M-Bot fell silent as Nuluba came walking by with a tablet, tapping away. I muttered to myself, talking as if to the black gunk while M-Bot sprayed solvent.
Eventually he spoke again, very quietly. “Spensa, something is odd about this destructor.”
“Other than the fact that it seems to have been fossilized in a tar pit?”
“Other than that, yes. Those two boxes installed on the sides of the weapon? They’re output modifiers. Normally you’d use something like that to increase the heat of a weapon for, say, cutting through metal shielding. Or maybe to modify it to lower shot intensity for training.”
“And what do these do?”
“There’s no way to tell,” M-Bot said. “They’ve been completely fried by the overuse. But haven’t you noticed how the Broadsiders have never lost a ship?”
“I’ve noticed,” I said. “But maybe the Broadsiders are just lucky. They’ve only been out on a couple of sorties since we arrived here.”
“I suppose that’s true… Huh.”
“What?” I asked.
“I just counted the number of sorties I’ve observed. I came up with ten.”
“Impossible,” I said. “Ten fights in four or five days?”
“Yeah, strange… Oh.”
“…Oh?”
“I just reconciled my internal chronometer,” he said. “We’ve been with the Broadsiders for nearly two weeks, Spensa.”
My cleaning rag dropped from my fingers. I blinked, trying to remember… How many times had I slept? It kind of blurred together…
“Scud,” I said. “How did you not notice?”
“I have no idea,” he said, his voice small. “I guess I’m more alive than I thought, and am experiencing some of the same effects you are. Indeed, a lack of time awareness would seem to fit with what we know of delvers.”
Well, that would explain why the others trusted me with M-Bot “so soon.” It wasn’t soon.
Nevertheless, my brain struggled to make sense of it. With an effort that felt almost painful, I thought back over the repairs I’d done. Stripping down the landing gear on all four ships. Doing booster maintenance. Light wing repairs…
I immediately reached out to Chet.
Have you contacted the AI? he asked.
Yes, but…Chet, how many days do you think I’ve been in here, captured?
Six? he guessed. I’ve been sleeping off my wound a lot though. So maybe seven or eight?
Fourteen, I said.
He was silent for a moment. Then I felt the emotional equivalence of a sigh.
It is dangerous to stay in one place long, he said. This happens, Spensa. I’m sorry.
“Can you set alarms?” I asked M-Bot. “Calendar alerts? We should start aggressively acknowledging each day. See if we can remain more focused.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea…”
I sensed worry in his voice though. Even if Chet expected this sort of thing, I felt it incredibly strange that it affected M-Bot. I did remember sleeping, but found I couldn’t count the times I’d done it. This place played havoc with my sense of time in such a way as to make it really difficult.
Two weeks? A lot could change in a war during that time. Were my friends all right? I needed to accelerate my plans for escaping. I had to find a way to upload M-Bot’s mind into one of the starfighters. Preferably one without a crystalline alien occupying it.
“I’ll be honest,” Maksim said, lounging across the sawhorse, a wrench dangling from one finger. “I always thought something was wrong with me. I was taught about how mean and naturally angry humans were, yet I didn’t feel any of that, you know?
“Well, my owners presumed their training kept me under control. They had this whole therapy process they said ‘cured’ aggression, and so were able to get the permits for a human child. They got me when I was nine, and had me sit around and hum.”
I looked up from my diagnostic screen, where I’d been quietly preparing to advance the next step of our plan. Peg had mentioned that the base scanner needed some maintenance. I wasn’t certain when that would happen, but I wanted to be ready to go when it did.
For the time being, I was doing my best to fit in. And I had to admit I enjoyed chatting with the others. “They had you hum? Like…you know…” I made a humming noise.
“Exactly,” Maksim said. “They’d have me sit on a little mat and just hum. For hours at a time. They said it was a special ‘proprietary process.’ I guess it was the tone I was humming that made it distinctive? Still not sure, honestly, though they had me at it for twenty years.”