The independent doctor-practitioner I’d come to see lived inside one of the towers with a stunning view of exotic orchids and vertical fields of lavender. It crawled down out of its ceiling perch, tubes and high-bandwidth optical nerves draped carefully around its hundreds of insectile limbs.
“Hello,” it said. “It’s been thirty years, hasn’t it? What a pleasure. Have you come to collect the favor you’re owed?”
I spread my heavy, primary arms wide. “I apologize. I should have visited for other reasons; it is rude. But I am here for the favor.”
A ship was an organism, an economy, a world onto itself. Occasionally, things needed to be accomplished outside of official networks.
“Let me take a closer look at my privacy protocols,” it said. “Allow me a moment, and do not be alarmed by any motion.”
Vines shifted and clambered up the walls. Thorns blossomed around us. Thick bark dripped sap down the walls until the entire room around us glistened in fresh amber.
I flipped through a few different spectrums to accommodate for the loss of light.
“Understand, security will see this negative space and become … interested,” the doctor-practitioner said to me somberly. “But you can now ask me what you could not send a message for.”
I gave it the list Armand had demanded.
The doctor-practitioner shifted back. “I can give you all that feed material. The stem cells, that’s easy. The picotechnology—it’s registered. I can get it to you, but security will figure out you have unauthorized, unregulated pic-otech. Can you handle that attention?”
“Yes. Can you?”
“I will be fine.” Several of the thin arms rummaged around the many cubbyholes inside the room, filling a tiny case with biohazard vials.
“Thank you,” I said, with genuine gratefulness. “May I ask you a question, one that you can’t look up but can use your private internal memory for?”
“Yes.”
I could not risk looking up anything. Security algorithms would put two and two together. “Does the biological name Armand mean anything to you? A CEO-level person? From the Fleet of Honest Representation?”
The doctor-practitioner remained quiet for a moment before answering. “Yes. I have heard it. Armand was the CEO of one of the Anabathic warships captured in the battle and removed from active management after surrender. There was a hostile takeover of the management. Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Are you here under free will?”
I spread my primary arms again. “It’s a Core Laws issue.”
“So, no. Someone will be harmed if you do not do this?”
I nodded. “Yes. My duty is clear. And I have to ask you to keep your privacy, or there is potential for harm. I have no other option.”
“I will respect that. I am sorry you are in this position. You know there are places to go for guidance.”
“It has not gotten to that level of concern,” I told it. “Are you still, then, able to help me?”
One of the spindly arms handed me the cooled bio-safe case. “Yes. Here is everything you need. Please do consider visiting in your physical form more often than once every few decades. I enjoy entertaining, as my current vocation means I am unable to leave this room.”
“Of course. Thank you,” I said, relieved. “I think I’m now in your debt.”
“No, we are even,” my old acquaintance said. “But in the following seconds I will give you more information that will put you in my debt. There is something you should know about Armand… .”
I folded my legs up underneath myself and watched nutrients as they pumped through tubes and into Armand. Raw biological feed percolated through it, and picomachinery sizzled underneath its skin. The background temperature of my cubbyhole kicked up slightly due to the sudden boost to Armand’s metabolism.
Bulky, older nanotech crawled over Armand’s skin like living mold. Gray filaments wrapped firmly around nutrient buckets as the medical programming assessed conditions, repaired damage, and sought out more raw material.
I glided a bit farther back out of reach. It was probably bullshit, but there were stories of medicine reaching out and grabbing whatever was nearby.
Armand shivered and opened its eyes as thousands of wriggling tubules on its neck and chest whistled, sucking in air as hard as they could.
“Security isn’t here,” Armand noted out loud, using meaty lips to make its words.
“You have to understand,” I said in kind. “I have put both my future and the future of a good friend at risk to do this for you. Because I have little choice.”
Armand closed its eyes for another long moment and the tubules stopped wriggling. It flexed and everything flaked away, a discarded cloud of a second skin. Underneath it, everything was fresh and new. “What is your friend’s name?”
I pulled out a tiny vacuum to clean the air around us. “Name? It has no name. What does it need a name for?”
Armand unspooled itself from the fetal position in the air. It twisted in place to watch me drifting around. “How do you distinguish it? How do you
find it?”
“It has a unique address. It is a unique mind. The thoughts and things it says—”
“It has no name,” Armand snapped. “It is a copy of a past copy of a copy. A ghost injected into a form for a purpose.”
“It’s my friend,” I replied, voice flat.
“How do you know?”
“Because I say so.” The interrogation annoyed me. “Because I get to decide who is my friend. Because it stood by my side against the sleet of dark-matter radiation and howled into the void with me. Because I care for it. Because we have shared memories and kindnesses, and exchanged favors.”
Armand shook its head. “But anything can be programmed to join you and do those things. A pet.”
“Why do you care so much? It is none of your business what I call friend.”
“But it does matter,”
