It was really boring, being just a head. At night, when the Kraitt technicians left her alone, there was nothing for Nova to do but surf the Shards’ primitive broadcasting networks, which consisted of dismal music, vicious gladiatorial battles, and programs where the captains of Kraitt trains bragged of the raids they had carried out and showed off the loot and trophies they had brought home. A few hours before midnight even that shut down, and Nova was left listening to the scritch and scratch of insects in the air ducts above the ceiling.
It was then that she heard again, very faintly, the signal from the Black Light Zone that she had picked up on Night’s Edge. So either the Shards of Kharne were also close to the Zone, or the signal was powerful enough that it could be detected everywhere, once you knew what to listen for. Or was it that the signal had crept inside her somehow, inserted some strange code of its own into her programming, so that it could keep on singing to her of the Zone?
That thought made her worry that she was losing her mind, so she pushed it away and distracted herself with memories of times with Zen or screened movies for herself. Sometimes the memories and the movies intertwined, because they were the same movies she had watched aboard the Damask Rose when Zen was asleep in her arms and she wanted to make-believe that she was sleeping too. Sometimes, watching her favorites, she could imagine that she had a body again, and that Zen was curled up next to it, with his face against that rippled scar-patch on her chest that had never fully repaired.
There was a movie she had always loved called She Was the Thunder, He Was the Rain. It had been made on Malapet a few hundred years before, in the 2-D style of classics from Old Earth. It was about a Guardian who fell in love with an ordinary human, and it was based very loosely on the story of Raven and his love for Anais Six. Each time she watched it, Nova would mute her memories of previous screenings, so that it was always new to her. It always made her cry.
*
The Tzeld Gekh Karneiss was growing impatient. Her visits became more frequent, and more angry. She listened impatiently to her technicians while they tried to explain what they were finding inside Nova’s head. One day, when they made excuses for their slow progress she lashed them with the tip of her tail, which was sheathed in brass to make the lashing extra painful.
Afterward, when the others had left, one of the Kraitt lingered. He approached Nova’s table cautiously, stooping to peer into her face. “You are hiding things from us,” he said. “We cannot reach them, but we must, or the Tzeld Gekh Karneiss will kill us and replace us with new males.”
Nova felt sorry for him. It felt good to have someone speak to her again, as if she were a person. “What do you need to know?” she asked.
“Everything!” said the Kraitt. “The Tzeld Gekh Karneiss says you were built by a lesser race. She does not understand that the programs that run you are far ahead of anything we have seen. They are even more advanced than the technology of the Neem. Since the days of the Railmakers themselves there has been nothing like you on the Web of Worlds. We cannot hope to build something like you, but that is what she wants.” The Kraitt let his black tongue flicker thoughtfully between his teeth. “They are lonely, our mothers. Other females remind them of the sisters they murdered, and we males are poor companions. I believe that the Tzeld Gekh Karneiss thinks, if she can make a thing like you but in beautiful, Kraitt form…”
“She wants to make friends,” said Nova.
The Kraitt blinked slowly with his transparent inner eyelids, which was the Kraitt equivalent of a nod.
“But once you figure out how to do it,” Nova said, “I’ll be no more use to her, will I? What will happen to me then?”
He just stood there. If he was showing any emotion, it was some lizardy one, quite wasted on Nova.
“I’ll help you if you help me,” she said. “I assume the rest of me is around somewhere?”
“On the floor below,” the Kraitt said.
“All right then,” said Nova. She wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, but doing anything felt better than just sitting there on that table like a potted plant. “I’ll unlock the information you need, but in return I want to make sure you keep me safe and get me back together.”
The Kraitt blinked again. Before he finished, the screens behind him lit up as Nova started downloading the contents of her mind. She gave him everything except her own memories and her movie collection. She didn’t think the Kraitt had the technology to build a Motorik body, but now they should at least be able to construct a simple, self-aware computer.
The Kraitt worked all night, his big eyes mirroring the ranks of red hieroglyphs that marched like armies of fire ants down the screens of his terminals. In the morning, Nova watched the amazement of his comrades when he showed them his breakthrough. The Tzeld Gekh Karneiss was impressed too, when she made her visit, later in the day. She listened carefully to his report, then killed him with one brutal swipe from her brass-sheathed tail.
“It is not good to let males succeed too much,” she explained, stalking over to the table and gazing down at Nova. “It goes to their heads.” She stroked the tip of a talon across Nova’s face, tracing the frustrated tears that were trickling from Nova’s eyes. Behind her, her three daughters flared their nostrils, excited by the scent of the technician’s blood. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He was unimportant. The others understand the discoveries he has made. His work will be continued, and the others will work harder without him.”
They did not even have names, those Kraitt males. They busied themselves at their screens, hissing with satisfaction as they saw the potential of the information that Nova had given them.