Interrogative 01: Tiago and the Masterless Read Online Free PDF Page A

hundred hours, continuous use, as best as I could estimate. Without a digestive system, this body's lifecycle is very limited. I was conserving active use to extend it," Six-six-four said.
    "Why didn't the computer alert you that I was coming?" he asked, hoping to avoid finding her 'dead' every time he returned to the bridge.
    "I can't ask the computer to do things," she reminded him.
    She had the same annoyed tone that he had when discussing that subject. Had he heard it from her a month ago, he'd have assumed it was simple mimicry. Now, he knew it was genuine frustration. It looked like 'dead' Audra might be a regular feature of his trips to the bridge.
    "Ready to start planning the second maker unit?" she asked.
    "Mostly ready," Tiago said.
    Her disappointment was obvious. Without a word, she communicated her sense of futility. The ship wouldn't respond to her and he hadn't considered her feelings – again. Maybe he wasn't ready for people. Her range of emotions was very new. He might forgive himself for not remembering how much she'd changed. Thinking of her as 'people' used to be wishful thinking. Still, she was all the practice he was likely to get before meeting the theoretical natives.
    "Any change in the radio chatter?" he asked her, deflecting.
    "I'll check," she said flatly.
    Tiago sat in the captain's chair and called up his plans for the new maker unit. He started to adjust one of his preliminary calculations, and then stopped, considering a possibility.
    "Audra? When you're done with that, I have some rough spots in my maker plan. Think you can give them a going over?" he asked.
    Her smile showed that she appreciated the gesture, but it was far from cheery. Her emotions were not simple reflexes. She had memory, continuity, and context. Still not human, but getting closer. He tried to contrast it with the other aspects of her existence: She doesn't really sleep, she doesn't eat, she doesn't sweat, or poop, or do any of a million other inconvenient things that punctuate the lives of real people. Her lifespan was effectively infinite, but her body was spec-rated for less than ten days. It reminded him of a crazy line from a book his mother had read to him when he was a child: "She was older than the stars but younger than the planets." Tiago couldn't remember the rest of it. He'd have to see if the computer had any children's books. It was supposed to have been a colony ship, so it was possible. He wondered if it, or any story from his childhood, had been rated acceptable by the government censors who approved the content of the ship's library.
    "Captain, I have that analysis," Six-six-four said.
    "You called me captain?" Tiago asked.
    "Did I? I guess I should. It's a good habit if we actually get visitors. Anyway, I have the analysis," she said.
    Captain. He thought about that. Was he ready to transition from Tiago to Captain Salazar? Alone, he'd needed no titles. With Audra, first names were fine. He'd never actually given her a last name. Another thing for the "to do" list. First impressions were important. If he was meeting new people, introducing himself as Captain Salazar might be the right way to start. Of course, his estimation was based on how humans interacted. Who knew what might be walking, flying, hopping or crawling below? Intelligence might not look human. It might not think as he did.
    "Shall I wait?" she asked.
    "Sorry. Day dreaming. Let's get to it, Lieutenant Manuel," Tiago said.
    "I have a last name, now? Where did that come from?" She asked.
    "Same person I took your first name from," Tiago admitted. "She was Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French, if I recall."
    "Old girlfriend?" she asked, amused.
    "I wasn't… it didn't work like that. It's just a name. I can change it," Tiago said.
    "Don't. Please. So, did she look like me? I know you made a number of appearance changes when you adapted me from my original model," Six-six-four asked.
    "No," he lied. "Back to the analysis, Lieutenant?"
    "No