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Published:
2023-07-17
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2024-10-05
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Littoral Zone

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Chapter 3: Perchance to dream

Summary:

Authors note: in Artifical Condition, Tapan manages to fall asleep (after watching three episodes of Worldhoppers—which I’m guessing wouldn’t be Gurathin’s cup of tea) despite what were pretty nightmarish recent experiences…Gurathin has also been sailing all day and is exhausted…

Chapter Text

I stayed in the cabin. It was still raining and there was no point in getting wet again. I watched the latest episode of Legends of the Fire. Then I went right back to the start, including the rather dubious pilot episode. It was odd, it wasn’t a series I’d ever found terribly compelling; truth is, I was suckered in by the title which sounded far more exciting than the series actually was. That, and the fact it had won a whole load of prizes.The plot itself was all about a group of humans and their relationships—and the first time I’d watched it a lot of their behaviour was wildly unpredictable. I mean, I enjoy plot twists; but only if you could reasonably be able to predict them. In Legends stuff seemed to happen out of the blue. But now, watching it again, at slow (1x) speed I began to see how, actually, there were foreshadows (I think that’s a word); they were just very subtle. I amused myself by applying some of my algorithms to the data—algorithms I’ve refined since becoming rogue and had opportunities to observe normal human behaviour and interactions. By “normal” human behaviour, I mean in situations where they weren’t under the sort of stresses you find in mines, and other places they deploy murderbots.The more I analysed, the more impressed I was with the series’ script writers and actors—the accolades it had won were fully deserved. It must be very difficult to act as if you’re pretending you’re not attracted to someone but at the same time show the audience that you have really (or the character you’re playing has) fallen in love. Not sure if I got my grammar right there, but you know what I mean.

 

The minutes turned into hours, and the hours passed. At some point the rain stopped, but the subtle sounds of the boat creaking and the gentle susurration of the sea was calming. I suppose I was trying to distract myself from thinking about the whole compatibility thing, and the fact that Gurathin was lying on a bunk just a couple of metres away from me, sleeping. How the hell had he fallen asleep? But then, Tapan had slept—and she had been in a far more stressful situation than Gurathin was now. Even if she hadn’t actually known she was in a room with a murderbot, she was alone with a stranger and someone had recently tried to murder her and her friends. The someone had been Tlacey, not me, but anyway: she must have been nervous. (I tensed briefly, but I think the risk of Gurathin ever deciding to come and curl up next to me is so low as to be practically in negative figures.) 

 

But Tapan had slept. Humans are weird about sleep. And Gurathin was asleep. It wasn’t just his breathing and other vital signs; I could tell he was in deep sleep. There was no feed, and I hadn’t set up a localised system for us to communicate over—but nevertheless I could catch hints of what were like faint whispers of…well I suppose I was getting some bleed-through of his dreams. There was nothing clear, but it reminded me of staring into the water earlier, the occasional glint of something; and perhaps there were shadowy forms moving just out of sight. I wondered what would happen if I went over and held my hand close to his facial augments. No! I had a sudden flash of the image of Gurathin waking up and seeing me looming over him. My performance reliability dropped by 3% and I must have physically flinched, or even made some sort of vocalisation (I’m not rewinding any footage, that would be too embarrassing) because Gurathin stirred, and I could feel him awakening. I checked the time, it was early but the sun would be rising soon. 

 

I heard Gurathin’s breathing change, and could sense him wake up and do that thing humans do when they sort of recalibrate; without seeing his face I could still “see” him remember he was on a boat with a murderbot. “Good morning, SecUnit,” I am sure he must have heard me flinch and whatever earlier, I don’t think his hearing is acute enough to hear what passes for my breathing but he clearly knew I was there in the darkness, “I presume nothing happened overnight which I need an update on?”

 

I was thinking about touching your face to see if I could read your dreams, Dr. Gurathin , I didn’t say. No, I don’t think that would go down well.

 

“Nothing. Sun will be up in 17 minutes,” I replied. 

 

He sat up, rolling over and swinging his legs up towards his chest and then down so he was sitting facing my bunk. He reached out and found the lantern and flicked it on. I was still lying on my back on my bunk, Drone Three was watching him. He glanced up at it, where it was perched on a shelf. “Are you okay with me making some tea? There is a gas fired ring in the galley.”

 

He sounded a little hesitant. It was my turn to sigh. “Do we have a container of fire suppressant onboard?” I needed to ask. Drone Three could see Gurathin’s face twitching into a ghost of a smile. He went over to one of the many cubbyholes (are all boats like this?) and pulled out a canister. He looked over towards me, I rolled my eyes. It’s not as if I need to hold the thing, I just need to know where it is. 

 

“Ratthi said you don’t like naked flames; honestly it’s okay if you’d rather I didn’t?” He made it sound like a question. “It’s fine.” I said, hopefully putting a stop to further conversation on the subject. I do not like flames. Until I had visited Preservation (the planet, not the station) I had never really encountered flames outside of an emergency. You do not want flames on a station, on a ship (a proper ship, not a ship that’s a big boat), or in a mine. They make me feel weird: they look alive—but they’re not. And they are hard to control. They make me feel like, I don’t know—part of me wants to reach out and touch them and the rest of me is screaming to run away. Which is a lot of emotion to have over something someone is using to heat water so they can infuse some dried leaves. Which is what Dr. Gurathin was doing now. 

 

The boat had a tiny food preparation area, which he’d moved over to (ducking slightly all the time) with a little cooking device which all folded up and away out of sight when not in use. What is it with hiding things on boats? I guess it’s for safety reasons, but honestly some of this seemed excessive. Drone Three followed Gurathin, I went out into the cockpit (it’s a stupid name). At least there I could stand up straight without bumping my head. It was still dark, but I could see the sky lightening at the horizon where the sun would be rising shortly. Gurathin was adding sugar crystals to his infusion. When did humans decide it was a clever idea to dry leaves and then later soak them in boiling water? How did they discover which leaves had stimulants? Why did the plants even make chemicals like that? 

 

Gurathin came out into the cockpit and sat down on one of the other benches, as far from me as possible. He’d left the little lantern back in the galley area. He was cupping his hands around a mug above which I could see water vapour condensing into clouds of steam. He held it up to his face and seemed to be trying to inhale it instead of drinking it. I looked at the horizon, the sun was going to rise soon.