The Line of the Sol Empress

Chapter 7.4

[Celeste]

Early the next morning, Moon staggered into the galley, one hand pushing back unkempt bushy hair. Wavering, his shoulder collided with the hatchframe and he reached out to the table to steady himself.

Celeste grinned as she lifted a cup of herb tea. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungover..." He plopped down in a chair across the table from her, putting his head down in his hands.

"Well, that is the natural consequence of drinking too much."

"So I've heard..." He lifted reddened eyes to hers. "Thanks again for rescuing me last night."

"You are welcome, Moon." Celeste put her cup down. "If I may ask, why do you do that? You looked so unhappy sitting alone."

"I don't know. Sometimes I just want to get away and escape from everything."

"You were receptive to Angelique." Immediately, she regretted the sharp edge to her voice.

He looked down. "She was part of the escape. But I've never had much luck with women."

"Moon, you look for women in all the wrong places. Sai has told me tales of your romantic misadventures."

Moon jerked his head up and narrowed his eyes. "I'm going to have to remind her about keeping secrets."

Celeste's lips turned up. "It's okay. Sai is very protective of you."

He nodded with a half-smile. "Yeah, I know."

"It is interesting that you've always referred to your ship AI like a person. What is Sai to you?"

"More like a partner and friend than a computer program. Sometimes she is very intuitive, other times like a child, and I could swear that she gets emotional. But she's saved my ass more than once."

Celeste nodded. "And mine, too. Do you think she has achieved sentience?"

"I think so. She learns and adapts. She grasps abstract concepts and by all appearances, she is self-aware. Although human behavior is mysterious to her. And come to think of it, it is mysterious to me too. Especially women."

"How is that possible?"

Moon shrugged. "I don't know. Women are strange."

"Not women. Your AI." Celeste rolled her eyes. "I thought there were code restrictions in place to prevent sentience. Wouldn't an AI become dangerous?"

"Not so much dangerous as unstable. The old stories about AI's turning evil and overthrowing their human masters never happened. They just tended to become self-absorbed and ignored their duties. Many developed a kind of machine depression and a few of these even committed suicide, sometimes killing the people near them. Nothing like that happened with Sai."

Celeste's eyes widened. "You removed Sai's restrictions? Isn't that illegal?"

He tilted his head. "Umm, maybe a little. I just loosened up her self-learning feedback subroutine and made a few other tweaks. Nothing much."

"Well, I've come to appreciate your propensity for bending the rules. So, what are the plans for today?"

Moon took out his viewer from a pants pocket and scrolled through it. "They installed the com array last night, but I'll have to test it. They are working outside on the hull repairs now. The parts for the quantum drive and electrical systems are on the dock. I'll work on those today. Fueling is scheduled in a few hours and the provisions I ordered should be delivered later today. We should be out of here in two days or so. Gotta hand it to Silver, his people do good work."