Page 56 of My Alien Jewel
He moves to a corner, then takes two big steps. With how long his legs are, he’s by the bed. “Well, the crib would fit here, but what about everything else we’re going to need? A changing station?” He scratches his chin, then measures some imaginary object against the wall that houses a large screen. “Hmm, mmm.Maybe it could be wall mounted and collapsible. The screen will have to go. But still, if I’m standing here,” he stands by the bed and extends his arms forward, “and I’m changing the baby, there’s no space to walk around me. And we don’t have anywhere to keep the necessary items like diapers and baby powder at hand. And the bathroom! This one only has a shower, no bathtub. We’ll need space for a baby bath and…what?” He turns to me, finding me staring at him with my mouth agape.
He didn’t mean the room was too small for the two of us. He meant it was too small for the three of us. He was thinking about our baby. I tear up again. This absolute treasure of a male in front of me rushes over and pulls me into his arms. “What’s wrong? Z’Ree? Please, tell me what’s wrong. I know it’s not a good room. We’ll pick another one, there are plenty to spare. We—”
I put a finger over his mouth. “Please, stop talking. If you become any more perfect than you already are, you’ll turn into a dream and vanish into thin air. The room is perfect. We’ll figure out the baby stuff later. Right now, I need to show you something.”
“I just want everything to be perfect for you.”
“It is perfect, as long as you are by my side.”
He finally smiles and relaxes. “Alright, alright. Never argue with a pregnant lady. So, what is it you want to show me?”
I pull the package out of the bag, holding it up to my chest so he doesn’t see the cover, then I head for the bathroom. “Give me a minute.” I give him what I hope is a sultry wink. “This is going to blow your mind.”
Chapter 29
D’Aakh
Walking down the ship’scorridors, I ignore the damage surrounding me. Fixable. Sure, it’s going to take several weeks to get the ship back in working order and that’s only if this backwater station has all of the parts we need, but I’ll fix it. I can fix anything. Anything mechanical, that is.
Mechanical things are easy to fix. You just figure out how it works, replace the faulty parts, then put it back together. If only living beings were as easy to fix when injured. But they aren’t. They bleed out in your arms no matter what you do. You haveto watch the light slowly vanish from their eyes until there’s nothing left.
No. I very much prefer machines.
The Supernova is a good ship and I’ll make sure it’s alright. I’ll fix it.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes. When was the last time I slept? Three, four days ago? I can’t afford to sleep. Can’t even afford to be tired. I pull a smooth, oblong inhaler out of my pocket and hold it up to my mouth, taking a deep breath of the mist it creates. My throat is dry and I fight the inevitable coughing fit as I forcefully hold the stimulant in. I should have grabbed some water but I’m not going back for it. I don’t need water.
The door to the server room is still closed, my seal holding. Everything around it is burned to a crisp, though. Any wiring in the corridor is gone, including the emergency conduits, which means the place is pitch black, but that’s alright. I don’t need light, either.
The tips of my ahni glow softly, providing all of the light I need. I angle them this way and that to get the overview of my current environment. Normally, I’d be sensing electromagnetic fields all around me. Right now, there’s nothing. It’s what I’d expected, but it still worries me.
I drop the large coil of thick cable I’ve been slowly unraveling as I go, and approach the server room door. Removing the insulating seal, I use the override lever to open the door manually. Silence greets me.
The room is chilly, but not nearly as cool as it should be. I connect the end of the cable wiring to the switchboard I’d butchered not too long ago to protect the mainframe from electrical surges. Once I’m satisfied, I power it up.
There are a few sparks, but my improvised connection holds. The lights come online and the cooling units begin to pour refrigerated air into the room. “Good,” I mumble to myself. I wasworried the fans were all fried and I’d have to replace them, but since they’re working well, I can power up the mainframe.
Hesitating, my finger hovers over the button. What if the mainframe doesn’t come back online? What if the memory banks are damaged? What if I really did kill Cai?
If this was any other machine, I wouldn’t care. AIs are replaceable. They’re usually all identical, the only thing that differs are their primary functions. But Cai isn’t just any AI and no matter what I’d told Nala earlier, I do care about her.
I wouldn’t call Cai fully sentient but I think she’s headed there. When we took over the ship, she already had her own quirky personality. Once I was certain she wouldn’t malfunction and kill us all, I removed some of her restraining directives, giving her more freedom and she used it to become… Well, an inquisitive child comes to mind. It was most interesting to watch Cai develop and ask questions that had nothing to do with her primary directives. I wouldn’t forgive myself if she came to harm due to my half-assed plan.
Pressing the button, I watch as the computer servers around me come to life. My ahni react, swaying from side to side happily as they pick up the electromagnetic fields.
“System restoration complete,” Cai’s voice announces, but I can tell this is not her. This is the basic version of the mainframe AI, the rudimentary assistant designed to keep the systems running in case the main AI is down.
“Restore memory banks,” I order.
“Restoring. Warning, reactor offline. Warning, backup generator offline. Warning—”
“Ignore all warnings.” I’d be here for hours if I were to listen to every warning about everything that’s damaged. “Any errors?”
“Negative. Restoration at sixty percent.”
I allow myself a little hope. Perhaps Cai did survive. The odds were good. She calculated an eighty-five percent chanceof success before she shut down. The odds of survival for our friendly little AI were better than our own.
I still can’t believe we all got here alive. When the engines shut down near a fucking neutron star of all things, I spent hours trying to come up with a solution that would ensure everyone’s survival. I didn’t come up with any. Someone would have to receive a lethal dose of radiation so that the rest could live. And it couldn’t even be me! I would have volunteered in a heartbeat if I wasn’t needed inside the ship to finish the rewiring and navigate the ship to safety.