Mari-- really Ceredin Mari, and she isn't sure which name she's supposed to be called-- ducks as she follows Sikozu into a maintenance shaft more suited to DRDs than Kalish or Sebacean bodies. She remembers to duck because the last time they moved into a small passageway, she found out the literal meaning of words like "pain" and "hurt". She had previously associated those words with the frustration of a non-converging sequence of iterations or the sense of deprivation whenever Sikozu disconnected her from the transport's sensors. Now she knows there are more concrete forms of pain, like running headlong into a low threshold or having her arm pulled as Sikozu drags her on an evasive course through the Leviathan's most obscure passages.
She remembers Sikozu saying that Scorpius hurt when his cooling mechanism failed, and she wonders if it was tolerable, like the arm-pulling, or as intense as blow to the head. From the way he looked when she last saw him, she guesses the latter, and she hopes the people on this Leviathan-- she doesn't like to think of the name Moya, this bioloid has too many memories connected to that name-- are able to help him.
"It smells strange in here!" She has to say something to fill the silence, as if the sound of her own voice could mute the new voices in her head. "Actually, it's strange to be smelling anything. I'm still trying to integrate the autonomics of this thing, and I haven't even started on the sensory processing--"
Sikozu cranes her neck back to look at the girl and snaps, "Just keep up! Ignore the sensory input. It's not relevant to our objective."
"Hm. And our objective in running through these passages would be..."
"Getting off of this frelling Leviathan in tact, with Crichton, and taking him to the Kalish resistance. Gemmina is a secondary objective, since we may be able to extract the data without her help."
"What about Scorpius? Oh, don't tell me you're just going to leave him--"
"He is a... tertiary objective, Mari."
"Hm." She wonders if that should make her sad or not. The Scorpius she knew had been pleasant enough, less impatient with her than Sikozu, but the memories on this bioloid tell another story. That story is a long one, beginning with a man who looks Sebacean-- but isn't-- falling through a wormhole, and ending with that same man lying on a table in the maintenance bay. She wonders how the story would have ended if the transport hadn't found Moya and if it would have been better than the way it will end now. "I know where Crichton is. I can find Gemmina as well."
After dropping Mari's hand, Sikozu pivots to face her. "Why didn't you tell me? No, never mind that. Where are they?"
Mari raises a hand and with great deliberation, pulls a lock of hair in front of her face. She struggles to balance the output of two conflicting functions. One of them says she must share all potentially useful information with her programmer, and the other says the woman in front of her is not her programmer at all.
"Mari!" Sikozu growls. She takes a deep breath, and her next words come out in a more reasonable tone. "You've done excellent work if you know the location of our objectives. You'll be instrumental in the destruction of the Scarran empire if you simply tell me where they are."
"There's so much I don't understand." Mari closes her eyes for a moment, wrinkling her forehead and shaking her head. "Why am I even on this bioloid?"
"Because its original program was stupid enough to link with me! I stored an image of your consciousness on my own brain, hoping to link with one of Moya's consoles. You're supposed to be on Moya's auxiliary mainframe, gathering data and helping orchestrate our escape. That's still my intention for you."
"She called me 'Ceredin'. I wondered then how she knew the old name you gave me. I thought you must have met Gemmina somewhere, must know her somehow. Now I have to wonder which memories are real."
"What do you mean 'which memories'?"
"The ones associated with my consciousness, or the ones on this bioloid. It's not another instance of my main function, not exactly, but it is a... a version. And until I understand, until I can reconcile--"
"It's a bastardized version!" Sikozu interrupts. "Give it no more thought. I'll remove you from the bioloid once I have the opportunity."
"Hm." Mari tugs on the hair and tilts her head from side to side. Before she was installed on this contraption, she never understood pain or smelled the stench of a Leviathan's waste hold. There are distinct drawbacks to this existence,but if some of those murky memories are real, there are also advantages. There are so many new new sensations, so much possibility for experience. She wasn't programmed to avoid new data, and so the thought of returning to a more limited existence makes her cringe. "What if I want to stay?"
"Then you could be useful to the Kalish resistance, but only if I can be assured of your loyalty. You'll have to let me repair your memories, remove the faulty version of your main function and all the associated data."
Mari shakes her head. "I want to understand it first."
"You're unstable this way," Sikozu argues. "Are you honestly telling me you prefer being a chaotic, illogical tangle of self-contradicting subfunctions?"
"I-- I don't know. Maybe." She remembers a datachip with the image of a consciousness so complex it left her feeling awed and somehow empty. The memory may not be hers, may not even be real, but the feelings it evokes are undeniable. She gives the lock of hair another firm tug and smiles. "Yes. Yes, I think I want to be a-- a frelling mess!"
"Alright!" Sikozu sighs. "As long as you help me find Crichton and Gem--" Her eyes go wide. She snatches Mari's arm again and begins dragging her though the shaft.
The floor beneath their feet vibrates with heavy footsteps coming from behind, and Ceredin struggles to make her body move more quickly. They reach a juncture where the shaft branches in an orthogonal, upward direction.
Sikozu glances up into the shaft and then back at Mari. "Can I trust you?"
"Yes, of course!" She exists to serve her programmer; that lesson is both hard-coded into her main function and burned by repetition into her neural net.
"Find a way to get Crichton and Gemmina to the transport, alive and mentally undamaged. Install yourself on Moya's mainframe and grant me access to all of her systems. If you can get Scorpius and one of the inactive bioloids to the transport, do so." With that, Sikozu scampers up the vertical shaft, defying Moya's artificial gravity.
Mari tries to follow, but her hands and feet slide. She manages to climb a few motras before she falls back down. As she hits the bottom, she learns yet another lesson in pain and lets out a yelp that seems to hasten the footsteps coming toward her. Discarding the idea of following Sikozu, she runs ahead, moving as rapidly as she can while bent almost double.
"Ceredin! Stop!" A woman's voice echoes metallicly through the corridor. It doesn't sound angry, just cold and serious.
Mari feels a twisting sensation in her mid-section and her skin feels simultaneously hot and cold. These strange, unpleasant new feelings accompany the thought of a pulse blast, and she realizes this must be fear. Despite the agony of falling, the residual ache from running into the doorway, and the hideous feeling of fear itself, she is terrified of losing this new existence and so she stops and turns around to face her pursuer.
"Oh, put the pulse pistol down, Aeryn. You know I'm not dangerous." It's what the bioloid's previous occupant would have said, and it feels right, somehow.
Aeryn looks unconvinced, but lowers her weapon to her side. "Where's Sikozu?"
"She didn't tell me where she was going."
"Cer?" A different voice comes from behind Aeryn, and a man pushes past her. He moves slowly toward Mari, his eyes searching her face.
"Keep the link closed, Talyn!" Aeryn warns. "We don't know what's been done to her."
"I know." Talyn glances back over his shoulder. "Just work on tracking down Sikozu. I can take care of Cer." He stops and reaches out a hand toward Mari is if expecting her to take it. "Come on. I'll take you to Gemmi."
She considers running. Talyn doesn't appear to be armed, and his larger size should prove a hindrance when moving through the maintenance shafts. She might be able to evade him long enough to access Moya's mainframe and comply with at least one of Sikozu's requests.
"You remember me, don't you?" Talyn's mouth tightens with a frustration bordering on rage, but his large, dark eyes show hurt.
He looks like Sikozu did after each time Scorpius had a spell of heat delirium, and Mari finds herself unable to flee. Instead, she extends her own hand and wraps it around his. "Oh, how can you ask that? Of course I remember you!"
And it's true, in a way, she does remember him, both as an odd young man and as the consciousness from Gemmina's datachip.
Talyn yanks hard on her already sore arm, pulling her close and then crushing her body against his. He kisses her lips and then her forehead. "I didn't know what happened. Noranti said you collapsed after you tried to link with Sikozu. I thought maybe she'd done something to you like she did to me."
Mari presses her face against Talyn's chest, not wanting him to see her expression. She doesn't believe those memories; they have to be some kind of trick. Her programmer could never harm someone that way, could never destroy a living consciousness. Not unless she had no other choice. Or unless she had to do it in order to meet her objective.
Probably mistaking her gesture for some sort of need to be comforted, Talyn stokes her hair with one hand and squeezes her hand with the other. "There is something wrong with you, isn't there? It's ok, Cer, I'll take you to Gemmi and she'll fix you."
"No!" Mari leans back and shakes her head hard. Her mind races for an excuse, anything that would explain her reluctance to let that woman tamper with her mind. Her own thoughts are useless, so she fishes through the bioloid's memories until she finds something of value. "This isn't the time. Gemmi's busy with Mina."
"Frell that. Mina doesn't need her; she's supposed to be born just like any other Leviathan. Gemmi can make time for you!"
Mari tilts her head to one side, taking in every detail of Talyn's expression. He must love her, the consciousness that was on this bioloid. In taking her place, Mari has come between them, and she feels a burning sensation in the back of her neck along with a heaviness to her body, as if her density has just increased by a factor of three. Guilt. Perhaps Sikozu is correct, and she should allow herself to be removed from this body, but not yet, and not by Gemmina.
She flashes a genuine smile at Talyn and shakes her head again. "I'm fine. I don't need Gemmi now. I just need--" Access to Moya's mainframe. A clear path from the maintenance bay to the transport. A way to separate Gemmina from her bioloid mate and the infant Leviathan. She can't say any of those things, of course, so she brings her lips close to his ear and finishes with "-- to remember why I wanted to be on this bioloid."
She reaches up under his shirt to touch his chest, liking the way he feels almost as much as she disliked falling down the shaft. The bioloid's memories flow into her, threaten to overwhelm her. She pushes them out of her mind; she wants to make her own memories to take with her if she does allow herself to be removed.
Talyn chuckles, pulls her hand out from under his shirt, and kisses the back of it. "Not here. I'm still enough of a Leviathan that I'm not wild about small spaces."
"Hm. You still came looking for us. For me."
"Yeah, but that was different. I had something to focus on. Now that I've found you... this is starting to feel too much like the inside of a budong."
"Oh, alright!" Mari rolls her eyes and lets him lead her by the hand.
After several macrots, his hand tightens painfully on hers and he shakes his head as if answering a question with a vehement negative.
"Talyn?" she prompts.
Still moving forward, he cranes his neck back to look at her. "Bialar thinks I should disable you!"
"That's not necessary." She smiles and shakes her head, ignoring the now-familiar sensation of fear.
"I know. He's being overprotective. But it would only be until Gemmi can run diagnostics-- Frell!"
"What?"
Talyn doesn't answer her. Instead, a voice comes over his comm, sounding on the verge of panic. "Moya's sensor's detect two Scarran strykers, and she is unable to starburst this close to the birth."
"Pilot, Cer and I are on our way to the styker!" Talyn replies. He then turns back to look at Mari again. "I may need your help if there are any mechanical problems. Can I trust you?"
"Just run!" She puts a hand between his shoulder blades and urges him forward, following on his heels.
Author's note: I am appreciate of-- and slightly surprised at-- the several loyal readers I have on . Thanks for reading Continuity/Singularity. I would love to hear from you.