Chapter Text

For the first time in millennia, the ship awoke.

Awoke, for though it was not sapient, it nevertheless possessed some degree of sentience, was something more than simple machine. Awoke, for though it was not fully alive and aware, its makers had been beings of experience and joy, and had done their best to make joy available to all things within their reach, even their tools.

It awoke, because the Key had returned.

The ship quivered. It was a necessary process, and a mechanical one—a brief surge of energy through lines long dormant, a diagnostic flexing of hinges. Outwardly—had there been any to see, down there in the deep and endless dark—it appeared almost to perk up, after the fashion of a dog hearing the jingle of keys outside the door. This was no coincidence—no mere accident of projection—for its makers had wanted it to be capable of something like excitement, and had shaped its outward expression to match its inward mood. It could not know what was next—could not in any specific fashion predict or anticipate. But it knew that something was happening, and with that knowledge came an eagerness of sorts. A desire to please, a thrill of something like purpose.

As much as the ship could want, it wanted to help, and there had been so little to do for so very, very long.

Gently, carefully, the ship settled back into the soft, silty sediment of its bed, making sure not to disturb the lifeline that snaked away beneath it into the crack of the geothermal vent. The Key was approaching slowly, meanderingly, as if uncertain, or perhaps in need of help—

The ship sent out a signal.

The Key paused in its approach—paused, and seemed to wiggle, then resumed its slow and fitful progress.

The ship sent out a sound.

The Key paused again, longer this time.

The ship turned on a light.

There, it might have thought, had it had the ability. Since it did not, it felt only a warm glow of pleasure, a shadow of pride and accomplishment. The Key had begun moving again, and its progress was rapid, and direct.

The holder of the Key was a shape the ship did not recognize, for it had spent only a very short time in the water before its masters had sent it to sleep. But it had tentacles—ten of them! Two of them longer!—and a long, dartlike body with two bright circles the ship recognized as eyes. It was a fascinating creature—

—in historical fact because the ship’s makers had instructed the ship to record, and analyze, but in so doing they had sought to teach their creation why, and thus instill it with a nascent, independent hunger for understanding, that it might appreciate and cooperate with its intended purpose, and not be either enslaved or insensible.

There was, to the ship’s discerning sensors, a bright light shimmering like a halo around the creature’s eyes, and its nose, and at the roots of its many flexible arms. The light pulsed and twinkled, vibrating in a pattern that the ship recognized at once—

—for it was linked by gentle embrace with its makers’ other children, the Friends, and could know anything they knew—

—as Tobias.

Tobias, who had lived in one of the sanctuaries for a week, who had been in pain—so much pain—but who had loved and been loved by the dogs, who had sat up in his bed and expressed delight at the antics of Peaches and Melody, had thrown the stick for Waffles and Biscuit and Pancake, had scritched and scratched and patted and tickled Boots and Gulliver and Bluebell and Abby, had even let Astro curl up on his chest one night.

The ship liked Tobias.

It opened a hatch, began preparing a bubble—then noticed that Tobias was shrinking, hardening, his many legs withering and retracting.

That’s right, it would have said to itself—if indeed it had a voice, if indeed it could listen. Tobias was often in human form, like the Friends. Tobias lived on the surface, and would need—

Quickly, the ship opened vents, activated fans, began adjusting the mix of gases in its interior, raising the temperature to something like what could be found above the water. Fortunately, the changes were small—the needs of humans were simple, and not much different from the needs of the masters.

And light—for a moment, the ship was almost distracted, for it had turned on the power in preparation for Tobias’s arrival, and was elated—enthralled—entranced by the return of shape and color, the reawakening of the inner landscape that had brought its masters so much joy, and which they had of course shaped the ship to love as well. There were grasses of green and purple, planted in swirls and checkerboards; trees and bushes in fantastic, fractal shapes, forking and spiraling; rocks grown and carved in towers, arches, pillars, sculptures of fragile beauty and impossible complexity. Shadows of pink and blue and yellow rippled through the air, bending and shattering the light into millions of sparkling shades—

Do humans have other senses?

The ship wondered, and the Friends answered, their knowledge flowing through the link between them, and it wasn’t long before the space was full of the sounds of bubbling water, laughing children, echoing laserfire—the air, scented with bubblegum and burning wood and pepperoni pizza and petrichor—

The Friends, looking on, raised a cautious objection.

Too much, they whispered.

Simple. The humans were simple creatures, with simple delights. One smell would be enough. One sound. No need at all for the fleet of tiny drones, with which the ship had planned to tickle and stimulate Tobias’s skin. No need for the complex cocktail of chemicals to soothe away his pain, dissolve him in the sensation of welcome—

The watchful Friends transmitted their approval.

Tobias, straightening, pressed a hand against the door, and the ship yielded, letting him in.

And then, a thing happened which had happened only once before, in the ship’s long and careful memory—the Friends withdrew, closing the active connection entirely, leaving the ship utterly alone.

There was distress, then, or at least its shadow, for the ship also remembered what had happened next, last time—

“Pizza?” Tobias murmured.

The ship decoded the sounds—for though the Friends themselves had withdrawn, their knowledge was still at its disposal—and felt delight that it had succeeded in its reproduction, for the word “pizza” was indeed strongly associated with the particles it had produced and dispersed. And it knew—could tell, by comparison with that same bank of knowledge—that the look on Tobias’s face was one of awe, and wonder, and appreciation.

“Just needs a little garlic and a bit of oregano.”

The ship processed, and exerted itself again—

Tobias froze in his tracks.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said aloud.

The ship paused, uncertain, almost anxious—

“Can you—can you hear me? Is someone listening?”

Relief. The ship did not know, exactly, how human speech worked—did not have anything resembling an explicit model of grammar or syntax. But it could access every conversation the Friends had ever recorded, and could select, from among them, series of sounds which had historically produced reassurance, satisfaction, and—eventually—happiness, and it had many, many more examples to choose from in response to Tobias’s fourth set of utterances than his third.

“Yes,” the ship said. “Me.”

Who are you, the ship predicted—not the meaning, but the string of sounds—and when Tobias responded exactly as expected, the ship’s relief cascaded over into elation.

“I am home,” the ship answered, with pride and astonishment at its own cleverness, having managed to find among the hundreds of thousands of human sounds a string that not only matched its nature and purpose, but was also spoken in the same sorts of places where Tobias could be found, unlike oikos or jiā or É.

There was a pause, and then—

“The home of the Chee?”

Joy.

“The Chee, yes! And the Pemalites. Welcome!”

Tobias did not move, and the ship searched its memory again. It knew that conversations could be like this, back and forth without regular alternation—knew that there could be long, long stretches of time between moments of fulfillment. It cobbled together a new set of sounds, less confident this time—

“Is there something that you want? Something that I can help with?”

So engrossing was this task that the ship entirely forgot its earlier apprehension, its premonition of dread. It oriented itself entirely around its strange and wonderful visitor, poured every scrap of power and intelligence into the interaction.

“I don’t know,” Tobias said. “I was—uh—one of the Chee gave me this.”

He held up a hand.

“That is the Key!” the ship said, once again feeling the sheer pleasure of rightness that came with finding exactly the perfect set of sounds to convey its intended meaning.

“The…key…” said Tobias. “The key to what?”

“To me!” the ship exclaimed.

“Uh. Does it—does it start you, or something? Unlock something?”

If the ship had had a human body, human instincts, it might have screwed up its face in concentration, set its jaw in determination. It might have thought, to itself, this is a hard one—a phrase which it could, in theory, have accessed, were it not so focused on the search for links between key, start, and unlock.

But though it had the experience of something like grit, its actions were not voluntary—did not actually spring from anything resembling desire. It simply had to proceed—had been shaped to garner incidental pleasure from actions that were wholly deterministic. Its purpose was to serve, and to serve the holder of the Key doubly so, and thus it bent to its task with the inexorable fortitude of a boulder tumbling down a hill.

Car.

Engine.

Door.

Ignite.

Safe.

Lock.

Open.

The cloud of words expanded, the prediction assembling itself, new words being added as the ship sought referents for the meaning it wished to convey, balanced the expected gain of further processing against the cost of continued delay, as measured in units of predicted-Tobias-happiness—

“Not that sort of key metaphorical to unlock tasks functions me there are spaces things control? With the Key I help without limit all purpose available to you.”

Tobias’s face made the shape of confusion and unhappiness, and the ship experienced proportional distress—

“Can you say that again? Maybe slower?”

The distress vanished. That one was easy!

“Not! That! Sort! Of! Key! Metaphorical! To unlock! Tasks! Functions! Me! There are! Spaces! Things! Control! With the Key! I! Help! Without limit! All purpose! Available! To you!”

Tobias tilted his head, and the ship was delighted to see only confusion, this time, the shadow of unhappiness having been banished by its skillful compliance. They were making progress, together…