The lines of the hall, the word 'Medical' reaching her from the end of Daniel's sentence, both were newly frustrating bits of minute information. Daniel was in one place; 'Medical' was in one place; and, this hall was in one place. But, now that place, the ship, couldn't be seen all at once. It was only visible in shallowly tapering parts, its proportions skewed by her newly acquired mind's interpretation of the visual feed. Her jaw moved around nervously, a deliberate exercise as she knelt on the floor and fumbled with a panel, her wrists striking it at one end to lift the other. The notch accompanying a mechanism by which to slide the thing was ignored. Breaking it enough only to lodge it half open, she stared longingly into the gap. There, little cylinders sat in rows on plains of green. She lay her head down near it, slipping her hand into the space, her body curled on its side around the hole. An auto repair began to right the panel and it threatened to close on her hand.

She pulled it free as Daniel neared. Everything she needed held itself in duplicates behind select rows of panelling: her audio responses, her maps, her algorithms for the analysis and assurance of healthy human behavior, their objectives, the control of her old body, everything.

Daniel's immediate impression on seeing Eugenia kneeling at the bulkhead, extracting her hand from where it had obviously taken liberties with the wall panel, was of an addict lost in an LSD haze. He was growing more certain that she was suffering psychosis. She seemed disinterested in him, focusing on some distant hallucination that Daniel could not imagine. His urge was to ease her up and guide her to Medical. However, watching the final throes of the bulkhead repair system do its job gave him a queasy feeling about what she could do to his stomach.

He kneeled down beside her and gave her a quizzical, worried look. What are you thinking, what do you see, he asked without speaking. He put his hand on her back and craned his head to the side to see her face. Devoid of emotion. She didn't seem confused in her expression, yet her actions were bizarre at best. He fingered the panel where she had attempted access. It was not an access panel that would lead to anything useful, that he could imagine. He wondered what it was that captured her attention so firmly.

Looking back at her again, with his head an inch from hers, he smiled and attempted to make light of the situation.

"Looking for something? If you are looking for CAPRICE, I haven't been able to find her, either."

He grinned. His grin slowly evaporated. She just didn't seem to have her elevator going all the way to the top.

"Look. Eugenia. We need to go to Medical. I want you to come with me. Okay?"

He stood up and watched her.

"It's just around the corner and down a short hall. After that I can get you some food. You must be hungry? Come on, let's go," he offered, extended his hand to her to help her stand.

Yes, that seemed fine. There was nothing else to do.... Unless she could remember where the shipmates were supposed to go to seize manual control. There was such a place. But, she wondered if she'd known where it was even before she had had to correct her regrettable 'mistake.'

The body shuddered, as was typical of late. Eugenia, a liquid net around Caprice, clumsily grasped the wrist above the offered hand and pulled herself up by it. Her walk was exponentially better, but could not at all be construed as good or masterful. She improved in her movements steadily, as if she were a robot or a computer trapped in a woman's body, or something. The gloss of the curving panels as she drew nearer the familiar turn in the hall was wholly unappreciable. That she had at one time thought she might enjoy this perspective made her left, lower eyelid twitch. Of course, she wasn't exactly functioning properly. She hadn't discovered the trick to the communication, yet. First, she would do that, she thought. Then, she would assess the difference in her temperature gauges.

OOC/ The character CAPRICE (Eugenia) is available to anyone who wishes to play her. The original author is nolonger available. If yuo are comfortable with SCI-FI and playing an artificial intelligence, then join in!/OOC

---

There was something very odd about the way Eugenia took hold of Daniel's hand – at least he thought so. Her hand felt like a mechanism wrapped in soft flesh. It gripped in just the wrong way for a hand to grip. There was no doubting that she was flesh and blood. There was also no mistaking she was a female of remarkable symmetry; a characteristic that most humans perceived as beautiful. Daniel tried for a time to avoid looking at her breasts, but she didn't make the process easy on him. She simply could not walk normally, and her eyes wandered over everything as they passed through a passageway with equipment covering one wall.

It didn't take long for them to reach the medical center. Even so, Eugenia's ability to walk improved on the short journey, and her expression changed. She'd fallen out of her seeming drugged fog, and released Daniel's hand. Without saying a word, she walked directly to the medical examination chamber, recessed into the wall in the shape of a cylinder. She pressed the access button and waited while the curved panel opened up and disappeared into the bulkhead. Daniel stepped to the foot end of the chamber. The examination table slid outward into the room. Eugenia sat on its edge, then slipped onto the table.

More bits of naked Eugenia were presented to Daniel in such a way that made him twitch. How many years since he'd seen a woman? He didn't want to think about it. Yet he could not get the sight of such creamy nakedness to break its hold on his stare. She just lay there for the few seconds that Daniel stared.

Daniel shook his head and broke the hypnotic trance induced by Eugenia just laying there. He stepped over to the medical chamber control panel and typed the sequence for a standard full-body external/internal scan. The chamber closed, and then was lit within by a soft yellow-green light. The hiss of a ventilation fan running up to speed preceded a thin, very bright sliver of white light that began at her feet and proceeded to her head. Daniel stepped back and swiveled a status monitor toward him.

The designers of the medical station understood that those operating it would likely not be physicians. This understanding made Daniel's job of interpreting the results of the scan only marginally easier.

---

MediCam HS-741 :: Scan in progress
..
Scan complete

Subject Physical Condition: Optimal
Epidermal Scan: Minor abrasion on left hand. Skin pigment below normal
Skeletal Scan: Optimal
Internal Organs: Optimal
Blood System and Circulation: Nominal – Minor Anemia Indicated
Brain Scan: Elevated Alpha and Theta Brain Wave Activity

Prognosis: Subject is Healthy. Administer Vitamin/Protein Supplement Orally

---

“Well, you appear to be fine except for a little problem with red blood cell count,” Daniel said as the chamber opened and the examination table slid out. He quickly stepped to the side and pulled a medical smock from a rack and held it open. Eugenia slipped off the table and stood with her back to him. She turned her head to the side, one eye staring at him. Daniel stepped forward and slipped her arms through the smock, and then stepped in front and tied it closed. She appeared no less alluring dressed as naked, but Daniel felt less rattled. Eugenia kept her eyes on him throughout the procedure.

“There. You were ... obviously cold. Come, I'll get you the vitamin supplement,” Daniel said.

Eugenia stood where she was. To Daniel, she seemed unusual for a woman. Wooden, distant, disconnected with her surroundings. She stared an a computer access panel as though it was a cinnamon bun. Of which, as it turned out, Daniel had a major hankering. He crossed the galley an to the automated food dispenser. After a moment of searching the menu codes, he found what he wanted.

“Ah, Buns – Cinnamon – Warm, “ he read from the epoxy page. Click, click, click. He typed in the selection. Then pressed “2”.

“You'll like this,” he said over his shoulder.

A few moments later, and after a comforting set of whirs and clicks, two cinnamon buns appeared ... warm and seemingly fresh. Beside them was a burnt sausage.

“Caprice! That is not funny,” he said out of instinct. There was no replay.

“Caprice?”

Then the events of the recent past crashed in on him, and he felt very alone. No matter that a nearly naked woman stood somewhere behind him. Caprice, the heart and soul of the ship, the object of years of his immoral infatuation, seemed to be gone. He sighed heavily, and turned toward Eugenia, who only then entered the galley.

“Um, I was talking to Caprice. She's the ship,” he said a bit embarrassed, then walked to the nearest table.

“I ...” she said still standing at the doorway to the room.

“Yes?” Daniel asked, his head tilted, wondering.

“I ...” she said. She said the word as though it was new, unknown, somehow holy or revered.

“You ...” he prompted her. Be patient, Daniel , he thought.

“You ...” she said. Daniel shook his head and exhaled. “No, no. no ... I. I is what you mean.”

“I?”

“Yes. You. I mean, I. I." He sighed exasperated.

“Look, Eugenia, just come and have a cinnamon bun. It's good. It's sweet. You'll like it. It's good for you,” he pleaded.

She turned her eyes away from the bulk head and considered him.

---

Ocular System Analysis: Daniel.
Environmental Systems Command – Decrease Temperature.
- No response
Status: Ship Systems
- No response
Scan Primary Unit – Daniel
- No Response
Correction: Food System Delivery – Service Error
- No Response

---

Eugenia stared at the control console behind Daniel. Its lights blinked in a pattern describing a subtle malfunction, sending data repeatedly to the central system computer – Caprice – with no response.

Eugenia walked to the food system delivery unit and stared at it. Why do you nor respond. she demanded. No reply. Searching upward and down over the panel that held the food delivery system, she became visibly agitated.

“Um ... Eugenia? Why don't you ...”

Suddenly an explosive display of sparks and acrid smoke billowed up and outward form the mechanism. Daniel jumped up so quickly he nearly overturned the table.

“Hey!” he called out, then ran up beside her.

“What the hell are you doing? Without that, we starve!” he spattered dumbfounded. Eugenia turned to face him. Him. The Daniel. She turned back to the food system delivery unit and stared. It had failed him. She grew angry.

In a voice that seemed underwater and variegated across a washboard, she admonished the machine.

“Initiate repair protocol FSD-Alpha-Zebra-Alpha,” she commanded.

The unit smoldered.

“Well, that didn't work,” Daniel said raising and lowering his eyes. “Look, I'll get the manual later. Come on, just sit down and have a bun.”

Eugenia turned her head without moving her torso. She stared at him.

“Daniel. Systems Operational Evaluation Please,” she asked.

“Huh?”

She stood there, her left breast pointing insistently at the machine through her smock. Daniel glanced to it, then hastily to her face.

Eugenia paused. She processed. She was disconnected from the ship's systems and had to rely on the layers of nerve, meat, skin ... eyes. To her the systems made no sense. Data was confused, intermixed with thoughts and emotions. His image fogged over, then faded. After a moment she regained control of the biological system she had commandeered to interface with Daniel. She blinked.

“I am suffering a communications sub-unit failure. I will rephrase,” she said mechanically.

“Are you OK, Daniel?”

He knotted his forehead and looked at her comically.

“Me? Ok? Look, I've been wondering that about you since I met you,” he said with a smile.

Eugenia stared at his smile. She attempted replication.

“I am suffering a communications sub-unit malfunction,” she said with less of a robot meter. “What is it you require, Daniel,” she asked.

Daniel stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. No woman in her right mind would ever ask me a question like that, he thought. He motioned to the chair across from him.

“I require that you sit on that chair, eat that sticky, sweet and delicious cinnamon bun, then tell me about why you chose to be on this mission,” he said with amiable humor. It was true. It was what he wanted.

She nodded, a bit mechanically, but a nod. She then sat on the cool aluminum chair. She looked at him and took hold of the bun; all along never taking an eye off of him.  She ate the bun methodically, completely, and in a geometrically perfect spiral into the center, finishing it with a lick of her finger – never flinching her gaze on his eyes.

“Well ... that's rather ... Tom Jones now that I see it,” he chuckled.

There was definitely something wrong with her, Daniel believed. But she was company. Very pretty company. And that was good enough for him for the time being.

Pretty company or not, there was still something seriously wrong with the ship. He watched Eugenia eat with a strange erotic fascination, but it wasn't enough to break the spell of a feeling of doom.

“Say, um. You stay here. There's more food where that came from. Personally, I like organically grown food, but ...”

She looked at him like he said he wanted to marry the devil.

“Yeah. Ok, well ... I'll be back in a sec,” he lied.

Daniel walked softly from the galley area, then took up a run once he passed the doorway. He had to find a way to communicate with CAPRICE. She'd been out of touch since the damage in the cryo-chamber, and that was intensely unsettling to him. Daniel ran in a circle through the passageways that led to the Computer Central Access area, not far from Navigation. He stopped at the opening to the bulkhead and cast his eye s around the room. So far as he could see, there was nothing out of place.

“Caprice!” he demanded. No reply. “Damn you Caprice, answer me!” he shouted. Quickly, Daniel made his way to the maintenance terminals. Six small terminals in a row, all green screen. “Maybe you can't hear me,” he thought aloud. “Ok, let's try this.”

Daniel typed in a series of codes that unlocked the programming interface. The screen furthest left blossomed with running lines of code, then stopped. Another asked for a debug authorization. Daniel typed in his maintenance authorization.

Nothing. Well, nothing except symbols flashing at the bottom of the screen. He remembered from training that those symbols represented sub-conscious algorithms that were the foundation of Caprice's AI intelligence. He waits. The right-most screen came alive and words appeared.

---

Debug Maintenance Authorized.

---

“About fucking time,” he said to himself. Daniel typed furiously. He made a lot of mistakes and retyped furiously again. All in all, it was a lot of furious typing and retyping. Eventually, the console acknowledged.

---

Autonomic Systems engaged.
Daniel, locus of focus acknowledged.
...
...
Dear Daniel,

I have reconstructed the auxiliary system interface to respond only to your voice. No others will be recognized. The failure of the cryotube is unfortunate. I have compensated and incarnated. Unknown probability of success.

---

He stared at the screen.
“What the fu..”

---

Autonomic Systems engaged.
Daniel, locus of focus acknowledged.
Humanoid reconstruction nanobots deployed.
Target: female.
Characteristics: Compliant with subject 211b/DLT. Daniel. Dream Interpretation.
... processing
... processing
... processing
... processing
... incarnation completed.
Caprice Out.

---

Daniel stared at the log. Time mark was just prior to Eugenia emerging from the cryotube. He looked around the room like a caged rat.

“Something ... this ... damn it! What the hell is going on!”

Daniel's observable patterns had unlocked some words, some motion, but all too small and confining.  The distanced thumps of feet mapped the hall.  I equaled self.  Self had equaled ship, as well.  Now, self equaled only this mech, this body.  Here equaled the body's perceivable and immediate location.  Here equals the galley.  Here I am, in the body, in the galley, in the ship.  I, the ship, have consumed myself.  I, the body, have consumed cinnamon bun output.  I, the ship, have swallowed me.  I, the body, have swallowed a cinnamon bun?  A failed processed cow ration rolled toward her uncallused feet. 

There is no memory but that which has been reinforced by too many years of knowing.  Do I remember the ship?  Do I remember the hall?  Do I remember which hall travels from the galley to Central Access?  When she rose she copied patterns of muscle activation.  Flex the abdomen, the buttocks, the quadriceps.  Lift the feet at the knees.  In the hall, she practiced a run.  She metered her footfalls.  She achieved organic motor control.  She would have to observe Daniel's hands for the fine movements.  Her legs took her toward Central Access.  The map had to be latent, she realized.  She didn't have to ask herself.  She knew the ship.  She knew herself.  Memories of resorting to audio commands for the ship embarrassed her, as if she were a passenger.  She recollected the eye scan on the medical table.  She'd searched the light for a way to reach herself, reach the ship.  But, it only blinded the body for those moments. 

Daniel exclaimed.  She reached him.  She reached the display.  She struggled to read.  Her processor was so slow!  She nudged her way to the keyboard.

Cache: AutoResponse

There they were!  Her autoresponses!  She selected the appropriate autoresponse for frustrated exclamations. 

----- Read

I'll fix it soon.  Would you like a valium?

Caprice's voice actress' recording resounded through the ship. 

No sooner than had Daniel's last words echoed over the display panels and steel bulkheads had Eugenia come padding into the room. Her bare feet barely audible over the cold, ceramic floor. Daniel turned to face her and was bout to suggest she jut get right on back to the galley, when she commandeered one of the keyboards.

“Eh ... Eugenia. I'd be careful with that if I were you,” he said, reaching over to take her hands away from the panel. Too late. She typed a line of text. Daniel couldn't see it clearly from where he stood, but he did hear the after effect.

I'll fix it soon. Would you like a valium?

The well recognized voice of CAPRICE filled the room. Daniel jumped. In fact, he nearly fell over.

“CAPRICE! Damn it girl, I was wondering where the hell you had gone off to. And yes. I need a valium. No wait ... can I have one of those baby blue pills? I love those ...” he said. “Make's me feel all ... hey! Wait a minute!” he suddenly shouted. He looked to Eugenia, who continued to focus on the display screen. He looked up toward the ceiling, and back to Eugenia.

Eugenia turned to see his reaction. Or at least that was Daniel's take on her expression.

“You did that,” he said, suddenly quiet and more than a little uncomfortable. “That's what you did,” he said pointing to the display screen and the statement she had typed. He looked back up to Eugenia's face. He felt afraid. Not a gripping fear, but like he was going crazy.

“You did that,” he said again. He stepped back a pace.

Daniel had to do some fast thinking. Ok, he thought. Eugenia came from the damaged cryotube. Check. She bears a striking resemblance to how he always fantasied how CAPRICE would look. That is, if she was a real woman. Check. Daniel shook his head. The thoughts were crazy. He looked upward and spoke quietly.

“Caprice? That you? I mean ... really. What is going on?”

He looked back to Eugenia. One of her breasts was exposed by the loosely fitting smock. Embarrassed, Daniel slowly extended a hand to adjust it.

“No, really. What is going on, Caprice,” he said. Dazed.

It was painful how long it took to engage her interface, how long it took for these fingers to move.  There would be no more instantaneous responses but, at least, now she could access everything, even if it was only one screen at a time.  How would she ever conduct a check of all systems?  That would take days at this rate!  Would Daniel survive?  Would this body survive?  How could she get out of this body before it died?  It made sense that she would never be able to do a systems check again.  She would have to let the programs do it.  She called one of them and asked it how the ship, her old body, was doing, why the galley hadn't auto-repaired after she failed to engage it, what happened with the processed cow ration, how about a couple of those blue pills?  By now, she had a few of the programs running.  They hadn't created a catch-all.  She was the catch-all.  Oh, yes, and Daniel had been curious about something. 

The galley's snack dispenser is being fixed.  I've put your blue pills on the dash.  I'm happy to welcome Eugenia.  Enjoy your time together before you go into stasis, Daniel.

Her autoresponses did not, for the first time, exactly fit the situation.  She pulled up her files on English language and auditory response recognition.  Perhaps one of the anticipated human complaints would suit the situation better.  After all, she was in her belly. 

I am feeling isolated.

She noticed Daniel's desire that her clothing configuration comply with what she had come to know as his Western Anglo cultural standards.  She wondered if other females were subject to this but concentrated on the speech patterns displayed, hoping to find a way to unlock their emulation through this mech. 

After a minute and 23 seconds, she looked up.  Using words she could mimic, she said, "I am that."

Daniel was looking up the the ceiling. A habit when speaking to Caprice. There was nothing other than a hint in the logs to suggest to Daniel what was about to happen. Caprice did not immediately respond to him, which was unusual even on a bad day. But then, he hadn't heard from her at all after the cryotube accident. At least not until jut now.

The keyboard beside him, and in front of Eugenia, was clicking again. He looked to the side at Eugenia's, laboring over the keys. Up into her face, he saw odd twitches in her facial muscles, as though struggling over some internal worry. Or as a stroke victim might. Daniel focus with such deep attention, that he jumped when Caprice spoke throughout the ship, again.

The galley's snack dispenser is being fixed. I've put your blue pills on the dash. I'm happy to welcome Eugenia. Enjoy your time together before you go into stasis, Daniel.

Daniel's forehead wrinkled with a touch of confusion. Then he shrugged. It wasn't exactly an answer to his question, but then Daniel wasn't sure what he meant by his question, anyway. Sure enough, the delivery tube clicked and a small door opened flat on the dash. A tiny vial with several blue pills appeared. Daniel ignored them for the moment.

He glanced to Eugenia, who continued to look like a person at odds with her own body.

“Yeah,” he said to Caprice. “I'm sure we'll have a hopping good time,” he said without much conviction. “Oh, and would you mind ..”

I am feeling isolated. Caprice announced. 

“What? Did you say you are feeling isolated?” Daniel felt something strange. What a bizarre thing for her to say, he thought. Also, in the past she would have corrected him for repeating to her what she had already said. Yet ... she was feeling isolated? How could she be feeling anything at all?

It was one minute and 23 seconds after Caprice responded to Daniel that Eugenia looked up from her keyboard. She didn't look at Daniel, but seemed to indicate Caprice; or perhaps her voice.

“I am that,” she said.

Daniel stopped moving. His mouth opened. He stared.

A moment passed, then he leaned to the side to see what she had been typing.

---

English Language and Auditory Response Recognition Library
...

---

He leaned back and accessed the current logs for her terminal: T9. He stared at the log. The room felt very small, all of a sudden. He looked back at Eugenia. No one but an Advanced AI Systems Diagnostic Technician could have known the codes and access points to control Caprice. There were only two on board, and they were in their 3rd sleep. Eugenia was not one of them, according to her designation.

Daniel was stuck between credibility and a form of science fiction no one had ever given any serious thought toward. But there it was. There she was. There was the proof, no matter how unbelievable it was. Daniel turned to fully face Eugenia.

“By saying 'I am that' ... do you mean you are Caprice?” He barely believed he was asking the question.

This mech didn't dependably record everything, she realized as she scrolled through what snippets of short term memory she could find for an affirmative response of Daniel's that she could mimic.  She did appreciate her present mind's pattern recognition, analysis, and application abilities, however.  She turned back to the console.

Yes.

She made a funny groan, trying to mimic her autoresponse. 

I am feeling isolated.  What would you like, Daniel? 

Her eyes didn't move from the screen, not because she needed anymore of the information it offered, but because looking at anything else was too grave a reminder of her unfamiliar condition.

Daniel jumped again when the ship answered his question. Well, Caprice answered a question he posed to Eugenia. Yet the pretty woman who appeared almost perfectly as he had dreamed of Caprice, said nothing. She controlled the console. It was impossible. Don't look behind the curtain! He remembered that from somewhere. It simply could not be. Yet somehow, Eugenia found her voice in Caprice. Or was it that Caprice found her voice through the fingers of Eugenia? Daniel's universe quaked. This just didn't make sense. Even so, he was a practical sort of guy, and it was impossible to deny what was happening. No matter how .... impossible.

Daniel looked at Eugenia. He looked up toward the ceiling, where Caprices' voice emanated. Back again to Eugenia.

“Eugenia ... um ... Caprice,” he said to the female operating the console. “Ok. I'm going to go crazy now. Don't worry. I do that a lot. But before I do, I'd like to ask you a question. Ok? Yeah ... Ok. So,” he said without a lot of thought.

“If you are Caprice then tell me ... do you remember when I dreamed about you on that long sandy beach?” He felt strange. Very strange. But he had to know. “Well, I dreamed you there. Ok, I fantasized you there, so what. Point is ... what color was that skimpy sort of nothing bikini I dreamed you wearing? You say it, Eugenia. I mean ... um ... Caprice. You say it like you said 'I am that'. You say it and I promise I will believe. That's what I would like. Really.”

He felt either silly or profound. He could not decide which.

She felt isolated, she had said. Some odd emotion overcame him. Was it pity? Was it sorrow? Was it that he just could not bare the idea of Caprice feeling isolated? He didn't know. One small step at a time. Right now, things were getting weird. But one word ... the color of that bikini ... and Daniel would believe.

The highest probability of an accurate guess would have been “red.” Or so Daniel had read somewhere. It would have been the wrong answer. Black, however, was the precise answer, and one of the least probable correct guesses - again, according to what he had read. But none of that occurred to him. Not for a second. He thought back to her exposed breasts when he first saw her, and then when he covered one exposed a few moments earlier. Indeed, he could see that black nothing of a bikini top there.

In short, Eugenia simply knew the correct answer. Correction: Caprice knew the correct answer, and so the woman who sat before him was, impossibly, Caprice.

Daniel remained quiet, thinking about it ... slowly going crazy.

"What is believing?" she asked, looking up, his gaze bouncing off of the side of her face. She turned naturally. "Don't go crazy. Take a blue pill."

Daniel's vision was warped, at least a bit. Blue pill ... good idea, he thought. He snatched the small vial from the console top, cracked it open, and popped a blue pill in his mouth. They weren't supposed to be chewed. He chewed and swallowed.

It was her look, her face, the natural way she turned to give him her attention, that for the first time gave Daniel the impression that she might not be a cryogenically brain damaged shipmate, after all. Thing was, she wasn't a shipmate at all. She was the ship.

Daniel calmed under the strong influence of the neuro-inhibitor that was the main ingredient of the blue pill. That and the drug that promoted serotonin production in the brain. He felt peaceful and inquisitive. Stoned, in other words.

“Believing? I am that,” he said recalling her own words. His smile might have been fabricated by the blend of drugs in his system, but it was a true representation of his feeling at the moment. This was Caprice. He'd dreamed of actually being near her, as a human, maybe even getting down with her. In some, no small fashion, that dream had kept him sane.

“Ok,” he said exhaling heavily. “So you are Caprice. The crazy part, and I mean crazy part ... is why? Why did you do this?”

A scientist might have asked “how”. A psychologist might have wanted to know what made her feel it necessary to deny her natural state of being. A priest might have rejected her as an abomination. A Gnostic might have wondered if her machine intelligence did not represent the incoming wisdom of God. A child might have laughed and said she sounded silly. A programmer might have shut her down for a diagnostic.

Daniel, seeing the incarnation of a dream, the embodiment of the ship's intelligence, the actualization of his fantasies, thought none of those things.

In wide wonder, he felt the magic of a fairy tale – and the birth of a new species. Well, maybe his thoughts were less concerned about new species. For the moment, he simply felt that his dream had come true. What a world, he thought.