"How do I make it up to her?" he asked the droid. "Surely you are more knowledgeable about human interactions than I am?"
"Make up... what? Almost killing her?"
That made it sound far worse than he felt about it. After all, he had stopped before she died. Proteus tried not to show how much the thought of making such a mistake made him angry. "Injuring her."
"Tearing her arm off?"
"It was still attached when I stopped myself! Her lack of an arm is entirely the fault of the machine she's currently in." He wasn't helping his cause. "Fine. How do I apologize appropriately for losing control over myself and biting throughher arm, thus making it so that she had to lose the limb because I was struggling with my own emotions?"
"Are you going to do it again?" Pilot tapped a few more times, keeping a clear eye on her vitals.
"I don't intend to."
"That's not really good enough, Proteus. You have to know that you won't harm her again or anything you say will just be a lie. She'll know it's a lie, and that will make everything even more complicated. Trust is earned, not freely given."
He watched as the machine started whirring again. Both of them stared down at the smooth sleeve it was creating next to her arm. It seemed that Pilot was right. The machine was going to remake a limb for her that easily. It was almost like it had done it before for her. At first, it seemed to work on a 3D mapping of her body that it had stored. Then it was working on building the piece while she rested.
Every now and then another needle would approach her neck, injecting her with whatever medication it thought she needed. And all the while, he kept himself calm and tried to think through what Pilot had said.
This was a droid. Proteus did not need to explain himself, his feelings, or what he was doing to this creature. After all, the little thing had been made to serve him. It was a hunk of metal.
But then he noticed that some of the rust had been peeling off of Pilot's back as they spoke. Using a single claw, he nudged more of the rust off of his droid and watched it flake onto the ground.
"Why are you peeling?" he asked.
"She sprayed something on me from the pod, because she said everyone deserved to live their life rust free." Pilot clacked a few times and muttered something about how the machine had better be watching her blood pressure a little more closely.
The droid had proven himself to be a little vain. Proteus had never even had a stray thought about the orange rust that had turned the droid another color. But now, as the silver metal of his form came through, there was a truth that Proteus had refused to even consider.
"You like her." The words were more accusation than realization.
"I don't like anyone. It's not in my programming."
"Yes, it is. Clearly. You have a soft spot for the human who took away your rust. I don't know if I find that endearing or pathetic." Proteus thought about it a bit more and then finally said, "I believe it is more endearing."
Pilot didn't respond for a while. They both watched the machine finish making the arm. It was nearly identical to her other one, even going so far as to paint veins on the insides of her wrists. Then the machine started working with the arm, turning it so the fingers moved and the wrist bent correctly. It was... odd to watch.
Whatever pod this was, it was extremely advanced. Tau clearly took the health and safety of its clones far more seriously than they did for their own people.
Pilot tapped a few more times, still keeping an eye on everything before he murmured, "I do like her. She's kind, almost to a fault. She's quick witted and rather lovely to talk to. Even though she teases me incessantly and I do believe that is a horrid trait in a person. She is smarter than any other human I've met, and she even sends me notes in binary while we're working together. These things have made my programming... difficult."
"I thought you said you weren't programmed to favor people?" he said wryly.
"I was programmed to experience more than the average droid. I like to fight against that, because I think it is easier forme not to think about how different I am. The other droids get to live a life much easier than I do. Emotions are hard to live with."
Proteus understood that feeling more than most. Look at what he had done with the difficult emotions going through him?
"I visited the ancients," he murmured, knowing that Pilot would understand what he was talking about. "They are gone."
"Gone where?"
"Gone. For good." His hands curled into fists when the droid froze. "I stayed with them until they died. Their voices will sing in the depths no longer. Our sea is without guidance, and without any gods to visit. That is why I acted the way I did."
"Are they not your progenitors?"
"They created me. They raised me. They brought me into this world, and they threatened to take me out of it more times than I could count." He rubbed the back of his neck and then shook his head. "I did not think I would miss them. I told myself I didn't miss them at all while I was locked away in that coffin."
Pilot shifted again, this time clearly looking up at him. "But you were wrong? Did you miss them?"
