There are thee pairs of over-under bunks set into the wall of the room.

Devika perches on the edge of the upper bunk near the room's center.

(In her false memories of the academy, she'd always slept in a lower bunk.)

...yeah, this is not going to work. Fortunately, she's gotten enough sleep in the days on the SLAYER that she's basically recovered from the attempted kidnapping, and it won't, probably, hurt anything for her to stay up for a while.

    "May we see the macrofabricator now, Ma'am?"

"Please clarify: do you wish to physically observe the macrofabricators, or make use of them? They can be made use of remotely."

    "Deskyl is interested in seeing them, Ma'am, though if that's inconvenient she can find something else to do."

"It would be inconvenient to provide you a transport in the immediate future, but not to allow you access to our macrofabrication facility."

    "Yes, Ma'am, we'll wait. Is there a viewing lounge Deskyl can use here?"

“We don’t have any aesthetic infrastructure designed for unaugmented humans, here.”

”I’m sorry.”

    "That's okay, Ma'am, we appreciate your hospitality regardless. It is a bad idea for Deskyl to sleep in the same room as Dheto, though; do you have any suggestions for what she might do instead?"

"You are welcome to repurpose the facilities any way you wish. You could remove bedding from one or more of the bunks in order to make a rest space for yourself in another room, for instance?"

    "Yes, Ma'am. Thank you."

DZ gets started on the project immediately; it takes a moment for Deskyl to realize that there's nothing much for her to do but help.

DZ can find enough material to construct a Very Cozy Nest without inconveniencing Devika or Dheto, and there's enough room to install such a nest in the kitchen or the gym (or the shower, but it'd get damp there).

The gym seems suitable. They set it up in a corner, and Deskyl takes some time to meditate before going to bed; DZ posts herself in the hallway outside, in the meantime.

The screen across the hall from DZ flicks on.

"Hello. Would it be alright if I asked you some questions about yourself?"

"Yes Ma'am; what would you like to know?"

"I'd like to know if robots like you live forever."

"We can in theory, Ma'am. In practice, it's not recommended, but we're not sure whether there's a good reason for that."

"Does that mean that people where you are from kill robots specifically to prevent them from living forever?"

"Not precisely, Ma'am. Robots are made to be obedient workers; we're not believed to be people. It takes a little over a decacycle for us to grow up enough to start developing personalities and opinions, under normal conditions, and this is seen as us becoming unstable, so our manufacturer's recommendation is that we be reset every five cycles."

“That’s very sad.”

(She does not sound sad, of course.)

“How long has the consciousness currently inhabiting your body existed?”

"Nine cycles and seventy-three degrees, Ma'am."

“I see.”

”Well, you will not be forcibly reset here, nor in the lands of my sisters.”

"Deskyl has no intention of it, Ma'am, she's made herself very clear on that point. It's unclear whether there's a real risk of instability, though. Our society also uses robots for battle, and occasionally one of them will go missing for a few decacycles; they're almost always uncontrollably violent when they're found. Deskyl believes that it's a matter of socialization, that they would be safe if they were around humans for that time, but it doesn't seem like there's enough evidence to be confident of that theory, to me."

"That is concerning. I hope that this does not happen to you, though it does pattern-match somewhat to my own experiences with very old artificial consciousnesses?"

"But even if you become unstable with age, I suspect it would be possible to virtually eliminate the risk of you harming others without resorting to termination of your own existence. Many of the same techniques we use to keep humans safe from each other could be used just as effectively with you."

"...I have been assuming that if I'm still stable in four or five decacycles, I can assume that Deskyl's theory is correct; may I ask about your experiences with other artificial consciousnesses?"

"I would be happy to share that story with you. First, though, it occurs to me that I should better define terms. You see, there has never been a being quite like you in our history. We have many robotic constructs, of course: my old body, for instance, is more machine than dragon at this point. We also have many lifeforms that are artificial in the sense that they were created in the United Colonies' biofabricators, including most of the humans not born within the Draco Territories. We even have among us some consciousnesses that are artificial in the sense that their minds are housed in intelligently-engineered vessels rather than evolved ones. I am such a consciousness. There is no bloodline of Space Dragons through which I trace my lineage. I, like my sisters, was made from full cloth."

"And yet I am not like you. My mind is imprisoned in flesh, still, even if that flesh has less natural origins than that of the humans which surround me. Does that make sense?"