How? Kateri's question feels rhetorical, as if she's already given up on Talyn. Her consciousness is filled with pain, and she begins to focus on her system regulations once more.
I understand Kateri's wish to be nothing more than a machine, to forsake will and thought. I imagine an existence free from the torment of my conscience, unburdened by attachment to individuals or ideas, ruled only by prescribed algorithms governing signals and responses. It would be a relative paradise.
No. Need you! I watch over all systems, you think. Crais and Kateri. Vision and vigilance.
Trusting the young Leviathan feels too much like falling asleep next to Soraya. Still, I have no other choice. I lay down on the floor of the pilot's den and plunge my mind into her memory banks, dimly aware that she has taken control of my body. Her consciousness falls silent, and I drift alone through data streams of thought and memory.
Unsurprisingly, the memories she least wants to touch are recent. She transferred a prodigious amount of information from Talyn, with the intent of giving it to the offspring someday. Some of it I recognize as Velorek's handiwork, files left on Moya at my instruction. All the plans for the Leviathan hybrid program are here, and I curse myself for not having taken the time to read them earlier. If I had had the patience to truly understand the workings of Talyn's mind, perhaps I could have prevented this situation.
Self-recrimination is useless. There must be something in Kateri's mind that will give me an idea. I dart randomly past pieces of information, touching each thought but grasping none until-- That's it! So Velorek had included the safeguards. When I had suggested the idea, Velorek had become argumentative. Later, face swollen from an encounter with the butt of my pulse rifle, the man had sworn the codes were in place. I did not fully believe him until now. Thank fortune for his genius and my temper.
"Kateri! Send the following signal, long range!" I show her the memory location of the intended transmission, a complex sequence of pulses in varying frequencies.
Talyn won't listen. Even as she voices her complaint, she complies with my request.
"He has no choice. The signal is a safeguard, it will shut down his higher functions."
Leaving him defenseless. Sebaccean pilot with full control. Not right.
I feel my heartbeat slow, though I am terrified. My breathing becomes rapid and shallow. "Kateri, what are you doing?"
Trusted you. Now telling Talyn not to listen.
"It won't matter. He will shut down after receiving your first transmission, but that's only the thinking part of him. He can still maintain basic functions."
Why do this?
Kateri is literally holding my heart, so I choose my words carefully. "To buy us time. I believe Soraya knows very little about Leviathans, and even less about Talyn. The idea to attack the Peacekeeper base was only half hers, anyway. When she finds herself without Talyn's voice, she will spend the next few arns trying to fix him rather than attempting to complete the mission herself. In that time, we track Talyn's exact location. There is another code that should let me board him, if I am alive to do so."
And then?
"That depends."
On?
"Whether or not Soraya decides to shoot me." I am half-joking, but Kateri does not feel amused. I attempt to reassure her. "I do not think she will harm me, not after being bonded with Talyn. I can return her to you and take Talyn to safety, then restore his higher functions."
Unconvinced. Talyn's mind gone, so no one cares for Crais. Sebacceans are all Peacekeepers. Kill each other. Trivial. Her mind races with worry over Talyn, and her consciousness whips through my memories, snatching each act of violence and hurling it through my thoughts.
My heartbeat becomes erratic, and when I open my eyes, my vision is blurred. "Calm your data streams, Kateri! Release me. I no longer need your memories. Please!"
She ignores me.
"It was not my wish to disable Talyn, you know that! Release me and start searching for him!"
She pauses in her probing of my mind, holding several thoughts like a hand of cards. Tauvo, Mother, Father, Talyn, Aeryn. She studies that set intensely, having cast out all the other detritus gleaned from my mind. Different. These feelings are like Leviathan's. Talyn may be right to trust.
I take a deep, slow, breath, once again in full control of my body. "That remains to be seen. If I break the link, will you alert me when you find him?"
Will send DRD.
I yank Kateri's cord from my transponder socket. One thing is now certain-- I do not wish to murder Soraya. Instead, when I capture her, I will drag her to Kateri's pilot chamber, tie her in place, and put that wretched cord in the back of her neck. In this case, the thought of justice is more satisfying than that of vengeance.