Starmind Chapter 48

Hey all! Managed to get another chapter finished just in time. It's pretty raw and has only been lightly proof-read, so I hope there aren't too many mistakes in it. Happy reading!

//AB

The following day everyone rose early, to have as much time as possible to finalize all of our preparations. Tomorrow we’d leave Sophia for the void, beginning our mission to see if there was any sign that its kidnapped crew were even possible to save. It would be scary and dangerous. We were all risking our lives, and we had no idea what our chances of success might be, but we’d all agreed that it was worth it. Not only because of all the resources Tammeron had offered us in return for our help, but because we were in a position to at least try, and it was the right thing to do.

So, yeah, my Crew had all been keeping themselves very busy and would be doing so for another day. But I hadn’t just been sitting around, either! I mean, I had literally been sitting still on the docking pad, but I’d been sitting around very actively.

I’d been improving myself.

Okay, so part of that was working on my Developments, and I didn’t actually need to do anything to Develop except feed my Development Matrix mana. But I’d also been working on my layout and moving things around a bit, and that took a lot of focus and effort!

When I was first built, I had three decks. At the bottom was the engineering deck. At the top was the bridge. And between them was the crew deck, with the crystal chamber, the artifice bay, sickbay, the rec room, the hygienic facilities, and the crew cabins, all on one cramped level. I’d been built as a naval science and survey vessel, and according to Temeri I was practically a luxury cruise ship compared to anything else she’d served on, but I didn’t like being cramped. I wanted my Crew to be comfortable and happy. So when I had the opportunity, I’d added a deck. Now there was one deck for working, and one for relaxing. Much better!

Of course, when I moved everything except the crystal chamber and artifice bay up to the new habitation deck, I was left with a lot of empty space on each deck. I’d filled in the space above the crystal chamber with a nice, big pool, which the Crew absolutely loved and used regularly, and I’d put some very simple exercise equipment above the artifice bay, but as late as a week earlier half of the work deck was just a big, empty space. That was just wasteful, so I’d been redecorating!

I didn’t even need to think too hard about what to do with the space. We needed room for two things: the Holistic Autolathe that Bekeri finally had time to work on, and an agricultural bay where we’d be able to grow fresh food. The agri-bay, as the Crew called it, was currently pretty empty. It housed a single Hydroponic Growth Chamber, a long, narrow thing that stood floor to ceiling and took up maybe a sixth of the available floor space. That was it. But soon it would be joined by a Multi-Purpose Culture Vat, and after that, another Growth Chamber. Then the Crew could have a bit of fresh food every day while we were in the void. It was going to be great!

Creating the agri-bay was just a question of sectioning off the part of the empty deck that lay under the crew cabins. I put up a wall and a very simple door that hung on hinges and stayed closed with a latch, because I couldn’t make the mechanisms for anything fancier, and ta-da! A new bay! Making room for the Holistic Autolathe, though, took a bit more doing.

Something I’d learned from Simeon was that you couldn't just move organic people’s insides around without hurting them. Not that I ever would, even if I could, but at first I’d figured that as long as everything was in there and connected, they'd be fine. Apparently not! Some bits could move a little, but there were all kinds of things that shouldn't press on each other, and it was best that everything be left where it was.

Not so for me! I had all kinds of mechanical guts and magical gubbins, as Bekeri affectionately called them, but as long as hose A connected to port B everything worked just fine. None of them were important for keeping me alive, either. They were there to keep a bunch of systems running, but if I wanted to shut something down so I could move all its bits around, I could! And that was very useful when I wanted to make room for a two deck tall behemoth of a machine like the Holistic Autolathe, because the engineering deck was absolutely packed with gubbins.

Bekeri and I had talked about the best place to put his favorite machine and had settled on the area right beneath the rec room. That way it could be accessible from the artifice bay on the work deck, and from the cargo hold on the engineering deck, nice and close to the docking collar. We couldn't put it near my center axis, because that was where the reactor and the drive were, but we didn't want that anyway; the Autolathe could be built with a void-safe output, allowing us to withdraw products outside my hull, and we wanted to take advantage of that. That area of the engineering deck was very dense with all kinds of gubbins, but being the amazing ship that I was I could move those around as I pleased. So I cleared out the twenty foot square and thirty five feet tall volume that the machine needed, moved everything to a new, sealed off compartment on the work deck, made sure that hose A hadn’t accidentally gotten connected to tube D again, and we were ready!

Of course, the thing was huge. That meant that it had huge gubbins of its own, and even with the Teletic Fabricator running constantly it would take a while longer to make and install all the parts. But work was well underway, and Bekeri was very enthusiastic whenever he had time for it.

Despite how big the Autolathe was, it didn’t take up close to all of the available floor space—out of the roughly 2500 square feet left over after I created the agri-bay, the Autolathe itself only took up 500, with me adding a bit extra so the Crew could move around it. The sealed compartment with the machinery and pipes and things that I’d moved around took another 600 or so. That still left a bit more than a quarter of what I’d started out trying to fill. I didn't want to feel like I’d left a job a quarter unfinished, so I turned that into two separate rooms. One of these became Harvin’s office. I’d offered to make the remaining room into a second office for Temeri, but she’d declined, so I filled that one with chests and cabinets. I didn't know what we might store in them, but having an empty storeroom felt a lot better than a big, empty space; more like I was preparing for the future than like I just didn’t know what to do with it.

Then there were the Developments, of course. With the increase to my maximum mana regeneration that had come with gaining level 3, I had gained a whole bunch of Development levels over the past week. The only effort involved there was in choosing what to do, and making sure that I replaced the mana crystals I had lying about to increase my mana regeneration. But they were super important, so I spent a lot of time planning and daydreaming about them.

After some discussion with the Crew, we’d decided on a mix of efficient and practical Developments, with one addition that I insisted on.

I’d started with two levels in Mana Regeneration Efficiency, bringing that to level seven. That was so that I wouldn't burn as many mana crystals, which was very important—at the rate I was going I’d start eating into my reserves, having fewer in storage with every cycle of crystals I put out. Then, once I was sure that I’d be able to sustain it until Varlanda finished our sixth Condensation Matrix, I got the second level of Maximum Mana Regeneration. That got my maximum all the way up to 3.48, and with a bit of mana set aside to keep everything running I had 3.16 mana per minute available for Developments. Which was good, because things were getting expensive!

With all the planned increases to my mana regeneration and thus Development rate done, I switched to something I would have liked much earlier—I’d just always wanted something else more. I picked up the first two levels of Hardened Hull. That magically made my Hull 15 percent tougher without affecting its mass, which along with the extra thickness I’d added and the Phase-Disruption Field Generator should help a lot with keeping my Crew from harm, if the worst happened and we were spotted by someone I couldn't outrun.

Then I took level two in Light-Weight Structure. Thanks to Bekeri all my thrusters were working again, but I’d added a lot of mass lately. Thicker Hull, extra plating between decks, the extra deck itself, and all the cargo I'd taken onboard, it all added up. But most of my mass still lay in my structural components, and another level there cut their mass by about seven percent of its base value, making me dozens of tons lighter. That should help a lot with my manoeuvrability—again, if the worst happened.

After that I got something for the Crew, and it was a little bit of a surprise. I hadn't actually told them what I was doing, only that they’d like it. That felt like a safe enough thing to tell them; I’d had some guesses to what it might do, and all of them were good. And when it had finished late in the previous evening, I’d been very pleased with my choice.

I’d picked up Crew Recreation, and among other things, it let me give my Crew music.

Music was very important. I knew that both because every member of the Crew had at least one good memory related to music that I shared, and because they’d said outright that they missed music. Sometimes they’d sing or hum, alone or together, and some of them would drum on things, but it wasn’t nearly the same. But now there would be real music onboard!

One of the things that Crew Recreation gave me was a little crystal, flat and square with rounded corners, that I could just create out of elemental matter and condensed mana. I didn’t even need to ask Bekeri to make them, which was great, because it let me surprise everyone by placing one by each of their beds as they slept. The little crystal was kind of like a speaker, except small enough to put in a pocket, and it didn’t need to be connected to anything. All it needed was to be somewhere inside me, and then I could use it to play pretty much any music that existed—or at least that I’d heard of—along with all kinds of other sounds. There were even people reading books and lectures in there!

Where in there was wasn’t exactly clear to me. Maybe it was an out there, or even over there. I’d have to talk to the Crew about that, after I surprised them.

The Development also gave me schematics for something like the illusory board on the bridge, which should be able to do something similar to the crystals except with pictures. I wasn’t exactly clear on that, though. This thing was much too complex for me to just make, so I wouldn’t be able to play around with it until Bekeri and Varlanda had time in their busy schedules to work on it.

Finally, the Development gave me a whole library of books. Or a hundred libraries, maybe! It was like my archives, only instead of being focused on useful information and technical manuals and things like that it was just thousands and thousands and thousands of books of all kinds, in all kinds of languages. And like anything in my archives, I could just send them to any slate onboard! I wasn’t really interested in reading, but everybody in my Crew read for fun at least sometimes, and Varlanda had muttered about how few books they had. They were going to be so excited when I told them!

I didn’t make a huge deal out of revealing everything, but I did make it a nice surprise. By the time 0600 hours came around, everyone onboard had an audio crystal next to them. At the time I would normally wake them up with soft whispers—or a loud ringing in Temeri’s case—I instead began to play some early morning birdsong for them. Then, when they started stirring, I layered on some gentle music from a flute-and-strings quartet, which was very similar to music I’d heard in some of their memories. Then I waited.

Bekeri was the first to wake. As soon as I started the birdsong his ears perked up. They twitched in the direction of the audio crystal, then his head turned, and moments later his eyes opened, focusing on the source of the sound even before the music started.

For a few seconds he just stared, and the world stood still as I waited for his reaction. Then he reached out and placed the pad of his index finger on the crystal, holding it there for several seconds as the music came in before taking the crystal carefully by the edges and bringing it closer to his face.

“This is marvelous!” he exclaimed. “Star, can I assume that this is your doing?”

“You can, and it is!” I replied proudly.

“The Development you did not wish to tell us about?”

“Yep! I finished it last night! I can do music now!”

“And birdsong, it seems.”

“And all kinds of sounds! Do you want to hear a waterfall? I can play all kinds of waterfalls!”

Bekeri’s ears flattened at that suggestion. “The music will do nicely, thank you,” he said before putting down the crystal and beginning his morning routine. As he was brushing down all of his hair he asked, “How much music do you have available?”

“Oh, all of it, I think!”

He stopped. “How do you mean, all of it?”

“All of it! Haven’t had anything missing that I looked for, so far! I kind of wanted to ask about that at breakfast.”

“That does seem like something we should talk about, yes,” he agreed, before continuing his brushing.

I had similar short conversations with the other three once they woke up. Harvin was particularly intrigued, muttering something about akashic records and that just proving his point, but we all decided that it would be best to have one conversation together.

“Do we all agree that if Star’s right, and she has access to all the music, that’s pretty strong evidence for her being, uh… more?” Harvin asked his colleague when all four of them were gathered in the rec room. “She’s always been getting knowledge from somewhere, letting Vee and Bekeri build incredible things we’ve never heard of. I mean, these Mana Condensation Matrixes you’re always making more of? They’re just… they’d revolutionize everything if we could build them back on Mundus!”

“I think we can all safely say that she’s got a different class from any mortal,” Simeon agreed.

“Which only makes sense, seeing as she’s not any kind of mortal I’ve ever heard of,” Bekeri said. “She’s more akin to a golem, I suppose, though she undoubtedly has full intelligence and a soul. We should not expect any class she might have to be mundane.”

“But this goes beyond that, doesn’t it?” Varlanda said, shoving a spoonful of flavor paste into her mouth and letting everyone think about it while she swallowed. “This is about your theory, isn’t it, Harv?”

“It is,” Harvin said. “I’m more certain than ever. If Star’s right about having access to all music ever played—”

“I may have all the books, too!” I added happily. I’d wanted to do some kind of separate reveal for that, but it just seemed like the right time.

Harvin’s expression became possibly the most intense I’d ever seen as he continued. “Thank you, Star! You see? She may be living proof of the existence of the akashic records, or at least some small version of them! What could have direct access to that except for…” He trailed off, waving a hand aimlessly.

I only realized where he was going with that as Simeon and Bekeri did. “Oh, you still think—” I started, just before Bekeri blurted, “A god! You think she’s a god!”

“A goddess,” Simeon corrected reasonably.

“Either is fine,” I said. “I still think it’s a funny idea, Harvin. I don’t feel like a deity!”

“A godling,” Harvin said seriously. “Limited power, and very local. Like the small gods of the mountains and rivers back on Mundus. I can’t imagine what else she might be.”

Again, silence fell over the rec room, except for the soft music still playing from the audio crystals. For a moment the strings swelled, and a single, lonely flute came in with a slow, rising melody.

“My little girl,” Simeon said, putting on a huge smile and wiping his dry eyes. “A goddess! I’m the proudest father-uncle there ever was!”

The rest of the conversation was mostly groans, laughter, and play-fighting after that.

*

Temeri returned late in the morning, looking sad and a bit dishevelled. We surprised her by welcoming her aboard with a triumphal naval march, the kind they’d usually play back on Mundus when an admiral inspected a newly built ship. She liked that. And she really liked to hear that she’d be able to listen to any music she wanted going forward.

The rest of the day was a lot more cheerful than it might have been as they made absolutely sure that we were ready to leave, and the golems I’d been promised arrived along with a bunch of final supplies to help us on our mission.

All day, nobody asked Temeri about Tammeron. They only asked if she’d had a good night, to which she said that yeah, it had been good, and that she hoped we’d come back to Sophia soon.

Temeri and Tammeron exchanged a few messages during the day, all to do with our preparations and our mission. But that night, after a lot of consideration, the captain asked me to send a final message to Tammeron. She made me promise to keep it entirely private, and to never let anyone know what she said. So I won’t. But it made me very determined to bring us back to Sophia so they could meet again.

The next morning we left.