The nanoswarm cat and I have been staring at each other for about an hour now.
This is becoming increasingly awkward for , and I *think* its awkward for them too because Ive noticed the nanoswarm shifting back and forth on its vaguely stable paws.
Dyn has decided this isnt her departnt, and has started doing engineering checks on the power core, before we learn from the afterlife that it had a crack in it sowhere. I can respect this. Every now and then she passes between where I and my nanoswarm copy stand across from each other, briefly breaking eye contact between us.
And every ti, I wonder if the nanoswarm is going to vanish. Just a fragnt of my imagination. One more ghost I imagined or wished for. And Ill wake up soon to learn that I was too late and Im just dreaming again and everyones dead but .
And itll all happen again.
One more cycle for the pile that is my life.
Shift, yan. Dyn nudges at the side of my still-breached suit with her knee. I should have built this engineering suit bigger; Im three tis my size and barely co up to her knee. At least shes comfortable enough to try to move around when Im in the way now, though. I find that life or death combat really brings people together.
I move, slightly, trying to keep the nanoswarm in sight, but then Dyn moves between us again and sets a portable seal tank she unloaded off Jom while I was staring. Which blocks my staring, let tell you. I move again.
Nanoswarms still there.
I suppose I should get it over with.
Are you real? I ask.
Sort of! The nanoswarm replies in fluent Cat, a mix of a ow and a flick of the ears. Its an expressive language, and Ive never actually had it spoken back to before. Its strange. Are you?
Ye- well, okay, maybe. I concede. Thats kind of a heavy question, if were being honest here. My brain, treacherous organic machine that it is, ticks into motion pondering that without my consent.
I co up with a few silly answers pretty quickly, and all the psychic tension thats been holding this mont together and keeping this maybe-dream stable bleeds out like it wasnt there.
But I dont wake up this ti.
I pad over to the nanoswarm, still perched quietly on the wreck of the corp war era killing machine. My suits pawpoints clatter roughly as I climb up next to it, the jagged tal of the breach in my chestplate cutting into my skin all over again. I reach out slowly, and then rapidly land a bat of a paw on the nanoswarms head.
The cloud of high tech particles deform slightly, then spring back to the shape of my own head when I pull my paw away. Stop that. They say in Cat. That phrase in Cat is mostly just a yelp, with so paw flailing mixed in.
What are you? I ask.
For the first ti in a while, I *havent seen this before*. If I were feeling better, this might be a fun experience. As it is well, its still an experience! I lean into it. Im not waking up. Dyns not dead. Joms not
Hey Jom, you doing okay out there? I ask through the local comm net. I get back a tactical appraisal of potential threats within ten seconds of us, and a ready status. And then, shortly after, an almost sheepish ping that hes fine. Joms learning to socialize more at my speed.
Its good that hes growing. The nanocat - Im calling it a nanocat, that sounds cool - flicks her tail at . And I told you what I am.
What? I pause. Then think back. On the station, when the nanoswarm first joined in my suit, as soon as the sealed shell blocked off the stations link. It spelled sothing out. Uh friendly?
Ive never had a nanoswarm *roll its eyes at * before. Dammit, *I* cant roll my eyes, how co it gets to? Youre pretending to be a cat, you cant cheat like that!
But that was what it had said, right? It had said it was a friend, and then it had made fun of , and called a
Silly old cat.
Wait.
What are you? I ask, quieter. No. *Who* are you?
The nanoswarm regards sadly with fabricated eyes that still register to as tired, and old. My na is Lily. She says. Lily Ad-Alice. Ive been waiting a long ti to talk to you. Theres a brief pause. And then, the nanocats ears perk up. Hello!
I might need a mont to process this.
No kidding. The nanocat says. *Lily* says. I hold back the impulse to claim that na as mine and mine alone; thats not gonna be helpful here.
I had wondered about it, but I had just kind of assud it was sothing weird but normal. A system that had taken a liking to . An AI that had slipped on board, or been unshackled, that had decided to finally say hi. A ghost. Sothing *reasonable*. This was starting to get outside the realm of normal.
I say, sitting on a commandeered corporate spy frigate, in orbit around a dying Earth, trying to make the processor cores a suitable ho for an AI.
Normal is relative, I suppose.
I still have questions. Questions like How co youre speaking Cat and not whatever Im using? I ask.
The nanocat flicks her tail at in a precisely controlled emulation of organic motion. I dont have what you have. She says, looking like she desperately wants to say more. But for all that we know it together, we also know that Cat is a very limited language. Sothing changed you.
Soone changed . A dream. An echo of the past. Soone gave sothing Im not supposed to have. I think back on Ennos being equal parts concerned and curious about the strange mix of digital pseudo-life that seed to trail behind the language database that I was likely drawing on. And I rember a fragnt of an old conversation, where they ntioned that it wasnt just one thing; it was a whole artificial arena of combatants with cross-purposes.
And them looking too closely was what had pushed to co here. To find sothing outside the station for Ennos to take up as a residence.
Wait. Im *still talking*.
Yes? Nanoswarm-Lily cocks a paw at . Wait.
Im still talking *while we are deliberately not linked to the station*.
This could be a problem. I start to say. Then stop. Intentionally drop my ntal connection, and say it again in Cat. Its a strange feeling. Ive done it before, either to deflect hard questions or just because it was funny, but this is different. This is this is a *fear*. Like Im being watched from the other end of the tether.
I dont like it.
Stop talking! Nanocat-Lily chastises with a bat on the helt of my suit.
I am also bad at it.
The two of us are both starting to sink into pseudo-silent contemplation of the level of trouble were in.
It lasts right up until Dyn gives a series of cables a small nudge, sending the engineers ropes floating through where were *trying* to have a conversation.
And when Dyn talks, I realize that Ive understood her this whole ti, too. Ive just been intentionally listening to the spoken slang, and not the whisper of the aning thats feeding into my head. Stop sitting around and solder that in. She snipes over the comm. Unless were all gonna die again. You have to tell .
I cant turn it off. I mumble to myself.
The nanocat glowers at , occasionally rippling as she rearranges her constituent parts to make it look like shes bound by the gravity this ship lacks. Thats bad. She ows.
Yes, thank you, **. I am aware that is bad.
Im not you. She rolls her eyes again. Im
She trails off. Because thats a good question. If were the sa cat, but were not the sa person, then who is she? Who am *I*?
We table that existential crisis in favor of properly wiring in the cables Dyn threw at us. She gave us four, when we really only need two, so that its okay when the reactor surges slightly and lts one of them into a kind of glowing black goo that sticks to the deckplate that it drifts into. Theres work to do, and getting the frigates damaged stealth system back online is just the first step.
I try to stay quite while we work. I really do. But thats just not going to happen. Though it becos clear after a while that either the station is already aware of what were doing, or it just cant see through my weird link to the language database, and literally nothing I can do right now will change it either way.
Engines are scrap. Dyn swears creatively as she stalks up from the lower engineering compartnt.
Thats fine. We dont need the engines. We need a hard to find high power computer, preferably with so armor. And were halfway there anyway.
Comms system is online. The nanocat says. I can start on a filter?
Yeah, if you could. I say, pacing a path next to where shes pretending to sit on an officers chair, drawing a molten trench in the floor with my paw laser and letting the backup engineering nanoswarm I have on process the material. We can lay the cable here more or less safely later. Can you do you have a digital mind? Theres a code tile in my suit if you can read it.
Im a cat, not a computer. Lily retorts at .
Okay, hang on. I pause, letting the laser snap off with a hiss that I can actually hear through the hole in my suit. I flick my tongue over my mouth inside my helt as I turn to face the nanocat. Youre a living nanoswarm with my na and face. Are you sure youre a cat?
Youre a biologically immortal smartass wearing an engineering departnt as a coat. Are *you* a cat?
I wont lie, that sentence doesnt exist in spoken Cat. Or at least, it didnt until that mont. Were writing it together.
Also, hey!
Well, I could have used your help you know. Over the last uh so amount of ti.
I was still learning. She says, a little defensively, as the nanoswarm pads over and extends a tendril of mass into my suit to retrieve the code tile. Fortunately, that thing survived getting spiked. Also, I cannot see you on the station. I twitch slightly as the nanobots tickle my fur again, and give her a questioning tilt of my head. At all. The parts of around you on the station are slaved to low level cleaning routines. I think. It happens in several spots I am not allowed.
And here I thought just having to deal with doors not opening for was a nightmare.
I have a worrying thought. Not like I have any non-worrying thoughts anymore, honestly. Howd you talk to in the suit? Howd you find ?
She gives a rippling nanoswarm shrug. I saw you learned about you from we dont have a word for this.
Oh. I realize and rember, all at once. A warm room. Another cat in Alices lap. I saw you in a dream. I murmur.
Yes! She ripple-nods back at . And then I knew how to look! She showed . Mom showed .
I have so many more questions. And also no idea what those questions are.
You can understand that? Dyn asks from nearby. She has one hand out and cocked downward, a gesture that I think ans disbelief? I havent observed her closely enough yet.
Of course I can. I tell her. You should learn Cat. Its an elegant language. I made it myself! Lily ows at with irritation. We made it ourselves!
No. Dyn answers. Its not going to kill us, is it? Shes still eying the nanocat with hostility. I think. Maybe thats just how Dyn looks at things. Because if not, get back to cutting.
Dyn has turned from afraid to speak to , to giving orders, in only two life or death crises. Thats a record! It took at least five before Ennos lost all respect for my mysterious majesty. Im proud of her. But then, I guess even with Ennos being a superintelligence capable of learning at an accelerated rate, Dyn still is, like, eighty years old. That must be worth sothing.
I still shut up and get back to cutting.
Together, the three of us program protocol filters, lay cable, purge databases, bring ancient systems back online, lay the dead to rest, lay the combat drone into a material shredder on the industrial repeater parked near the station - thanks Jom, I hated that thing and it was in the way - configure systems, run ready checks, and make sure nothing is going to explode.
It takes us two days to get the frigate up and running.
Well, running. Dyn was right, the engines *are* scrap. And I dont have the stuff to get them running; engineering nanoswarms can only go so far without the right blueprints. Actually, even then, theyre not the best tools. I actually have a ranking order of tools that tends to open with the most specific possible thing for a job, but those all take thumbs, so they
You know what? This isnt important.
Our life raft is online.
Dyn complains that this ship would have been the wealth of a generation for her people. Jom complains that the ship lacks point-intercept flechette guns. Other Lily complains that actually, shes not complaining at all.
Why arent you complaining? I ask. Get in on it. Everyones having fun.
Im just looking forward to getting ho. She says. Even if we wont talk for a while. The nanocat brushes up against my side, particles splashing across the suit like thick water.
She says that. But I hope shes wrong.
And if shes not, Im going to start breaking things on the station until it gives into my demands.
I havent finally found myself just to lose her again.
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