She ate another bite of roast nornroot, noting how he mimicked the motion. “You have time to explore many possibilities. Are you interested in art?”
“Art?” It was adorable how he repeated words that baffled him.
“I meant, are you interested in creating it? Music, painting, sculpture? You had limited access to methods of self-expression before.”
“Currently, I lack sufficient data to determine whether I would enjoy such an endeavor. After diagnostics, you could show me some Tiralan works to establish a sample set and from there, I could—”
“There’s plenty of time,” she cut in, hoping to reassure him.
Helix seemed anxious that she would expect him to become immediately proficient in all Tiralan artistic styles, and that wasn’t the point. In her peripheral vision, she noted Aevi skulking, doubtless cross about being excluded from the conversation, but the little one had also stormed off while refusing to apologize to a guest. It would do Aevi no harm to reflect on her misbehavior, so Qalu pretended not to see.
“You wish me to cohabitate with you, learn about Tiralan arts and culture, and…do nothing more productive? At present, I am fairly useless, but I should master basic tasks quickly. I can assist with household management and make your life easier in countless ways. I am fully versed in—”
“Helix.” Qalu wished she could touch him to offer comfort, as his situation must feel quite precarious.
“Yes?”
“You are not my employee. I hope in time that we shall be friends, and I don’t require anything of those who are dear to me.”
“But I am not.”
“Not what?”
“Dear to you. We have not known one another long.”
While technically true, it didn’t account for the time she’d spent caring for him before he woke. It would put too much pressure on him if he knew, but the memory came, sharp and unbidden. That day, she had been walking with Aevi when the ship came down in a ball of fire, smashing into the hillside, close enough for her to see the smoke. She’d run straight toward the flames, fearful that there might be survivors in need of rescue.
She’d planned to notify Tiralan emergency services, but when she got in range, her scans revealed no organic life. As she was about to leave, her sensors pinged with a different alert. There was a sentient being in peril, just not the usual sort. She hadn’t crawled into the fire, but she had saved him and raced home, with Aevi complaining the whole way. First she’d carefully transferred his data and then safeguarded it with multiple backups. Afterward, she worked for weeks to ensure the prototype was ready to receive such a beautiful and complex code.
The day she activated his current neural matrix and started the stream, she had suffered such thrilling trepidation, agonies of excitement. Like a nurse, she tended him for a full span, monitoring his health. It was even longer until he came fully alert, offering more than baseline responses to stimuli. In truth, the day before he opened his eyes, she had feared abject failure, that her prototype wasn’t capable of housing such a beautiful mind.
“True enough,” she said. “But it doesn’t change my expectations. My only request is that you pretend to be fond of me when my mothers inevitably ask to meet you.”
“Fondness, what does that entail, precisely?”
Here was another question that she was ill-equipped to answer. She had never been natural at forming the connections that other Tiralan found so effortless. Her mothers all cherished one another, and their bonds had been tight and functional for long, stable cycles. They anticipated each other’s needs and always seemed to know when space was required. Such interactions felt alien to Qalu, akin to asking someone else to fill in pieces that didn’t seem to be missing in the first place.
Finally, she settled on an incomplete answer. “Caring about my thoughts, showing interest in my well-being, asking if my needs are met. For some, it also involves physical contact, but I will not ask that of you.”
“Thank you.” With precise motions that she couldn’t help but admire, considering how new he was to all this, he finished his food. “Can we begin the assessment? I wish to restore as much of my former capacity as possible.”
“Certainly. This way.”
She hurried ahead to the lab and switched on all the equipment as Helix joined her. Already, his movements were smoother and better coordinated, and he was distractingly attractive. Just from looking at him, no Tiralan would ever guess what she had achieved, and that sent a flicker of delight through her.
“Shall I sit?” he asked.
“Please. Just let me attach sensors here and here, like so. This will be quick.”
Or it should have been. The scans took no time at all, but none of the data explained why he couldn’t connect to the wider network. Theoretically, his internal processor had the ability to send and receive, but that function was disabled currently, no explanation as to the cognitive connective failure.
What’s causing this?
The rest of his systems were operating within normal parameters, and his vitals were excellent. He tolerated a whole battery of tests, where she gauged his internal knowledge base, establishing gaps in his awareness that seemed mainly limited to personal details. He knew the history of the coalition, which worlds were founding members, and he could even quote random bits of Tiralan poetry, but when she asked, “Why did your ship crash?” he went silent.
“Unknown,” he finally responded.
“Unfortunately, I can’t resolve this connection issue immediately. I’ll keep working on it, but in the meantime, you can use any terminal to access our network.”
“With these?” He regarded his forelimbs with a weary expression.
“It should get easier.”
“I certainly hope so. It is quite exhausting to exist in meat space.”
“Try not to focus on the challenges. Here, watch how I activate this.” She demonstrated the portal, bringing up some examples of modern Tiralan art. “This is one of my favorites, ‘Portrait of a Young Femme.’”
With impressive quickness, he duplicated her motions, working the holo screens with rapid dexterity, sifting through hundreds of masterpieces in the time it took for his eyes to flick back and forth. In all honesty, it was too fast for her to even process the images, let alone know what he was looking at.
“Yes,” he said.
Despite her intention to remain an unmoved and reliable mentor, her head tendrils fluttered at the intensity of that single word. “Yes what?”
Helix gazed at her as if all his hopes hinged on her reply. “I am interested in art. Will you provide the means to create it?”
[ 4 ]
For nearly half a span, Helix immersed himself in art.
It was pointless and liberating.
In the beginning, he had suspected that Qalu would eventually present her true agenda—or that he would awaken from this dream. Neither had occurred.
Physical necessities grew less outrageous and unpleasant through repetition, and he was beginning to take pleasure in food, just as Qalu had predicted. Everything was strange, but there was great joy in choosing colors, mixing them, making something from nothing, a feat he never could have imagined in his prior existence. He had no knack for poetry, but he loved painting. Crafting objects from another medium, he enjoyed that as well. And he had no aptitude for music. All these things, he’d learned while bearing Qalu company.