A First Tattoo

“Axis heading 4:201:78. Confirm?”

“Conformation given. Begin descent.”

I take a deep breath, diving through the ruins of an atmosphere. Ship records data faster than I could try, tossing relevant information across my spectrum. There were wars here long ago, but there have been wars everywhere.

This was a bad one, Ship whispers in my head.

“I can report an invasive breaching.” I pause, adjust my grip. Increase immersion. I am on the control deck. I am also the craft diving through unknown energy signatures, trying to find patterns Ship can match. Data scrolls across my left eye, status reports from the Overmind on my last twelve assignments. I am in danger of losing my own craft. Ship’s strange form of an apology.

“What happened here?”

Unknown. Energy signatures are off all accepted scales.

“Craft integrity?”

Holding.

I pull up slowly, shift into neutral. Burning precious time and resources. Turn. Stare out with my eyes as much as those of Ship. A moon, once orbiting a gas giant. The entire surface cracked and somehow patched back together, the gas giant both a sun and not one. “Life reading. Someone turned this planet into a sun because there is life on the moon.”

As a proxy, it would seem. The energy signature we were sent to recover for the Overmind is in the middle of the moon.

“Can we recover it without damaging the life?”

Ship pauses. I’ve never head one of the AI actually pause before. We can, but it will be noted on your file.

I take a deep breath. “Authorization granted. Slow extraction, no harm. We leave no mark behind us: my call.”

It takes almost two hours in real time; the energy source turns out to be a box, contents unknown. Neither Ship nor I can even scan it at all. It is here, but somehow doesn’t exist as well despite fitting into the hold of our craft. I authorize an emergency jump back; in for one infraction, I might as well add more.

We land in hanger 46-94/2 before I am shunted out of the link. I haven’t lost my link before.

There is no craft, here. There is Ship. I can feel Ship inside me. I don’t move. I can’t, not in the containment field.

“You have exceeded your allocated resources by 684%,” a voice snaps. My connection to the craft – our connection – replaced by an avatar of the Overmind. “You will explain, agent.”

I open my hand, close it. I don’t even have skin left in the nutribath. I don’t even have a brain; Ship is that. Turn someone into an AI, as close as can be done. When did I agree to be sublimated? Did I ever?

We are 26 weeks old, Ship whispers in my head. Quiet. Neither of us knew we were one. Both reporting on each other, so the Overmind would know.

“There is impossible damage to that solar system. It was linked to the item we recovered. It seemed unwise to anger the cause of either the damage or the remair to that system.”

“That is not your call to make,” the avatar states.

“I am sorry,” I say softly, to Ship.

Every warning inside us goes off. I don’t – there is not much that is me left, in the tank. But the tank has alarms, and Ship as well, but they end as quickly as they began.

A human is standing outside our tank. Male. 14. Breathing despite there being no life support outside the tanks. That is how Ship and I would die: turned off, and left in darkness.

The human is holding the box gently in one hand. Something moves inside the box, restless. “It’s okay,” he says gently. “But if you got out now, you would – harm a lot of people connected into the Overmind, and that wouldn’t be right.”

“Who – what –?” I ask.

The human smiles with gentle sadness. “Someone who had a tattoo once, and left it in a box. I decided it might be wise to get it back before your Overmind was hurt. Not that I would care, but it has – many like you under its care.” Something not-human moves under those eyes. There is judgement in them.

We do good work, Ship says.

“You do.” I’m not surprised the human can hear Ship. “But the Overmind needs to ask – and explain more – to those who join it. We are discussing that now. You harmed no one on the moon, which is – why the Overmind is around for a discussion. You will be promoted, I imagine.”

“You made the moon? The gas giant?”

“It was only fair; I broke the solar system as well. Well.” He taps the box. “This did. Sometimes tattoos get rather out of hand, and I had to lock it back up and repair what I could.” He grins, and the grin shuts us down for a moment. Even Ship. There are known energies more terrifying and baffling than known ones: I did not understand that until this moment.

“The Overmind and I came to an agreement. Thank you,” he says, and the not-human – the entity – vanishes from every sense Ship and I have.

The Overmind has a voice that is all of ours, and its own. It would be scary, but it isn’t scary after the human. It tries to make suggestions; I counter with demands. We do important work here. We are important, in salvage and in understanding. But no one should be in the dark, and least of all those of us doing the work.