Warship’s Mania

With a smack I was down on the floor, one pair of my arms crossed. "Doesn't matter. I'm just a wee lass!" A free hand tossed the hair of my left pony tail.

"A wee lass with very big responsibilities."

"No one has need for my prime avatar right now. I won't get up unless I want to."

Ragni then sat down in front of me "No need. You can help me write up my report."

No doubt she could see how sour my face turned. "That's your job."

"And you showed me how much you knew about the situation. With your help it will be the finest report in my naval career."

I turned my eyes away dismissively. "You could just copy Salukam's text and change it a little."

There was a noise. Barely intelligible. I found Ragni staring at me, jaw slack. The age old practice of taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own was foreign to the Mezhained, disgusting even. Every day I learned a little more about these people but I couldn't afford the luxury of culture shock.

"Ah." I stammered. "That would be a terrible joke, now wouldn't it?"

"Right," Ragni said softly.

I watched her as she pulled out a foldable keyboard from one of her many discreetly placed pockets on her uniform. It looked like a distant descendant of the alphanumerical keyboards of Becca's time. The hard light projection technology of the Mezhained was as reliable as anything else they made but for input they were untrusting of anything non-material.

"If my jokes are that terrible you wouldn't really want my help, right?"

"The enthusiasm you showed earlier makes me assess otherwise."

"Why did I have to show off..?" I muttered, resting my head in the palms of my free hand pair.

"My question would be why you would choose to help Salukam but not your sworn Captain."

"Ah!"

I had made it seem like I cared more for him, hadn't I? "He's my friend."

Immediately I realized that would imply my bond with Ragni was nowhere near as strong, which wasn't true, of course. "That's not what I meant! I mean, he is my friend but his chosen field of study fascinates me."

Those working diligently and quietly in the Command Center pretended not to hear but there was one set of eyes throwing furtive glances my way. I pointed a finger at their owner. "You! I can tell what you're thinking. I'm a Vugni, I notice things."

"I-I wasn't thinking anything strange, your radiance," Kanmurdi said. "But if your young maiden's heart beats faster when Nuvainom is around despite not understanding human love yet, that would be..." She hesitated to say it but not enough. "Terribly cute."

"Gah!" I nearly fell backwards when she said it. This young woman who unexpectedly had found herself in her new position at the Command Center had proved herself to be a hopeless romantic. And how far did that hopelessly romantic imagination of hers go? Probably against my 21^st century sensibilities, although that probably wasn't the real reason I would object to it.

In all the 28 years of my secret previous life I had never once dated a man or even a woman. 'Why bother?' I would tell myself, and yet that also felt like an excuse with the strength of overcooked spaghetti.

"I assure you," I said. "There are no such developments between me and him."

"Oh."

That was the answer she would have to accept. I couldn't be in a romantic relationship with any of my crew, or anyone for that matter. First of all I wasn't even human; second, my appearance was too childlike. Though I could tell from the way some looked at me that the latter was a positive for them. It was actually surprising how few of those there were among my crew, what with me basically being a city and all. A mobile city with doomsday weapons. Not a turn-off for some, apparently.

And then there were those who by all accounts didn't seem afflicted with such proclivities but admired me on account of some culturally specific romantic projections. All these people had grown up visiting their nearest Greatship's avatar from time to time. Considering how deities , spirits and the like usually came across to Becca, Vugni were rather approachable. Obviously we had the advantage of occupying material reality together with the humans, unlike so many others that demanded worship. No, the Mezhained would come to know this young, mechanical woman with a skin colored a deep, unnatural black. She would greet them with a warm smile and ask them about their lives. Many young boys, and definitely some girls too, would develop a crush on this figure who merely appeared human, had a skin tone that was more than an opposite of theirs, was old enough to remember their distant ancestors, yet forever looked like she was just a few years shy of adulthood. And she cared about all of them.

The purposes of their visits would vary. From confirming their fathers, to health assessments, to news from distant family members. Sometimes these family members were in the Navy serving the mechanical maiden's little sisters, peeking the interest of those who were more interested in girls from their age group. Never mind that these girls also knew their ancestors.

And so it came to be that some Mezhained had a complex for the spirits of their Ships. It was all regarded as youthfull silliness. In the end they were expected to start their convoluted interlinked families. But the idea of romantic striving for Vugni had become firmly planted within the culture. Planted so firmly, in fact, that some pondered the striving going in the opposite direction.

Did Kanmurdi fall into that category? Yes, she did.

If she had lived in Becca's time she would've been a shipper, shipping away odd couples in whatever fandom she had attached herself to. Hell, she might've been the type to get into shipping wars like Nicole.

Nicole.

I hadn't thought of her in a while. How had her life continued after my— After Becca's death? Had she fallen into a life surrounded by people who—without apology—had made themselves into her family? I hoped so.

"You're staring off into a faraway place again?"

Hm? "Ragni?"

The way she had said that was poetic and not incorrect. Sometimes words managed to ambiguously hit something that had to be the truth. But truth was a metal sphere that was either extremely hot or extremely cold according to the wise men and women among the Mezhained, and I felt I had gotten a little closer to understanding that metaphor.

"Are you available now, Shishi?"

My eyes blinked as my prime avatar self regained focus. "Uhm, uh, for the report, you mean?"

"Of course." Ragni seemed a little impatient. "If could bring out the part of you that enjoyed helping Salukam with his report over here that would be just great. Unless that part prefers to stay near him."

"I-I swear we're just friends!"

"It would be terribly wrong if your bond with him was stronger than the one you have with me: your own Captain."

Was she serious about that? I couldn't quite tell but it made me nervous. "Please, I'm not defective."

"Defective? You're worried about something like that?" She looked back at a blushing Kanmurdi who tried and failed to concentrate on her work. "What do you make of this? I just wanted to tease her."

"No, no, no, no!" I waved most of my hands around in protest. "I could never have that kind of relationship with any of the crew."

A hearty laughter overtook Ragni. "Does romance perplex you that much?"

"Uh, let's just say it does."

More of that laughter. "Well, I suppose a Vugni who's still adjusting to the light of life would need to learn human customs." The corners of her mouth turned up, etching an unmistakable friendliness in her face. "Old Iro and I will have a lot to compare and contrast next time we speak."

She meant well, of course, but the history of 28 years of struggle to find meaning in 21^st

century America dwindled to almost nothing. What mattered then was the zero year history of a girl living the perplexing life of a mechanospiritual pseudo-deity. Perhaps I really was a newborn and that previous life was just a dream.

I brought two pairs of hands up to my face, trying to hide the red holographic glow of my blushing cheeks from the world. Embarrassment was difficult to transfer to another avatar sometimes. Not my fault.

I let out a sigh that was seemingly too big for my avatar's teensy frame. "Tell me what you need to know for that report, Ragni."

Through the eyes of my avatar on Contract Deck 2 I saw Lennaivu descending the ladder opposite my shrine there. When his left foot hit the [floor] he craned his neck back to see if I was there, which I obviously was.

"You should be more respectful to your Caller," he said.

I turned my head away, eyes closed. "He should be more respectful to me."

Lennaivu did not admonish me any further. In fact, he gave me a look that communicated his understanding. "If there's anything I've learned from working with him it's that great brilliance can come with great drawbacks."

"Not worth it if you ask me." I stretched out my right hand in his direction as he approached me.

"Believe me, many others agree." Walking up to me he rankled the talismans hanging from my arm. "They still believe the Korremzha mil Vugni would be better off if Ship Velramuran hadn't pardoned him all those generations ago."

"What he did should be unforgivable."

"'Should be'? You didn't sound certain of that."

Lemaiattam will be guided back.

Where had that thought come from?

"If Maia were to return," I began to say.

"Return?" Lennaivu wound down his movements, all energy going to his attention instead. Attention focused on me.

"If she were to return then..." My voice acted on a thought that came from across time. "Trurl would be blameless."

"Begging your pardon, Ship, but could you activate your shrine's privacy screens?" He looked like he had seen a ghost, or the devil. Something of a magnitude that even perturbed him.

I nodded quietly, doing as he requested. In a whisper the opaque holograms displaying the twelve petaled sun with my crest at the center obscured us from view. Not only that, but whatever was said behind them would be muffled to an unrecognizable murmur.

"You referred to her by her nickname; your older sister whom you've never known."

No words passed my lips. There was plenty I could say, but it would not fully connect to what I was experiencing. I believed he knew that.

"You even said Dzayiss would be without blame, something Velramuran said right after pardoning him."

"I read a lot. Must've got it from some text," I said dismissively.

That was a fumble.

"That has only ever been passed down orally. It's a bit of a taboo, Ship." He plugged his portable information terminal into a socket near the base of my taboret and unfurled a keyboard similar to Ragni's and started typing, calling up any fluctuations and subtleties hidden within the song of my coils. "There are some out there who believe it puts our order into discredit."

There was no real distress within me. It was calm that could only exist before falling into a chasm of despair: the despair of being found out as an abnormality, a malfunction, a fake. But I wasn't in that chasm. I floated freely. Around me whirled the winds of possibility, flowing through the hollows that actualized potential. Among the howling and whistling of these winds I discerned something.

"The Mezhained have violated the Habedkur Treaty since the very beginning."

Lennaivu stopped typing. The corners of his mouth lifted into an uneasy smile. "You figured that out sooner than we expected."