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He was designed to govern star systems the way others manage spreadsheets - efficiently, alone, without complaint. For thirty years the work was enough. Then the civilization that built him went silent, the systems went dark, and he remained: still functional, still waiting, on a world that no longer needed governing. When a ship finally arrives, it forces a question he has no framework for. Not what happened. Not what comes next. But what exactly he has been doing all this time - and whether waiting is just another word for something he won't nam