Page 78 of Sway’s Peace (Delivery Service #2)

Grace

Grace should be tired. She hadn’t slept properly last night. She was definitely hungry, and she devoured the food Garnet brought her. The hot, fresh meal wasn’t one she recognized, but it was delicious. She was glad the food synthesizer was working well.

More than anything though, the shower she took in the mister really made her feel better. Like she was washing off all the problems of the Song.

She had weird feelings about that place. Part of her wondered if it would be better if they had never gone.

Sway seemed different somehow. His polite, calm smile wasn’t changed.

But he had his claws attached to his belt all the time now.

The silver caps on chains clinking almost musically with each step.

And something about the way he held himself looked different.

More confident. More powerful. There was nothing notably altered that she could point to.

It was in the way he held himself. The way his crest no longer sat plastered to his head.

His tail, she supposed, was the easiest difference to find, because he kept it flared slightly.

A proud display of colors he normally kept hidden.

Grace couldn’t say she disliked it, but she didn’t want to let herself like it yet. She had to talk to Sway first. She had to make sure he was okay.

She was still staying in his private room and, since they were together, she fully expected him to join her there.

To her surprise, however, she remained alone through the whole process of eating, showering, and changing into her clothes.

She’d lost a few outfits down in the Song, but she luckily had packed light when she went down to the planet, so there wasn’t anything amongst her belongings that she’d miss.

Sway’s things were in the room as well. She expected him to come join her so he could take his own shower. He had blood on him, so it would probably be more hygienic to get it off before it really dried and caked into his feathers.

But he didn’t show up and, some time later, Grace emerged from the room to search for him.

“ Are you looking for Sway? ”

Grace screamed, dropping back against the door, as a figure made of light suddenly appeared in front of her. He was nude, but anatomically incomplete around the groin area. He was also see through, and yellow. He laughed, his bare chest shaking, as he gave her an apologetic smile.

“ Sorry, ” he said. “ I couldn’t resist. ”

“Er…” Grace hesitated, confused. He didn’t look like a regular holo of a person. Why was he naked? Where was his… thing? “Who are… I mean, what…”

“ Alred van Hamass Recall-12, at your service, ” he gave her an exaggerated bow. “ I’m the ship’s main AI. ”

“Recall…” She gasped. “An undroitt recall? No way!”

“ Way! ” He yelled, mimicking her shocked motion. “ I’ve spoken to you before, as it happens. I just don’t usually show myself to non-crew. I’m not actually supposed to be here, you understand. But as you’re crew now, we can have a proper conversation. ”

Grace laughed, the sound more shocked than amused.

Undroitt recalls were among the rarest species in the Coalition.

They were fully sapient, but also fully technological.

And their beings were based on brain scans of a long extinct race.

They also weren’t meant to be off their home planet, working as an AI, without express permission.

She couldn’t believe she was meeting one.

The undroitt recall were a fixed population species.

Since they were all scans of an extinct race, they could not grow in size.

They maintained their personhood status for various reasons, but they couldn’t reproduce or anything like that.

There would never be a new undroitt, so they were very protective of the numbers they had left.

She wanted to ask how he got here. What he was doing here.

How he got off his planet. She was pretty sure their technological bodies were tied to a core.

If he was acting as the ship’s AI, he had to have his core here somewhere, but how did it get here?

What was he doing with the others? Why did he look like a hologram?

Did all undroitt recalls look like that?

So many questions ran through her head, but before she could focus enough to start asking them, she looked past the yellow guy, down the hall. She really wanted to talk to Sway. She still had to check on him and make sure he was okay.

“ Sway is on the bridge, ” Alred said, giving her an understanding smile. “ But I’m always around. I would rather keep my identify secret from Loyalty, as he’s not crew, but you can talk to me whenever you want. ”

Grace gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

He nodded once before disappearing with a shower of sparkles. Which had to be an intentional choice, because he could have just stopped projecting. He made her laugh, but she was distracted from her goal for only a moment.

It took her a couple wrong turns – and gentle corrections from Alred’s voice overhead – but she eventually found her way to the bridge.

This was Sway’s work area. Though there were four stations – chairs and their own consoles – inside, his was the only one lit up. Or, at least, that’s how she remembered it.

When she ascended on the lift, however, it was to see that two of the consoles – the two center ones – were both lit up. Sway was crouched down, adjusting something on the seat of the second. As she watched, it began to rise.

“What are you doing?” She asked, walking his way.

“Getting this better situated for you,” he said, giving her a smile as he sat back on his heels. “Take a seat. See if you like the new height.”

Grace hesitated, her hand on the back of the chair as he rested his hands on his thighs and offered her a soft smile.

These chairs were old. She didn’t even know if they came with auto adjustors, and if they did, they clearly didn’t work.

So, he was going through the trouble of adjusting the seat manually so she would be more comfortable.

“Is this console for me?” She asked, touched somehow.

“You’ll need a space to work. Where better than right here?” He asked, standing, dusting off his pants as he did so. “Alred said he’s moving all the files and records here. He’ll give you a basic setup that you can adjust as you like.

He was smiling. He looked happy. But she didn’t think it was real. Or, at least, it wasn’t as genuine as it was when he usually smiled at her.

Instead of answering, she took his hand and searched his curious expression. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” he responded immediately, still smiling. “They barely touched me.”

“That’s not really what I meant.”

The arch of his lips became strained but it was only for a moment before it fell. He let out a breath as he turned, taking his own seat. But he didn’t release her hand, pulling her with him, then across his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his head on her chest.

She smiled, petting her hand down the feathers of his flattened crest. For a long minute, they just stayed like that.

She couldn’t imagine what he was going through.

She had her own complaints about her family, but one thing she couldn’t say was that they’d ever abandoned her like this.

If anything, she’s the one who abandoned them.

But they’d also never made it a secret that she was more of a commodity than a child.

Veesway had promised love and understanding and togetherness.

Only to then immediately turn his back on those words.

And Grace could kind of understand. Sway’s past wasn’t a good one.

She didn’t even think he could be accused of being a good person.

If there was a Hell, he was almost certainly already condemned to go there.

He never expressed regret for the things he did.

Even if he had been forced to do them at first, he’d continuously made those choices as he got older and felt no qualms about it now.

No, certainly he was damned.

But if he was damned, then she’d rather be damned with him than condemn him to such a fate alone. If there was a price to pay for his crimes, she wanted to pay it with him. If he had a burden, she wanted to help him bear it.

But that was her choice. And clearly not one that Veesway wanted to make. But even if he could understand why Veesway had turned his back on his own son, that didn’t mean that it would hurt Sway any less.

“Do you regret it?” She finally asked some time later.

He didn’t answer immediately. Considering his words before speaking. And when he finally spoke, it was slowly, haltingly.

“My people are naturally predisposed to abhor violence. It’s part of who we are as surely as our crest or our tail.

The only reason we have natural defenses is to protect ourselves and our nests from predators.

Even then, thickened skin isn’t the most dangerous of defenses.

Claws and fangs and venom are much more common, and much more dangerous.

My people would rather beat a problem back than just destroy it outright. ”

“Not all people are the same,” she said, speaking just as cautiously as him. “There are differences in every population.”

“I suppose,” he agreed with a long sigh. “I hated it at first. When the Master would make me hurt others. It made me sick to my stomach. But that gradually faded. And then I just didn’t like it. But that eventually faded too.

“One day I was… doing something to someone,” he hedged carefully, like he didn’t want to tell her exactly what he was doing.

“And as he was screaming, I found it annoying. It wasn’t tragic anymore.

It wasn’t painful. It was just irritating.

I was torturing this male, and his screams were an annoyance.

I realized then that I had stopped caring about people.

I didn’t care if I caused them pain. I didn’t care if they died. I just… didn’t care.”