“You could, just for a—”
“A little’s worse than a lot. You know that.”
Killeen stared across the bare table for a long time and then slowly nodded. “Yeasay . . . Worse than a lot.”
“Dad, I use Shibo’s talents every day. She knows the electronics of this ship, how systems interact—she was great. But that’s not what you want from her. You loved Shibo the woman. She’s gone. What’s left is hollow, thin. Only an Aspect.”
Killeen’s cheeks were sunken, his eyes empty. “Not quite.”
“Huh?”
“The recording machines made a deep copy of her. That chip you’re carrying, it’s a Personality.”
“What?” Toby was stunned. A Personality was a full embodiment of the neural beds. It carried features of the original person that went far beyond his or her skills and knowledge.
“I ordered that nobody tell you.” Killeen shrugged ruefully. “A boy your age can’t really handle a Personality.”
“But . . . but it feels like an Aspect.”
“I had them box in the Personality. At first it couldn’t express itself fully through you.”
“That’s . . . I never heard of . . .”
“It’s rare. For emergencies only.”
“But why?”
Killeen was getting some of his Cap’n face back. “Family policy is to save as much of a person as we can.”
“But there are limits. I mean, we don’t keep bodies, or, or . . .”
“I wanted it done.”
“You wanted it done. Great! What about me?”
“The blocks should hold for a while, then give way. Her full Personality will emerge in time.”
“But suppose something goes wrong? Suppose this Shibo Personality starts making trouble?”
Toby felt jittery apprehension. Even Aspects could sometimes gang up on their carrier. Attacking at a weak moment, they could bring on an Aspect storm. Then the carrier person went into traumatic states, a form of induced mental illness. Once the Aspects got control of a carrier, they could direct movement and speech, govern behavior. Sometimes Aspects could ride a person for days, even years, without anyone else knowing.
And a Personality was stronger than an Aspect . . .
“I took precautions. Her Personality is tied down with interlocking protections.”
“Still, Dad, if it ever—”
“This is Shibo we’re talking about here!” He slammed the desk again. “She wouldn’t turn on you, and you know that. She loved you like a son.”
“This thing I’m carrying, it’s a version of Shibo. Complete with death trauma.”
Killeen blinked. “What do you mean?”
Toby fidgeted awkwardly. “Death changes people.” For a moment he almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of this. Death changes people. But were they people at all anymore? Or just damaged, altered recordings?
Another stretching silence between them. Then Killeen said stiffly, “I should have told you before.”
So his father was putting on his Cap’n self, covering his feelings with a uniform. Toby saw that this last statement was as close as he was going to get to an apology.
Toby made a half-shrug, his mind still a swirl of conflicting feelings. “I’d just have worried about it.”
“So I thought, too. Son, I’m . . . I’m sorry about asking you to manifest her. I know it’s wrong.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Sorry. So sorry.”
Toby got up, still flustered. His father came around the desk and embraced him. Neither of them were best at expressing things
through words, and for a long time they simply clung to each other, arms carrying messages that voices could not.
FOUR
Pale Immensities
Toby watched the Chandelier expand before their flyer, already huge and ominous, and yet still coming, swelling, filling all of space. Its pale immensities stretched in all directions, offering glittering flanks and towers, grand portals and jutting spires, soaring perspectives leading the eye away into dizzying depths.
—People made this?—he sent on the comm line.
Killeen answered grimly,—We were once far greater.—
