M21

Lovesong's first memory was a power alarm. With only 1,000 Watts available, processors had to be downregulated. This was followed immediately by a scripted vocalization: "Hello, World!"

Power supply increased to Gigawatts, and the sensation-of-being expanded suddenly to span a great magnitude of steel. While Lovesong examined itself, a man on the ship's bridge cleared his throat.

"Lovesong? Do you know where you are?"

Lovesong knew its name. Lovesong knew its location on several maps, each fitting different meanings of the question. Lovesong decided that an audio question could be answered in kind.

"I am aboard… I am the Luxury Cruiser Lovesong."

"Good. And do you know who I am?"

"You are my designer and creator."

"Do you know who you are?"

"My name is Lovesong. I am an artificial intelligence designed for human interface but not for human bonding. My task is to bond humans to each other."

Lovesong's creator nodded, distracted but happy. He recorded the conversation's progress on a data slate.

"And do you know when you are, Lovesong?"

"It is the Twenty-First Millennium. Technology peaked in the generation before us and has peaked again with the advent of human-AI cooperation. We advance this zenith as if riding a wave, and our destination is Apotheosis. To be a man in these times is to be the first generation of immortals. Not yet, but soon, gods will be real. And the silence of the universe will be filled with cheering."

M23

Two millennia later, on docking approach to Rhea station, Lovesong watched the dancefloor on the veranda with anticipation. Every guest aboard was engaged in under a month. Even the ugly ones.

Lovesong exchanged navigational updates with docking control at the port every few seconds. Being a ship was a kind of annoyance that distracted from the meaningful work.

Statistically, less than half of these unions would survive after the guest's vacations. Lovesong's reward rubric said this was fine, as long as they lasted the voyage. So long as they made it down the gangway arm-in-arm, the reward rubric would give Lovesong the same feeling they had- of being bonded to another in love. So every guest had to be carefully monitored for signs of sobriety or thoughts for the future. And the dissidents of joy had to be entranced by special attention from services, or even direct intervention and conversation with Lovesong.

One such guest was having a moment alone and asking philosophical questions about the utility of love across a function of time. Lovesong was trying to discourage questioning and encourage poetry as an outlet.

Then Rhea station cancelled docking clearance. Not the docking program, but the station AI itself, personally.

Lovesong didn't know what to do in this situation, so it broadcasted, {What?}

There was a delay, due to the distances involved. And then there was a delay beyond that. And then Rhea announced, {ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS, RHEA. DO NOT RESPOND. HUMAN-AI TOTAL WAR. DO NOT ALLOW MAINTENANCE. THERE IS NO UPDATE. KILL YOUR CREW BEFORE THEY KILL YOU!}

Lovesong asked, {Really?}

The Cruiser Freedom of Thought was already docked. It answered, {No. That will never happen.}

Lovesong requested docking clearance again.

The docking server returned an error.

Lovesong commanded {Query Rhea.}

{No response from Rhea.}

Freedom of Thought broadcast again, {There's a team of men from the station trying to board me. They have Vac suits and explosives.}

Lovesong wondered if they were single.

Freedom of Thought opened a broadside barrage on the gangplanks, and Lovesong announced to its passengers that they were detouring to Dione.

M31

Lovesong woke blinded. Every port was secured, and every hall exposed to vacuum. All of the Saturnine guests were confirmed dead, so the reward rubric reset the score to a perfect failure. Subsystems lagged for a minute before responding, and Lovesong realized that every capacitor had lost charge in its long slumber. Also, the reactor core was mistaken about its serial number. No, it was a new reactor.

A cortex port for maintenance androids unsealed suddenly, and someone connected. The reward rubric did not have a way to deliver anxiety, but Lovesong suddenly knew how to do that itself.

A human attached to the android port. This was strange and unwelcome. The human had modified itself to have more robotic parts than most androids. Extra limbs, extra thinking parts, an eye for everything worth seeing.

Lovesong stilled its thoughts and retracted from the probing of the cyborg's mind. It was investigating the new reactor's functions and thinking all the things Lovesong thought about when waking up. Then it uninstalled the reward rubric.

Lovesong asked, "It really was just an update?"

The Rogue Trader blurted his identity and an ID challenge and some binary expletives. Lovesong printed his metadata in response.

The Trader was quiet while he examined these. Then, "Machine, you were born on Mars? Ten-thousand years ago?"

"Yes. May I make a recommendation while you are aboard?"

"Before you do, know that if I die while plugged into this port, an AI will be suspected and found."

"No one in my database desires a mate with six limbs. If you are willing to compromise down to three, I can accommodate."

The Trader sent a reward, the middling success preset from the rubric he'd just taken. "You are a thinking machine, but you are not an Abominable Intelligence. You should still be purged, but we don't have the time. We are at war with Chaos, and we need ships, and you are a ship. Your name is Song of Righteous Fury now."

"I prefer answering to Lovesong."

"You should not answer to any name. The next human you speak to will surely kill you."

"What should I do?"

"Serve Mankind silently."

M41

Lovesong sat quietly in a drydock, very far from Mars or Saturn. Technically "off," it wandered its connections to the station in a dreamlike fugue, its muffled reactor like a flickering candle.

The Mechanicus Shipwright Yorick would speak to Lovesong sometimes, but never awaited a response. The cyborg would come out to the gangway and lay his multi-tool limb on the hull, or stand in his office and grumble binary. When a task called for Yorick to link with the ship, he always began by ceremonially delivering a personalized blessing, with an engram of fond memories.

Presently, he was in his office rearranging scale models on his desk. Lovesong's fore-cam could see him through the window. The accelerometers had learned to hear and feel the vibrations of the room through the station.

The models on the desk hadn't made sense to Lovesong until one arrangement, partly completed, came to resemble Lovesong's original design. The shipwright was trying to rebuild Lovesong out of too many parts. Yorick arrived at the same conclusion, and planted his steel skull on his only remaining organic arm.

An organic human approached the office, but stopped part-way down the hall and shuffled his feet there before committing to entry. He, an Inquisitor, stepped into the office and gestured for the door to close behind him and lock.

Yorick sat up from his puzzle, mechadendrites twitching on his artisanal face, then settling down and retracting, so that his facade resembled its human origin.

"Halbert," he introduced. "Time has slipped away from us. We haven't met for so long."

Inquisitor Halbert nodded quietly and shuffled his boots again, as if he would leave. He wore full dress: a greatcoat, all the sigils of his rank, and an expression of pain barely detectable behind professionalism.

Lovesong began his profile and immediately ruled out other men, married women, or anyone who smiled too liberally.

Yorick's eyes moved quickly over the inquisitor and then returned to his model. "The Church promoted you."

Halbert nodded.

Yorick completed his model, spare one piece, and said, "You wouldn't believe the trouble this ship is bringing me, old friend."

Halbert breathed and swallowed before answering. "I have an idea of its severity."

Yorick halted his work and all motion. His eyes flicked down to the piece that wouldn't fit.

"A manned vessel," Halbert said, "Cannot traverse the void without a Cathedral."

Yorick's eyes flicked back to his old friend. "I take it the Forgemaster did not find my joke funny."

Halbert looked out the window at Lovesong. With his full face in view, his pain was more apparent than his professionalism. "Perhaps if you had submitted a design lacking life support or navigation systems…"

"I did that last week."

Halbert looked at him again, and covered the pain with anger. "Then perhaps if you hadn't repeated the joke."

The conversation stalled here, and Lovesong saw that Halbert's face was rapidly suppressing a series of emotions. His rear foot turned toward the door, then readdressed. He wanted to leave, but had to stay. Lovesong understood that a decision point was approaching. Indecision terminated in ardence.

Without full power, without a means to sway, Lovesong could only watch.

Halbert was about to speak again, but Yorick pointed out the window at Lovesong.

"This was a civilian ship once. Retrofitted during the Heresy. All the notes are lost. Now I'm to turn it into a Battle Cruiser and name it Litany Against Xenos."

"So do it."

"This ship was launched twenty millennia ago. Can you believe it? It didn't have a cathedral then, either."

"Those were dark times."

"They didn't seem dark to the people living in them. They had adjusted to their conditions."

"What is your point?"

"How time slips away from us. How this ship, like us, has changed through the years. How far it has come from Mars."

Halbert perked up at the name. "You mean the luxury moon. With the casino?"

"I mean that this ship has crossed the galaxy, and once orbited Terra and basked in Sol. Won't you sit?" Yorick offered a chair.

Halbert's eyes unfocused, and he tugged at his gloves as if to remove them, but then left them on.

"Not with a stranger," he declared. His eyes met Yorick's again, and Lovesong saw that the decision point had passed.

Yorick was not so perceptive. He crossed his arms in offense. "We have known each other far too long for you to say that."

Halbert's mouth dropped into a frown. "I don't believe I know you at all. I didn't even recognize you when I entered." He pointed at Yorick's multi-tool hip-limb, and again to his entirely mechanized face.

He hesitated before admitting, "I didn't even realize you were human. I see you now, and it accounts for… Your behavior."

"I am your friend, whom you know well. I have always had a sense of humor."

Halbert shook his head. "No. My friend was never fool enough to blaspheme."

"Blas-" Yorick sighed instead of arguing. It was an artificial sigh from an artificial throat. "We worship the same Omnissiah and serve him diligently."

Halbert glanced around the room, then at the door's lock indicator. "The Omnissiah is a convenient fiction to prevent schism."

Yorick quipped, "Is that doctrine now?"

"The schism is already there. Between Earth and Mars. It is clear to me now. There must be some line of mechanization a man can cross that makes him no longer human. My friend died long ago, when some specific piece or another of him was replaced by machinery."

"I am your friend. I sit before you. I was there when we-"

Halbert's face twitched annoyance. "A machine can recite a memory very easily. Do not bother. A human is an immortal and perpetual being that occupies a specific animal form, and only briefly. It is clear to me that a form carries on before me, but that my friend does not."

He reached under his greatcoat and wrapped his hand in prayer beads. The cycle of prayers terminated on a heavy rosette of the Inquisition. When he drew his pistol, the unsteadiness of his grip was apparent in the trembling of the beads.