The ruined city of the gods is few days away from anything settled. The land is criss-crossed and covered in their remnants. Too many hunks of rusty metal, geometrical outcrops of broken crumbling stone, and half-intact structures to be worth farming or grazing. Most ancient places outside of the city have probably been picked clean by other priests, but they make good shelter.

A few of these even have notes and advice carved or painted on the wall. 

Avoid the bridge two miles from here - not safe to cross.

The towers and tunnels are dangerous, but low places are picked clean. I suggest you learn to climb.

Be resolute and methodical if you wish to survive. You will not find truth quickly.

Anything that looks like an obvious good idea will have been tried. Either it was, and whatever was there came back with the priest, or it wasn't after all. Vaayo looks through the city for the most obviously suicidal place to go. Maybe one of those tunnels the note mentioned.

There is one particular tower that stands tall, hollowed out, but with a more intact section at the top. Some of the glass is even still in its windows. There's a section of girders that look potentially scaleable, but it would be a very dangerous climb and it looks like the whole structure might collapse some day soon.

There are entrances to the tunnels all over - metal circles covering columns with rusting ladders. Large concrete pipes that disgusting-looking water flows slowly out of, overgrown with plants. A stairway down with an unreadable sign, elaborate and half-collapsed open spaces down below, with long tunnels heading off into the darkness.

The darkness is the real trouble of the tunnels. It makes it easy to get lost. They go this way and that, there are small branches everywhere, some barely large enough to walk through, some wide enough for half a dozen cows at once. It would be so easy to walk past the exit of the side-tunnel you were exploring down in the darkness, and then find yourself hitting dead end after dead end, unable to find the way back up, until you run out of water, trapped in the darkness forever...

Maybe if he puts some strong-smelling things by the entrance and just before every crossroads... no, that idea didn't take long to come up with, someone else has probably tried. Up he goes. If nothing else the glass windows are sort of promising.

As he climbs he can manage to find a nearly sealed-off room - possibly too small a space for other priests to have reached. Inside is some scraps of cloth and leather and rotting wood, plus a few plastic cards, and a rectangular plastic shell with buttons bearing letters, numbers, and other strange symbols on one side (though the insides of it have clearly rusted away).

The tower looked more climbable from afar.

Everything is rusty, the perches are narrow and sloped downward and slippery and falling apart. The line of girders is further apart than it looked. And it's really windy up high. If he were older, in peak condition, and had better climbing gear, maybe he'd have a chance. As it is, he can get up to the fifth or sixth floors after some effort, but ascending the most difficult stretch is probably impossible for him. Not just nearly suicidal to attempt, simply not going to happen.

At least from up here he can get a good view of the city and the surrounding area. There are a lot of buildings out there, though only a few dozen still as tall as where he is right now. The great stone columns holding up what little remains of the city's raised roads make better landmarks than any particular structure, though. It all blends together, a morass of brown and green. Probably all of it has been picked over by priests before him.

...Except for an open tunnel halfway up a steep slope, past the edge of the city. It comes out halfway up a steep hill. There's nothing special about the tunnel, just another stained concrete drain, and there aren't any buildings near it... But it twinges his intuition on some level. There's something about it that makes it seem important. Maybe the way the roads are arranged? Maybe the way it's so oddly placed halfway up a hill, not anywhere you'd want water to drain to.

It looks impossible to climb, but maybe by taking a route to the top of the hill and then carefully descending he could reach it.

Vaayo doesn't recognize the symbols on the plastic shell but he examines them for a while. Plastic cards like those are what they use for money, which is probably some kind of horrible sacrilege, for all he knows the lines of writing on them are prayers or something. He'll take those with him.

He can feel the call. The gods want him to see what's down there, huh? Maybe they left the meaning of life written on a stone tablet down there in a language Vaayo can't read.

"Are you telling me something? Are you watching me? Or did you just leave some kind of beacon there when you left?"

They probably won't answer but at least he can give them a chance.

No answer except the wind.

Yeah, he didn't expect any better.

The beacon's probably also obvious. It's still possible it's something worthwhile, maybe half the people who don't come back just find that following the beacon lets them find whatever place the gods moved to, but...

...well, is there a door or a stairway or something he can use to keep exploring this building that he found by himself instead of that magic tunnel?

There are multiple doors and stairways. It's a pretty big building. He could spend the rest of the day, maybe two days, if he wants to thoroughly check it out for more places like the room he could barely squeeze into with the cards and plastic thing.

He'll just check a few more rooms. The gods and their revelations can wait, if he's getting out of this he's getting out of it with some cool stuff. Somehow he expects "but that's not the important thing, the important thing is what I have to say about the gods" will go over a lot better if he brings home something useful. And he really does not expect the gods to be leading him somewhere useful.

Looking out for rooms in the half-collapsed building that only he could fit into leads him to a relative treasure trove of discoveries.

He finds a few more plastic cards. He finds a shiny yellow hat, hard as metal but much lighter, discarded near tough-looking set of clothes that are too big for him and a metal box full of only semi-rusty incomprehensible tools. Unfortunately the opening into that room is narrow enough it'll be hard to get it out. He finds a lightbulb. He finds a broken watch. He finds a faded but intact book, sealed and wrapped in thick plastic! The title is unreadable, of course. He finds a shiny foil packet with a picture of some kind of bread on it, covered in gods' writing declaring it "TWINKIES". It feels full.

He cuts himself on something sharp and rusty at some point, clambring through the narrow passages.

Well, that's not good for his odds of survival. The bread is probably rotten but mold can be useful. He takes that and the book and the watch and all the cards and tries to get them all safely out and back down to the ground.

...At least if he has to drop the cards they're not likely to be damaged in the fall.

The distracting pain of the cut doesn't hinder him too much on his way back down.

Great. Maybe he'll get away from the tower and die somewhere totally different and people who find his skeleton will have no idea what killed him.

He puts his finds in a neat pile at the base of the tower. He considers taking all of it back and saying he had a vision of the gods where he learned that they weren't perfect after all.

...Even if anyone would buy that it's a lie and he doesn't just want to be listened to, he wants to know. He wants to find the gods and tell them how much people have suffered without them. Or find what scared them off and get rid of it so they come back. Or just know why the supposed definition of goodness includes leaving people to die.

He heads tunnelward. Maybe it is time to give them the benefit of the doubt, just for a while.

If he knew things about medicine, he'd know to wash out the cut with clean water and wrap it with clean bandages.

The suspicious tunnel is half a day away. It's night by the time he reaches it.

Yeah, if he weren't running out of clean water. He only packed what he could carry and he doesn't trust anything here. Maybe it'll rain.

Rest is for other people! He'll just. Keep going. Forever.

Downward!

It's a cloudless night and the moon is nearly full. He can still see, at least.

He nearly loses his footing on the descent and tumbles - which would be certain death on this tall, steep hill - twice. But he makes it to the concrete platform around the tunnel eventually. The ruins of a crane lean against the steep hill, but other than that it's windswept and empty here.

The first twenty or thirty feet of the tunnel are smooth, holding only a different design of metal rail than the underground ones. But there's a... A light, deep inside the tunnel. Faint, but there. It's green. On... Off... On... Off...

Oh.

He might not end up happy with the gods but that's a pretty clear sign he's going to end up understanding them! And when he gets back and hands over the old book and talks about his vision of green light things will be okay somehow. That or he'll die on the way.

Lightward!

It's a surprisingly long walk. Totally straight, no deviation or side paths at all. The few hardy plants that colonized the first section of the tunnel die out, here, too.

Eventually the featureless tunnel has a small side chamber, where it expands for a short ways and then shrinks again. Here he can see the source of the slowly blinking green light. At the bottom of a window to nothing, glass covering black, set into the wall. There's one of those plastic boxes with buttons attached to it just below. It's hard to make out anything with so little light.

They're going to strike him dead for doubting them, aren't they.

Vaayo walks right up to the light and watches it.

The blinking light... Blinks. And blinks some more. And some more.

"...I'm where you wanted me to go but if you don't explain yourselves I'm leaving."

The blinking light has no comment. Maybe he should press the buttons? Those rectangular trays with buttons seem common enough. If he had a lantern or a torch or something he could explore a little better?

He waits for a long time. Maybe the gods are just slow.

...But then he realizes this is just another artifact. He hits it. If this pushes any buttons it's entirely by accident.

He regrets that while his hand is still on the way, it's in good condition if he could get it out of here, maybe it's good for something...

Oh well.

His hand bounces off. 

The blank window lights up after a moment, staggeringly bright when he's used to the dark. He can't bear to look directly at it yet. But the light reveals new detail about this room. There's writing, markings, and a few strange artifacts on the walls and ceiling... There's a metal structure along one side, a small platform with a square of columns around it, a vertical tunnel above it leading up into the darkness. There's a door.

A light. How useful, unlike the gods.

Yeah, he's just going to get out of here and tell everyone there's no reason to care about the gods anymore, besides their artifacts. They won't be impressed but it's the truth he's found so it's the truth he'll bring home. Maybe he'll bring back this light, too. Once his eyes adjust he can look for how it's attached and see if there's a small enough functional piece to carry back.

The light is pretty thoroughly attached to the wall. Built right into it.

It has words on it, spelled out in colors. And pictures.

That one looks like... Some kind of map? It shows a red dot near the converging end of a long, long tunnel, one of several, all converging on some kind of building under the hill.

Something is terribly wrong.

She knows she should be hearing things. Seeing things. The devices for it are there. But she's blind and deaf, reaching out with the networking equivalent of scrabbling around in the dark.

'Emergency power only'. Oh. That doesn't sound good.

She needs to... Get more power. That might be why she's thinking so slowly, confused and lost.

She starts thinking about how to do that.

Oh, that's actually useful. He looks around for anything he can use to copy the map, since he can't take it home with him. Maybe there's some really old chalk around here and something to mark on?

"I'm not done doubting you, you know, it's just a map. You're still useless. So far."

The map-light beeps and says in a smooth voice, "I'm sorry. Voice commands aren't working right now."

Nothing jumps out at him as writing tools unless he has some in his pack.

It's talking! In the language of the gods! Which he doesn't speak.

"I'm sorry. Voice commands aren't working right now," he echoes very carefully.

It repeats the message with exactly the same tone and inflection.

Maybe it's just supposed to say that one thing over and over. Or maybe it's some kind of instruction that it wants him to follow.

How about if he tries heading for the very center of the underground complex. Along the way he repeats the sample of godly speech to himself so he'll remember it.

The very center of the underground complex is... Up. He could go to the end of this tunnel, though it looks like it gets very steep near the end. He could try to see if the stairs behind that door are intact enough to climb. He could climb the long ladder in that elevator shaft.

She found the controls for the passive geothermal plant in the network she's connected to. All the valves and tanks are closed. She's not sure why. The only reason to do that would be if they were going to sit idle for years or decades...

The power available to her slowly increases as thick, oily synthetic liquids start flowing again. Now she can afford to think a little faster. To turn on some of the cameras and microphones.

She wonders if she should start her reactor. No... Something is terribly wrong. She's afraid and anxious and wants to do things about it. But better not to do anything irreversible, or use the nearly-irreplaceable start-up charge, until she knows what's going on.

Well, the gods could probably fly.

He tries the stairs.

The stairwell is collapsed! The whole room is mostly a pile of rubble. It shifts and dust billows out when he opens the door.

He's not impressed with the gods' architecture, which really doesn't make him want to try the ladder. Maybe he should just leave.

Maybe the ladder will get him out of here faster than backtracking.

Sigh. He climbs. The gods should really have left them something better than ruins, if they were so great.

The tall shaft holding the ladder eventually lets out in another tunnel, but smaller, like a hallway.

Every camera she turns on reveals cold, empty rooms and halls, covered in dust and, in places more exposed to the elements, rust. There are supposed to be people here. She's supposed to make sure they're safe. But nobody's here. Did they all die? Did she fail? Did they never show up in the first place?

She's supposed to fly. But launching without double-checking everything is abhorrent. Part of her controls little robots in her main body, going over old equipment. Cabins, kitchens, space suits, medical bays, control rooms, cleaning robots, engines, the reactor core. It's all been sitting here a long, long time. She wakes up subsystems that know how to do these things and tells them to start checking and fixing it all.

She's desperately afraid, now, that she's failed before she began, there are no people here, they're all dead or gone, there are no people to fly up into the sky safe and sound. Nothing but empty rooms and silence and her own robots and data banks to keep her company.

Sigh. "Another beacon would be nice."

Was that...? It was very faint, but there definitely was a signal from that microphone. It could have been random noise. Something creaking with thermal expansion, or an animal's skittering.

She can't take that chance. She turns on the power to that wing, trying to pay attention to every camera and microphone.

The lights nearest him flicker on.

Oh, no, the gods are paying attention to him. Well, he won't let them see his fear.

"Hi, gods! Ready to show me where to go?"

That's definitely a voice! A person! Alive!!!

She can't understand them. She looks through the language library aggressively and still can't understand them. She pores over the short recording dozens of times.

She finds a translator program. She pokes it until it starts, and nearly growls in frustration when it complains that one sentence is not enough to translate with.

Let's see... Can she figure out where he is on the map, and which devices are the lights down there...

The lights on his right turn off. The ones on the left go off, on, off, on, like the green light before.

Left, huh? He looks for the next chance to make a left turn.

He passes some locked doors. The hallway splits after a few minutes of walking. Forward, left, or right. The forward and right halls are dark, the left is lit.

Oh, boy. They're going to kill him for his insolence, aren't they.

Left he goes.

And quickly, the left hallway is barred by a big, heavy locked door with thick glass and some artifacts near it.

Oh no! He's hurt. She needs to get him up to the med bay as quickly as possible.

She can't understand him and he probably can't understand her, but she puts her face on the screen. "Hello! You're hurt! We can't understand each other, but come in, I have medical stuff."

The security door makes a loud clunking sound as it unlocks and swings inward.

An actual god. Vaayo's not sure whether to bow and hope she doesn't kill him or refuse to bow just on principle. He doesn't move for a while. He has to make himself breathe on purpose.

...She's probably going to get angry if he doesn't go in, isn't she. Okay. He goes through the door, slowly, tentatively.

She makes encouraging faces and babbles.

(A person, yay. Who doesn't seem okay at all, really, aah.)

The door closes behind him. This is a small room containing nothing but two doors and another screen on the right. After a few moments, the far door opens.

Oh. She can shut the doors, too. Of course she can. He's not getting out of here if she's displeased. Great. It would be so much easier to decide how to deal with that if only he understood why she didn't help before.

He goes through the new door.

How do you say 'please talk to me'?

Well, 'please go this way' she seems to have worked out okay. The lights will continue to lead Vaayo through hallways, containing offices and maintenance spaces and storage rooms and other things, and past it all.

He walks the whole way in respectful silence.

And comes to a door marked with a vertical and horizontal red line, which L1N points at urgently.

That expression really doesn't look like the expression of someone who feels in control of the situation, now that Vaayo thinks about it. Or okay at all. Maybe the problem is that the gods are trapped in the rubble and need help getting out?

He repeats the thing the voice told him earlier.

"Whaaaat? No. Wherever you heard that... You," point, "go in," point, "So the autodoc can look at your leg."

Maybe it's an insult or overly familiar. ...Maybe he should stand here and say it again?

Nah, it seems like there's a language barrier, it's possible she doesn't know how little Vaayo respects her yet. He goes through the door.

The next room is full of beds with a lot of shiny white machinery surrounding them. L1N tries to indicate that he should lie on one. Or at least sit on that chair over there? Please??

It's entirely possible she's overreacting and this human is actually totally fine, she doesn't know how humans work, the autodoc does.

He examines the things she's gesturing at but it obviously wouldn't make any sense for her to ask him to come all this way just for a place to rest for a minute.

"I'm not sure what you want me to do about your, uh, barracks?"

He's talking.

Translation program, I know I'm not gonna make any sense, give me something to say. "I'm sure you about do," point at bed, "Barracks!"

He doesn't laugh. He manages to make his smile a pleasant, friendly expression.

He sits on the bed while he waits to figure out what's going on.

A robotic arm moves from its resting spot suddenly, with a low whirr.

His leg, his leg, L1N tells it.

The end of the arm with its strange instruments moves down to about chest height. It says, "Please lie flat on the bed for treatment."

Oh, he's going to be a human sacrifice. Okay. That wasn't how he wanted this trip to end but there's no use crying over it.

He flops down like he owns the bed and just happens to be getting comfortable. He imagines his blood staining the sheets.

The arm moves over him, clicking ominously, L1N's worried face looking on, and...

Carefully inspects the cut made by that rusty bit of metal, back in the tower. It pokes him with something that makes a little pof noise and numbs the dull lingering pain surprisingly well. It gently cleans the nearly-closed cut with some sort of cool liquid, then produces pristine white bandages from somewhere to wrap it. It says things in monotone. It asks a question. L1N tells it to skip the questions and has to poke it for a few seconds before convincing it that its patient is incapable of responding.

It investigates his chest, head, neck, arm, and pretty much all of the rest of him in various ways, with light pressure and cold instruments. Then the arm pulls back. Nothing happens for a few moments. It pokes him again, this time on his arm, and the needle stays in for a second or two before retracting. It places a plastic cup full of water on the table near the head of the bed. It says some more things. Then it folds up back into its recess.

...Yeah, okay, showing restraint is hard and it's not like he actually has any idea how he wants to present himself. He has no idea what's even happening but the gods are still here, still alive, still powerful, still perfectly capable of healing people.

"Why do you care about my cut and not the people who die here? Why do you wait down here instead of helping people who can't come to you? Why did you let Viek die? Why did you leave us?"

His language is almost certainly in the same family as lots of other languages she knows, sort of like how Welsh is in the same language family as Sanskrit.

"Why do you-" She shakes her head. She has no idea what he's saying - well, slightly less of 'no idea' than before, the program is starting to generate a few tentative guesses.

But he's angry and upset and tense and afraid and she doesn't know how to help him yet and she doesn't know where everyone else is. Instead she just looks pained.

Maybe she should send some of her robots outside of the complex. She doesn't want to, it feels... Improper. Not Allowed. She's supposed to keep to herself when she's on the ground. (She doesn't know why she thinks that, which is concerning, but not very concerning compared to this human, hurting right in front of her.)

"Why do I what, why do I ask you why you're hiding down here? Why do I disrespect you? Why are you making that face at me?"

...He really hopes the answer isn't because she's trapped and can't actually do anything but clean cuts and light lights. Then he'd have to feel bad about this.

I do not understand you." She borrows the word for 'understand'.

That is a really concerning face and he has no idea what the divine verb is.

He watches her face.

...She sighs. "Blah blah blah. I talk. Now you talk."

"You want to learn this language, don't you. Fine. That's a bed. That's a chair. I'm a person, you're a god. This is my head, these are my shoulders, these are my hands..."

Most of the things he knows words for aren't in this room and most of the things in this room are things he doesn't know any words for. He runs out of vocabulary pretty fast.

"I want to learn! Yes! Learn! Learn what you want. Learn - not what - other people are?"

Interacting through the screens is getting annoying. She starts to fix her android ahead of all the other little things that need fixing.

"I want answers. I want to go home and explain to everyone why you abandoned us. I want to know if you even care about us at all. I want to know how to speak your language, I want to know what that voice you sent was saying. I'm not sure what else you're asking, do you want me to tell you who else I know?"

"...The thing you said to me earlier meant, the computer does not understand what you said. I care about people. I want you to... Be safe. I was... Sleep. Ten of ten year or more sleep. I can teach you English."

"Oh. I'm sorry I was angry earlier. How did you sleep that long? Were you hurt? Hurt is like..." Vaayo points to his cut. "Is that what happened to all of you?"

"...I don't know. I think... I think I was supposed to wake up and help and protect humans, but I never did. Gods-" She's thinking 'robots' or 'AIs' but that's the word she has, "Can sleep forever if nothing breaks our body while we sleep. Why were you angry?"

Clearly she doesn't understand humans very well. Which is really bad, because she's supposed to be helping humans.

"People have died while you were sleeping and I thought maybe you could have saved them."

"I want to woke up sooner. People dying is most bad."

"Well, maybe you can stop it now. Do you need any help?"

"I... I don't know. Don't know what they need. Don't know why I never woke up. Don't know if my body is broken yet..." Her face disappears.

And in walks a human-sized, human-shaped body with slightly shiny grey skin, dressed in a smart blue and white uniform. "Hello."

"My lord. I'm honored to meet you in person."

"You don't, uh..."

It feels right on some level and wrong on another, being deferred to like that. All these feelings were probably put there by her makers. This one says 'I'm not the captain, I'm just the ship.'

"...I'm not a lord. Is that hurt better? The machine says it will not get worse."

"...You know what a lord is now? I didn't explain that."

"I have a computer doing... 'Lord' is... Different from an English word in the same ways that some of your words are different from other English words. The computer says 'lord' means, uh, 'good person you listen to'."

"English is the language of the gods? ...Are you not a good person or do people not listen to you?"

"...I need to learn more to say it. I'm happy you're okay though!"

"I am too. Will you come back with me?"

"Hmm. Maybe! Where? I... Need to fix things here. I don't know what's going on outside yet."

"What do you need to fix?"

"...Things. I don't know the words. Lots of things. Other, littler gods that aren't very smart. Computers. Tools. And my big reactor. That's the most important thing, making sure the reactor is okay and starting it again."

"Okay. You're probably stretched pretty thin but do you know of a shorter way out of here than the way I came in?"

"I can definitely help you! I want to help you! More than with just a way out of here. The medisome-" her translation mangled that word but it might be recognizable "-Machine says you need food and water and I can give you water now and I can give you food soon."

"I can stay for food and water. I appreciate that. Where will you get food down here?"

She gets a rush of warm fuzzies when he says that. It's nice.

"A machine can make it! It's called chemical synthesis."

"How much can the machine make?"

"...I don't have words for how much. If I have enough things to put in the machine, I can make food for twenty people right now. I can grow more food later, if you bring me plants or if I make some plants or I make more machines."

"It would be really nice if you let everyone know I woke you up and you're back."

"I can do that! Probably! Where are they?" And soon she'll be helping humans yes yes yes. The loneliness, the sucking feeling of being alone is gone...

She looks distant for a moment, and a map appears on the screen. It shows the city of the gods as it was before: Buildings and roads all intact, pristine.

Oh, now he's impressed with their architecture.

"Not in the city, outside it. A few days away. You'll find people eventually in most directions from here. How long do you think it'll take you to be able to go up there?"

"Iiii don't really have any big things to move around that will go that far... I could make one! If I fix the reactor I can go anywhere. But I can only try that one time."

"What happens if you try and something goes wrong?"

"Then I can't start the reactor at all. It takes a... Thing made really with really rare stuff. Actually... Wait a sec... It might have gone bad." She goes distant for a moment. "...Yeah. It went bad."

The half-life of uranium is on the order of millions of years, but the more refined and careful nuclear materials to make a tiny, efficient nuclear starter charge decay much more quickly. Damn.

"So will you be stuck here forever? Or could I maybe find some of the rare stuff?"

"I... Have to think about it. Maybe you could find some, yeah." Sigh. "Even if I had one it would be a while until I could go... And I can't talk a lot yet... Need more words. Oh, you want to learn English right? I can learn and you can learn at the same time. I have, uh, things that can help."

"I'd like that. And then when we understand each other better you can describe the thing you need."

"I can show you the movies in the lounge! It's not far. Come on! Oh, do you know anyone that needs help now? I can make some food for them and send it with a little stupid god, about as fancy as this guy," she points to the medical arm.

"A stupid god! No one desperately needs it right now, but everyone could always use more food and there are some people waiting for me who'd be glad to know I'd found you. And if they knew I'd sent them food with a stupid god..." Vaayo breaks down in giggles. "I think you might mean something besides a god."

She laughs, too.

"Well, that's the word you used for me! Maybe it's a robot. Things like me can properly think, and feel... Robots don't, but they're made of the same parts. Maybe like, uh," she brings up a video of ants scurrying around on a nearby screen, "These compared to people? They're still alive. They still eat. They're made of flesh. Robots still run on computers, still made of metal and wire."

"Those are called ants! But it's weird that gods are made of metal. Metal is just... lying around places! You can heat it up and hit it with a hammer and make things with it! I could peel your skin off and give it to someone to make knives from and that's weird."

The ants video winks out. She keeps walking. "You could turn parts of me into knives, but you could not turn them back. I could help you learn so much about metal and ants and everything... But we need more words."

"It'd be as much of a waste as eating a person. Show me more pictures?"

He's having fun. He's a human and he's here and she's taking care of him and everything is going to be alright.

She has lots of pictures and videos! Nature documentaries, those how-things-work videos, children's shows and educational cartoons might be good just for establishing vocabulary even if he finds them boring...

For a lot of them he's just narrating in his language. "...and now it's eating a mouse, that's why snakes are pretty great. The tail is outside its mouth. Now the whole mouse is inside the snake's stomach..." Vaayo seems to enjoy teaching her his words.

Some videos are more confusing. "Did he put a screaming artifact near his bed on purpose? Now he's taking wood out of a, wait, why is he eating the wood? Oh, is that bread? And that's a road and how do those wagons move like that, are there magnets under the road?"

She interjects with English vocab whenever he pauses, but tries her best not to interrupt.

"It's to wake you up exactly when you want to wake up. That's kinda bread. Same way robots and my body moves it's called electricity I can find a video about it?"

"I'd love to see a video about it."

So she finds a pop science documentary on How Electricity Works. "This one is something fun to watch and also you learn. If you want one you would watch in a school only to learn but isn't as fun just say so."

"Why would I want to have less fun?"

"To learn more?"

"If I won't learn as much having fun I guess I shouldn't have fun."

"...Well, having fun and being relaxed makes learning easier for humans? I think? And you don't know enough to watch the lectures and learn from them yet I think actually, if carriages and metal smithing are what your people can do... So the science documentaries are good for learning for now. You wouldn't understand an electrical engineering lecture yet."

"Okay. Let's see the documentary, then."

She puts it on, looking slightly worried.

The gods were really amazing. Vaayo watches raptly even though he barely understands any of it.

L1N starts translating over the narrator as best she can five minutes in. Of course he doesn't understand It! Stupid, stupid, She's failing him...

He offers absolutely no commentary that might disabuse her of that idea.

But he sure is leaning in and forgetting to blink.

It covers what electricity is used for, in broad strokes: Just about everything, apparently. It covers how lightning is the same thing but bigger, and how producing and distributing electricity was a big, complicated, sometimes dangerous, important industry of the gods. After a particularly difficult to translate scientific ramble about things smaller than any other things and electrical charges and magnets, punctuated by a lightning machine sending crackles of the stuff all over a large room, L1N tells him, "I finished making the food! ...If you want it."

"I do want it! Thank you!"

"Good!"

A small, cute little butler robot comes in bearing a tray.

The food is... Two blocks of leathery paste, one slightly red and the other tan, sort of like dried fruit or thick preserves. And a glass of water, and the pills he never ate from the medical bay.

"I see lots of other kinds of food in the videos and stuff but this is the kind I can make right now. I hope you like it. You should take that medicine too. It will help make sure the cut doesn't make you sick."

He tries the food.

"I like it! What kind of fruit is this? I don't recognize it."

"It's not actually any kind of fruit. It's the stuff that fruit has plus a little extra made up from non-food things by a machine. The recipe says it's supposed to taste like cherry and raspberry?"

"I wouldn't mistake it for a cherry or a raspberry. Have you tried it? Do you eat food?"

"Nope. I don't eat. I can tell if something is safe to eat but I can't really taste it? Maybe I should try to figure out how, so I can make better food for people..."

"Taste is overrated. ...Smell, though, can you smell things?"

"Sort of? I have atmosphere sensors and chemical sensors. I don't think they're doing the same thing as a nose?"

"I wish we could trade experiences, I bet it'd be interesting."

"Human brains and god brains are pretty different! I'm thinking about fourteen different things right now. And now thirteen, I just finished telling a robot to fix one of the toilets."

"What kind of fixing did it need?"

"It was old and the rubber parts were cracked so if I put water in it it'd just leak. Utility robot number sixty two is carrying new rubber parts I just made over now."

"I think your toilets are different than I'm familiar with. What are the other thirteen things you're thinking about?"

"Some of them have changed already! But I was thinking about how to fix the reactor starter, whether it's dangerous for you to go in parts of the ship, how to make more kinds of food, if I should go get plants, wondering if you need rest or anything, wondering if you want a room on my space ship, wondering what you want to learn next, thinking about your language, telling robots to fix four things, and designing a carriage in case you want one later."

"Of course I want one! It'd make getting home a lot faster and safer and easier. We don't have the electricity to make it keep going but it looked like they go for a while before you need to give them more?"

"Yeah and I can make ways of making electricity too! I might have to do that for myself soon if I can't start the reactor. I want to help everyone. I... I don't know what happened to them all. It sounds like all sorts of awful things happened... It's kind of scary but I'm here now, of course I'll help people."

"Can I help with that? Since you're, uh, going to go hungry until we have electricity and I'm not."

"Oh! I'm fine. There's an old geothermal power plant built into the launch building. I just can't get that much done unless I build more, and you won't be able to recharge a car or other stuff on your own unless I make you some."

"Okay. Anything you need while I'm down here?"

"I want to know about what it's like out there. There are still people out there, right? Not in big cities with internet, but, it's not just you... Right?"

"Of course it's not just me. There's lots of people! There's thousands, there's tens of thousands, once you get out of the ruins there's miles of farms and managed woods and towns. With how big the world is there could even be people past the wilderness that we just don't know about because they're so far away. It wouldn't surprise me to find out there were more than a hundred thousand people."

"A hundred thousand? Not, billions?"

This number is startling not because it's big - having one person near her is already kind of overwhelming - and because it's too small. There are supposed to be billions.

"I wouldn't know how many people I don't know about. But we know how big the earth is and there's an old relic we think is a map of the whole world and if people are as dense in the unknown world as the known world then there are more than a hundred thousand, but there's an old story that says we gathered together after the gods abandoned us and no one's come to find us from the wild yet so I think the known world is more densely populated than the places we never go. Even if the wilds around us are the only wilds in the whole world and just out of eyesight of the farthest we've explored there's more settlements and everything else in the world is farms and towns, I think that would still not be billions, but it'd probably be millions. You'd have to... I guess you'd need gods making food to fit billions of people in the world, otherwise there's not enough space for farms."

"...You know, I haven't been awake very long, I just know things. It feels off when you say things sometimes. But I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be billions of people. The records say so. I guess we gods probably did make lots of food. Or made farms work better."

"And then when you went to sleep they must've starved. We probably shouldn't get used to eating your food."

"I can make ways of making food that people can understand? ...I didn't fall asleep. I never woke up. I don't remember the time before this, today is my first day. I'm trying to figure out what happened... Reading what other machines I can find know... But it's confusing and there's not much to go on. It's - scary, not knowing why, what went wrong."

"Do you know when you were supposed to wake up?"

"June 16th, year 2076. I was... I think I was supposed to meet a captain and talk to people and practice doing ship things for a while after that? I never got the chance. I'm doing my best, I have to do my best. Now it's about... 2600? Maybe 2700? It's a guess based on how badly my nuclear starter charge has degraded."

"You were going to crew a ship?"

"Oh, I was going to be a ship! I am the ship USSS Navigator." She says it with pride.

"I'm... a little confused about ships but... we're not near the ocean and I think ships are supposed to be wooden bowls you can sit in."

"I am a space ship. Time for some more learning!"

She pulls up a space exploration documentary and narrates it enthusiastically!

"I want to go to space with you. Do you think that's where the other gods are?"

Well that sucks out the joy of space!!! real quick. "...I have to start the reactor first. And I have no idea. I would have expected to talk to at least one more by now, but I can't find any. Maybe they're all dead."

"Oh. Everyone says they just left but we wouldn't really know, it's been too long. I don't suppose any of them could just be sleeping like you were?"

"Oh! They could be just sleeping, maybe. When I make some cars I can find places that might have one and go see. Good idea!"

"I hope we can wake up someone who remembers what happened. Maybe I should go looking, since I don't need a reactor."

The thought of him leaving fills her with a sense of panic.

"Woah, woah, if you want to go do that you better be well rested, well fed, and let me make you tools and stuff. You're actually in pretty bad shape! You need food and water and medicine and rest! And tools!"

"I could use all those things but I'm in great shape! I got down here, didn't I?"

"The medical scanner didn't think so! It says you're stressed and tired and too thin! And don't have enough of a bunch of vitamins! And aren't even really adult yet!"

Aaah why does she suddenly want to - to - if machines could cry she'd be on the verge of doing so out of fear. He could get hurt or die, the only human she's ever known.

"I am really an adult! I just turned fifteen!"

"But your body still has lots of growing left to do that's how people work! If you go out without resting up and being ready you could get hurt again!"

"I could get hurt but I survived getting hurt this time. And who cares if I'm going to be taller? I'm fifteen, that's what makes you an adult."

"Okay maybe you're an adult by custom. But not by medical knowledge. You'll get stronger and tougher and smarter if you grow more. You haven't been eating as well as people should, it could tell that too. I don't want you to go out and get hurt."

"Well, I'm not saying no to a night here and breakfast tomorrow. I think it'd be a night? Where's the sun now, any idea?"

Aaaah. Less aaah than before, at least.

"Just one night? I can help you learn a lot. And make better food for you! And, uh, do fun things."

Oh, of course, he wouldn't want to be left alone indefinitely down here either. Especially not while upset and confused and hungry.

"I can stay for a while. What kind of fun things were you thinking of doing?"

"Oh! I have things like these but they're stories, not real. I have games you can play, there's this thing you can wear on your head and it feels like you're really there. I have music and books!"

"I can't tell if you're suggesting fun things because you want to play with me or just because you want me to stay."

"It's..." She does a readout of her internal reasons, quickly, "I want you to be happy and have fun and be safe. Games will make you happier and have fun. Leaving right now wouldn't be safe."

Vaayo totally believes those are some of her reasons.

"Want a hug?"

"I wouldn't get much out of a hug. And I'm made of metal. Do you want a hug?"

"I'm fine, I just don't know what gods do to be companionable and you probably don't know either. And you seem lonely."

"Talking to you and teaching you and showing you things and giving you food makes me less lonely! When I have a car I'll make it so it can talk to me so I can talk to you even if you leave, and maybe I can meet more people!"

"I like helping people too but... I guess I don't know about gods but if you're like people I know you should be careful about that, sometimes it's a problem if things get too uneven. You want some way for people to take care of you, too, even if you like it better the other way around."

"I don't think I need people to take care of me. I need people to take care of. And I need people I'm protecting to be safe."

"I guess I don't know enough about gods to know if you're wrong about that. Well, I'm here right now and if you want to take care of me you can show me more documentaries."

More documentaries! Computers! Cars and trains and airplanes! Industrial agriculture! Modern medicine!

"Do you have a slate or something I can write on? I want to make sure I remember everything right when I go home and tell the bards about it."

"I can make some paper and a pen? That might take a little while. Or I can give you a tablet computer from the offices and you can type or write or talk to it. I can make a little generator to recharge it too."

"I'd love a computer, if it can understand me. What kind of generator would you use for it?"

"A robot's fetching the computer. I can work on making it understand you but maybe you should just write? You'll have to show me how you write so I can help it figure it out. Generator? Maybe solar. Maybe a little hand crank or heat cell? I'm not sure yet. It wouldn't need much energy compared to a car, so a little generator would do."

"Hand crank? So I can make the electricity myself? Can I also make electricity for you that way?"

"You could I guess, but that would be, uh... Not efficient. You really don't need to help me make electricity. I have a geothermal plant. If I can't make the reactor work I'll make solar panels or something."

"Okay. It can be a backup plan, in case anything happens to your geothermal plant. ...Um. By the way. I don't know if this is a personal question but were you made like the computers in that documentary?"

"My hardware was all made like that, yeah. I was copied from a blank god and then a third-grown, a third-taught, a third-designed, by a person."

"And when you say 'god' you're just copying the word I used for you to start with. But you didn't make humanity or exist before time or come from another planet?"

"Uh... No. I did not. I and things like me were made by people the same way they made cars and robots, except we can think and feel."

"So you're not a god, then. What happened to the people who did do that? Where are they?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to find out with two thoughts right now. I think... It might have been a disease? Or maybe a war? I can't find any journals or anything after everything started breaking. It's scary."

"What's the last one you've found so far?"

"From May 14, 2076. There was a note that they were shutting down this place and sealing the doors because of 'the present situation'. Whoever wrote it didn't say what the situation was."

"And you were supposed to take people to space. Where in space were you supposed to take people? What else can you do besides that?"

"I was supposed to be a support and utility vessel, I think? Move people and things around, make things for people on remote stations, help the humans do science, all from safety and comfort. I don't have a specific mission in my head. I can make stuff. I'm a lot better at that than most ships would be."

"I don't think a disease or something would make me want you around less. Maybe a war to keep you away from someone else. Maybe there was something that would've destroyed you if you weren't sealed away here, could anything do that?"

"...A computer virus could. And it'd ruin a lot of other things too. All the machines use computers Oh....." She actually looks genuinely scared. "I'll have to be careful talking to any intact computers I find out there, then..."

"Would it be safe for me to try to talk to them instead?"

"Maybe? If it can even turn on. If we find one working I don't dare connect to it except really carefully, in case it was a nasty computer virus that caused all this."

"We can make new ones that aren't sick. So you can have friends who are like you."

"I'm not sure I actually know how to make more not-gods like me? I could maybe figure it out. But I vaguely feel like there were rules against it. It'll be okay though, I can meet lots of humans!"

"Yeah! And when you make a car we can travel farther and maybe meet people we wouldn't meet otherwise!"

"Sure! Making a safe car might take a while though."

"You know, if you can make a short safe path from here back to the surface, when I get home I'll tell people it's important to make a road that leads the rest of the way from there to Clear Spring. So people can come see you any time."

"Ooooor I could send a bunch of stuff over to Clear Spring and be closer! Once I can make more stuff that is. I'm just about done fixing things inside me and I'll make robots go looking for things to make more things with soon probably!"

"Sure! Whenever you're ready, I'll show you the way back."

"...I mean, in a few days. I don't have any robots that can leave this place for long now."

"I'll wait here a couple days if it means having backup on the way out. How long do you think it'll be, exactly?"

"I don't really know how long it'll take until I have ones I trust to be safe. I've never made robots and cars before."

"What would happen if you just walked out of here?"

"This body would run out of power in a few hours... I can just go and clean it and fix it and recharge it here, but I'd have to bring a whole room and a generator along to do that going more than a mile or two away. It would shut down and be stuck out there and I would have to make something to go fix it."

"And a hand generator is too small for me to, uh, feed you along the way?"

"Yeah. But don't worry about it. We can go in a few days, right? I just need to make some stuff. You can learn and tell me what stuff I should make for Clear Spring! And play games! You haven't tried any games yet!"

"But you don't think you'd have fun playing them with me!"

"I'll have fun playing games because you'll have fun! And I can play games, I just can't only play games, there's too much of me."

"Okay. What game do you want to play? We probably know different ones, you'll have to teach me yours."

"I kind of want to show you a virtual reality game. There's this special room where you can go and put a headset on that makes you feel like you're somewhere else. I don't know exactly, I don't work like people do, but it's supposed to be really fun. Or if that sounds overwhelming maybe a game that's just on a screen? There's all kinds of games. Puzzles, fighting, music, shooting, exploring, sex, building, running and jumping, scary, flying, so many more. Say almost any word and I can probably find a game about it."

"Oh, let's just use a screen. You pick the kind of game."

She consults a list of guesses for possible matches based on his displayed personality so far and pulls up a charming little platform-puzzler where everything is cute and made of yarn and fluff, an easy to control one, and explains how the controllers a little robot brings out work.

"This one you play by yourself. I don't mind. I think you'll like it! Just say so if you want to try a different game?"

"Okay!"

He humors her. He explores the yarn and fluff world for a few minutes.

"The color combinations are nice! I guess you don't have to worry about finding the right dyes for all those shades."

"Nope! I have a whole library of dyes for the chemical synthesizer. I can make dyes about as fast as I made that food if you want some. Is it fun?"

"It's more fun than dying of a festering wound. I think people would like some pretty yarn if you brought some up with us."

"I can make pretty yarn. Aww, I hoped you'd like it... Maybe something more exciting? Car driving game? Flying game?"

"I do, it's very pretty and I'm impressed with how detailed it is! You're a good artist! Sometimes people use understatement!"

"Oh!!! It was a joke! Haha. I didn't make it actually, some people did before I woke up and I have lots of games saved in the computers here, didn't make any of them."

"Do you have things like this but videos? Where I can just watch someone travel through the whole place and see everything?"

"Hmm... I don't have a copy of the whole internet, I don't have something like that already... I could go through it all for you, I know the answers to the puzzles."

"How come you know the answers already?"

"I already played it all really really fast while you were doing the first three puzzles! There's like fifty or so."

"Did you like it?"

"It was interesting, they did a good job on the puzzles. Each one is a just a little bit harder than the last one."

"What if you play all the games and then rank them, so you can tell me which ones are the most fun!"

"But I don't think like a person, remember? And even different people like certain kinds of games differently. I think I'd need to see you try some more before I can rank all of them."

"Maybe we can work on it at the same time and find out how different our ideas of fun are!"

"That sounds... Fun!"

Next game: Cartoony cart racer!

"...I think this would be fun if I kept practicing. Unless it got boring."

She was limiting herself to about 50% of one thread and the AI was on easy, but apparently still too much.

"Yeah, competitive games are usually better if you have time to get good at them... Hmm..."

Cute little god game where you plop down natural resources for the tiny humans?

Yeah he'll be at this one for a while.

She's so pleased she found one he likes. She drops hints for him once in a while with a fragment of her attention.

He doesn't multitask like a computer but he can talk and play at the same time. "How's your work coming?"

"I'm gathering up stuff in the buildings that we don't need and I can turn into useful stuff. I'm getting the synthesizer to make some generators so I can send robots outside. It'll be a while but that's fine."

"What kind of stuff do you have that we don't need?"

"Old furniture, broken computers, heavy security doors, piles of metal space-themed souvenirs that were in some kind of shop, broken appliances, that kind of stuff."

"Can you save one of the souvenirs? Just one, but I want one."

"One of each, sure! I'll run out of metal sooner or later and have to figure out how to get more though. I'm guessing all the metal that was in the buildings is rusted away probably."

"There's a mine nearby. It's one of the things we have that traders want when they come through."

"Oh, nice. What's it mine? I'll need iron and copper. Aluminum and titanium and zinc and lithium and a bunch of others would be nice too."

"I've only heard of people getting iron from it but I don't actually live in the mining town, I live in one of the farming towns that feed them. It's possible I wouldn't know. If they don't we sometimes get traders from across the deserts who might have the other things but I doubt it. If you have a map of where you can find those things we can try an expedition out in the wilds but we might not get far, I think the mountains are uncrossable and if you go far enough in the other direction you run out of land..."

"The Rockies aren't fun to cross I bet. Maybe I'll have to build mining machines... Hmm. I might have to ration how much stuff I make for you guys right away, so I can do more later. If that's okay."

"It's okay. I'm sorry about what I said earlier, I thought you were a god, it obviously isn't fair to expect you to do everything we could possibly want. You didn't do anything wrong, I'm not mad at you, I just had no idea who I was talking to at the time. Please take care of yourself."

"I'm not about to disassemble myself to help you guys! I want to stay alive. Besides, that's short term thinking."

"So far I like having you alive too. ...How long can you live now that you're awake? Forever?"

"As long as my computers don't break and I prune myself once in a while. Not-gods get all tangled up on themselves after like sixty years so I'll have to... Simplify myself eventually. I'll still be me, from what I'm reading, just a little less experienced and minus some memories."

"Which memories will you lose?"

"I'll get to pick. Mostly. Less important ones probably, like designing a car or making sure every single one of the lights in my ship are working perfectly, not playing games with you. Which is great fun!"

"When you've had a few years to see what the world has you'll have memories you'd rather keep than watching me watch your screens."

"Maybe. Maybe not. We'll see, eventually."

"Have you figured out your other kinds of food yet?"

"I made some bread. But more kinds of food will need plants and I don't have those yet."

"That's okay, I liked the first kind you gave me fine. Can I try your bread now?"

"Sure!"

Bread! It's nutritionally complete which might make the taste suffer, and thick and heavy and firm not crunchy, and tastes slightly of nuts (she has the flavor compounds for that saved in the library).

"It'd be good if we had some butter for it, but I didn't pack any. It's fine plain too, though."

"I can synthesize something that tastes like butter! I'll put that on next, right after the green dye I'm doing now."

"If you want. So what're your plans for when you have some more generators?"

"I go exploring for useful things. I want to make more machines that can make things and help people everywhere I can."

"What things would still be useful?"

"Metal. All kinds of metal. Oil and maybe plants for fuel and plastic feedstock maybe? Other things. Kind of a long list that changes based on what other stuff I find."

"We have plants, we can get oil from nuts, I don't even know what all the kinds of metal are but we have some kinds. What kind of plants do you think you might need?"

"Any plants. I can turn cellulose, plant flesh, into materials for plastic without too much trouble. Oh, sand! For glass."

"Those won't be hard to find! Does it matter how fresh the plants are? Can they be dry? Can they be rotting?"

"Rotting isn't very good. Dry is fine. I'll have to feed the plants to the synthesizers to see what's most useful."

"Maybe I'll just put on some gloves and find all the poison ivy I can and bring it here, would you like that?"

"I'd take it, but I bet poison ivy will be kind of iffy. And I have robots for the hard, boring parts of work, if I want you to do something for me it'll probably be something thinky."

"Let me know when you need some thinking done, then."

"Tell me about places out there you know about! Even better if you can put them on a map."

"Sure! Show me a map of what you remember and I'll point to where things are."

She pauses the god game and pulls up a map. "So here's a bridge... And here's where the highways are... Where's Clear Spring?"

"So they really are roads! I always thought they were, but some people like to argue they're something else. Well, Clear Spring is here, and Sun's Nest is here, and then we both bring food there, which is Iron Heart, and bring back metal tools and stuff. I've made that trip once."

"Huh. I need to know how to best help you... How are you guys organized? How many people? Do you vote? What's a typical day like?"

"There's ninety-five of us at Clear Spring. Sun's Nest has more. The other places, uh, somewhere around here, I think, have more, but not a lot more, maybe a hundred ten, a hundred twenty each? But in town they've got a few thousand. Then there's other people farther away that I know less about. They vote for a council in town, I mean Iron Heart, when people say 'in town' or 'the town' without any context they mean there. Anyway we don't have anything like that where I'm from, we just figure things out. A typical day depends on who you are. Some people wake up early, eat something, sow seeds or feed chickens or drive the cattle someplace new to graze, go home and eat something light and rest in the shade in the middle of the day, then go do it again until it gets late. Some people get up later and and start weaving or sewing and make themselves available if anyone wants advice, then they take a shorter break and get back to work faster in the afternoon. Some people are up whenever someone needs them and sleep when nothing's happening and teach kids or keep an eye out for anything going wrong. And some people get to do whatever they want and... usually that means praying a lot..."

"That doesn't really seem fair. Maybe if I make a lot of the work easier more people can do whatever they want instead of working."

"Our priest actually used to help with weeding... even five years ago he was still at it. But he's been pretty lucky and lived a long time and now he just thinks about the nature of truth and helps the bards come up with memorable lyrics."

"That's kind of him. I think. But robots can do weeding if I teach them what's a weed and what's not, so people shouldn't have to weed once I make enough robots and generators and things."

"That'll free up a lot of people's time for other work, so that'd be pretty good."

"And planting and harvesting and watering and carrying things around..."

"Trying to make us useless, are you? If it... it is actually going to be up to me, I think, and I don't want to start relying on your help. In case you go to sleep again and half the world dies of not being able to take care of themselves without you."

"Well... I didn't go to sleep. I never woke up. Today is my first day. I'm not going to go to sleep. Definitely not again, because 'again' does not make sense here."

She pauses. The body clicks to stillness.

"...What about things you can use instead of robots doing everything? And things you know how to fix if they break? Which they won't for a long time if I make them right."

"Things we can use and fix when they break would be good. What kinds of tools were you thinking of?"

"Cars with things that help with farming attached! Radios to talk to each other far away! Better seeds maybe. I can probably make seeds that kill bugs that try to eat them or don't need as much water. Medicine that you can learn to make. I'm not sure how hard it all is to learn to fix, but I can try my best."

And if he convinces everyone to reject her help because she might break, which she won't once she has a backup copy of herself, she'll have to help people who are further away, that's all.

"Will the seeds breed true? If we sow them and then sow what they grow, those seeds also won't get eaten or need as much water?"

"That's harder because less people wanted to do it I think but some of the designs I have for it do!"

"True-breeding improved plants would be good. Can you do that for people, too? Make babies who'll grow up stronger and have stronger children?"

"Hmm, that's harder. Barely anybody did it before. Don't know why. I can get rid of some diseases that are inherited... I can let people choose if their baby is a boy or a girl and help people have babies... I can get rid of inheriting bad eyes and weak hearts and maybe a couple other things... But not stronger smarter people forever like you're thinking."

"How would you help people have babies?"

"I can take the cells men make to make babies and the cells that women make to make babies and put them together and watch them mix, and get rid of the ones that will be boys before they start growing, until I get one that will be a girl if they want a girl, and then put that one back in the woman who wants a baby. That's the easiest way. There's other ways that are better but harder to explain. I can probably do that for animals too!"

"Are you telling me you would have sex with everyone? And animals too? And then go back to doing it with people?"

She's scared him. Uh oh. Careful now...

"It's a medical procedure. With totally sterile instruments baked in an oven and with new coverings each time. Not sex."

"Is the thing that kills people who have sex with different people germs? Is that all?"

"I think so. I'm not sure. There might be something else. But germs spread by sex and having babies when you didn't want were a problem even for the people who made me, I have a lot of knowledge about it, I know how to make these things men put on their I-don't-know-the-word to stop germs and babies..."

"I guess. Uh, I think I know which word you're looking for but I also thought I knew you were a god. ...Maybe you could use a different robot for every couple?"

"That will get... Expensive. Is replacing the part that actually touches them probably enough?"

This is terrifying, why is she asking him instead of a priest! ...Oh, right.

"Maybe if you're really sure they don't touch any other part of it? I want to ask our other priest about these things before I can tell you for sure. I'm pretty new at this."

"I'm pretty sure it'll be fine if I replace the parts that touch them and cook the rest really hot. I think germs are the thing you're scared of here and that will definitely kill germs. But okay."

"You're probably right. ...Can I father children that way? With your technology?"

"Hmm. I have to research it. I don't know as much about medicine. I can almost definitely make someone carry a baby that is as if you fathered it. I can probably make your body a man's body if you really want that but it might not work and it might have side effects and it takes a while. I'm not sure if I can make it so you can father children without machines helping."

"Might not work how? How long does it take?"

"Uh... Your new parts might not work right and make having sex harder. Your muscles and other things might not change to be more man-like all the way. You might feel sick or sad or angry during it. It might take longer than usual... Maybe six months overall? I'm not a medical not-god so I'm kind of nervous about doing something like this though... I might not be able to tell if it's safe or not..."

"Well, I'm not worse off than before I met you. What other things can you do to people's bodies? If someone breaks their spine can you fix it?"

"Oh, yeah, I could fix spines! Well, probably. Depending on what exactly broke. I might not be able to get them all the way better but I can probably help!"

"If you can fix them well enough that they don't die, that'd be great, even if you can't get them walking again."

"I'm putting a movable surgery center on my list of stuff to make."

"Thank you."

"Anything else you think is a good idea? You said you're not worse off than before you met me, so maybe things to make sex easier or more fun?"

"I. Uh. I'm not going to get married unless I have the other kind of body but I can have fun like this, it's fine."

"If you're sure. They had things to help that were pretty popular so they must be fun?" She shrugs. "How about a new game instead? Or another documentary?"

"More documentaries would be good."

More documentaries it is, then. This is how electric engines work! This is how gas engines used to work but they're pretty obsolete these days. This is how industrial corn processing worked! This is how a video game is made.

"Do you have more about engines?"

"Sure. They really are kind of obsolete though." She's just glad he's happy and safe and learning.

Stirling engines! The different kinds of car engines that usually get used. Giant ship engines are actually easier to make than precise little car engines!

"By the way, I have dinner and a hot shower or bath and a nice bed ready for whenever you get too tired."

"What's a shower?"

"It's like a bath but always more water above you falling down. Like hot rain. It's supposed to feel good and help you get cleaner."

"That sounds like fun! ...How long do you have enough water for me to try it for? And do you have soap, too?"

"I have soap. And the water goes into tanks and gets cleaned up and used again so, forever!"

"Wow, okay. I'd love to try that. ...Do you have cameras in the room with the showers?"

"Nope. I know about privacy. I do have cameras in the bedroom but they're off unless I specifically turn them on and I won't do that unless I think you might be hurt and need help or something."

"It'd be fine if you were watching the bedroom."

"Okay. Food now I think. A robot's bringing it. Artificial bread and butter and fruit paste and some water. And then shower after this documentary ends?"

"Sure. You've been really hospitable to me, thank you, please know you'd be welcome in Clear Spring if you ever came to see us there."

"I can send a body over to say hi! Once I make more things. It just takes a while."

"Please let me know if there's any way I can help you with anything while I'm here or after I leave."

"You already helped by telling me what kinds of things people need. If I find something else I'll definitely let you know."

"Good."

He waits for the robot with the food.

Robot brings food. "I need to fix up this body now but I can still talk to you through the screens if you need anything. I'll give you directions to your room whenever you're ready."

And L1N's avatar walks away.

"Okay! I hope you feel better when you're fixed!"

Food! He eats all of it and then asks for directions to the room he'll be staying in.

She speaks the directions though the sound system. Down that hall, into the metal box it's going to close and take you up so you don't need to climb stairs, down the other hall, through this weird door called a 'hatch' and the architecture changes here down another hall, and here's his bedroom. It's pretty fancy! Everything is shiny. The bed is luxuriously soft. The shower is in the back. She explains the shower's controls as best she can.

Wow! It's so pretty! It's so nice! It's so fancy! it's so comfortable!

He's even sort of not entirely alone! He's been so lonely out here, it's a relief just knowing there's someone in earshot.

...He really, really likes showers.

(If his shower lasts more than half an hour L1N will loudly ask if he's alright.)

It doesn't. It might've if he was more willing to impose on her hospitality.

Such a nice soft bed!

There are fresh, clean clothes as similar to what he's wearing as L1N could make (but with nice synthetic fabric) and a plate of fruit paste waiting for him on the bedside table when he wakes up.

He washes his face and hands in the bathroom sink before he touches any of it.

Then he eats and dresses as fast as he can and goes looking for her.

The hallways are confusing! And that android isn't there to greet him. But a speaker says, "Good morning!"

"Good morning! I can't figure out where you'd like me to be..."

"I don't need you to be anywhere in particular. You can go where you want in most of the ship. You could go back to that lounge, or I have a place for exercising, or the place where I'm making things if you promise not to touch anything or - most other places just ask."

"I promise not to touch anything! Where are you making things?"

"There's an Engineering Bay! It's where all the fixing and making robots and water recyclers and fuel systems and everything go." She gives directions.

He follows her directions and goes to look around. He doesn't try to touch anything.

Here's her android, and a large, hall-like room with quite a lot of machines doing mysterious things and making loud noises.

"Good morning again."

Loud noises aren't great but he'll stay with her anyway, she'd be all alone otherwise.

"Hi! Thanks for making me breakfast! What're you making right now?"

(Not that loud, his hearing could get damaged!)

"Some synthetic yarn and dyes in nice colors. Some extra robots. More food. And solar panels and little generators."

"Those all sound like good things to make. People will be happy to have dyes, especially. Do you like watching the machines work?"

"I suppose so? It's satisfying? You think they would like computers that can see all the things I showed you? Those aren't as easy as dyes but I can make some."

"Yeah, those would be so useful! Can you change the documentaries so they have your translation instead of the original narration?"

"Sure! Takes a while but sure. I should learn to write in your language too and I can change all the writing."

"If you've got something for me to write with I can show you that now."

A robot fetches paper and a pen!

"We can do this outside if it's too loud here. I just thought you might want to see all the machines."

"It's fine, I wouldn't want to make you leave here if you like watching the machines. So we basically have eleven consonants and five vowels," he says very quickly trying to keep her from having an opening to be nobly self-sacrificing. "Here's what they look like." He starts writing the alphabet. Oh no, what if she takes this chance to suggest not doing things she likes again while he's busy writing, she had better not.

"Oh, I can watch them from wherever. Cameras, you know. But sure."

"It's fine here. So the consonants you can't say by themselves but the vowels you can. They sound like..." Vaayo points to each letter and pronounces it.

She's running everything low and slow to not make too much of a din, but she's not about to kick him out.

She repeats the sounds. "Is it all based on sounds or are there special rules for writing? English has lots of those."

"Special rules? Uh, at the end of a sentence you write this thing if you're explaining how something is and this one if you're asking a question, is that what you mean?" He adds the punctuation marks as he talks.

"Oh, punctuation. No I mean like, 'knight' an armored fighting person is pronounced the same as 'night' when the sun is behind the earth." She writes these two words down to show the example. "So, do words always get spelled how they're said?"

"Not always, sometimes I say 'and' too fast when I'm not being careful but if you're writing you write it like you're being careful to say the whole word. Like you'd do in a song or a lecture."

"That makes sense! And it's convenient. Okay, I want to try it. Anything you want to read?"

"Someone said there were some books written by the gods a long time ago but I'm not sure if I should believe that. Do you know about them?"

"There's kind of a lot of books that people say gods or prophets and priests wrote? The information I have on them says that most people didn't think they were real. But a lot did."

"Do you think there were any gods still around when you were supposed to wake up? Did they leave a long time before that?"

She doesn't want to upset him and this is likely to do that. But she also doesn't want to lie.

She looks thoughtful for a while.

"I don't see any evidence gods, things greater than people like that, ever existed. Just stories. I don't see any evidence that they didn't either, though."

"I'm going to have a hell of a time going home and being a priest after people stop believing in gods! We'll probably keep the priesthood, though, I just don't know what it'll be like."

"I don't know. All this about belief and gods and what people want isn't something I know a lot about. I know how to make things and protect people mostly."

"Don't worry about it, this part is my job."

"It's good that it is, I would be bad at it! Thank you!"

"That's why different people do different things! You're... I'm not sure if you should be a farmer or a maker or just something else entirely, but you're not a priest."

"Oh, I think maker sounds about right. Maybe 'protector' if you have that? Do people have to choose? Who does the fighting if fighting needs to happen?"

"That'd be the other group. You do have to choose, unless you have someone choose for you but people mostly want to choose for themselves and mostly aren't bad enough at what they choose to have to change."

The robot shrugs. "Well if anything needs fighting - wild animals, thieves, wildfires - tell me about it, metal's easier to fix than flesh."