17
Fás and I walked in silence with nothing but the company of our breath and the howling gusts of snow that raced down our path along a narrow crevasse. Its walls were smooth with the drip of water between ice melts, like a sea parting the ancient black rocks. Old, reflective, neon flags were encased in the ice, still visible to our left as we walked.
Overhead, thick powerlines bounced in and out of the white winds of the blizzard, taunting me. Halos spiraled around their black silicone casings, some dashed off their rowdy cords by the force of the gusts, shattering against the mountains. Compared to the rhythmic silence of Svargapan Samudr, the cacophony of data was a relief. And they were getting stronger, more opaque. I could tune radio stations in and out now, though they were faded and intercut with other transmissions. Some of it was encrypted and sounded like biognostic quantum speech.
A lot of it was encrypted, actually.
I was pondering this when I led us around a tight corner and stopped, my mouth falling open.
Relay Station Pahadthi 03 was a megastructure, alive and godly from its perch on a cliff on the other side of a wide crescent of snow dunes that might have been described as an arctic cove. The frozen surface of Svargapan pushed against the dunes like thousands of blades of crystal and glass, and dozens of snaking cables converged in a black mass, slithering up the cliffside to seek refuge in the station’s tower. Its mass faded into the distance, the gigantic bowl of its antenna open-faced to the storm.
Sucking data out of the air like a whale’s maw swallowing plankton.
“Scocite,”Fásach swore directly into my aural sensor from his linguitor. “It’s…”
“Magnificent,” I breathed, mesmerized. Unlike the surge that threatened to fry my unit, the constant stream of data here soothed me like a warm sauna. The hairs stood on the back of my neck and goosebumps erupted across my limbs.
[Priority] The echo that I’d lost surely came here. Fásach was right to bring us, even if Traveler had warned us away. Whatever I’d caught a glimpse of was important.
“There.” Fás pointed towards the ice sea, where one of the dunes appeared to be a perfect white half-sphere at the base of the relay’s cliff. “I smell char from a fire. Cleaning supplies. It’s not a home, but someone’s been there recently. I’d bet it’s a hunter’s blind.”
“You think it’s safe?” I asked, licking my lip, still staring at the heavenly tower of data disappearing into the relay. “We could go straight up to the station and look for storage instead.”
Fásach grinned, obviously excited about an actual shelter. “No one in their right mind would hunt during a blizzard. It’ll have basic supplies, and it’s far enough below the station to lay low for a night. Come on.”
[Warning] “Right.” I lowered my face from the massive antenna and followed.
?
It was indeed a hunter’s blind. A narrow window set on the downwind side of the gusts looked out over the sea, its glass thick and dark. No one was inside, the scent of coals faded and cold according to Fás. He scrambled on top of the structure, looking for a vent panel, his thick fur and ears buffeted in the frigid wind. He’d unclasped his coverall neck and doffed his gloves and hood.
Compared to the day before, he looked much thicker. And his tresses sprayed down the center of his crown like a zebra’s mane. He’d changed so much in the last couple days that the legs of his coveralls strained over his thighs and his silvery stripes were turning black.
“Found it,” he grunted into the wind. I held the vital pods by the reins as a draft threatened to bowl me over. Fásach leaned into the tempest, his hackles rising as he dug his claws into the vent panel.
“If you see a control panel, I can try to open the door,” I said, waiting near the entrance. I ushered my parumauxi into my fingers again, and this time, rather than fighting and damaging my skin, they were excited. They understood what I needed.
Fásach pried up a panel and reached down a clawed hand. I took it and he hoisted me up with a graceful heave, holding me in place. When the wind crashed into us again, his hackles stood up stiff across his shoulders. He sank his claws into the roof and crouched over me, curling over my head to shelter me from the wind.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his nose brushing my silk as I bit my glove and pulled it off by the fingers.
“My parumauxi. They can interface with other machines and relay the information to me. I think I can…” I trailed off as my fingertips met the circuitry. There was an AI managing the station and all its satellite buildings. SVAPAN. The door slid open, curving into the spherical dome, and we slid back to the snow with a crunch.
I took my visor off the moment we were inside. Fás guided the girls into the relative warmth as the lights kicked on and the ventilation system started circulating warm, clean air.
Inside wasn’t nearly as exhilarating as outside. The invigorating roar of data streaming to and from the relay was muted, but as systems kicked on and the hunter’s blind started whirring to life, a sense of calm and comfort overcame me. It was a relief to be able to breathe and just... Take a moment.
[Analysis] This was a good place.
“Welcome to the Buoy, my name is Savapan,” SVAPAN intoned. It was a regal female voice, crusty in an Old World way. “Shall I report the weather, submarine infrastructure health, or fishing conditions?”
“No,” Fás said, setting down his much heavier pack with a thunk. Our eyes caught and he smiled, licking one side of his mouth. “Neat trick up there.”
I grinned back with a little shrug, my heart flipping at the look on his face. Carefree, relieved, happy. “It’s a new trick.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm! Parumauxi swarms evolve over time, you know.”
He took my pack and set it against the wall by the door along with his, then stepped down into the bowl of the Buoy. It was spherical inside and out, with three circular terraces and a thick hatch in the center of the lowest part of the floor. The walls were littered with maps, diagrams, and shelves of supplies. A quilted hammock was strung along one curved wall above a charging bank with several different adaptors and wattages. I pushed Safia and Misila in that direction to hook their vital pods up to the power.
“Equalizing trunk pressure,” SVAPAN announced. Fásach waited with a twitch of his ear, his hand on the floor hatch. A meter beside slowly filled with light, and the hatch rotated open to reveal a well of briny sea water. He stared at it with a crease in his brow.
“I knew we were walking on the sea, but…”
I crouched next to him, our elbows rubbing as the salty air rose to our noses. “You’ve never seen this much water before, right?”
He grunted, touching his finger to the surface reverently. He dipped his fingers in, then shook the droplets off. “Not since before Huajile.”
“Rosy’s from an island. I have lots of memories of saltwater.”
“That’s why it smells like this?” Fásach asked, his ears swiveling with curiosity. I nodded, then we both watched the water ripple as the heat returned to our ears and noses. When my knees started to ache, I stood and stretched, leaving him to watch the water lap the edges of the hatch while I dug around on the shelves and in the AI’s database.
The Buoy’s walls were separated into four sections: the blind, shelving, cabinets, and a redundant control center for SVAPAN that included plas printouts of command lines, digital and physical meters, buttons and levers and switches... Instantly drawn there, I checked it for an antenna, scouring the few little wisps of data I could see for anything resembling the echo I’d been chasing. Maybe something would jump out at me.
But there was nothing.
So, with a sigh, I circled the highest terrace and brushed my fingers against a shelf full of bulk rations, then slid my hip down the wall and looked out the very corner of the window. The antenna disk was just visible, its black silhouette huge and looming over the Buoy.
Fásach closed the hatch and sat back on the terrace step, brushing his wet palms slowly. “Does it bother you?”
“Hmm?” I asked, blinking away from the antenna. He nodded up through the ceiling.
“The station. It’s gotta be noisy. You feeling okay?”
Would Fás hug me like he did in the market and the tent if I lied and said no?
I hugged myself instead.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just think it’s pretty.” I looked up at it again. “I bet I could see so much from up there. The whole world.”
Fásach chuckled. An amused one, not the deep growly stutter that made me clench my thighs together. This sound in his throat though—not quite a laugh, just on the edge of animal—made my heart clench instead.
“What?” I pressed.
Fás’s ear twitched towards me and he licked a fang, looking down at his claws. “Nothing, just… You’re so optimistic. It’s refreshing.” He cleared his throat, rubbing his forehead. Was it just me or did it look like he had bumps there?
“Are those—”
“Would you—”
We both started and stopped at the same time. I bit my lower lip and motioned for him to ask first.
“Would you sing every once in a while? Like in the tent yesterday. It was nice. The girls would like it,” he added hastily. He licked his lip away from a snag on his tooth and rubbed a palm over his forehead again. “There are a lot of yiwreni songs I could teach you, if you’re interested.”
“Me? Why?”
The fur around his shoulders and arms prickled as he clasped his hands together between his knees. “I like it. Your voice, I mean.” He smirked, pupils contracting to slash marks. “If you hadn’t run away yesterday, you would’ve heard me say that the first time.”
[Priority] Heat rushed into my cheeks, and Fás’s eyes fixed on my mouth. I licked my lip and then, on the thinnest, most tremulous breath, asked, “What do you like about it?”
“You speak Hja Erle with an accent unlike anyone else, you know.”
“I do?”
Fás nodded once. “Smoky and low, with trilling r’s…” He rolled his neck and looked away. “Your voice is beautiful.”
My pulse spiked.
“Okay,” I breathed. “I’ll sing sometimes.”
I liked that he liked my voice.
I liked his too.
I wanted to touch the place his voice came from, to feel his lungs work like bellows beneath my ear and to feel his deep chuckle of lust stutter through my skin. I wanted to take my clothes off for him…
To do what I was made for.
Maybe my coding wanted me to seduce him. Maybe I had no free will. [Inquiry] But if that were true, I wouldn’t be able to say no to myself, would I? My unit’s protocols would demand I complete my priority tasks, and if Fásach wasn’t my priority, then why was I thinking about his breath and tongue and thick hands, always so close but not close enough every second of the day?
The fact that I’d questioned myself at all was a good sign, wasn’t it? I was just Roz. Not Rosy, not Roz-02. I had no master but me. I was a flawed doll, but I preferred it that way, so I could sculpt myself into the woman I wanted to be.
And she really wanted to pull hair and bite and boss Fásach around. To defy him until she lost and he pressed her face-first into the ground…
And then she wanted to learn how to snuggle.
Fás rose, rolling his shoulders and brushing down his pelt with his thick palms. “We should get some rest while we’re here. I’ll stock up, you take the bedroll first. This is as cushy as it gets for the next couple weeks and—”
“The bedroll?” I asked, getting to my feet with an arched brow. “What do I need the bedroll for?”
“To– oh.” We stared at each other wide-eyed. Fásach swallowed. “Well, you can sit on the bedroll at least, while you charge with the vital pods.”
As he turned towards the shelves, I couldn’t help but call back out, “I want to try sleeping, just… not tonight.” Denying myself something that I wanted felt surprisingly good. It reminded me that I was in control of myself. I smiled. “Maybe when we get to the colony, you can teach me how to sleep in a bed?”
Fásach’s hackles rose, his ears straight up. He bared his teeth and rubbed his forehead, staring hard at a ration label. “Yeah, okay. When we get to the colony, we can… we can do that.”
That’s when the hatch in the floor clanked open.