After I admitted to Ray that I was having difficult feelings about my memories, and that I probably needed to spend some time in the restful emptiness of the void, she insisted that I do just that. She told me that I should do what I need to do to stay healthy, and that she would see me at breakfast. I wanted to get out and spend the night with her, but I knew I wouldn't get restful sleep if I did, and I think she understood that, too. Maybe she didn't get exactly what it was like to be a biocomputer and a starship, but she understood needs far better than I did.

And so I did as I was told. I opened my eyes and let my mind drift into torpor. The night passed quickly, the digital shadows of network traffic skipping across my brain as I unconsciously sifted through them, approving and denying access subconsciously as I did when I was awake. It was a little different in torpor, though. Bits and pieces passing through my resting mind, like hazy dreams of shadowy business dealings, communiques with friends, and pornography.

I woke feeling more than a little disconcerted that I had little bits and pieces of everyone's late-night relay dealings floating around in my subconscious, but I was rested. As far as I could tell, there weren't any lingering effects to worry about, so I shrugged it off as yet another bizarre experience of the reality of being a biocomputer.

That specter of my past was back in its proper place at the back of my mind, and I didn't feel vulnerable anymore, so I was ready to rejoin the physical world.

After a pretty typical recovery period in the morning, Doc watching over me as I pulled my senses back together from the remnants of the void, I joined the others down in the mess hall, glomming onto Ray as she fried some meat over the stove. Her fur felt amazing against my still-sensitive skin, now that the worst of my sensory sickness had passed.

"I missed hol...ding you l-like this..." I admitted to her quietly as she squeezed me close to her core.

She let out an adoring "Aww," the grip of her free arm tightening around me slightly. "It was just one night. Did you rest okay? Feeling better?"

"Y-Yeah. Much." I buried my face into her and just enjoyed her warmth and the subtle scent of day-old exertion still clinging to her body. The comfortably neutral temperature of the core lubricant was nice, but the heat from her body was better.

It had only been a day since we were officially a thing, but I felt a connection to her I didn't want to let go of. A kind of support I don't think I ever had before. That I needed. Lily was close, but she was my sister, and as close as that relationship could be, there was only so close one could get to family. This felt different. "Love you..." I murmured quietly.

"I love you too, Meryll," she leaned down to whisper back, and I felt a new wave of warmth flow down my spine as she briefly rested her claws caringly over my head before returning to her work.

After breakfast was settled in my stomach, almost half of what had been plated out for me, I leaned into Ray for support as I looked to my sister across the table. She had eaten slowly as well, now poking at the dregs of her small plate with a lost expression on her face, her mind clearly elsewhere. I had to be there for her, even if she couldn't share what kept her in pain. "Hey s-sis?" I called out.

Startled, she rested the tines of her fork against the plate and silently looked up to me, face unchanged from her broken stare. It reminded me of the first time I saw her on my implant, still in Foundation's custody. She was disconnected from reality all over again.

Ray's arm tightened around me again. She knew where I was going with this, just as we'd discussed the other day. "Do you wanna go out be...fore we leave Io? There's this ca...cafe a few block from the port. I k-keep lingering there a lot on my network, and the coffee there l-looks good. A lot of ar...tists and writers and stuff go th-there, so I thought you might like it."

Her eyes opened a little wider as I spoke, and she looked genuinely surprised to hear what I was proposing. I suppose she hadn't been granted a vision about this more mundane suggestion. At least she was really present again. "Oh. Won't that be hard?" She mumbled, looking down at the controls on her wheelchair. She had spent almost all of the last six months on board Theseus, most of the fairly new colony not being terribly accessible to someone in her position.

"Don't worry about th-that, you'll be able to get to it easy enough. It'll be good to get a little bit of a change of env-environ...ment for you for a little bit, right? We won't get an...another chance to leave the ship for at least a m-month."

Her gaze returned to her plate as she pondered the question. Her mouth hung open like she was about to speak, but she wasn't finding the words. I added, "Besides, we ha...haven't really had much chance to just h-hang out lately. I want to spend some time with you."

She looked back up at me again and murmured, "Is this about th-"

"Nope." I shook my head. "We don't t-talk about that. I don't w-wanna hear it. I just want to be with y-you for a little bit. That's all. May...Maybe you can show me what you've been d-drawing. The neural imp...lant stuff you've been practicing."

Her expression softened slightly, and she seemed to lose some of the tension she'd been holding, her shoulders visibly relaxing. She made a small smile. "Okay. That... That could be fun. Yeah. Let's... Let's do that." She looked back up at me and nodded.

I smiled back at her. I wasn't lying, I was going to try my best not to mention her vision, even if it still gnawed away at me. But I did trust her, and I wanted to help her feel like she wasn't trapped by whatever fate she'd seen. I wanted her to be able to know that her sister would still support her, no matter what. And I was curious what else she'd been up to this past week. It wasn't like she was constantly fretting over what she saw, right? As much as it had shadowed over me, I had gotten plenty of more productive things done despite it since then.

"Awesome. I wonder if f-fancy coffee is better than what we brew here, or if it's j-just overpriced garbage."

That got her smile to widen a little. "So... later today?" She asked.

I nodded. "Sooner the better. A-Aisling still hasn't told us when we're ship...shi-shipping out, after all."

Aisling, who'd been content along with most of the others to let us have our heartfelt conversation so far, chimed in, "Day after tomorrow. Sorry for the short notice, but soonest we can get the last order of our food supplies in is then, and if we leave any later, we risk missing the whole event."

"Then a few days of travel, right?" Joel asked.

"Yeah, not too long though," Aisling nodded. "If we were in a better orbital position at the moment, we'd be there in hours, but between distance, traffic laws we don't need to draw attention to ourselves breaking, and needing to arrive under very precise conditions for Shaw's little trick to work... well, it'll take us longer than it should, we'll say that."

I nodded, "Well, p-perfect, we'll hang out today, then, y...yeah?"

Lily nodded with muted enthusiasm, a cautious optimism I hadn't seen in a few days peeking up from the depths of her melancholy. "Yeah, sounds good."

"And I'll brief you on the flight itinerary tomorrow, Meryll." Aisling added. "I've got it measured out, but I'm sure you would appreciate knowing where to take us beforehand."

I nodded, leaning back into Ray again, and looking back to Lily. "Hey. We're g-going to be fine. We've got each oth...er now, and whatever happens, w-we'll be okay. We can do anyth...anything together."

She nodded, taking in a deep breath, and then at last cracking a genuine smile. "Yeah. We can, can't we?" She backed away from the table. "I'll... go get ready, then. See you in a couple hours?"

"Yeah." I smiled back at her as Ray helped polish off the rest of my plate.

—

It wasn't a long trip out of the port, which was good because there wasn't all that much in the way of sights to see. For the most part, it was arranged for practicality more than tourism. After all, who would want to visit a mining colony for their vacation or own a luxury apartment out here on a frontier?

That said, where there were humans, they wanted for small comforts that they would gladly pay their hard-earned money on to capture a brief moment of escapism from their dreary work lives. So places like the cafe that we found ourselves approaching weren't out of the ordinary, even here.

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"I hope the dust doesn't clog up the motor." Lily fretted as I walked slowly alongside her chair. A stiff wind was carrying fine particles through the streets, to the point where we'd both opted to wear face masks for our trip to keep from breathing in too much dirt, neither of us being the picture of good health as is.

"M-Mouse should be able t-to clean it out if it's a prob...lem," I offered. "And I can p-push you home if it fails while we're ou...out."

"Mm... thanks," she glanced up at me, smile hidden, but obvious.

As we walked into the building, the patio cleared of customers by the inclement weather, I saw the familiar sight of the interior of the shop from a different angle than I was used to, immediately eyeing the security camera in the corner that I had only interacted with the shop through until that moment. It was bizarre seeing the shop from a less static location when I'd only known it by that device.

The door jingled when we entered, something I hadn't heard yet since the camera had no microphone in it. The different corners of the room I couldn't see before felt novel to what I knew of the place. I couldn't even see two of the tables before.

It was quieter than usual today, only a couple lone patrons attending, both alternately typing away at and staring into personal terminals at their table, half-consumed light brown drinks idling next to them in colorful floral mugs.

But as I took off my mask, the most striking new sensory experience of the cafe was the smell. Rich aromas of coffee, chocolate, bread, and cinnamon mingled together in the quaint shop to make an enticing scent that drew me in and made me feel comfortable with the place immediately. The carefully arranged pastries displayed behind the glass display counter made me wish we had the equipment for baking on Theseus. Maybe I'd see about it after we got back to Luna.

"Whoa..." Lily spoke quietly. "This place is nice. Cozy."

"Told you you...you'd like it." I smiled down at her. It wasn't perfect of course. No small business ever was. The floor had chips and cracks in the hard floor that were infeasible to cover up with the few scattered rugs haphazardly strewn between the tables, one table hadn't been cleared of the remains of someone's meal yet, there was a veritable pile of dishes behind the counter, two of the lights were dimming, an irregular flicker in the overhead one felt just a little ominous, and it looked like there was a hole in the wall to the kitchen, poorly hidden by a menu board.

I thought there was a certain charm to the imperfection of hole in the wall places like this, though. A little business in way over its head, making the best of the hand it had been dealt. It felt lived in. Real. Not like the sterile false projection of flawlessness of the big name corporate shops.

It was familiar. Relatable.

A tired, but upbeat voice of a young woman called from somewhere behind the counter, out of sight around a corner, "Hey! Be with you in just a second!"

As we approached the counter, a woman in her mid-20s, deeply tanned and muscular for a shopkeeper, stepped out and leaned over the counter with both her palms down, looking first down to Lily, then to me. "Well you're a couple unfamiliar faces. New arrivals?" She asked in a friendly tone.

I hadn't gotten too many good looks at the owner before since the camera was pointed out toward the dining area and entrance, but my first thought was obviously that she's my type. Were all people who were into cooking tall, strong women? "Someth...ing like that," I offered. She briefly gave a surprised look when I struggled with the word, but she was just caught off guard. I was used to it.

"My sister and I won't be here too long." Lily explained, silently looking up to me to seek approval for taking over the conversation. I nodded my assent. "But we thought we could use a nice homey place to relax for a little bit and get a snack."

"Came to the right place." She smiled at us, my stutter now expected and politely dismissed. "What can I get you?"

Looking over the menu behind her, it was an uncomplicated array of hot drinks advertised plainly rather than with any kind of fancy specialty names that felt familiar to my simulated experiences. I ordered a sugary caramel-infused coffee, something I hadn't had a chance to try in real life yet, and Lily got something more lightly sweetened and an eclair she offered to split with me, knowing neither of us had large stomachs for stuff like this.

And after a few minutes waiting and making small talk with the owner, we were seated at a table near the window with our choices, keeping our distance from the others so we could speak freely.

After a few minutes of her showing me some study pieces she'd drawn on her terminal, that she was indeed starting to figure out the fundamentals of her art through the lens of the implant hidden beneath her hair. She had the same apparent disconnect of specifics from her learned skills from the simulation to the real world that I experienced, after all, and a new perspective on how she produced art was comforting to her. It made her feel like she was starting something new instead of frustrated at skills she knew should be there but weren't.

"I kind of wish we came here sooner," Lily mused, fidgeting with her mug. "It's... nice. Theseus is fine, but it kind of has a tense atmosphere. Like it's haunted or something."

"I mean... I am h-haunting it, in a way." I smirked.

"Hah... not like that. I mean, it feels like there's something dark and unsettling about it." She held more tightly to her drink. I thought she might have been afraid she was offending me. "You'd think being able to see the future, I wouldn't be worried about something jumping out of a loose panel somewhere to attack me, but I guess it's some kind of primal fear that can't be helped." She looked out the window, probably trying to avoid my gaze.

"I had n-no idea the ship sp...spooked you that much," I murmured, a little disappointed that she didn't feel completely comfortable at home.

She shook her head. "It's not so bad. It's better than the command ships they usually kept me on. The way they treated me... like an asset more than a person. Of course I wouldn't trade what I have now to go back to that. You saw what I was like back then. When I was so unstable. When I didn't really have anything to live for in this world." She sighed. "When I thought I could still go back."

I nodded. "They used y...you."

"Mmhm." She stayed silent for just a moment, then continued quietly, "But maybe in the end, it's mostly just because Theseus isn't... me."

I mulled that thought over for a moment, a little lost on what she meant. "Not you?" I asked curiously.

She let out a small sigh and I saw her eyes glaze over, staring out the window. For a moment, I thought she was having a vision, but then she said "When the crew pulled me from my core module, I thought I would be happy never to see it again. My ship. But as the months go by..."

I deflated slightly. Whether she liked it or not, Lily was a grafted core. I thought the fact that she had taken so poorly to it meant that she didn't feel the same longing I did when she was away from it, but maybe that was an inescapable truth of being a machine core. "You miss it?"

She gave a frustrated grunt. "It hurt me... so badly. In all my years being forced to do their bidding, I've never felt more... violated... insane... than I was floating in that abstract hell." She spoke with an unfamiliar acid to her voice. It was clear how hurt she felt about what it had done to her mind. It was odd hearing about the same experience I had of the comforting embrace of the void experienced as a nightmare. "At first, it was easy to ignore. After what it did to me... It made me try to kill you. Us. But over time... It... feels like I left a piece of myself back there. Like I'm incomplete."

I nodded slowly and spoke grimly, "It's a p-part of you." That was something that to me was a euphoric calling. It felt so right to meld with Theseus, to act as part of it. But to her...

"It's why I've been trying to learn to use my implant lately." She finally looked back to me. "Because... maybe I can learn to handle it. Whatever it does to my brain. Maybe I can go back to it. Maybe I can make it work, and it won't drive me mad if I'm prepared for it. Maybe with a little help?"

"Sis... it's gone," I broke it to her sadly. "It's so...somewhere in wild space. It's p-pretty likely no one will ever f-find it again. Who knows w-where it's drifted to by now...?" While it was true that I could 'feel' Theseus if I was away from it, know where it was instinctually even then when I could feel it a short distance away at the port, I knew that that sense only extended so far. There was no way she could trace it from here.

She gave a weak smile. "Did you forget what I am?" She asked with a tiny bit of mischief in her voice.

It only took me a moment before realization struck. "You've s-seen it..."

She nodded. "After you... After Europa. We'll have an opportunity to come back to it. If I can be ready for it again before then... If I can just hold it together, then I can..." She looked down, a concentrated furrow to her brow. She was determined about this. Scared, but determined.

"Why didn't you s-say so sooner?" I asked, starting to feel cautiously excited that I might be able to ease her into ship-dom after all. "I can de...def-definitely help you figure this o-out!"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Nothing about that vision suggested that I needed to keep it to myself. In fact, I necessarily needed to tell someone so we could be in the right place at the right time. I guess I just... wanted to have it figured out before I brought it up. To be certain it's what I wanted. That I couldn't talk myself out of it."

She was conflicted. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be a ship core. But she was. This was a matter of what she needed, not what she wanted, and she'd finally hit the point she had to admit to herself that she couldn't avoid her nature.

"It's okay. I'll h-help. Anything for you. We'll f-find it. We'll f-fix your ship, and we can go back to L-Luna side by side. Ship by sh-ship." I offered her with a smile. "Maybe you'll even learn to like it. Under better circumstances than the first time, you know?"

She smiled back at me and spoke sadly, "Yeah... we'll... go together."

I nodded back to her. "We'll have to act qui... quick, though. It's only going to be a few d-days until Europa, and then a few more d-days at most until we're going through that sec...tion of wild space." It wasn't a lot of time to prepare. Perhaps we could tow the ship back to Luna if we couldn't fix it up on the spot or if she couldn't acclimate to it quickly enough. "I could pro...probably patch you into my own data stream, and g-get y-you used to how to handle a complex arch...itec...tecture. Not here, though. We can't make a scene. W-When we get back home."

She gave a quiet sniffle. "Thanks, sis." She looked down into her drink and took a sip, closing her eyes and relaxing into the warmth it provided. "I'm... sorry again, that I have to keep things from you. I promise, it's for your own good."

I shook my head. "Not t-talking about that, remem...ber?"

"Thanks." Her smile widened slightly. "I think I can tell you this much, though... Things are going to change. A lot. We'll be different people in the end. But we'll still be sisters. We'll still be there for each other when it counts. I think... If I handle this just right, I think we'll get through this just fine."

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