“I suppose you’re some kind of expert?” Killeen asked curtly.

“On this, yes.”

“What’s your Family Counselor been telling you?”

“Just what I said. To not manifest Shibo for you.”

Killeen slammed his fist onto his desk top with a meaty smack. “And if I make it an order?”

“I can’t obey that kind of order.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Killeen’s lips twisted cruelly.

Toby took a deep breath and said as evenly as he could, “No you won’t. I’ll take it to a Family Gathering.”

Killeen’s face slowly lost its congested, tormented look. It went slack, pale, beaten—an expression Toby liked even less.

“You . . . you’d do that.” It was not a question.

“I’d have to.” His mouth was dry, sour. “If I manifested Shibo, it’d drive you nutso, same as before.”

“Just . . . just a little . . .” Killeen’s mouth trembled. His jaw worked with unspoken emotion. Toby hated watching tormented devotion drive a man he loved to such humiliation. It was as though Killeen was addicted to some terrible drug, and could never get it out of his system.

But he had to. And Toby had to help him. “No. No, Dad.”

“You could, just for a—”

“A little’s worse than a lot. You know that.”

Killeen stared across the bare table for a long time and then slowly nodded. “Yeasay . . . Worse than a lot.”

“Dad, I use Shibo’s talents every day. She knows the electronics of this ship, how systems interact—she was great. But that’s not what you want from her. You loved Shibo the woman. She’s gone. What’s left is hollow, thin. Only an Aspect.”

Killeen’s cheeks were sunken, his eyes empty. “Not quite.”

“Huh?”

“The recording machines made a deep copy of her. That chip you’re carrying, it’s a Personality.”

“What?” Toby was stunned. A Personality was a full embodiment of the neural beds. It carried features of the original person that went far beyond his or her skills and knowledge.

“I ordered that nobody tell you.” Killeen shrugged ruefully. “A boy your age can’t really handle a Personality.”

“But . . . but it feels like an Aspect.”

“I had them box in the Personality. At first it couldn’t express itself fully through you.”

“That’s . . . I never heard of . . .”

“It’s rare. For emergencies only.”

“But why?”

Killeen was getting some of his Cap’n face back. “Family policy is to save as much of a person as we can.”

“But there are limits. I mean, we don’t keep bodies, or, or . . .”

“I wanted it done.”

“You wanted it done. Great! What about me?”

“The blocks should hold for a while, then give way. Her full Personality will emerge in time.”

“But suppose something goes wrong? Suppose this Shibo Personality starts making trouble?”

Toby felt jittery apprehension. Even Aspects could sometimes gang up on their carrier. Attacking at a weak moment, they could bring on an Aspect storm. Then the carrier person went into traumatic states, a form of induced mental illness. Once the Aspects got control of a carrier, they could direct movement and speech, govern behavior. Sometimes Aspects could ride a person for days, even years, without anyone else knowing.

And a Personality was stronger than an Aspect . . .

“I took precautions. Her Personality is tied down with interlocking protections.”

“Still, Dad, if it ever—”

“This is Shibo we’re talking about here!” He slammed the desk again. “She wouldn’t turn on you, and you know that. She loved you like a son.”

“This thing I’m carrying, it’s a version of Shibo. Complete with death trauma.”

Killeen blinked. “What do you mean?”

Toby fidgeted awkwardly. “Death changes people.” For a moment he almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of this. Death changes people. But were they people at all anymore? Or just damaged, altered recordings?

Another stretching silence between them. Then Killeen said stiffly, “I should have told you before.”

So his father was putting on his Cap’n self, covering his feelings with a uniform. Toby saw that this last statement was as close as he was going to get to an apology.

Toby made a half-shrug, his mind still a swirl of conflicting feelings. “I’d just have worried about it.”

“So I thought, too. Son, I’m . . . I’m sorry about asking you to manifest her. I know it’s wrong.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Sorry. So sorry.”

Toby got up, still flustered. His father came around the desk and embraced him. Neither of them were best at expressing things through words, and for a long time they simply clung to each other, arms carrying messages that voices could not.

FOUR

Pale Immensities

Toby watched the Chandelier expand before their flyer, already huge and ominous, and yet still coming, swelling, filling all of space. Its pale immensities stretched in all directions, offering glittering flanks and towers, grand portals and jutting spires, soaring perspectives leading the eye away into dizzying depths.

—People made this?—he sent on the comm line.

Killeen answered grimly,—We were once far greater.—

The Cap’n was in the same flyer. Since they had talked, his father seemed to want to have Toby nearby whenever possible. Cermo piloted, since this was the Command flyer. It was not lost to Toby that assigning him here effectively put him on ice, kept him from “stirring around,” as Cermo had described his excursion with Quath. On the other hand, this flyer would be in on the most interesting discoveries.

The ramparts and great flanks of the Chandelier began to betray their age as the Family flyers coasted nearer. The massive sheets that seemed to have a ceramic hardness now showed pits, black scars, big rimmed craters. About Galactic Center a hail of incoming debris constantly circled. Even tiny flakes, zooming in at several hundred kilometers per second, could dig deep holes.

Toby watched the peppered face gain detail as they came nearer. He had the same problem, blotches that robbed dignity, but supposedly his would clear up in time. A teenage problem. It was as though age brought a cosmic acne here, he mused, that would never go away. But did that mean no one lived here now?

They were close. He could sense an edgy impatience on the comm line. The crew sent their all-clears in clipped tones. Nobody detected the slightest signal coming from the Chandelier itself.

He used his blocked-in Shibo Personality to help integrate the calls. It was pleasant, having a kind of interior servant who could listen to one transmission while Toby paid attention to another.

Quath could do that, all by herself, Toby knew. The alien’s mind was organized differently, so that it processed incoming information in parallel. Quath said that she had “subminds.” They did their assigned jobs, kind of the way Toby could gnaw an apple and read a book at the same time. But Quath’s subminds stored it all and could feed it back.

So Quath would have been perfect for this job—only she wouldn’t come along. <I cannot witness so close-stitched a homecoming,> the big alien had sent.

Killeen had explained that this Chandelier was not in any sense Family Bishop’s home, since it was incredibly ancient. Still Quath wouldn’t budge. She sent something about “intimate observances” and would say no more.

Toby’s Shibo Personality emerged, a tickling presence.

All flyers are in optimal position, the 3D scan shows. No unexplained electromagnetic emissions. The Chandelier appears dead.