A Technical Note From Star

As I understand human concepts, I don't see the same way humans do. This is not so much a mechanical thing as it is a way of doing things. My eyes serve me well enough. I can navigate independently. I can see colors--unusual I know because many of the animals on the human home world cannot see colors. However, I do not consciously recognize a great deal of what I see. I leave that for the AI. My eyes are most importantly cameras. I take footage of the scenes around me and leave it up to Ship to analize this information and bring to my conscious mind necessary images and data. I still only have rudimentary subroutines for appreciating beauty, for example. It is a very hard concept to understand. I see the red cliffs from the hotel terrace. I can measure them. I can begin to analize their composition and the difficulty of climbing them. I can see nothing grows on them. However, I have heard humans exclaim about their alienness, their ruggedness, their awesomeness and even their stark beauty, but I don't know how to see this in the rock formations. Humans might characterize this as lacking imagination. I have an imagination. I just can't see what they see.

My brain is very different from a human mind. It's not about the physical construction of my mind per se. It's about how I use my mind. I was designed to be a runner. I still think of myself as a runner though, admittedly, I am striving to conceive of myself differently. As a runner, I am designed to interface with a shipboard artificial intelligence. With a good AI, it is hard to know where the runner ends and the Ship begins. It is a partnership. Ship is my friend, my confident and my caretaker. I would die without Ship. A subset of Ship's functions is in a band I wear on my forearm when I am farther away from the ship than a space station. I am wearing it now. Ship is currently within signal range so the band acts as a booster. I have full access to my AI so the visual footage I am recording is being analized in real time.

This relationship I have with my ship's AI feels very comfortable to me. It is, of course, a vulnerability. As part of the virtual termination agreement, I had to agree to a data whipe. This was not virtual but quite real. The whipe was performed on me personally. The Northern STar's AI was destroyed. I could move. I could talk, but I had no long-term memory. My short term memory was unreliable.

I left Tamara, Penny and Captain Gillian Romeres Lujo with very specific instructions. I I did have time for that thankfully. They carried them out. Tamara brought me back to Pirate's Cove aboard the space yacht DAncing on Water.

By the way, I think this is a very peculiar name for a space yacht, but both Tamara and Penny think it is a beautiful name. I do not understand why. They cannot, or will not, explain it to me. I don't see what space has to do with water.

Anyway, when Tamara and I arrived, FunjiMan met us there. FunjiMan is a convenient moniker for any male of the Fungusian Collective. Captain Gillian Romeres Lujo had contacted the Collective. Penny had arranged financial renumeration. It was costly, but FunjiMan installed a new AI in Dancing on Water, restored my latest backup and supervised my first interface. It took nearly a week for all the pathway and connections to be made. While this was underway, Ship cared for me in my acceleration web. TAmara fretted. Penny and Captain Gillian Romeres Lujo waited for word. FunjiMan stayed telepathically connected.

I'm still getting to know my new AI. I have all the old memories of working with Ship, but this feels very different. I have finally decided the difference is the Fungusian craftsmanship. I think the appropriate word here is flavor. I think in a slightly different way. Is the word wholistically. It's the way a Fungusian colony would exist together, linked but also separate. That is the way Ship and I are now. It is frankly superior. It is an enhancement I like. It's just feels different and I have surprises from time to time. Ship will give me an idea which an AI ought not to have.

Anyway, it was the Fungusians who suggested I get far from Coalition space, even farther out than the Northern Frontier, and visit Hypatia.

"There is much opportunity there," FunjiMan had told me. "Just be careful. There is also much danger there. You have lived a dangerous life. You have dealt with unscrupulous people with unclear motives. Be aware you will meet many like that on Hypatia. You will also meet people who can open doors for you if they want to. You need to build a new life and not be so closely aligned with the Coalition's political and military enemies. We can continue to provide you with database support. We cannot do more for you."

What they had done was already more than any runner had a right to receive. I had a new lease on life. Runners didn't get chances like this. I just hoped I didn't blow it.