“Understood. You have been most helpful.”
“Restful sleep,” she bade him.
That prompted another response as she turned to go. “There is something with which you could further assist.”
Qalu took comfort in that request. When he’d first awakened, he had been so angry that she thought he might despise her forever for saving him. “Certainly.”
“I have never done it, so I have no idea how it’s accomplished.”
“What, Helix?”
“Sleep. Out of intellectual curiosity, how does one sleep? Though I might posit that it’s impossible for one who is dreaming already.”
That was both an incredibly basic and incredibly difficult question. She’d never attempted to lay out the steps before. “You get into a comfortable, relaxed position. Quiet your mind. And you…drift away. Or turn off your conscious mind? I’m not sure how to describe it.”
“You can do this with ease? Simply switch off your thoughts.”
“Sometimes it’s difficult,” she admitted. “There are those who struggle with it, and medicines exist to ease the process, but you won’t know if you can do it until you try.”
“Today is a day of wonders,” he muttered. “I eat, I shall attempt to sleep. I’m a biological marvel.”
Qalu let out a gusty breath in silent amusement. “You are indeed. I’ll leave you to it. Dream well, if you manage to sleep, Helix.”
He reached for her then, but he didn’t connect, likely remembering the shock of skin on skin. Suddenly, it seemed unspeakably intimate to her as well, not something that should be done lightly.
“Qalu.”
Ah, why did it sound so lovely when he spoke her name for the first time?
“Yes?”
“Will you stay with me? And perhaps make the sounds you created when you were preparing the food?”
Every single one of her head tendrils fluttered. Oh no, you may not. Stop. She only said, “Of course. There is a melody my foremother employed when I was fractious. Would you like to hear it?”
“Please,” he said, as if there was nothing he wanted more.
Softly, she began to sing.
[ 3 ]
Sleep was…strange.
Helix had no memory of accomplishing the process, yet he had apparently performed the task adequately. He had been listening to the Tiralan lullaby, and then, there was simply a gap in his recollections, as if he had stopped existing for that span of time. Truly, it was an unsettling, uniquely organic experience.
The day/night cycles on Tiralan were different than those on Barath, not that he’d ever perceived the shifts in the light personally. It came to him in the abstract, data to be processed, and that was cleaner. It was beyond strange to move through the physical world instead of parse it as a series of values and probabilities. For a few moments, he tried to get up, then realized that the trying part was wrong. In this realm, instincts regulated his ability to propel his flesh form. When he relaxed and stopped thinking, the motion happened, and he stumbled upright.
The movement triggered sensors that controlled the illumination system, creating a gentle, golden glow. Once, he could’ve connected with everything in the habitat, discover how everything worked, and optimize efficiency with the flicker of a thought. Now, he had no such aptitude, and he scarcely understood his new format, but it appeared that he had to touch things to interact with them.
So inefficient.
As Helix moved toward the exit, the wall parted to admit a small being, a quadruped with large eyes, a triangular head, and a slender body covered in feathery scales that gleamed with blue iridescence. Sharp claws tipped all four feet, a soft tapping as it crept toward him. Helix regarded the newcomer warily, wishing he could access his database and instantly identify this life form, but that information was fragmented and incomplete, transferred into an imperfect memory state.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Aevi, companion to Qalu. Who are you?”
He recalled the name from the night before at least; there was nothing wrong with his memory storage. “My designation is Helix.”
“Why?”
“I don’t understand the inquiry,” he said.
“Why are you designated Helix? What does your name mean? Why are you called that? I’m called Aevi because it means ‘fallen star’ and Qalu found me when I was a nestling. I had been abandoned by my progenitors, likely because I was the smallest, and she nursed me back to health. She also implanted technology that allows us to converse like equals. Which brings me back to my original question. Why are you Helix? Is it a geometric story?”
“Do you know geometry?” he asked.
“A little. I don’t like it. Calculus is more fun. But I remember the equation for you!” Aevi scampered to the wall and scraped claws until the following appeared:
x = a sinθ, y = a cosθ, z = b θ.
“Fascinating,” said Helix. “In fact, I do not know how or why I acquired this designation. It never occurred to me to query the origins.”
Aevi scampered down from the wall and came toward him, twining around his ankles with a tasting apparatus fluttering out to…sample him? That couldn’t be right, but he felt the touch and scrambled backward. He couldn’t get used to that, the absolute intrusion of it, of someone else imposing themselves on him, as if trying to scrape away his essence.
“Why not?” The little being crept toward him in what felt like a stalking posture, like Aevi might possibly latch on physically while demanding answers.
A flicker of an unpleasant feeling began within him. He didn’t know what to call it, precisely, but he was ready to end this conversation. Why and why not seemed to be Aevi’s favorite words, and he couldn’t adequately explain the lack of curiosity that had dictated his life before. Even when his behavior deviated from acceptable algorithms, it had been concern for Zylar and some instinct for self-preservation that determined his actions.
Helix had never pursued information for its own sake. He mined data purposefully, serving Zylar’s interests as best he could. It never would have occurred to him to wonder why he was called Helix.
“That’s enough,” said Qalu. “I see you’ve already met our guest and have begun pestering him already.”
“He doesn’t even know what his name means. He can’t be very clever,” Aevi declared. “I have no idea what you want with this one. Is it because he’s pretty?”
That was an appalling insult to one who had recently been unparalleled in intelligence. “Perhaps I am incorrect, due to cultural differences, but it seems as if your companion is being rude.”
“Aevi, mind your manners. We don’t often have visitors, so she’s gotten into the habit of expressing her every thought, mostly because I don’t mind.”
As Helix noted the proper pronoun, Aevi hissed, then said, “I won’t apologize!”
Then the little being scampered from the room in a rush of angry claws. Snaps was the only comparable companion Helix had encountered, and the fur-person had been easier to handle. Snaps had enjoyed chasing the cleaning unit and digging in the garden. Somehow, he doubted a companion species that was bored by geometry but found calculus entertaining would be amused by such simple pastimes.