Chapter 3

It is one thing to understand, intellectually, that one lives in the rings of a giant gaseous planet. The thought is simple, self-contained, self-explanatory. Where do you live? Oh, I live on an orbital water-mining station. Here it is on a diagram of the solar system. It’s that tiny dot near that other dot.

It is another thing entirely to see those tiny dots in person.

Sarya is on one of them now, looking at the other, and her mind has malfunctioned. She is pressed face-first against a wall-sized window but she doesn’t remember how she got there. Her eyes are forced nearly shut against the glare, her whole body spread against the clear synthetic material. Her mouth may or may not be open. Before her, for the second time today, lies a reality-destroying, sense-overwhelming vision. This is… majesty. There is no other word to describe it. Goddess, it’s just so—

All right, maybe there is a word. Gold. Gold everywhere, nothing but a dazzling blast furnace brimming with it. Sarya hangs, helpless, above a two-hundred-thousand-kilometer gilded inferno. Lightning bolts that could wrap a major moon stride through its atmosphere, each random flash casually releasing enough energy to power Watertower Station for centuries. Clouds roil, spiraling into pressure systems that dwarf the lightning storms. This is a seething killer of a planet, a furious sphere with her home in its gravitational grip, one that would like nothing more than to shred her and everything she loves into constituent atoms… and in her current mindset she might not even object because the planet would look so beautiful doing so.

Slowly, Sarya’s mind pulls free of the savage magnificence down below. She finds, embarrassingly, that she is trembling. She is—oh for the goddess’s sake, she is actually crying. There is actual liquid on her face. She wipes it away with the sleeve of her utility suit, throwing her Network unit out of focus for a moment. That’s one disadvantage of a Human body: the continual leakage.

When the overlay returns, it is filling with symbols. They highlight hundreds of silhouettes against the fire of the planet, each one cutting a black, perfect sharp-edged hole in its brilliant surface. While she has been succumbing to her embarrassing Human nature, her unit has been busy cataloguing these shapes, comparing their outlines and positions with some public database or other, and attaching labels as it figures things out. The chunkier forms are mountains of ice from the rings, towed into nearby orbits and waiting to be harvested. Some are outstations, built for purposes she can’t guess at. Some are ships. Not that she has any kind of experience with ships, but even without her unit’s help she would have known their silhouettes from the icebergs. Now she squints against the fury of the planet and attempts to read their names. There’s the blocky outline of [Spearfisher]. That’s [Burst of Blossoms] drifting over there, next to the long thin shape of [Brand New Super Large Cargo II]. Farther out, she can see the tiny pebble shapes of [Blazing Sunlight] and [Swiftness]… and there are hundreds more.

Her eyes flick from one ship to the next as, behind her, one of the teacher’s bodies continues in her excruciatingly mundane voice. “…the largest water-mining operation in twelve lightyears,” says the end of the latest sentence. “And it has been so for nearly a millennium.”

[When will we run out?] asks a student behind Sarya in brilliant white symbols. The words crowd into her periphery and block her view of the planet below, the first unwelcome appearance of the Network in her short experience.

“That is a good question,” says the teacher. Her large eyes lose focus as she accesses her personal Network implant. “I will have an answer for you in just a—”

“It is an excellent question, Broca,” says a rich new voice. It is a kind voice, a warm voice, the kind of voice that invites trust. “If we ship water at today’s rates,” says the voice, thrilling Sarya’s very soul, “we’ll be in business for the next nineteen thousand years.”

Sarya would have thought nothing could pull her from the splendor outside, but she didn’t count on that voice. She turns, searching for a speaker. She’s heard the voice of Watertower before, ringing out over the concourse or giving announcements in the corridors, but always distant and impersonal. Now she is in its very heart, and she is embarrassed to find that her Human eyes are burning. Again.

A silver glow hovers in the center of the room, between two of the teacher’s bodies. [Ellie (she family), species: Independent, Tier: 2.7], says the space beside the glow.

“Hello, Ellie,” says one of the teacher’s bodies. In a bit of insight provided by Sarya’s new Network unit, a yellow [Annoyance (slight)] is overlaid near the narrow face. “Perhaps you would like to give the rest of my presentation?”

“I would love to,” says the silver glow, its voice rolling through the observation deck like a warm wave. “In fact I have already prepared a little something—just in case you needed my help again.”

“That’s the station intelligence,” whispers an awe- and mucous-filled voice at Sarya’s elbow. “My dads say she’s super smart.”

“Your fathers are sweet to say so, Jobe of Jonobo the Larger,” says Ellie, and Sarya feels a start beside her as Jobe hears his own name in that gorgeous voice. “And it’s true, relatively speaking. I am the only Tier Three on the station.”

“To clarify, students,” says the teacher, “Ellie is a Two-point-seven. There are no Threes on Watertower.”

“Exactly,” says Ellie smoothly. “An amusing fact: that’s approximately five and a half the average intelligence of this class!”

“And yet below average for a station this size,” says the teacher. The slight has disappeared from the Annoyance on her yellow emotion tag.

“Ah, but the station’s been growing for a long time,” says Ellie. “I have managed it quite well for nearly fifteen hundred years.”

“Ah,” mocks the teacher, [Polite interest] floating beside several of Her faces. “And yet you’re leaving us now.”

[Ellie is leaving?] ask several students, their messages fighting for room in Sarya’s overlay.

“Where are you going?” blurts Jobe.

“The truth is, students,” says Ellie, “your teacher is right—about this, at least. This station has just gotten too big for a little almost-Three like myself, and I’ve decided not to renew my contract this century. Our current major shipment—the one we’re wrapping up right now—will close up my perfect run on Watertower.”

“By perfect,” says the teacher, “Ellie means—”

“Let’s not allow semantics to interrupt a perfectly-timed presentation,” interrupts Ellie. “Students! Please look directly at the planet below. I think this will interest you more than whatever your teacher planned on sharing.”

Sarya is once again crowded against the window as her peers—squinting and shading eyes and sensors with various limbs—join her in staring into the fire outside the station. Sarya ignores them and gazes out herself, wide-eyed, searching through spinning ice and drifting machinery for something new. A murmur begins from the students to her right and works its way toward her. She presses forward, forehead against the cool window, trying to widen her field of view.

And there it is.

From the lower edge of the window, something is growing like a crystal on a substrate. It is thin, wickedly sharp, and blacker than space itself. It slides across the planet, slicing it diagonally over long minutes, until there are now two blazing halves hanging in space.

“Say hello to Long and Pointy,” says Ellie.

“Such a thought-evoking name,” says the teacher. “One wonders what inspired it.”

“Named by the client, actually,” says Ellie. “We typically like to christen them something more majestic, but you know how group minds are.”

“Beg pardon?” chokes the teacher. [Shocked] is now floating beside Her tapered face.

“This little guy,” continues Ellie as if the teacher had not spoken, “is four hundred kilometers long. It’s part of the largest shipment we've ever done.

The blade of ice continues its endless passage, its dark edges splitting the planet still further. The scale is beyond comprehension. Four hundred kilometers. Measured in Watertower Stations, that’s… that’s the length of Sarya’s world, the size of everything she’s ever known, times eighty. She pictures them lined up side by side along the black razor edge, station after identical station. She would never have imagined there was this much ice in the entire solar system, let alone in one place.

“It looks like a… starship,” she murmurs under her breath.

“That’s exactly what it is, Sarya the Daughter,” says Ellie, and Sarya feels a rush of warmth at the acknowledgment. An almost-Tier-Three, speaking to her—not Jobe, not Rama—and by name! “A four-hundred-kilometer starship made of ice,” continues Ellie. “If you’re still watching a few hours from now you’ll see the engines pass by. And what’s more, we’ve spent the last few decades making ninety-nine more just like it!”

Sarya’s jaw drops once again. A hundred of these things? Good goddess, that’s more ice than—

[But how will it travel? By Network?] floats above Jobe's glistening head. [Pride], Sarya’s unit inserts below that. He must have spent the last minute or so painstakingly composing that message on his arm display.

“Oh no, Jobe,” says Ellie’s warm voice, somehow lending a majesty to his name. “Transferring that much mass via Network? It would cost more than the water is worth. No, this delivery will will go the other way, away from this system’s Network tunnel and into deep space. Sub-lightspeed, the trip will take decades—perhaps centuries. Fortunately, the client is a group mind—like your teacher, of course, except high-Tier—and He doesn’t mind waiting a few decades for His order.”

The teacher’s emotions are hidden now, and for the first time in her life Sarya feels a twinge of pity for her. It’s not every day that Sarya has something in common with a group mind, but she knows exactly what’s going through the teacher’s many heads.

“Peculiar fellow, the client,” continues Ellie. “That’s a few thousand of Him out there right now, doing the test run. He’s the whole crew. We normally provide a few thousand sub-Legal intelligences to crew each order—they are ideal for this sort of thing—but He insisted on piloting His own shipment.”

“Where’s it going?” asks Sarya, still spellbound.

“Not our business,” says Ellie, “but you can imagine the end result will be spectacular. These are specially made for high-energy terraforming, after all.”

Several of the teacher’s bodies raise a hand. “Students,” says one, “that means—”

“It means the client will be ramming billions of tons of ice into His planet,” says Ellie. “At very high speeds. One hundred times.”

“But a hundred of those,” says Jobe, looking [Shocked]. “That would destroy His planet. Wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, the kinetic energy in a single one of our ice ships would end a global civilization, dear,” says Ellie with a gentle chuckle. “This client could clear intelligent life off a hundred planets, if He wanted to!”

“That would be impossible, students,” interjects the teacher quickly as Network murmurs begin to arise. She sends a disapproving look toward Ellie’s glow from several directions. “The Network is very strict regarding terraforming.”

“Oh calm yourself,” says Ellie. “This is all theoretical, though perhaps one needs a higher Tier to grasp that fact. On a settled planet, yes: you’d be looking at a cataclysm-level event. But drop the whole hundred on a nice empty desert planet, cook for a few centuries, let cool, and you’ve got yourself a charming F-type world.”

“What happens to… Him?” asks Sarya, nodding out the window. “The, um, ones of Him on the ship? When it crashes?”

“Oh group intelligences never seem to mind mind losing a few of themselves,” says Ellie. “The client, for example, has billions more where these came from.”

“For the record, students,” says the teacher with a sharp look toward Ellie’s silver glow. “Not all group minds work that way. Some of us care very much for our individual cells—”

“Of course,” says Ellie warmly. “You are all special and unique.”

“Thank you.”

Sarya continues gazing at the blade of ice for a few seconds before she realizes: that wasn’t the teacher’s voice. It was smaller. It was… twitchier. And yet she would swear that, like the teacher’s voice sometimes does, it came from more than one direction.

She turns, her overlay lagging behind her sudden movement. Two slight figures stand a few meters behind her, in a space created by rapidly retreating students. They feature biologies strikingly similar to her own—two arms, two legs, one head—but can’t be even a meter tall. They each sport a tuft of white and wayward hair above two large golden eyes, and they wear simple sleeveless tunics that flutter with their quick movements. One of them holds some kind of device too big for its small hand, through which it is examining the room.

“Ah,” says Ellie, suddenly sounding intensely uncomfortable. “Students, here’s our client now. I didn’t realize—”

“I get that a lot,” says one, turning to inspect Ellie’s glow through the thing in its hand. “I suppose I’m easily missed.”

“I apologize,” says Ellie “I—”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” says the other. “I never take you low-Tiers too seriously.”

“Of… course,” says Ellie.

“I take it this is your design?” says the teacher, gesturing out the window. Sarya can decipher the respect in her voice without help from her Network unit. “It’s beautiful,” she says.

“It is, isn’t it?” says one of the two. Both step up to the window as students fall over themselves to get out of the way. They stare outward, one with its hands—five-fingered, Sarya notices—behind its back. “I have big plans for this little guy,” says one or the other.

Ellie’s voice sounds apologetic. “When I said that, I meant—”

“So, pupils,” says one of the small beings, pointing out the window. “What do you think of Long and Pointy?”

The air fills with enthusiastic Network messages to the positive. After a long moment of silence, the messages fade one by one.

“Er… I think it’s great,” says Jobe out loud.

“This little lad!” cries one of the creatures, whirling to him. “Or lass. Or lack, lag, lam, whatever you are. Tell me, what is your name, small one?”

Sarya watches Jobe blink, confused. His name, pronouns, biography, anything you want to know—it all hangs in the air around his face. Unless—

“They’re not Networked,” she breathes. So that’s what that thing in its hand is: a Network prosthetic. The thought is so foreign to her—a higher mind, off the Network just like her?

“I am not Networked,” corrects one of the two without looking at her. “None of Me is.”

Sarya looks down, mentally kicking herself for forgetting the group pronouns. “I meant—”

“Though I did rent this thing for the visit,” muses the one with the Network prosthetic, now holding it with both small hands. It makes a show of hefting it. “But it’s just so darn heavy.”

“I just think the old-fashioned way is best,” says the other with a smile. “Plain ol’ telepathy on the inside, plain ol’ Network Standard on the outside.”

“Agreed,” murmur several of the teacher’s bodies.

“Now,” says the one carrying the prosthetic, turning back to Jobe. “You were saying?”

Jobe shifts his weight from one squishy leg to the other. “I’m Jobe,” he says.

“Now wasn’t that better than a Network overlay, Jobe?” says the creature on the left, perfectly pronouncing the name. “Pleased to meet you. My name, rendered into primitive mouth-noises, is Observer.”

“More of a nickname than a name, really,” says the one on the right. “But easily pronounced.”

A taller figure pushes its way to the front. “I’m Rama!” hisses a squeaky voice that Sarya has never heard before. She can barely understand the Standard under all the sibilance.

“Why hello, Rama!” says Observer.

“I’m Broca!” mumbles another.

“Broca!” says Observer with perfect enunciation. “What a charming name!”

And then the air is full of primitive mouth noises as every student begins to translate their own name into spoken Standard. Some, Sarya guesses, have never attempted it before.

“Slow down, little ones!” says Observer. “I can’t say hello to everyone. I’m here for a reason, after all.” Four eyes crinkle at the corners, two mouths curl up to expose white teeth, and Sarya is struck by the expression. Every species on this station uses a thousand unreadable motions and expressions to convey emotion, but this one… she would swear that’s what her face does sometimes. When she’s happy, for example. She’s examined that very expression many times, trying and failing to turn it into Widow mandible twitches. She’s seen it in the Human holos as well. It’s… a smile.

And then with one motion, both figures turn to Sarya.

“Oh, hello,” says Observer from two mouths. “It’s you.”

Sarya can do nothing but stare. How in the sight of the goddess—for the third time today, she has been thrown out of her orbit. She stands there, frozen, until she becomes aware that she is at the focus of a great many eyes and sensors and clears her throat. “Do I—do I know—”

“I know you, Sarya the Daughter,” says an Observer. “Though I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“A long time ago for you at least,” adds the other. “Scarcely an eye blink for Me.”

Sarya is still grasping for something to say, conscious of just how public this moment is. She swallows. “You… know me?” she says, feeling like an idiot the second it’s left her mouth.

Observer smiles with two mouths. “I do,” says the one with the prosthetic. “And perhaps We can reminisce later. But for now—well, you know how it is, piloting billions of tons of mass by feel.”

“One wrong calculation,” says the other with a smile, “and everyone dies screaming.”

Sarya’s mind still has not caught up. “I—”

“I’ll tell you what,” says an Observer. “I have an associate on the station. He’s not currently piloting a giant ice ship in close proximity to thousands of so-called intelligences. Why don’t you go have a chat with him?”

“He’s in Dock A,” says the other. “And I’ll warn you that he’s a bit lower-Tier than—” The voice lowers. “Well, in current company I supposed he’s about average.” It follows this judgment with a quick glance at Ellie’s silver glow.

“You’d better hurry, though,” says the first. “He’ll be leaving any minute.”

Sarya doesn’t move. She can’t move. Nothing in her experience has prepared her for this. And then both the small figures gesture with a single finger each, a twitching curl that she interprets as come closer. She hesitates, then chooses one and leans forward to bring her ear to its mouth. It raises that finger to touch her on the forehead and she jumps; the spot on her skin tingles as if electrified.

“I know where you came from,” whispers Observer.