“Didn’t think of that either.”
“You’re carrying a lot of experience in those Aspects. Let them help you.”
“They nag me a lot.”
Killeen smiled. “That goes with the deal. They don’t get to do anything except talk, remember. Imagine what that’s like.”
“I’d rather not,” Toby said, uneasy at how this conversation was turning.
“You’ve got to get used to working with them. Fluid. So you reach for them automatically, like scratching yourself.”
“They don’t ride so easy yet,” Toby admitted uncomfortably.
Killeen gazed steadily at him for a long moment that widened between them. “How . . . how is she?”
So it had finally come out. Again.
“The same . . . of course.”
Killeen’s lost love, Shibo. The woman who had come into Killeen’s life after Toby’s mother died, a woman Toby had come to accept as nearly a replacement mother. The once-vibrant Shibo now existed only as an Aspect carried in Toby.
She had been killed on Trump, cut down by enemy fire. In a trap set by His Supremacy, a mech-human hybrid. Toby and Killeen had managed to get her back to Argo. In the recording room the ship’s instruments had spoken of potassium levels and neurological amalgams and digital matching matrices, terms nobody in Family Bishop understood. Or their Aspects.
The ancient instruments had saved as much as they could of Shibo, reading the neural beds of her mind, the shape of a unique consciousness. Making a recording. Then squeezing it into a chip that slid easily into a human spinal reader. Together with cell samples from her body, for long-term Family genetic records, Toby’s Shibo Aspect was all that remained of her.
Normally an Aspect lay dormant until the trauma of death passed, often for a Family generation. But the Family needed Shibo’s skills, judgment, and lore. Killeen could not have carried her Aspect, of course; that would invite emotional disaster in their Cap’n, violating every Family precept.
Toby had been the only crew member with an open spinal slot and the right personality constellations to accept Shibo immediately. They had used her knowledge of ship’s systems innumerable times in the long voyage. Shibo had a knack for techno-craft. Even better than the advice of the older Aspects from the Low Arcology Era.
But the toll on Killeen had been heavy. Another long silence passed between the two of them, until Toby felt like jumping up and rushing out, away, free of the strain he had truly not wished to carry. “I . . .” Killeen hesitated. “Can I speak with her?”
“I don’t think so, Dad.”
Killeen opened his mouth, then closed it so abruptly Toby could hear the teeth click. “I just wanted a few words.”
“I think it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“You know how you get.”
“I just wanted a little—”
“Dad, you’ve got to let go of her.”
There was a desperate look in Killeen’s eyes. “I have. I have.”
“No, you haven’t. If you had, you wouldn’t ask.”
His father’s lips thinned until they were nearly white. Toby knew Killeen was holding in a lot, the pressures of leadership on top of everything else. But he couldn’t give ground on this point.
He had, once. Killeen had hounded him to let his Shibo Aspect speak through his mouth, and he had. Once. Twice. Then again and again, until Killeen wanted that contact, as miserably fleeting and thin as it was, every day.
“I suppose you’re some kind of expert?” Killeen asked curtly.
“On this, yes.”
“What’s your Family Counselor been telling you?”
“Just what I said. To not manifest Shibo for you.”
Killeen slammed his fist onto his desk top with a meaty smack. “And if I make it an order?”
“I can’t obey that kind of order.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Killeen’s lips twisted cruelly.
Toby took a deep breath and said as evenly as he could, “No you won’t. I’ll take it to a Family Gathering.”
Killeen’s face slowly lost its congested, tormented look. It went slack, pale, beaten—an expression Toby liked even less.
“You . . . you’d do that.” It was not a question.
“I’d have to.” His mouth was dry, sour. “If I manifested Shibo, it’d drive you nutso, same as before.”
“Just . . . just a little . . .” Killeen’s mouth trembled. His jaw worked with unspoken emotion. Toby hated watching tormented devotion drive a man he loved to such humiliation. It was as though Killeen was addicted to some terrible drug, and could never get it out of his system.
But he had to. And Toby had to help him. “No. No, Dad.”
