"Home as inhome.Earth.Well, close enough.Sol.
That was so stupid it didn’t even warrant a response.
Apparently unbothered,Valerie folded the sleeves of her jumpsuit, pushing the cuffs up to her elbows.Her forearms looked stronger than I'd expected; she gave the impression of being soft, and therewasa softness to her body, but it was clear she was physically capable too.That some of this presentation of hers was artifice.It had to be.
More startling, though, was the profusion of lines and colours etched into her skin.I'd seen tattoos on ketaari and voltaari, but had always assumed that etching with ink only worked on species with harder skin.Not –
"Check this one out," she said, catching me staring.She rotated to show me her forearm, near her elbow, where there was a doodle of a woman making out with an amphibious-looking alien from a species thatdefinitelydidn't exist and who had, impossibly, tits."Nice, right?"
She had to be full of shit;I didn’t know what game she was playing at, but I didn’t like it."You can't be fromhome.You'd need a generation ship to get here.No one's going to drag humans through the Maelstrom."
Her brown eyes gleamed with mischiefas sheraisedone dark eyebrow."Yes, you'd think that.This is whyIwanted to be the one to debrief you about the findings from the judiciary's investigation.Because – well.It leads us to another conversation.If you want to chat?"
"As you can see," I said, gesturing at the empty room, "my social calendar is pretty full."
"Yeah, Inoticed."She set the datapad carefully on the table between us and propped her elbows on her knees, leaning forward."So they've found, as you would expect, that there isn't a way for Araxis or anyone to mind control you, which is good.It's physiologically impossible.There's no mind meld, no secret pheromones, no, like, cosmic soulmate shit.They haven't finalized the report yet, but yeah – you're in the clear.You both are.Here, I thought you might want to take a look for yourself."She nudged the datapad toward me.
Some tension I'd been holding, somewhere deep in my body, let go, and I exhaled, sharp and sudden."That's good," I said.I scooped up the datapad and walked across the room, rifling through the file.There were extensive brain scans and blood-work panels for both of us, and a lot of technical terminology that didn't make any sense, but I was good enough at skimming to get the gist of it.All clear.
Until – "I'm sorry, what the fuck is thispsychological profile?"
I turned to stare at Valerie Prior, who held her hands up in innocence."Don't look at me, I didn't write it."
"I'm –" I scoffed, flicking back through the paragraph again."History of trauma has left subject susceptible to forming intense connections with those who show rudimentary kindness and care.I'm – That's not what I'm like!I don't just latch on to anyone who's nice to me!"
Across the room, Valerie pointedly said nothing, suddenly studying the ceiling as if itwerevery interesting.
"That's stupid," I said, but some inner voice unhelpfully reminded me of the people Ihadattached myself to after very little time at all.I'd thrown myself into Alet Trident's four arms at fifteen because she made some passing comment about how hard I'd worked to load her shuttle.And there was Silver Sea, and Nilli.
And of course Araxis.
Alet Trident had said that Iwouldpick up scraps of love and call them a feast.Had she been right?Had the justiciar figured that out in only a few days of interviews?
I stared down at the screen, betrayed.
"That doesn't mean what you feel isn't real," Valerie added belatedly."It just means you bond quickly!But that's okay: Araxis does too.Scroll down a bit to the next header and you'll see, where it talks about –"
I saw the bolded words she was referring to, and I closed the window immediately."That's private," I said, low.I pulled the datapad tight to my chest, staring at her."His gender shouldn't be in areport–"
"Okay, listen, I'm sorry to upset you," Valerie insisted."This is from the justiciar's report.Araxis is looking at a copy too.It's allhighlyconfidential; it won't leave this ship.Promise."
"Fine, great.So what's the point of this little visit, then?"
She actually winced, and then had the gall to look morose."Well, I had a few things I wanted to talk to you about.I was here to consult on your translation and to connect the justiciar with some human physicians and psychologists who could tap in as needed.Butthereare a few little… things that I held back.Classified things.If you – open that up again, there's another document I've loaded for you."
I didn't move, holding the pad to my chest and watching her.I didn't trust her at all.I didn't trust any of this.
Valerie cleared her throat, watching me like I was a cornered animal and she wasn't sure what I was going to do next."You're right: it's weird to see humans who aren't part of your former cult in Primus territory.But it won't be weird for much longer.True, humans can't pilot the Maelstrom on our own.We lost a lot of good people to trying over the years; many brilliant minds got liquefied along the way.But…" She gestured to the datapad again.
I gave in, tapping the screen back on and flicking over to the other document.It was rife with diagrams and a lot of specialized language that I didn't understand.Hell, more than a third was in a language –languages– I didn't know.But the more I skimmed, the deeper the crease between my eyebrowsbecame.
"I'm not following," I said finally, although I was worried that I was starting to and the picture that was coming together was dangerous.
"So our brains are pretty… malleable, I guess," Valerie said, frowning as she tried to find the right words."Especially for those of us who've grown up in deep space.They're way less settled than other species' brains.Ours are always growing and branching out, building new connections and synapses.It's why we took the idea of the, what was it,biological control mechanismseriously; it could have been real.Definitely glad it's not – but that malleability is significant in other ways.We can't pilot, true, but humans areperfectco-pilots in the Maelstrom.Our success rate with human co-pilots is 100% withzeroneural degradation for either pilot on the other end."
My stare flew up to meet hers.Burning through the Maelstrom was a dangerous way to traverse great distances in little time, but it took a physical toll on the pilot.Even the best pilots who were most attuned to the Maelstrom only had a certain number of trips in them before they risked madness and death; each time they burned through the roiling colours of the Maelstrom, they lost pieces of who they were.
If humans could change that –
