“It has a cleanser?” I asked, stopping in place.
“It has full biofacilities, including waste reclamation, as part of the pod in the cockpit. I hauled up some soap yesterday and got the system working; the controls are the little keypad in the left rear of the cockpit. The canopy should dim, for privacy. Assuming you can trust the thing not to make fun of you while cleansing.”
“Why would I make fun of her?” M-Bot said. “The frailties of human existence—and stenches caused by their inefficient generation of biological energy—are no laughing matter.”
I just smiled. I was tired of sneaking into the cleanser at the base, constantly worried that Admiral Ironsides would use it as an excuse to oust me.
“It makes sense you’d have a cleanser,” I said to M-Bot as I climbed into the cockpit. “You said you’re a long-range scouting and stealth vessel, right?”
“Equipped for deep-space missions.”
“With four destructors,” Rig noted from down below, “and advanced atmospheric scoops and an extremely fast design. He’s a fighter, Spin. But probably a long-distance one, as he said.”
“So you had to be able to care for your pilot long-term,” I said, closing the canopy. “You traveled between the stars?”
“Cytonic hyperdrive is offline,” M-Bot said.
“But how did you do it?” I asked. “What is a ‘cytonic hyperdrive’？ And what were you scouting for anyway?”
The ship fell uncharacteristically silent. The cockpit—as promised—dimmed fully as I flipped a switch on the panel that Rig had indicated.
“I have no records of any of it,” M-Bot said softly. “If I could feel fear, Spin, I’d . . . I’d be afraid of that. I’m not an autopilot; I don’t fly myself, that’s forbidden, save for very slow maneuvering. So all I really am is a repository of knowledge. That’s what I’m good for.”
“Except you’ve forgotten it all.”
“Almost everything,” he whispered. “Except . . . my orders.”
“Lie low. Take stock. Don’t get into any fights.”
“And an open database for cataloguing local fungi. That’s . . . that’s all I am now.”
“I’m hoping Rig will be able to repair your memory banks, so we can recover what you lost,” I said. “If not, we’ll refill your banks with new memories. Better ones.”
“Data doesn’t suggest either is possible.”
“Data doesn’t need to,” I said. “You’ll see.”
“GAFHOC,” M-Bot said. “I’d let you read the seven thousand pages I wrote, but I am programmed to avoid making humans feel inferior for their incredible weirdness.”
I lowered the seat into a bed, then located the cleansing pod at the rear of the cockpit—it wasn’t obvious, but I now knew what to look for: a hole I could open and roll myself into. The long, narrow cleansing pod extended farther into the fuselage.
I stripped down, stuffed my clothing into the clothing bay, then positioned my feet toward the hole and slid in on the rollers. I closed the latch by my head with the press of a button at my side, then activated the cleanser.
I kept my eyes closed as I was bathed in suds and flashes of light. It felt . . . decadent to have my own cleanser. Back in my neighborhood, the three cleansers had been shared among dozens of apartments. Your daily usage was precisely scheduled.
“I think I made you feel bad anyway, didn’t I?” M-Bot asked.
I wasn’t a particularly shy person, but his voice made me blush. I wasn’t used to being talked to while in the cleanser.
“I’m fine,” I said once the cleanser finished my face. “I like the way you talk. It’s different. Interesting.”
“I didn’t invent GAFHOC to make you feel bad,” he said. “I just . . . I needed an explanation. For why you said things that aren’t true.”
“You really hadn’t ever heard of lying before?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I had. And it’s simply . . . gone.”
He sounded fragile. How could a large, heavily armored starfighter sound fragile?
“You’re the only source of information I have,” M-Bot said. “If you tell me things that aren’t true, what can I commit to my memory banks? This puts me at risk of retaining false data.”
“That’s a risk we all live with, M-Bot,” I said. “We can’t know everything—and some of what we think we know is going to turn out to be false.”
“That doesn’t frighten you?”
“Of course it does. But if it helps, I’ll try not to lie to you.”
“It does. Thank you.”
He fell silent, and so I relaxed, enjoying an extra-long, luxurious cleansing—during which I imagined scenarios of flying M-Bot into battle with guns blazing, saving my flight from certain doom, like Joan of Arc on her loyal steed.
They were good daydreams. Even if my steed kept asking for mushrooms.
23
“All right,” Cobb’s voice said in my ear as the group of us hovered outside a holographic battlefield. “I’m almost convinced you won’t run nose-first into the first piece of debris that falls past you. I think you lot might just be ready to learn some advanced weapons techniques.”
Even still, two weeks after losing him, I expected Bim to pipe up eagerly and ask after destructors. When he didn’t, I said it instead, in his memory. “Destructors?”
“No,” Cobb said. “Today we will train with the IMP.”
Oh, right. We’d spent so much time training with the light-lances, I’d almost forgotten we had a third weapon, which could knock down enemy shields.
While I waited for Cobb to send today’s wingmate pairings, I switched the radio to a private channel and called Hurl. “I almost thought he was going to let us do guns, eh, Hurl?”
Hurl only grunted.
“Made me think of Bim,” I said. “Wish we’d at least helped him choose a callsign, you know?”
“I’m with Quirk today,” Hurl said as Cobb highlighted us in pairs on our sensor screens. “Hurl out.” She killed the channel.
I felt my face grow cold and gritted my teeth, silently cursing Jerkface for outing my heritage. While I was used to this kind of thing, I’d liked Hurl. The fun-loving, eager girl had almost seemed like a friend.
I moved my ship over next to Nedd, my wingmate for the day. Ahead of us, a group of Krell ships appeared in the sky and began to fly through lazy patterns. Debris fell, mostly large, fiery chunks that dropped from above quickly, trailing smoke.
“All right,” Cobb said. “Basic shield usage. Spin, give us a rundown.”
He did this occasionally, testing our knowledge. “Shipboard shields can absorb roughly 80 kus of energy before they get overwhelmed and break,” I said. “That’s around two to three shots from a destructor, a small debris strike, or a glancing collision. If your shield goes down, you’ll have to reignite it—which uses power from your booster. That means losing thrust and maneuverability for a good half a minute.”
“Good. Amphisbaena, what did she miss?”