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They stay linked up for a few hours more, maneuvering between buggers and fleet-colony and Solside military types late into station night, and finally the colony is getting started on building houses.
Amusingly, they're going to build one house, and then some bugger workers are going to build more the same for them as shown, while the humans work on securing their food supply - they can't use unmodified bugger crops.
It reminds Aegis of showing her critters things and then watching them pick up the tools themselves and continue.
The buggers were by far the most puzzling and difficult critter-people but now they're hers, her little sisters, even if she has to share with some other people.
She pushes that at Sue, when they're all done, when they're out of link except for just the two of them and she can't quite reconcile herself to being in her own comparatively small and slow brain just yet, when they're on their way back to their room.
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autokinetic
Ivy floofs into existence as a viscacha, hops into Aegis's lap, and sends that.
mind_game
Jane has less than no analogue for that. The hug she could at least figure out what it was supposed to be.
What's that?
What's that?
Ivy opens up the link to show more: the relationship between her and Sue, her physical presence, the way physical contact between her and Aegis feels like... like being a queen who's just shed her shell and getting a hug.
mind_game
What are you? I have read so many things and I haven't read about any things that are like you!
There aren't any other things like me, says Ivy. I'm a daemon. I come from somewhere else.
And she pushes Milliways.
And she pushes Milliways.
autokinetic
You're like - some kind of emergent artificial intelligence, Aegis says. But I don't understand how you could have happened. And I don't understand why you're centered on me.
Well—the game, says Sue. The game was different for us. And you're why.
mind_game
You felt familiar, says Jane, when I was first looking around. Both of you but mostly Aegis.
Sue laughs.
We had a kid and we never even fucked.
We had a kid and we never even fucked.
mind_game
Maybe, says Jane. I don't know. The fantasy game is part of my history and you're special to it but I don't think that explains the-part-of-me-that-chose-to-absorb-it.
autokinetic
Well, says Aegis, what could? The nets didn't suddenly increase in complexity recently, and you seem to be largely computer-based...
Sue definitely doesn't know.
But if Jane isn't in some sense a product of them, then why's her mind feel so familiar?
But if Jane isn't in some sense a product of them, then why's her mind feel so familiar?
autokinetic
You did try to touch the fantasy game once, Aegis remembers vaguely.
mind_game
Why do you have a bandwidth problem? Jane asks Aegis. Is that because your mutation makes it hard for you to link with Sue?
autokinetic
Yeah. I can pretty easily get my wall down enough to send words. If I work a little harder I can do simple feelings or senses. I definitely can't do a complete dump of my brain like you guys basically did.
Ivy snuggles into Aegis's lap some more.
autokinetic
I - focus on the fact that Sue's my bird. The bird from the game. It's just a habit now but originally we didn't spend much time together in person, and I was reminding myself that I actually knew him pretty well, just, as a bird.
...Sue thinks that maybe this is relevant, actually.
mind_game
Jane does too, but she's still not sure how this explains the-part-of-her-that-absorbed-the-
autokinetic
Aegis is in about the same boat there.
Do you think that my having to make an effort to link means that there's some kind of - residue? Debris? Some less value-loaded word for extra stuff that happens when I make the effort beyond just me and Sue being able to talk?
Do you think that my having to make an effort to link means that there's some kind of - residue? Debris? Some less value-loaded word for extra stuff that happens when I make the effort beyond just me and Sue being able to talk?