my emotional collapse?”

Now she frowned for real. “No, she didn’t.”

“Oh.” Yeah, well, I could have kept my mouth shut about that, but now it was too late. “It was when I thought ART was dead.”

She still had a little worried forehead crease. “That’s understandable. Ratthi said Perihelion is a very close friend of yours.”

“Ratthi has a vivid imagination.” This was an awkward thing and I might as well get it over with. “I didn’t tell you about ART.”

The forehead crease actually went away. “I don’t tell you everything, either.”

“That’s because I don’t want to know everything and you respect that.” I decided to just say it. “ART asked me to come on a mission with it.”

“I see.” She considered it seriously. “Would this be a temporary job, or something more permanent?”

“I don’t know.” This was incredibly weird and awkward. “I don’t want to not see you again.”

She took a moment to sort out my verbs. “I don’t want to not see you again, either.” Her expression was still thoughtful. “But if you do find you want to spend more time with Perihelion, you could always come back and visit us.”

It was getting easier to talk about this. “Preservation was the first place I was a part of and I don’t want to not be a part of it. But I like being with ART. I want to keep being with it.”

She nodded to herself. “What about the rest of the crew?”

Yeah, well, that was the potential problem. “I don’t know them yet.”

“Working for them temporarily could take care of that problem. If you decide to do that.” She smiled a little. “The good thing is, you do know what you want.”

I sort of did know. It was a weird feeling. “That’s new.”

She smiled all the way. “I wasn’t going to put it quite that way, but yes.”

ART’s crew had settled in for a rest period, except for the humans who were working on the legal case. Mensah had taken Amena and Thiago back to the Preservation ship with her. (Amena told me Thiago felt he had some apologizing to do to Mensah for “misunderstanding her relationship with me” and that Amena would report back on it and I was just glad they were talking on the other ship where I didn’t have to risk hearing them.) Arada and Overse and Ratthi had stayed in the spare bunkroom aboard ART.

I went up on ART’s control deck where it was quiet. It felt familiar in a good way, so I pulled the memory of my first time aboard so I could compare it. It was better without ART threatening to destroy my brain. I said, “If I do the mission with you, we’ll need more media.” We went through it pretty fast, and that was an understatement.

I’ve been amassing a collection from the university’s archives, ART said.

It sent me the index and I started searching through it. “Maybe we should give some to 3.” ART would know that I’d given 3 my relevant archive files. “It’s probably going to leave as soon as it gets a chance.”

That’s not why 3 wanted your files, or not the only reason. I asked it why it wanted to help retrieve you, and it said, “stories in the HelpMe.file.” I think your memories are providing it with the sort of context you obtained from human media.

I didn’t know what I thought about that. I would never have thought to just hand my files over to 3 the way 2.0 had. And if 2.0 hadn’t done that, targetControlSystem would have won.