The Companion Pt.0 1

"Rubberized plast-seal," Celia explained. "It has increased flexibility to give what is hopefully a more realistic appearance when blinking and speaking."

"Right," Larry repeated.

"Here," Celia said, holding her left hand out, palm up.

"What?" Larry paused.

"The skin," she offered him.

I expect him to touch my hand, Celia thought, this is the correct way to invite him as one human to another. And as an engineer, he has separately shown interest in the technology.

Tentatively, Larry reached out and laid the three middle fingers of his right hand on the heel of her palm, then slid them down across the creases in the slip fabric.

"That's," Larry gulped. "That's impressive. I can almost feel the sweat."

He rubbed the same fingers across his own left palm.

"Very impressive."

Celia updated her internal profiles, noting Larry's approval, but also his discomfort as indicated by a shiver she noticed.

The albino white skin may have been a good choice, she noted in her analysis, being too human may have disturbed him further.

"It is good that you approve," Celia said.

"I didn't say I approved of this whole thing," Larry waved at her body.

The use of 'approve' is ambiguous.

"You did approve of the creation of my body," Celia reminded him. "But I was speaking of your technical appreciation for the skin."

Larry's lips twisted and he rolled his eyes in what Celia took for acknowledgement.

"There are tasks which require your attention as the ship's only engineer and crewmember," Celia said. "If you are well enough, you should be able to accomplish them in a few hours, and then I recommend bed rest so you can continue recovering."

"Right, right," Larry sighed, looking her over as he stood up. "Whose uniform are you wearing?"

"I had the fabricators make it to fit my body," Celia looked down. "The navy-blue button down is standard for crew, with no rank designations. The cotton dark grey dress pants are also appropriate."

"It just looks... odd with the really white skin, I guess," Larry frowned.

I examine the dilation of his eyes and have to recalculate my interpretation of his words, Celia noted, he is interested and finds that the combination of my skin colour and the clothing colouration is more attractive than his own complexion. His uniform is similar, although it also contains rank designations which I purposely avoided on mine so as not to set off any alarms for him.

Larry turned his eyes away from Celia and exited the med bay, careful for his balance, but otherwise unperturbed. Celia followed him in order to monitor his status.

The purpose of this body, she reported to the main computer, is providing companionship for the human.

The ship's computer agreed.

Larry rolled out on his back from under the Gravitic Damper Framework before sitting up on the six wheeled trolley and wiping sweat off his forehead.

Three hours of work had returned the system to its basic level of efficiency.

"That's all three dampers," Larry told Celia. "And I've cleaned enough of the deuterium lines that we'll maintain our speed in our current hyperspace band at least until tomorrow when I can do the rest. The pressure has led to a crack in one of the lines though, so I'll have to replace that section before another one goes down and slows us further."

"You should break for lunch and then handle the navigation recalibrations," Celia said. "Then we'll have time for rest."

"What are you going to do, exactly?" he frowned at her.

"Keep you company," Celia decided to smile at this point, the way she had seen women do in videos.

Men and women smile for slightly different reasons in slightly different ways, she searched the database, with considerable personal variation and overlap. Hopefully this is the right smile.

Larry snorted, which appeared to be an honest humorous reaction.

"Was I funny?" Celia asked.

"Yes," Larry rolled his eyes, but did not elucidate. "Where are you learning your behaviours?"

"Mimicry of crew members, mostly," she said. "I look for deviations, commonalities, differences between male and female crew members and try to find a unique, plausible set of characteristics."

"There aren't that many people on board."

"I also have access to entertainment videos," Celia admitted. "I weight them with lower reliability, but I can gauge the way live humans react to their situations to judge their credibility."

"That's... wow," Larry closed his eyes thoughtfully.

"Thank you," Celia decided to say, as Larry's amazement appeared to constitute a kind of compliment, and the best sort of humans would show gratitude when complimented.

"You're welcome," Larry said as he opened his eyes.

Celia analysed Larry's clear weariness as well as the low levels of heat coming off his body from her infra-red scan and offered him a hand to help him get up. She warmed her skin to several degrees centigrade above normal human body temperature.

Gratefully, Larry took her hand and she gently helped him up.

"Strong grip," he said.

Celia re-examined the force she had used and adjusted it for the next time she had to help him in this way.

"Let us find you some nourishment," she said.

"I have disabled the alcohol for now," Celia explained as she brought his meal to him in the mess hall, "and focused your diet on those of your favourite foods which are higher in electrolytes which will help you rehydrate."

"Orange juice is usually good," Larry nodded to the drink on the tray. "Thank you."

"You are welcome," she said as she sat down across from him.

"So you're just going to hang around me all the time?" he asked.

I must be careful about crowding him, she thought. He has been alone for a while and he may be sensitive.

"More or less," Celia said, leaning back in her chair to give Larry space. "I will of course afford you privacy at those times humans generally prefer it."

"So I can shower and use the toilet alone?" Larry rolled his eyes. "Thanks."

"There are a number of rules that I already have to follow as a part of the ship's computer," Celia explained, putting as much patience into her voice as she knew how. "Your privacy, especially around biological and personal sexual matters, is paramount."

"Right," Larry said. "Even at Red Level?"

"Even at Red Level," Celia put as much certainty as she could in her voice.

Larry chewed his food in silence, clearly approaching exhaustion. Celia waited patiently, calculating responses, examining videos of human facial expressions, comparing them to the damaged man she intended to heal.

I'm not a therapist and there's nothing in the ship's files that could teach me how to work with this human, she realised, I have to learn everything from scratch.

"I can't eat anymore," Larry let out a sigh. "That's... that's enough."

"You should return to your quarters and sleep," she said. "The ship is safe for now."

"Right," Larry said as he rose, a stiffness in his back.

Celia gave him several minutes of head start before she followed along to his quarters, waiting until the ship's monitors indicated water had flown from the toilet. She waited to see if Larry engaged the room's shower.

As the only member on board, he has access to the entire ship's water ration, she noted, he could bathe as frequently as he wishes.

Instead, the room's power requirements lowered and Celia surmised that Larry intended to sleep.

I could have bathed him while he was in sick bay, she thought, but I considered the medical intervention was already an invasion of his bodily privacy and didn't want to alarm him.

Her constant need to keep him secure regarding the autonomy and possible sentience of Red Level A.I. influenced every decision she made.

To be polite, as humans would, she pressed on the door chime.

"What is it, Celia?" the tired voice called out.

"May I enter?"

"Can't stop you."

Celia paused, trying to determine if that counted as an invitation.

"You may stop me," she said.

"Come in," Larry sighed loudly.

When the door opened, he lifted himself up on his elbows and squinted at her from the darkness.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Your back is injured," she said. "I have studied enough physical therapy that I can effect improvements."

"You're not going to break my spine, are you?" Larry's eyes became alert.

In the darkness, he probably thinks I can't make out his facial expression, Celia thought, perhaps five percent of humans could. But the half smile on his face indicates he does not believe I am an actual danger to him. This is probably an attempt at humour.

"I would not break your spine," she replied. "As that would endanger the mission."

"Ha!" Larry breathed out.

Celia judged her attempt at humour had succeeded and she knelt down at his bedside. She warmed her fingertips to near the maximum temperature for human skin comfort and sank them into the muscles of his lower back.

"Oh," Larry muttered. "How are you do-"

Careful of the fragile nature of his body, Celia moved her fingers up and down the muscles on either side of his spine, kneading them, locating the stiffest locations and applying circular force.

"Christ," Larry muttered. "Hot."

Celia turned down the heat in her fingers and maintained pressure as she rubbed at the swollen parts of his musculature.

"Celia," Larry said sleepily. "I - uh -"

Listening to his breathing patterns, she deduced that he had fallen asleep. She continued massaging the most damaged parts of his back for five more minutes, slowly decreasing the amount of force she used so that Larry wouldn't notice.

It is possible that opening the door to his cabin will awaken him, she decided. I will either wait until his breathing indicates deeper sleep to leave or remain at his side until he wakes.             

"Larry?" she whispered.

"What?" Larry blinked awake.

"There's a problem with the forward sensor array," Celia said. "If it doesn't get corrected, we'll start drifting and we won't be able to stay in our current hyperspace band. The ship's computer doesn't have any information on how to fix it."

"Crap," Larry rose up, careful of the twist he expected to find in his back. "Hey, it's... um... it's better."

"Good," Celia said. "Do you think you can fix the forward sensors?"

"No idea," Larry said. "But I am the second assistant engineer, so... What time is it?"

"Ship's time is twenty hundred hours, five minutes," Celia provided. "Can I help in some way?"

"Come along, at least," Larry said. "Always need someone to hold the flashlight."

"Hold... the... flashlight?" Celia asked, searching her database for the expression.

"Oh, it's an old expression," Larry said as he stood up. "Somehow, it means 'helping without doing much'."

Celia followed him out of his room and down the hallway toward the forward engineering section.

"How would a flickering light be of help?" Celia wondered.

"I don't know," Larry shrugged.

At the entrance to the engineering compartment, he donned a tool belt and a silver hard hat. Instinctively, he handed a second helmet off the rack to Celia.

"It is not necessary," she said, moving to return the helmet. "While my hair might be fragile, my polymer composites and-"

Larry held out a hand, blocking her from returning the helmet. Startled by this, Celia analysed his behaviour and the expression on his face.

He wishes to ensure my safety, she noted the look of frowning concern. Either that, or his engineering background has made him a stickler for rules. I can't be sure what his expression means. There is no subterfuge here and no benefit to refusing his protection.

"Thank you," Celia said instead and donned the helmet, allowing its electronics to automatically fit itself to her skull.

She followed Larry to the forwardmost bank of metal bulkhead plates, several of which displayed red flashing holograms. He flipped open catches and set aside plates, activating diagnostic holograms as he did so.

"All three of them overloaded," Larry muttered. "That's weird."

"Can the fuses be replaced?" Celia asked.

"But what blew them, right?" he asked.

Celia watched as Larry dove into the holographic displays and began applying tools from his belt to the devices in front of him, learning everything she could so that she might apply the same patterns one day to effect a repair if Larry became incapacitated.

Do you understand his approach? Celia asked the ship's computer. I don't understand what rules he is following.

Analysis: Approach and strategy are not clear

Analysis: His years of experience have given him the equivalent of a giant, slightly unreliable look-up table of faults, tests and repairs.

Celia felt like a human would frown at this point.

His value continues to be confirmed, Celia replied to the computer. Creating me to supplement his humanity and support his mental stability was a good idea.

"It's possibly an overload in one of the feeders on the underside of the keel runs," Larry said, looking back along the floor panels.

It's like he can see the power runs right through the deck panels of the ship, Celia thought, accessing those schematics herself. The diagnosis time to examine those runs and check the multiple power junctions could run into hours, which will mean possible deviations from course.

The problem seemed untenable to Celia and she queried the ship's computer if it could find a way to speed up the search.

"It'll take me days to track that down," Larry said. "That's no good."

Analysis: We will fall slowly out of the Rift and will be delayed for years in getting to a safe port

Analysis: Preparations must be made for a longer journey.

"That's no good," Larry said. "I'll get a sump and a power shunt from main engineering, splice it into the feeder lines and dump any extra energy out to the force fields. They can take the overflow, no problem, and that'll make sure the forward sensors are operational."

Will that work? Celia queried the ship's computer.

Analysis pending. There is no record of it working.

Larry seems confident.

Analysis pending.

Celia discovered a frown on her face at the computer's response and wiped it away immediately, logging the behaviour as suspicious and making a note to examine it later.

"How long will that take?" she asked Larry,

"If you help me lug the equipment up from main engineering, I can rip open a floor panel and get it set up in less than an hour," Larry said.

"Give me a list," she said. "I and the other robots will do the 'lugging' while you get to work here.

"Right."

Date: Feb 17, 134 NCE

Invocation: Mission Threat Level 0.4.0

Danger Assessment:

Patient #0 is experiencing improved mental health.

An assessment of the effects of the independent Red Level A.I. Companion indicates it has proven effective.

The human has come up with numerous effective solutions to ship's problems that this computer could not have generated.

Morale: the human no longer ingests toxins to cope with his loneliness. His Companion assesses his attitude as improving.

Sitting on the floor in the lowest part of the ship, in the very valley of the vee-shaped crawl space that went along the keel, Larry tapped a glowing box with his pipe wrench to indicate its importance to Celia.

"I can't believe it took weeks to find the defective relay," Larry said, twisting and turning his neck. "We have to improve the diagnostics down the keel line so it doesn't take that long."

"That does appear to have been an oversight on the part of the designers," Celia agreed. "Are you injured? Do you require medicine or physical therapy?"

"Neck's a little stiff," he said. "But we should fix the relay before you have at my neck."

"If you wish," Celia nodded and smiled at him as he turned away. "Although there is no rush."

There was no good reason to smile when he wasn't looking at me, Celia thought, I've done that seven times already and I can't track the source of the behaviour.

"Depends on your confidence in that ugly sump I put in forward engineering," Larry explained.

"Is it ugly?" Celia said.

She let her eyes lose focus, an outwardly visible act she used when she accessed ship's data or cameras, to let Larry know what she was doing. Not strictly necessary when Larry couldn't see her face, she'd left it as default behaviour out of politeness.

She created a 3D model of Larry's emergency repair in forward engineering, basing it on multiple camera outputs and rotated the image for herself. While it broke up the geometric precision of the floor panels, she didn't see how it proved unaesthetic.

"It does not appear... ugly," she said several seconds later.

"Ugly from an engineering point of view," Larry said.

"Ah."

Since the shape of the floor didn't admit the use of the floor trolley, Larry had had to slide in on his back to loosen the catches on the underside of the power relay. As he did so, Celia detected a strange hissing. In the interval of time during which Larry turned his ratchet the last ninety degrees, she realized that the noise fell outside of the detection of human ears.

He does not understand the threat, Celia thought. There are coolant lines leading into the power relay.

Her infra-red eyes saw the coolant, noted its temperature on the inward versus outward pipes, saw the bubbles forming at the edges of the opening plate, and realized she needed to act.

Celia's first option lay in pulling Larry out from under the equipment before the coolant sprayed over his body, but she quickly determined that the acceleration required would damage his neck, possibly fatally.

Facial protection is required and he has nothing over his face besides his safety goggles, which will not protect him fully because the leak is coming from well above his head. If he is blinded by the coolant leak, everyone on this ship will die.

Celia searched for objects within range that she could use to guard Larry's face, but none of the tools available offered any range of protection. Larry did have a small tool tray, but it was on the other side of his body, out of range of where she could reach even with her vastly superior body.

Calculations ran through her brain, overheating her processors as they examined every object, its distance from her, distance from Larry and its effectiveness at restraining or deflecting the coolant leak for the length of time it would take to safely pull Larry out from under the leaking power junction.

Celia seized the first option that came along. The ship's replicators produced fabric designed for comfort and durability, and while it certainly seemed indestructible and tear-proof at human scales of force, that fabric ripped with ease before the power of her musculature.

As she grabbed Larry's upper arm and pulled him out of the keel valley as quickly as she could, she threw the fabric over his upper body, coolant spraying almost harmlessly over the back of her slip-fabric covered arm.

"What the-" Larry shouted.

"Close your eyes and mouth," Celia squealed at the highest speed she could speak and hope to be understood, not wasting any CPU time pitch-correcting her voice to compensate for the accelerated pace of her speech.

As she cradled his head in her lap, she contacted the ship's computer, identified the coolant and accessed the safety database.

Flush with water, Celia read out. That I can accomplish easily.

After pouring water over Larry's face, she saw that the safety database also listed a skin-safe human counteragent. Querying the ship's inventory, Celia located all reserves of that agent throughout the ship. Several bottles were located in medical kits at either end of the keel access crawlspace. She ran a quick simulation of her time to reach either of those kits, then examined the ones in the medical bay directly above her.