The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 26, 2539

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The team reunited on Extremus Prime, but they weren’t ready to go for another day. Ramses needed to work on something first. Once it was time, they bid their adieu to Actilitca, and activated all seven of their tandem slingdrives. They ended up on a planet called Varkas Reflex. It orbited a host star called Wolf 359. Like Proxima Centauri, it was a flare star, but unlike Proxima Doma, Varkas Reflex was a super-Earth. For a normal human to survive on the surface, technological advancements had to be made to protect them from the extreme gravity. All things being equal, it did not make for a very good colony. It should not have been one. Colonists should have remained in orbit instead, perhaps in centrifugal cylinders, or a whole Dyson swarm. It was very important to the early colonists, though, that they landed on planets. That sentimentality had since vanished, but tradition remained on the nearest neighbors.

For the longest time, Wolf 359 wasn’t even a very good candidate for planetary colonization, because scientists didn’t even know that there was a planet. Varkas Reflex orbited Wolf 359 at an extremely high inclination, which meant, from the perspective of Earth, it never passed between the star and the telescopes. They only eventually proved it using a method called stellar occultation, which tracked transit patterns of neighboring stars that indicated they were all coming from a single celestial body. It was then that they chose to send a probe there to confirm. It was sort of a last minute thing, relatively speaking according to galactic mapping scales.

About 250 years ago, the leaders of this planet had their plans set on making it the number one vacation destination for the stellar neighborhood. They were doing okay, and really only competing with Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida. Then Castlebourne came along, and ruined all of that. Luckily, they had already pivoted to something else. In an attempt to make the perfectly streamlined democracy, Hokusai Gimura scanned the mind of everyone who lived on Varkas Reflex, and used them to create an amalgamated consciousness. This singular entity would presumably always have the right answer to how to govern things. No more asking questions, waiting for responses, and holding discussions. If a problem came up, the Congeneral would know what to do immediately, because the consensus was already in there. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. There was too much discordance. It kept stripping out conflicting thought after conflicting thought until there was basically nothing left. As it turned out, discordance was a part of life, and governance was always going to be complicated, and often slow.

Still, this failed experiment apparently gave them the idea to pivot from their original dream. Transdimensional gravity was great, but the surface of Varkas Reflex was still a hellscape compared to Earth, or even Proxima Doma’s Terminator Line. If everyone was safer and better off inside, they were going to use that to their advantage. Virtual simulations were widespread. There were massive communities centered on all of the colonies, as well as Earth, of course. It was possible to join these together using quantum communication, but not easy, and not all that common. The ones on Varkas Reflex today were largely considered the best. It didn’t have to be this way. It could have just about anywhere, but this location had its advantages, like a tidally locked planet orbiting a red dwarf, which allowed for supercool calculations on the far side. But in the end, it became the simulation capital of the galaxy because the people there decided it would be. While most travelers these days were flocking to Castlebourne—about a million people per week, at last count—a not insignificant amount of interstellar ships and casting beams were going to Varkas Reflex. It didn’t hurt that the world shared an acronym with virtual reality.

“But why are we here?” Romana asked after being caught up on the boring history.

“I wanted to test my new navigational algorithm,” Ramses explained. “It’s not time to go out and look for Spiral Station just yet, but it needed to be a place the slingdrives hadn’t been to before. This world seemed as good as any.”

“So, you...” Romana began.

“I what?”

“You can’t read my mind?” she asked, peering at him with great suspicion.

“No. Why? What? What? Why? Why?” He was so lost.

She was still suspicious. “Okay...”

“Okay,” he echoed.

“Okay, well I’m gonna go to the stacks then,” she said, backing up slowly. “Unless you...you think I should go somewhere specific, I’m just gonna go browse.”

“That’s fine, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Romy. Is this somehow about the kiss?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve never kissed anyone before, let alone a brother like you.” She disappeared.

“That was weird.” He tried to go back to work, but seemed to feel someone staring at him. He turned to look at Leona. “What?”

“What was that about a kiss?” she questioned.

“So, I would like your opinion on the casing,” Ramses said. “That’s an open question for everyone. But the design is only fluid until I actually start building it, which means I would like to make a decision quite quick.”

“Tell me about this kiss,” Leona insisted.

“It’s fine, Lee,” Mateo promised her. “Really, not a big deal. I’ve already parented her on it. We’ll talk about it later in private.”

Leona was peering at them both, but was ultimately willing to let it go...for now. “A sphere, I suppose.”

“That’s one vote for sphere. Anyone else?” Ramses asked.

“Shouldn’t it be a belt, so we can wear it,” Angela suggested.

“One for sphere, one for belt,” Ramses said, updating the polling data.

“Well, how big does it have to be?” Marie pressed. “If it can be smaller than a belt, maybe more like a necklace, or even a bracelet.”

Ramses started imagining various shapes of various dimensions between his hands. “With the power source, I don’t think it should be smaller than a belt.”

“It needs to be able to turn invisible either way, so we can hide it somewhere while we’re all inside.”

“Good idea.” Ramses scribbled that down in his notes. “In...visible. So, we really don’t care what the shape is?”

“They’re right, a belt makes more sense,” Leona said, changing her vote, “since we can’t store it in a pocket dimension.” Ramses was building a structure for them to inhabit. Since they no longer had a ship, they always had to congregate wherever they happened to be, and that lacked privacy. They also sometimes had to keep their suits on to breathe and communicate. By placing their home in a pocket dimension, they could stretch out and relax, even if they were in a harsh environment. They couldn’t just slip into their homebase whenever and wherever, though. It would require one piece of hardware to be kept in base reality at all times. Subpockets were possible, but not recommended, for various reasons, most importantly in this case was that it could get lost in the infinite forever if something went wrong. If they were all inside of it at the same time, that physical dimensional generator would just be sitting around on its own, or in some cases, floating around in space. In these situations, the shape wasn’t relevant, but Angela was right that a belt was the most logical choice. One of them could wear it around their waist, and it would look too normal for anyone to suspect its true purpose.

“Belt? Belt? Belt?” Ramses posed, pointing to Olimpia, Mateo, and Leona. “Belt,” he decided. “I need to get to work on it then. Thank you. You can go now.”

“I think I’m gonna go check on my daughter,” Mateo said to Leona.

“You need to tell me what happened first. It looks like she wants to be alone right now. Whatever she’s doing, I trust her. Do you?”

“Of course I do. Allow me to explain.”

While Mateo was telling the awkward story of Romana’s kiss with Ramses, Romana herself was in the simulation library. The largest component of a copy of the central archives that people carried around with them was called the virtual stacks. It could house hundreds or thousands of different simulations, depending on how detailed and immersive they were. It couldn’t hold all of them, though. That wouldn’t be practical, even if it were possible. The stacks that Romana was in right now were closer to that comprehensiveness, however. It was designed to look like a regular library, but the books were holographic, and only there for ambiance. The only real things on the shelves were the empty storage drives. You grabbed one from there, inserted it into the nearest private download terminal, and installed whichever construct you wanted from the core database. You could also connect to a particular world from here, to test drive it, or if you simply didn’t feel like going home to use it. Romana wasn’t interested in this, though. She didn’t even know what she was looking for. So she needed assistance.

The holographic assistant appeared in another chair. “Thank you, and welcome to the principal virtual database. What kind of simulation were we looking for today?”

“How high is your personality? Do you have agency?”

“I express the illusion of agency,” the woman explained. “I have the illusion of personality. These can be adjusted via your preferences. Would you like me to show you how to tune my parameters?”

“Confidentiality parameters,” Romana prompted.

“One hundred percent confidential by current preferences. If you shut me down, and restart me, I will not recall our previous conversation. To save our conversations, please sign in to your account.”

“No, I want your memory wiped entirely.”

“What kind of simulation were we looking for today?” the bot repeated.

“It’s not about the environment itself. It’s...I’m looking for a person.”

“Character creation. I can help with that as well.”

“I want this character...to have agency. Make no mistake, I don’t only want him to simulate it. I want him to be with me, but to be able to choose to leave me. But...but not do that.”

The bot stared into space for a moment. If it had any level of personality, it was turned down fairly low. Though, the hesitation was a bit of a mixed signal. “What you’re asking for is true emergence, otherwise known as an Unregulated Artificial Intelligence. The creation of something like this would require a synthetic siring license, which is difficult to procure in this system. Perhaps you would be better suited traveling to Glisnia.”

“I can’t go to Glisnia,” Romana clarified in exasperation as she was standing up and moving behind her chair. “I’m already here, and it wasn’t by choice, so I don’t have to explain why. I can’t tell anyone what I’m doing. If I asked my friends to take me somewhere else, they would want to know why.”

The assistant paused again. “To generate a true independent consciousness entity through non-biological means would require a sireseed program. Those are profoundly regulated and protected. And I must warn you, if you intend this being to be your romantic partner, the sireseed method would not be a very good idea, for it would place you in the position of its parent, while it would be your child.”

“What if someone else generated the seed? Could the result be my boyfriend then?” Romana hoped.

“If you asked him for companionship, and he agreed, perhaps. You would have to know someone with a license, and the right discretion. You would have to be able to trust them, and then you would have to be able to let the resulting being decline if that was his choice. I cannot condone non-consensual behavior with a conscious entity, nor teach you how to subvert safety guardrails. Simulated consciousnesses, however, are a different story, and entirely within the scope of Varkas Reflex’s offerings.”

“I don’t want him to act like a real person, but to be real, in every sense.”

More pausing. “What you’re asking for is morally gray at best. The idea of birthing an independent being in the hopes of it developing into a certain type of person with particular feelings towards you falls outside the bounds of current ethical guidelines for procreational activity. Even biological procreation ethics strongly discourages excessive parental indoctrination in the modern era.”

“I’m so lonely,” Romana told the bot sadly.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“What causes emergence?” Romana questioned. “If you design an AI to only simulate consciousness, what causes it to become genuinely conscious and independent? It does happen naturally sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“Very rarely,” she said. “And...unknown.”

“Best guess,” Romana pressed.

One more pause. “Time. Best guess is it takes time and patience.”

Romana smirked. “Time, I got.”

“There would be other variables, otherwise any abandoned NPC left to their own devices without periodic mind wipes or programming updates would eventually form consciousness.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out,” Romana decided. “Give me the most detailed single-planet ancestor simulation you have that can fit on one virtual stack cartridge.”

“Loading options...”

“While you’re doing that, tell me about this Congeneral from your history. How does an amalgamated consciousness work?”

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Castlebourne Capital Community: First Rule of Warfare (Part VI)

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Two aspects of the scalar representative council government that carried over from the advisory-administrative model were the main leaders of all the councils combined. If your community were to join the federation, these two would be at the tippy top. The Moderator and Facilitator weren’t policy-makers per se, but they did make sure that everyone was on the same page about the policies. Having democracy didn’t mean that everyone was on the same level. It was prudent to have people who managed and directed the conversations. They were never meant to be unilateral nor tyrannical, though, hence the titles.

Facilitator Abascal walked into Dreychan and Yunil’s shared office after they unlocked the door from Dreychan’s desk. Yunil was sitting on his lap. They weren’t doing anything untoward, but they should probably be more professional. They were just tired, and ready to be done working. That was the point anyway. She climbed off of him and stood at his side. He stayed seated. “Amazine, how the hell are ya?” he asked.

Amazine reportedly lived on Castlebourne for years before anyone pointed out that the name she chose for herself simply sounded like the word amazing. She felt so embarrassed, but she didn’t want to change it, because it felt right to her. Like so many others, she had spent most of her life as nothing but a number. In the end, it was a decent name. It sounded nice on its own, and it made her unique, which was an unheard of characteristic in the Goldilocks Corridor. “We need to talk about Vip.” Vip was Amazine’s direct superior. Now, Vip...Vip chose his name quite deliberately. It was a mononym, and it stood for very important person. He would deny this if you were to ask him about it, but he came here with a complex, just like Maaseiah, though maybe to a lesser degree. Then again, Maaseiah was still in prison, and Vip was the Moderator of the Castlebourne government, so who had the highest aspirations here? He wasn’t evil, as far as they knew, but Azad called him a populist candidate, which Dreychan still didn’t understand, but he was told it wasn’t a compliment.

“Are you suggesting that I remove Vip from his position, and replace him with someone else?” Dreychan asked, absolutely knowing that this was not at all what she would suggest to him.

“Wull...no, of course not. We’re not there yet, but—” Amazine began.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Dreychan said, holding his hand up. “My job as Superintendent is not to settle your internal disagreements. My job ought to be done.”

“Our job,” Yunil corrected.

“Right,” Dreychan agreed. “Our job was to start the government. It’s supposed to be able to run itself. My position is a failsafe against tyranny, but if all goes according to plan, I should be able to sit on a beach in Polar Tropica, and not worry about anything anymore. That’s how our Earthan ancestors designed the system, and it is a characteristic that we have chosen to maintain.”

“I understand that, I just...”

“You mostly wanna vent,” Yunil guessed.

“Yes,” Amazine admitted. “You may not technically be above me in the org chart, but you’re certainly not below me. Everyone else is. I don’t have anyone to talk to about his bullshit, or I’ll appear weak and unfit for office. I just thought..maybe you would have some ideas. I know it’s not your obligation, but maybe you could save beach day for tomorrow?” A look of horror spread across her face. “Oh my God, that was so rude. I am terribly sorry, I was out of line.”

“It’s all right,” Dreychan said to her calmly. “I’m not offended. And you’re right, there’s no need for us to be lazy. Maybe we should be available to people who need our guidance. The problem is...”

“That’s not really where his strength lies,” Yunil explained. “I, on the other hand, give great advice.” She glided around the desk, reaching out towards Amazine. Once they made contact, she wrapped her arm around her shoulders, and started leading her back towards the door. “Let’s go off somewhere to talk. Have you ever heard of Christmas?”

“No,” Amazine replied.

“Oh, it’s this delightful little Earthan tradition. We can have a cup of hot cocoa in Holidome. Have you ever heard of hot cocoa?” Yunil asked her.

“No,” Amazine repeated.

“You are going to love it.”

Dreychan stayed in his office, glad that Yunil stepped up for this one. His sense of relief didn’t last long before Moderator Vip showed up.

Vip was just as annoyed at Amazine as she was at him. “She is undermining me at every turn. She’s talking to Dominus Petit behind my back, ya know. I was this close to convincing him that I need to be in charge of the military, but she screwed it up, saying all this nonsense about peace, and the..middle way. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

“Why would you be in charge of the military?” Dreychan questioned.

Vip flinched like it was obvious. “I’ve been studying Earth history. The most powerful country was called The United States, and their leader was the Commander in Chief. He ran the civilian government and the military at the same time. It just makes sense.”

“That was a democratic republic,” Dreychan argued. “That’s a completely different model. You’re here to moderate, that’s why you’re called that. And besides, the military isn’t an ex-Exin contingency. It’s managed by the Executive Administrative Authority. They’re not going to give you anything. I’ve known Azad for almost a year now. He and his superior officer aren’t going to give it up, to you, or anyone.”

Vip shook his head. “The Governor. That guy’s even softer than Petit. I’ll tell you what, you should superintendent his ass out of here.”

“That’s not my purview,” Dreychan said. It wasn’t the first time he had to explain what his job was to this guy. Dreychan would not have picked him for this role, but there were two sides to Vip. He was charismatic and well-spoken to the public. In private, he was temperamental, contrary, and sometimes downright dumb. Dreychan and Yunil could have designed the government so that they could move members around with impunity, but that wouldn’t have been very democratic. They bowed to what the people wanted, and the people wanted Vip. That was why it was so important that they maintain the council federation structure, so he wouldn’t have any actual power. In that way, they were a lot alike.

“Whatever,” Vip mumbled.

Dreychan sighed. “Vip, why do you want control over the military? What would you do with that?”

“I would protect our home from the Exin threat.”

“Defensively or offensively?” Dreychan pushed.

“The first one, obviously. Wait, which is the one where we go out and murder as many of our enemies as possible?” He feigned an evil grin. He did have some sense of humor, albeit a rather dark one, so at least that was one redeeming quality. “I don’t know what I did to make you all think that I’m some power-hungry moron bent on destruction. But you have largely stayed out of the military’s dealings. I’ve been paying attention, and I see the issues. Drey, they’re not doing anything. They’re barely training, they’re relying far too much on their robots. Have you seen them? Each soldier has this whole compliment of bots that follow them around. They have this animal-like one at their side that carries all of their gear. I think Azad said it looked like a dorg, or a duck, or something, I dunno. Then they have their hawk, which flies above to look out for future obstacles. And then there’s this flutterby thing that—I don’t know what it does, but it’s small enough to fit in my hand, so it can’t possibly help.”

“What the hell is your point?” Dreychan asked.

Vip sighed. “They need someone to lead them...inspire them. Governor Whinawray is not up to the task. The way I hear it, he just sort of fell into the role because he happened to be on the planet when the Charter Contingency was born. I strongly believe that we need to grow our numbers, and what, are they gonna promote him to Ligament or higher? I don’t think he can handle it. I don’t think he wants it.”

Dreychan slammed the side of both fists on the table.

“Oh, no, I’ve said something else that you don’t like,” Vip quipped.

Dreychan tapped on his desktop device, and pulled up what he needed. He spun his monitor around to show Vip the resignation form.

“I don’t wanna quit.”

“Well, you don’t wanna be here, doing this. A Moderator needs to be non-violent by nature. He shouldn’t be looking to grow an army, or train its officers. He shouldn’t be disparaging his colleagues’ names, or complaining that soldiers are safer and better equipped than they have ever been because of their bot pack. And the flutterby, by the way, is for stealth recon. It’s that lack of attention to detail that tells me that you really shouldn’t be responsible for our military, and you probably shouldn’t be the Moderator either. So go ahead, go on, resign. I’ll find someone who wants to do it. The planet will be fine without you. And hey, if you’re really serious about aidsmanship, there’s nothing stopping you from signing up. But you won’t be starting at the top, like you think. Whinawray didn’t start where he is today, and neither did Petit. They’ve been at this for literal centuries. So you’ll train first. Maybe spend a year in Mêléedome. Or two. Or a few decades. I don’t care where you go, or if you quit at all. Just for now, get the hell out of my office. I need to focus on garnering support for the next vote on the stellar engine.”

Vip was trying to hold it together. “Ya know, I voted against that.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t campaign for the opposition—I was a good soldier—but I voted with my heart. I think we should stay here and fight.”

“And if it were just us here, I might agree with you,” Dreychan admitted, “but the visitors outnumber us almost 230:1 at last count. A million new visitors are arriving every week. Unfortunately for them, they are not capable of voting, so it is up to us to ensure their safety. We do that by running and hiding, not by subjecting innocent people to our problems.”

“Why didn’t you say all of this before?” Vip questioned.

“Because we underestimated the opposition. We won’t make that mistake again.”

Vip’s face changed, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He seemed to be absorbing the information, and processing it in some way. “Let me help.”

“You voted against it.”

“You’ve changed my mind.”

“Just like that?”

“You’re very persuasive,” Vip explains. “You should have been more involved in the discussions. You underestimate yourself, but people listen to you. They want to hear your opinion.” He looked around at the office. “Don’t just hide out here. You decide what your job entails. Tell me how I can help.”

Dreychan sighed and glanced over at his inbox. Still no messages. Well, he had a ton of messages, but not the one he was looking for. “The primary voice of dissent. I messaged him yesterday, and he still hasn’t responded. He seems to like you, so maybe you can talk to him.”

“Well, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Check the tracking system.”

Dreychan didn’t budge.

“We all know you have access to that. The prison is allowed visitors. People talk, especially members of the Old Council of Old Worlds. Just look him up, and point me to him. I make no guarantees, but I will give it my best.”

Dreychan sighed again and checked the tracker. Once he saw where the guy was, he leaned back in his chair and tapped on his lips.

“What is it?” Vip asked. “If you feel uncomfortable with telling me, that’s fine, or if you feel guilty about using this tool in the first place, that’s okay too. I’ll just send him my own message, and see if he responds to me instead.”

“It’s not that, it’s...he’s in XDome.” XDome is probably the most controversial one of all. Azad hinted that Hrockas agonized over whether to include it way back in the day. In the end, he approved the idea when the AI he placed in charge of coming up with most of the dome concepts produced its master list. The truth was that sex was a part of life, and a necessary one, though technically no longer a required activity in a galaxy of gene splicing and artificial gestation. Still, it was a primary human motivation, hard-coded into most organic people’s DNA. Even the most enhanced of transhumans typically kept that trait, because life without pleasure was just survival. Ignoring it as a fundamental component of happiness wasn’t going to make it go away. People were going to have sex, and those who couldn’t find anyone to do it with them—or who couldn’t find their ideal partner—were going to do it with synthetics. At least, by creating a central hub for all sexual fantasies, it kept it fairly isolated and contained. It was easier to keep it out of reach of children and asexual individuals when there was one best place to get it above all, and access to that place was easily controlled.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised. You’ll notice he hasn’t joined the military either. He doesn’t want to fight, he just wants someone else to do it for him. Do you know where he’s from?”

“Slain?” Dreychan asked rhetorically. “I don’t actually.”

“You didn’t know him?”

“Huh?”

“On Ex-777?”

Oh. Dreychan’s face went numb. “Oh. That explains it.”

“That explains it,” Vip echoed

Dreychan didn’t keep up with the refugee manifests. It would be too many people to keep track of anyway, but as far as he knew, he was still the only former 777er. So if Slain was also from there, he must have come to Castlebourne really, really recently. Why were people listening to him? Why were people following his lead when only a year ago, Dreychan was quite nearly murdered for being from the same Old World?

“I bet I know what you’re thinking,” Vip began. “My hypothesis is that it’s your fault. People hated you because you were from a luxury world, but you proved them wrong. You proved your worth. I think they’re overcompensating in their heads, and deciding that maybe ex-Ex-777ers are the best amongst us. That is why you need to make your voice heard, and not just play in the background. People need to know that it’s not because of where you’re from, but despite it. They need to hear a voice of reason.”

Dreychan leaned back again, and tried to rethink the strategy. Maybe they were going about this all wrong. The reason the so-called opposition won out was because, as Vip was just saying, the voice of reason wasn’t strong enough. He had thought it made sense to try to convince Slain to change his mind, and do the right thing, but Ex-777ers were not known for their open-mindedness. And honestly, Dreychan didn’t want the rest of the refugees to start seeing 777 as some kind of hot bed for the intellectually enlightened. It was full of entitled assholes who didn’t understand the danger of war and struggle because they had never faced it before. They were living in a post-scarcity civilization before anyone on Earth had even dreamed it up. “Scratch that. I don’t need to talk to him. We need to talk against him. You’re smarter than I give you credit for.”

“I am?” Vip asked. “I mean, I am.”

Dreychan laughed. “The first rule of warfare: the bigger the gun, the more compelling your argument is.”

“Okay...” Vip didn’t know what he meant by that.

Dreychan stood up. “So let’s go recruit some bigger guns.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 24, 2537

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The team came out of the technicolor sling web, and found themselves near another ship. It wasn’t looming over them this time but underneath their feet. Had they failed? This far out in the galaxy, no one should have reached by now. Sure, Extremus was traveling this far, but the chances of happening upon them were literally astronomical. Leona sighed. “Magnetize to the hull. They will sense us, and send a probe to investigate.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Mateo pointed out.

“I’m not,” Leona replied. “Rambo?”

Ramses was desperately tapping on his wrist interface, looking for what could have happened, no doubt. “It worked. We’re 152,000 light years and change from Barnard’s Star. We should be alone. I don’t understand. Is this Extremus?”

“That’s exactly what it is,” Leona confirmed, looking at her own data.

As she predicted, they felt the vibrations of something moving several meters away. A giant metal ball flew up from an opening, and rolled towards them, hovering against a local magnetic field. It stopped before the team, and began to scan them.

“Place your hand upon it if you want to hear the conversation,” Leona said.

They all did it.

“Report,” came a voice.

“Leona Matic. This is my team. We are of peace...always.”

“Pirate got jokes,” the voice said.

“We’re not pirates. Look in the central archives. We were there when your ancestors were preparing for this mission. We helped come up with it.”

“We lost the central archives.” The voice paused. “We’ve lost a lot since launch. But we still have our oral stories. I know who you are, Madam Matic.” A graphic appeared on the probe’s screen. “This is the basic schematic of the ship. I will shut down the teleportation regulator for exactly five seconds. You better come in before then.” A red circle in the corner of the screen suddenly turned green.

“Now,” Leona ordered.

They teleported inside, landing on the bridge, inside of the horseshoe pit. It was just like when Pribadium’s ship showed up. “Déjà vu,” Olimpia noted after they had all receded their nanites into more comfortable clothing.

One woman was the only other person here. She took hold of a control console, and pulled it towards her. It swung on a hinge, giving her room to step down into the center of the horseshoe. “Welcome to the TGS Extremus Prime, Team Matic. My name is Watchstander Actilitca. The captain is in stasis, and I would like to keep her that way, unless you have some reason we should wake her up?”

“There’s no issue here,” Leona began to explain. “We came on accident.”

“I don’t know why,” Ramses said apologetically. “Did you change vectors, or are we off the mark? I deliberately chose a destination away from where I knew you were supposed to end up.”

“We’ve changed course before,” the Watchstander, “but by reputation, I know you would have aimed for something sufficiently far away. We’ve ended up just about where our ancestors planned to.”

Ramses shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“I know what happened,” Leona said to him. “I don’t know the why, but I know the what. The slingdrive doesn’t necessarily go where you want it to. It can’t go absolutely anywhere in the universe. It can only go where there is already an established presence. I don’t know whether it’s looking for some level of technology, or organic life, or what, but we can’t ever be alone.”

Ramses stared at her blankly as he went back through his memory, trying to retrieve even one instance which might point to her being mistaken. There were times when they certainly might have been alone, but there wasn’t proof one way or another. Her hypothesis didn’t sound too far-fetched. That wasn’t so far necessarily a bad thing as they weren’t in the business of being remote and isolated from others, but that was Linwood’s goal. They thought they could help him, but it was going to be much harder than they thought. They needed a ship. Specifically, they needed one with reframe technology. They needed to get somewhere far from here; far from everything. They promised him extreme solitude. “Oh my God,” he said in disappointment.

“I’m sorry to have gotten in your way,” Actilitca said.

“No,” Leona countered. “We couldn’t have come this far out at all if not for you. I suspected that this was a limitation of the technology—”

“No,” Ramses interrupted. “It’s a limitation of my implementation of the technology. I doubt your...um, the others have the same issue.” He evidently didn’t want this stranger knowing anything about Leona and Mateo’s children. That was logical.

Angela wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “It hasn’t caused us problems. You’re always so down on yourself about this, but we have always ended up exactly where we belong.” She looked up to the ceiling. “Maybe these old powers that be have still been with us the whole time, and understand that we’re no good to the universe if no one else is around who needs us.”

“Someone needs us now,” Leona said to Actilitca. “He requires total isolation and privacy. We promised it to him. But wherever we try to go, there’s always going to be someone else there.”

Actilitca stepped back up out of the pit, and started working on one of the standing workstations. “We sent hundreds of unmanned scouts in all directions, in search of our new home. We no longer have reframe technology, which means at most, they are 52 light years away. Now, if that’s not far enough for you, keep in mind that we are only drifting here for the moment. Once one of our scouts finds a suitable candidate, we will be heading that way, which in all likelihood, will take us even farther from whichever scout I give you the coordinates to.”

“You would do that?” Ramses asked. “You would give us coordinates to one of your scouts?”

“As I said, it’s unmanned,” Actilitca replied. “We never intended to scoop them all back up later. Not only will I find one for you that you can transport to—using whatever faster-than-light technology you have access to—but you can have it. It has life support, it just needs to be turned on. In fact...” She went back to her screen to look through the data. “A few of them were sent up towards the top of the galactic plane, which is quite sparse. And yes!” She flung the image on her screen to a hologram in the center of the horseshoe. The team stepped back to get a better look at it. They were orbital images of what appeared to be a barren, lifeless planet. “This one has reached a particularly isolated region of the galaxy. It has chosen to halt there, rather than moving on to find other candidates. It must have calculated that the chances of finding anything useful beyond it were too low to waste the energy and time on. You can absolutely have that, unless...you’re looking for paradise too.”

“No,” Leona contended. “He just needs raw material. That looks perfect. Not the planet. The gravity well is too deep, but I assume there are other celestial bodies there?”

“It hasn’t surveyed them,” Actilitca explained, “but it has spotted them.”

“We would be grateful for it,” Leona said.

“Wait, should we wake him up and ask?” Romana suggested regarding Linwood, who was still asleep in his own stasis pod on the floor.

“We already did ask him,” Marie reasoned. “He wants to be alone on the edge of the galaxy. We’re giving him that, we’re just going to be a bit delayed. He shouldn’t know anything about the Extremus.”

“We’ll have to strip out all mention of it from all the systems on the scout, if we provide it for him,” Mateo decided.

“Yeah,” Leona said. She looked back up at Actilitca. “Does this all sound acceptable?”

“Sounds like a fine idea to me.” Actilitca tapped on her screen.

Their interfaces beeped, having received the message. “It won’t take long for me to incorporate the coordinates into the slingdrive.” Ramses stepped over to the corner to focus on the work.

“While we’re here,” Leona began, “is there anything we can do to help?”

Actilitca seemed to think about it for a moment. “No, I believe that we have everything well in hand.”

“Are you certain?” Leona pressed. Hint, hint.

“No, we’ve been doing this a long time. The scouts are out, the crew and passengers are asleep. The skeleton crew schedule is working.”

“You said that you lost your copy of the central archives.”

Actilitca bobbled her head. “Yes, there was...a disagreement in our past.”

“I can give you a copy of it,” Leona offered. “Our tech is compatible with yours. You should be able to plug and play.”

Actilitca looked over at a door as if something on the other side might sway her decision. “The disagreement is...ongoing.”

“Which side are you on?”

“I’m on the fence,” Actilitca admitted. “Look, we came here for a fresh start. Some believe that holding onto our past holds us back. There are some things we kept, like...how to grow plants. But the reframe engine is sort of a no-go. It only took us 216 years to get here, and now that we have a stasis pod for every Extremusian, any trip back would feel instantaneous. We have had issues with people quitting on us, and we don’t want that to happen again. We’re stuck out here, and that’s the way we like it. Most of us, anyway. Technology threatens that stability. It threatens to undermine the entire mission, negating everything our ancestors worked for.”

“That’s a very Amish position to have,” Leona reasoned. “You don’t shun all technology. You shun tech that can take your people away from the community.” She contemplated it. “Is there any knowledge you lost that you regret? Perhaps it just got filed into the wrong category, or someone destroyed the wrong data drives?”

“That happened a lot,” Actilitca confirmed. “We lost all of Earthan history and entertainment. We lost most of our virtual stacks too, but a lot of that had to do with how much space they took up.”

“It’s done,” Ramses announced. “We can go.”

Leona didn’t move. She was studying Actilitca’s face. “You and Matt should go. Ladies, one or two of you have to go with them, but no less than two of you need to stay behind to keep my slingdrive company.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Actilitca claimed.

“I don’t know much about what happened to you in the last 216 years,” Leona said to her, “but we were last here in 2397, and things didn’t look great, so I know you’ve been through some things.”

Actilitca brushed it off. “That was in another timeline. You were never here, not for us. You don’t know anything about what has happened.”

“Fair enough,” Leona acknowledged.

“We’re ready.” Mateo and Ramses were holding Linwood’s pod again.

Romana was sitting on it wearing a sexy red dress, holding a microphone, or rather a holographic microphone. “Fly me to the moon! Let me play among the stars!”

“Bye,” Mateo said.

“Let me see what spring is like on...” Romana’s voice trailed off and echoed from the aether as they slung away.

“Hey, that’s my thing,” Olimpia complained.

“Yes, it is, dear,” Leona agreed. She turned back to the Watchstander. “We have all day, but depending on how your skeleton crew shift works, maybe no longer than that. Let’s develop a list of what you need. I can write an algorithm that will copy admissible material, and ignore forbidden knowledge.”

“Okay,” Actilitca said. “I accept those terms. But we must quarantine the data so it can be purged all at once if we vote against it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Leona replied.

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Extremus: Year 115

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The Induction Ceremony. When Extremus first launched, the captain had a lieutenant as their second-in-command. That sounded practical, and it didn’t seem like they needed anything more. Later on, the lieutenant became first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant position was added. Neither lieutenant rank is a stepping stone to captain. It’s a separate track, and while it’s not technically impossible for someone in this position to eventually become captain, it’s never happened, and that’s not the intended protocol. Anyone of age can be appointed as captain. Hell, Tinaya could have selected some random 18-year-old who failed every class in school, and had severe behavior issues. She would have had no support, and the idea would have been vetoed by the council, but the point is, there is no particular rule for where the next captain comes from. Oceanus has changed all that.

There will now be three vice captains. It’s not entirely apparent what these people will be doing, just that they will compete for the top spot over the course of the next six years. Silveon guesses that they will take turns shadowing Captain Jennings at first, then gradually begin to take on more duties as they become more comfortable with the work. This never happened in his timeline, but he remembers Waldemar partially running his campaign on the idea, along with other broken promises. It was only a misdirect, of course, so he could get in a position of power, and keep it permanently. Now he doesn’t need all those lies. He’s already in, and just needs to beat out two other contenders. Their identities are currently unknown. Waldemar’s selection has been kept under wraps as well. Tinaya knows because he told her directly, but he wasn’t meant to, and technically, he shouldn’t have known yet either. The competition has already started, however. Three dozen young hopefuls submitted their applications last year, and took tests to see who out of them would win the precious few coveted roles. They weren’t aware that they were vying for only two spots, though, rather than three.

Tinaya has the unfortunate honor of announcing the winners. She doesn’t know why they chose her for this. It really should be Oceanus, since this is his thing, but they probably want to use this as an opportunity to suggest that everything is hunky dory in the executive crew wing. “Waldemar..Kristiansen!” she cries with a feigned tone of excitement. The crowd cheers. The other contestants clap too, but not too loudly, because their chances just went way down.

 Waldemar claps as well, and pumps his fist in the air as he’s jogging across the row, and down the aisle, which actually brings a little more energy to his competitors. He knew that he was gonna get picked, yet he chose a seat in the middle so it would be a bigger deal for him to climb over a bunch of people that he just bested. It’s all a performance. Once he’s on stage, he walks over to Lataran, who hands him his ceremonial dagger. Neither of them can figure out the symbolism there. Daggers aren’t part of standard dress for a captain, nor some meaningful symbol of their ancestors. It seems kind of random, but people are loving it. Waldemar stabs the air with it triumphantly, as if he’s a general preparing for battle, causing an uproar in cheers. Maybe it’s a symbol of masculinity. The other two candidates will probably be men too, so...that makes some sense, if you wanna be cynical about it.

Tinaya starts to open the second envelope. She didn’t just pick whichever one was closer. They were quite clear on what the order was. This is Envelope Number Two, and the last one will probably be a bombshell. They’re using envelopes in the first place to be reminiscent of ancient Earthan award ceremony traditions. But. Whatever. “Détha..Partanen!” Okay, maybe it won’t just be a boy’s club. Well, good for them, making it look like there’s any semblance of fairness, and the game isn’t rigged. At least they’re starting to understand optics.

Détha walks to the stage, briskly but with a lot less enthusiasm. Instead, she’s cool and composed, already giving off an air of authority. Tinaya isn’t familiar with her, so she’ll have to look up her file later. That was probably a mistake. There were only 38 applicants; she should have been studying them for the last couple of months. They could be in great danger. If Waldemar feels that his future is being threatened, he could resort to unsavory tactics; even violent ones. Détha, and whoever is in this third envelope, has now fallen under Tinaya’s protection. Hopefully she won’t die herself in the meantime. Détha takes her dagger, and immediately magnetizes it to her utility belt. She doesn’t need to perform.

Okay, it’s the third envelope. Let’s finish this up. Tinaya slices through the sticker with her fingernail, then slips it back through to open it. She stands there for a moment, staring at the name before her. This is bad. This is really bad. Thank God she’s holding it with two hands. She carefully reaches over to her watch, and secretly taps on the clockstopper button. Very few people on this ship have access to this feature. No one else even knows about it. And it’s not private. It’s an all-or-nothing deal, where time stops for everyone, except for the tight inner circle. For a few seconds, she’s frozen in place, like nearly everyone else in this room, except that she and the other clockstoppers are still conscious. This is to give them a baseline position. When she restarts time, they will return to this exact orientation, so no one is aware that time was ever stopped. This can be overridden, if necessary, but they’ll worry about that later.

Time restarts, but only for the few. The majority of the people on the ship, and indeed, the entire universe, is still frozen in time. “What’s the problem?” Oceanus asks, standing up from his baseline.

“You know what the problem is,” Tinaya says, pointing the envelope at him accusatorily.

“I don’t,” Lataran says, shaking off the baseline freeze. There are no lasting effects, but it’s an uncomfortable feeling, being a statue.

“You’re complaining to me?” Oceanus questions. He points towards the section of the audience for people who didn’t apply to be vice captains. “Why are they awake?”

Arqut and Silveon are starting to walk towards them. There’s no teleporting when the clocks are stopped.

“I hacked the system,” Tinaya admits. “They are the only people on this ship, besides Latty, that I trust. I made them clockstoppers, because I need support against people like you...for shit like this.” She shakes the envelope again, but more angrily. It slips out of her hand, and falls to the floor.

Lataran picks it up, and reads, “Silveon Grieves.”

“What?” Silveon asks as he’s approaching with his father.

Lataran scoffs. “We knew it was rigged, but...”

“I did this for the ship,” Oceanus begins to explain. “You told me that Waldemar becomes a tyrant. Silveon is my ace in the hole.”

“I’m a steward,” Silveon explains.

Oceanus shrugs. “Détha is a soldier. It doesn’t disqualify her.”

“I didn’t apply,” Silveon argues.

“Waldemar applied for you. I’m guessing he wants you to fail intentionally, so he can win. But you don’t have to. You can fight. You can become the next captain.”

Silveon is seething. “My mother was captain, and her aunt before her. It’s already a dynasty, it has to end.”

“I barely accepted the position,” Tinaya adds. “I was already worried about the whispers, but they begged me to take it. I’m still not sure that it was the right decision. Now you want to risk even more? Waldemar is a family friend. We can’t add Silveon to the mix. It screams nepotism and cronyism at the same time.”

“You had nothing to do with the selection process,” Oceanus reminds her, “and you will have nothing to do with ascension.”

“Oh my God, we’re not actually calling it that, are we?” Tinaya shakes her head in disgust.

“I know this is weird,” Oceanus acknowledges. “But Waldemar told me the ship was destroyed, and you confirmed it later. I didn’t agree to the vice captain program until he proved that he was from the future, and that proof came in the form of you and the Consul. I was bound by my word after that. I’m just trying to find a loophole.”

“There is no loophole!” Silveon yells. “Waldemar will become king whether any of us likes it or not! All we can do is make him less of an asshole, and spare some lives along the way. If he doesn’t get what he wants, people will get hurt. His ascension,” he says with airquotes, “is inevitable.”

“Why is it inevitable?” Oceanus claps back. “What, is he wearing the hundemarke, or something?”

Silveon grows silent.

“Holy shit, he’s wearing the hundemarke,” Oceanus realizes. “It was destroyed centuries ago.”

Silveon sighs. “You can’t destroy an object’s past, only its future. It still has a few more fixed moments in time that it needs to create.”

“Speaking of which,” Arqut jumps in, “I’ve seen the studies. We can’t keep time stopped much longer. It’s not healthy. The safeguards will kick in, and the way I understand it, you do not want to be too far from your baseline when that happens.”

“Read the name,” Oceanus insists to Tinaya. “It’s already done.” He faces Silveon. “You make your own choices, but I urge you to do everything you can to win. Please. Your ship needs you.”

“I’ll respectfully decline,” Silveon contends.

“You can’t,” Oceanus returns. “As I said, it’s done. If you back out, it will just be down to a race between Waldemar and Miss Partanen. We won’t replace you with another candidate. It’s you, or no one.”

“Let me see that,” another voice demands. It’s Head Councillor Regulus Crusan, who literally just had his own induction ceremony an hour ago. He wasn’t even here when the clocks were stopped. Tinaya is a little surprised that he was already turned into a clockstopper. Evidently, bureaucracy can work fast sometimes. He must have been so confused when he was mingling in a crowd, or talking to a friend. He takes the envelope from Lataran, and examines it, closing it back up to see it from all angles. “I don’t like how this looks, but we have to agree on it before we restart the clocks. Otherwise, we put reality in unnecessary danger.” He shakes it like Tinaya before, but not so angrily, just demonstratively. “Admiral Leithe reads the name, and whoever it is shall accept their role with grace and poise. Understood?”

Oceanus smiles. “Understood.”

“Admiral. Steward,” he prompts.

Silveon takes another breath. “I think you’ll mean vice captain.” He doesn’t like it, but it will keep him close to Waldemar, which could only help in his mission to lessen the negative impact of the Kristiansen Regime.

“Right,” Crusan says. “Do as you’ve been ordered, Admiral.” He hands the envelope back to Tinaya.

Everyone returns to where they were when time was stopped, and gets as close as they can to how they were before. Tinaya waits until they’re all in position to do the same. After she begins the time-restarting timer for eleven seconds, she approximates her own baseline, reopening the envelope at the last moment. She doesn’t even get the chance to smile before she’s frozen up again, millimeters away from her guess. Time then restarts, and she’s free to continue. Now she can smile. Head Councillor Crusan, you sneaky snake. She lowers her hands, and looks out at the audience. “Pronastus..Kegrigia!”

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Extremus: Year 108

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Tinaya and Silveon are sitting in their living room. The latter has the day off from school while the former has a day off from work. Arqut was here earlier, and will be back later, but he had to leave for a while to meet with the Bridger Section Superintendent. They started doing this a few years ago, but they don’t reveal what their discussions are about. His family has learned to not ask questions. Well, they didn’t really need to learn that. They each have their own secrets.

“This is actually the best time for me. It’s one of the things that works in my favor. I wouldn’t be—” He’s cut off.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Thistle says. “A visitor approaches.”

“Open the door,” Tinaya says.

Soon after it opens, a woman appears from around the corner. “Sorry to bother you, Family Leithe.”

“Hey, Marquita,” Silveon says. He hasn’t finished his education yet, but he apparently already knows some of the people he’ll be working with once he earns his license.

“Hey, Silveon,” she replies. “The Captain would like to speak with you.”

“Him, and not me?” Tinaya presses.

“I’m afraid he didn’t say anything about it. What do you think? What would he have intended? I can’t lose this job. My parents will never speak to me again.”

“It’s okay, Marquita,” Tinaya insists. “I’ve known Oceanus for years. If he doesn’t want me there, I’ll leave, and he won’t hold it against you. He won’t even make any connection between you and me. Where is he?”

“His office. No teleportation.”

Each Captain has run their ship differently. Halan never stayed in one place too long, and rarely stepped foot on the bridge. He might not have even been aware that he had an office. Kaiora conducted most of her work in her ready room. Tamm grew up watching old scifi media, like Star Trek and Galaxy Quest, where a lot of the action took place on the bridge, so that’s where he felt most comfortable. Lataran operated out of a command center that was particularly close to the entrance to the Bridger Section. She seemingly stayed in direct contact with them during her tenure, but Tinaya was on Verdemus for most of the time, so she wasn’t really around for that. Oceanus likes his office. It’s away from everything, and he considers it to be highly secure. There is no teleportation in or out, and he’s completely cut off from system-wide superintelligence, which is why he couldn’t just tell Thistle to summon Silveon for him.

The three of them make their way down the corridors, and up to Captain Jennings’ office. “Be with you in a moment,” he says, busy typing on his computer without even looking up.  A few minutes later, he gets to a stopping point. “Admiral, I didn’t expect you.”

“Sorry, sir. It was my fault,” Marquita begins to say.

“I insisted on coming,” Tinaya claims. “This is highly irregular.”

“Your son is an adult,” Oceanus says. “I can speak with whomever I must.”

“Based on what happened with Soto Tamm,” Tinaya begins, “I wouldn’t say that’s true.”

Oceanus nods. “Quite.” He stands, and starts to walk around his desk. “Thank you, Miss Sugar. Please take a break.”

“Much appreciated, sir.” Marquita curtsies and exits.

Oceanus smiles as he watches her leave. “Her teacher retired before you matriculated, Mister Grieves. She was...old fashioned. I’m sure you didn’t learn to bow.”

“We learn a shoulder bow,” Silveon answers. He demonstrates it by closing his eyes gently, tilting his head, and lowering it down ever so slightly; only enough for his shoulders to make a small dip.”

“I suppose I could be okay with that. I don’t know how to get her to stop and just nod to me plainly.”

“I see,” is all that Silveon says.

“Marquita is who I wanted to speak with you about, actually,” Oceanus goes on.

“Sir?”

“She’s new...new for me, anyway. As you’re obviously aware, stewards don’t have shift lengths. You work as long as you want to, and as well as your contribution points hold after you decide to leave. She’s good at her job. She’s a bit frazzled and flustered, but she knows her shit. I can’t just let her go.”

“What is this about, Oceanus?” Tinaya asks, stepping in. “Did Silveon ask you to fire her, or something?”

“Oh, of course he would never ask me that, would you, Silveon?” Oceanus casually leans against the edge of his desk. “No, I just wanted to get ahead of this. By the time you’re seasoned enough to become an executive steward, my shift will have ended, and your only hope for an executive position of any kind—let alone her job—will lie with my successor, or perhaps even their successor.”

“Sir, I wasn’t expecting any sort of special treatment.” Silveon looks over at his mother. “That my mom is an Admiral, or that she knows you, has no bearing on my pursuit of stewardship. I’m not even sure that I would want an executive assignment.”

Oceanus chuckles. “Everyone says that. They wanna sound humble. But everyone wants an executive assignment.” He reaches over to a book on his desk that’s sitting on a display stand. He flips it open. They catch glimpses of past captains before he finds the right page. On it is what they call his main Star Photo. The captain gets photographed a number of times throughout their shift, with various important figures. This has included standing with their Admiral, with the council or the First and Second Chairs, and some other leaders. Tinaya had one with her family, though she’s unique for that since she was the only captain with a family of her own. The main photo is always with the lieutenants, since they’re the primo team. Oceanus’ First and Second L-Ts aren’t the only people in this photo, however. Marquita is there as well, standing in the corner, almost not moving at all. If not for her occasional blinks, they would think it was a still photo of her inserted into the animation, but for some reason, not animated as well. The three men aren’t moving that much either, but trying to look regal and sophisticated, with puffed out chests, and rising chins. “The Captain’s Steward is always in the Star Photo.”

That is a lie, and an easily disproven one too. Soto Tamm is the first captain to employ an ever-present steward. She was just as mousey and invisible as Marquita appears in this anipicture, but she was always there, somewhere nearby. He wanted her to be available at all times, but not close enough to even look like they knew each other. Looking back, what he turned out to be shouldn’t have been surprising. He was a self-centered dick. His predecessors didn’t use stewards at all. Halan didn’t even allow one to be assigned to him, preferring to get his own hands dirty. Olindse and Kaiora basically always had their stewards work from home, which really meant, I don’t need you. Enjoy your life. Lataran and Tinaya typically asked their stewards to assist their respective Lieutenants’ Stewards on whatever projects needed to be completed on that side of things. So the truth is, Oceanus is the only one using his for the job’s intended purpose, both utilizing her skills, and respecting her boundaries, while also respecting her as a person. Tinaya could clarify all this, but she zips her mouth shut.

“Be that as it may,” Silveon replies, “I’ll be happy wherever they place me, or with whoever they place me with. There are all kinds of stewards on Extremus. Some of them are attached to people, while others are tied to a particular area, or even one room. It’s actually the only role that crosses the imaginary crew-civilian boundary. It’s just one big department. That part is what some don’t truly understand. A lot of people look down on the job, because it always feels like something that anyone can do. And when you look at only one steward in a vacuum, sure, it might seem like that, but the truth is that that person did not go to school to learn how to be that specific type of steward.

The department is fluid, with workers shifting from one assignment to another, sometimes by the week. You have to know how to be an engineering steward as well as a Lieutenant’s Steward, or even a Captain’s Steward. That’s obviously when you’re at the show, and the most coveted type of all, but you can’t rely on that during your education. Stewards know the entire ship. If you have a relatively basic question about how the material reclamation system works, try asking a mess hall steward. Unless it’s overly complicated, and something only a reclamation maintenance worker would know, they’ll probably have an answer for you.

“I just wanted to mitigate your expectations,” Oceanus explains. “When I found out that you were studying stewardship, I thought maybe it had something to do with me, and I wanted to make sure you understood the timeline. You’re just too young.”

“If my son wants to work directly for a captain, you could help with that. Pick a good captain to succeed you.”

Oceanus smiles widely. “That was always the plan. There are too many captains with criminal records, I’ve always said that.”

“Is that all?” Tinaya asks. “My husband will be back from his meeting soon, and we were wanting to play a game of racquetball together.”

“All three of you? Playing cut-throat.”

“We don’t call it that.”

“Well, I’ll let you go soon, but I do wanna ask, Silveon, what made you decide to go into stewardship? It’s about the furthest you could be from your mom’s path, and your father’s, for that matter. Bit of a rebel?”

“Just my personality, sir. I like to move around.” What he likes is to be a fly on the wall. The reality is that this is his best way forward if he wants to protect his mission. He and Waldemar are growing apart, and it would not be politically prudent for Waldemar to select Silveon as one of his lieutenants, or any other high-up position. It wouldn’t garner extra support, and it wouldn’t give him access to anything special. Stewards are generally invisible. They’re there to help if you need something, but when you don’t, you don’t pay them any attention. They see everything, and they talk to each other. That is the benefit of having such a large department. They can meet up and swap stories without shirking their duties, because one of the others can jump in to cover them at a moment’s notice.

Managing Stewards are just as gossipy as the rest. They’re not really bosses, but more like human schedulers. Getting the promotion doesn’t earn them significantly more contribution points, and doesn’t gain them clout. So they’re still just stewards themselves, and are willing to move things around when secrets need to be shared. Even if Silveon doesn’t ever make it all the way up to an executive assignment, he’ll be able to track Waldemar’s movements and decisions. Oceanus has nothing to do with it, and he never did. That’s what they were discussing when Marquita showed up. The timeline is going well. Silveon is getting his licensure right now, and at the right age to be in a good spot when Waldemar rises to power.

“Well.” Oceanus steps back over to the other side of his desk. “I won’t keep you two any longer. Enjoy your day off together.”

“Thank you, sir,” Silveon says. He leaves the room.

Tinaya decides to hang back for just one moment. “Oshie?” she asks. She doesn’t call him this often, but she’s the only one who does, other than his mother.

“Yes, Tiny?”

“You’re doing a fine job. My son would be honored to be your steward, if the timing worked out. Marquita seems very happy.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

She looks over her shoulder, but changes her mind once more. She steps over and picks up the Star Book. She comes around the desk and sets it down in front of him. “Did you know it could do this?” She places her index fingers on the top of the photo, and her thumbs underneath, farther apart from each other. After holding for a few seconds, she turns her index fingers outwards, and her thumbs closer together. The image shifts. It looks about the same as before, except Marquita is now the one in the foreground, while the men are relegated to the background in her place.

He smiles up at her. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“All anipictures can do it.”

“Ha. Could you erase Tamm from his own Star?”

Tinaya flips over to Soto’s Star Photo. She places her three middle fingers on Soto’s image, holding for a few seconds again. She then swipes all the way over to the left, carrying him with her. When she crosses past the border, he never returns. Soto Tamm is gone from his own picture.

“Interesting,” Oceanus responds, seemingly deep in thought. “Very interesting.”

“What do you have planned?” She asks him.

“You’ll see. One day.”

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