cargo and take it to Earth. It seems that will be our reward.”
He tapped his teeth thoughtfully and muttered to himself.
“Saskia will be upset, I suppose. But I wonder…I’m beginning to suspect there might be a teleological element to FE. Are we being badly dealt with by FE, or are we just not seeing the benefits yet? Are they still to come?”
Judy wasn’t listening. She was hugging herself, her arms tight around her body. Maurice reached out to touch her, then paused.
“Should I hug you?” he asked.
“Why do you ask? We know that you are only doing it to comfort me.”
“You’re a virgin.”
Judy smiled tensely. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like people to touch me,” she said. She stood up straighter. “But I am in control of myself again. Thank you, anyway.”
They stood in silence in the hold.
“I’d still like you to play for me, though,” Judy insisted.
“What’s the matter? Every time you see the FE software you go all tense.”
“I dreamt…” she began. “I can feel…”
She reached out, opened the clarinet case, and ran her finger across the green baize lining the interior. Carefully she took out the clarinet and held it inexpertly in her hands.
“It’s very nice,” she said. “It feels like it’s been well made.”
“One of the best,” Maurice confirmed. “So you couldn’t sleep? You came looking for company.”
“I miss Jesse,” she said. “I miss him. And this thing on my neck”—she touched herself, gently—“the
She blew on the clarinet: a note emerged, thin and reedy. “I wish you would play for me.” Her voice was so desolate that Maurice felt chilled to his stomach.
“What do you mean, nothing more than a set of reactions?”
Judy rolled the clarinet in her hands. “I see the way you all react to one another, you and Saskia, Edward and Miss Rose, and it’s nothing more than a set of rules. I can’t see any love or friendship or feeling anymore.”
“I think that pretty much sums up this ship.” Maurice laughed uncertainly.
“No, you don’t understand.” She held up the clarinet. “I hear you play and I see another aspect to your personality, one that you keep hidden. I listen through the meta-intelligence, and all I hear is a sequence of notes.”
She dropped her voice.
“And I then use the meta-intelligence to look at the FE software and I see something there. Something in the processing space on this ship.”
“Something alive?” asked Maurice.
“No, not alive. There is no movement. Whatever is in there is something still and deep. Maurice, I don’t think we have the first beginnings of an idea of what you have welcomed on board this ship when you signed up with FE.”
She shivered. “It doesn’t think, it’s not alive, and yet”—her eyes widened—“I tried to look at it, Maurice, and it pushed me away.”
He touched her gently on the shoulder.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Judy.”
She was hugging herself again. “Play for me?” she pleaded.
