I may not survive what I am about to do. I stand in Kateri's pilot chamber, which now looks like a nest of wires and cords. I believe I have found the connection I need. Normally, it would connect to the Pilot's brain stem, providing a direct link of higher functions. It should interface with the transponder socket on the back of my neck. Having been linked to Talyn, I may have the discipline to manage the waves of information that will flow from the Leviathan's mind.

I stare at the cord in my hands. Peacekeepers do not pray. Depending on a deity is the ultimate form of weakness, an admission that events are beyond control.

My parents were farmers. Their livelihood depended on the vagaries of planetary weather, and they appealed to their gods each day. I have no right to ask those gods for their forgiveness, let alone their assistance. I have defied every one of their commandments. I have killed, stolen, and desecrated sacred ground. Like my parents, Tauvo, Aeryn, and Talyn, the gods are lost to me.

Still, my hand is steady as I reach behind my head and find the socket. My mind is galvanized by the flame of conviction, and I do not flinch as I insert the cord.

Blinding pain. Numbers, gradients, vectors, scalars, matrices, difference quotients, quadratures-- all at once. So. Much. Data.

After three thousand seven hundred and sixty two point nine seven microts (plus or minus epsilon, which is itself a function of time) I regain some semblance of awareness.

The difference between Kateri's mind and Talyn's is that she does not differentiate between autonomic and cognitive functions. She is equally aware of the computations for temperature regulation of her engines, and of her own astonishment at finding my consciousness linked to hers. She computes the flow rate of ninety three distinct essential fluids and manages two thousand three hundred and seventy different feedback mechanisms, all while studying me with a mixture of mistrust, contempt, and fascination.

My awareness augmented by hers, I begin to comprehend the beating of my heart (too frequent, by a factor of two point three four) and the regulation of my breathing (irregular, the product of a neural imbalance caused by extreme stress). This is worse than my reading lessons, when Tauvo would interrupt with his singing or shouting. I could not make sense of the words on the page with all that noise, and now I lose track of my heartbeat, so small and unimportant, dwarfed by the Leviathan's magnificent complexity.

"Kateri!" I shout the name aloud and scream it in my brain. "Kateri, help me!"

How?

"Focus! Help me find the part of you that isn't thinking about basic functions. I can't think like you! Stop probing my mind that way. Let my body take care of itself!"

Kateri is Kateri. No parts. Told Talyn Sebacceans are all wrong. Understand now. Minds in parts.

I could always put Talyn's thoughts easily into words, but Kateri is more difficult. Each thought holds more information than a single word can convey. She speaks in vectors of emotion, perception, and extrapolation. Still, she has given me something to latch onto, a process that does something other than regulate. She has also withdrawn her awareness from mine, and though I can now feel my heart beating and the air filling my lungs, my thoughts are once again separate from those things.

"Thank you, Kateri. Very good."

Crais or Kateri-- who is Pilot? Cannot tell.

I chuckle at her small joke, relieved that I've found her personality. My smile fades quickly, however. "You know why I am here?"

Talyn explained. Says he'll be back, but then why leave Crais-Talyn's-Pilot behind?

Kateri's outrage courses through me, and I fall to my knees, my stomach heaving in response to the sheer strength of emotion. "There's something you're not telling me!"

So difficult to show you only part, such a small part, now, growing slowly.

What comes next is a data stream, and I can sense Kateri's frustration with the need to filter it, separating it out from the rest of her autonomic functions. There is a chamber, deep within her, where the temperature gradient is steeper than it was a moment ago. Nutrient fluids have been diverted there, and sensors are on high alert. Kateri's few DRD's patrol the chamber, preparing it for more changes to come.

Talyn is only first of many mates.

I feel like a fool for not preventing this complication. I knew Talyn is impulsive and undisciplined, but with his guns to worry about, I had not considered his reproductive system. I should have disabled it, instead of leaving him in tact, and worse, going to sleep when Kateri was in such close proximity. Even so, I am fascinated with this new life, six point seven nine seven arns old. I cannot regret my actions entirely.

Still, I wanted him to see the offspring. Don't want him to die.

I reach out with my mind, trying to calm her circuits. "Neither do I, Kateri. That's why I need your help."