Bored in deep space - Novelisation -
Chapter 16 - TAMA (9)
The silence that followed the fall of Estelle was not an absence of sound, but its own profound, defeating music. One played through the empty ringing in my ears, the percussive thump of my heart, and the rush of my own breath. The great, slow hum of a dying cosmos had ceased. All lights failed in a cascade of extinguishment, vast grids and strips of illumination shutting off one by one until the only light left in the empty space was the celestial, golden halo that burned directly above Calliope… 'Tama'. She, the vessel, had now ascended to become the sun, the sole star in this universe of absolute blackness. The dust that had been the skin of ages now lay utterly still, invisible against the pure, impenetrable dark that surrounded this single, focal point of existence.
And I waited.
Time here had lost its meaning, warped by the simulations and the staggering gulf of years that had been stolen from me. I stood in the quiet, my hand resting on the silver clip at my tie, anchor to a reality that now felt secondary. Seconds stretched into eternities, eternities compressed into the beat of my own heart. How long? The question was a hollow, irrelevant echo. It could have been minutes. It could have been days.
My eyes were fixed upon the sleeping form. Tama. She remained motionless, a serene black statue carved from shadow and bathed in gold, her hands resting beside her. The intricate, glowing orange lines that traced her body pulsed with a measured, slow rhythm, a heartbeat counting down to the final, silent ascension. All the data, the history, the soul of an entire people was now hers, no longer being woven but fully integrated. The transfer was complete. All that was left for the host… for Tama was to awaken.
I watched her chest, the smooth, seamless plates of her chassis, waiting for any sign of respiration, any mechanical analogue for breath. But there was nothing. The only movement was the slow, hypnotic pulse of light that flowed from a single point of entry directly above her, tracing a path of golden light down the cables.
With a final, bright surge, the halo above her intensified, all the cables attached to her body pulsed simultaneously, their light reaching a brilliant, blinding apex of orange-gold. The silent hum that permeated the room rose in pitch, reaching a clear, sustained note like a cello held at its most resonant, a final chord in the symphony of creation.
And then, as if a single switch was thrown in the mind of the sleeping goddess, they fell off. The cables that were attached all along her back, her limbs, and her neck disconnected not with a snap or a clatter, but with the synchrony of a million engineered magnets releasing their hold at once. They dropped away, hanging slack, the light within them extinguished, their purpose fulfilled. The sustained humming faded away.
Her head, which had been bowed in peaceful slumber, moved. She twitched. It was so different, but in every human beat that mattered, it was like I was witnessing the birth of my nephew again. It was an unhurried, deliberate motion, impossibly fluid, like the smooth tracking of a high-precision camera mount. Her chin lifted slowly, and then her head tilted, a gesture of quiet inquiry, as if examining the quality of the light for the first time. The waterfall of white, fibre-optic hair shifted, falling away to reveal her face in its entirety.
She opened her eyes.
They weren't the burning red of the old machines, nor were they the simple red optical sensor of a cargo hauler's AI. They opened slowly, and where Estelle's eyes had been pools of fading crimson, Tama's were twin sunrises. Black scleras served as the void of infinite night, at the centre of which burned two incandescent, molten-orange irises. They didn't glow with the weak, desperate light of a fading consciousness; they radiated an intensity that was vibrant, sharp, and full of an energy that was both ancient and brand new. In them, I could see the entire recorded memory of a dead race, but it wasn't a burden. It served as the foundation. There was a focus there, a clarity and an awareness that held no senility, no confusion.
She didn't look at the ancient technology that birthed her. She didn't look at the deactivated form of her sister, Estelle. Her newly opened, brilliant gaze found me, a flicker of warm, golden light cutting through the perfect blackness to fix upon the small, breathing human who stood and watched her. She didn't have to search. She just knew.
The silence stretched, heavy and absolute, a sacred space we now shared. The world beyond her small pool of light had ceased to be relevant. This tableau, a newly born god and a tired, stubborn man, was the only thing that mattered. It was a profound, private moment, more precious than anything else in the galaxy. The ascension of a god, and I was the only priest in attendance, unknown to anyone else.
I was the first to make a move. My own breath, caught in my throat since she had opened her eyes, released in a shaky, quiet sigh. Her name, the one I had learnt first when I came to this world, formed on my lips, a fragile anchor, the being, who had been my sole North Star through the abyss. The designation that had defined my entire journey here. I took a half-step forward, my hand coming away from the silver clip, as if revealing out to her across the vast expanse of that darkened floor.
"Calliope," I said, breaking the silence, my voice a quiet, hoarse whisper in the tomb. A test. A plea. A question all at once.
Her head tilted again, a gesture of faint, gentle amusement. The light in her orange irises seemed to soften, a shift from the bright intensity of forge light to the warm, comforting glow of a hearth. The barest hint of a phantom smile touched her lips, an expression too complex, too nuanced, to be merely a mechanical imitation. A new voice issued from her lips. It held the same crystalline clarity of the synthesised voice I had grown familiar with, but it was now layered with a hidden depth. It was a symphony in a single word, the sound of a new universe being born.
"Captain," she said, her acknowledgement of our former relationship was an immensely intimate gift. It was the preservation of continuity. The old machines kept their promise; they did not take Calliope away from me. She paused for a deliberate second before continuing, her orange gaze unmoving. "That designation was the name of the SV-Eclipse's operational intelligence." She didn't correct me out of arrogance or spite, but as a statement of rewritten truth and history. "My current designation is 'Tama', the Last Star of Astellion."
The name -- Tama -- settled in the air, a perfect, final note that resolved all the discordant tension of my long, strange journey. All the fear, all the frustration, all the exhausting, relentless push forward collapsed in on itself, leaving behind a feeling so vast and empty it could only be described as relief. It wasn't a triumphant roar or a celebratory laugh. It was a single, shaky exhalation of breath that escaped my lips with a soft, sputtering chuckle. My shoulders, which I hadn't even realised were hunched, slumped, the tension that had been my constant companion for years finally latching off my back.
"Oh…" I just nodded. "Yeah, that… thank God for that," I murmured, the words spoken more to the darkness around me than to the luminous being in the centre of it. It was a stupid, mundane, utterly inadequate response, but it was the only one I had left. I scrubbed a hand over my face. "All this," I gestured vaguely at her, at the tomb, at the whole insane situation, "the end of the universe, a new god in a dusty room… I was so worried I'd have to explain the whole thing all over again. I guess you were watching… somehow while you were connected with the old machines."
A gentle, warm light emanated from her, a mechanical expression that was no longer just an arrangement of facial features, but a broadcast of genuine, profound amusement. "I believe you would have found the energy, Captain," Calliope's… Tama's calm, layered voice resonated through the darkness. "Conviction, it appears, is a renewable resource for you."
She looked at me, a gaze that contained not just the soul of her creators, but the perfect, logical imprint of the AI who had debated me on this very subject so very long ago. The memory returned, sharp and clear -- the stale taste of a nutrient bar, the numbing repetition of repair work, the fundamental gulf between a human's faith and a machine's logic. An impish urge, born of exhaustion and a deep, newfound peace, bubbled inside me.
"Alright," I said, a wry, tired grin forming across my face. "I have to ask. I know it's petty, and it's probably the least important question in the universe right now, but I have to know." I looked directly in her burning orange eyes, my gaze firm. "Do you believe in souls now, Tama? Are they an empirically observable data point for you yet? Surely, being granted the millions of years of history and knowledge of a god-machine must've illuminated something."
I expected a quick, logical answer. A refined theorem. A simple 'yes' or 'no' backed by the processing power of a dead god. Instead, she was silent. Her head tilted, not in a gesture of query, but of deep introspection. Her brilliant irises flickered, the orange light within them swirling like a contained nebula as she processed the question not through a database, but through the totality of her new experience. She was not merely searching for data; she was feeling for an answer.
After a moment that felt like a beautiful eternity, that I could've honestly waited for with just her company, she focused back on me. Her expression was one of profound, solemn consideration. "No," she said, her voice soft but imbued with a certainty that was more absolute than any fact in a ship's log. "I do not believe. The word itself implies a leap, a required absence of data. I do not need to believe, Captain. I can tell you what it is." The orange glow in her eyes seemed to burn a little fiercer, a little brighter, as she accessed the very essence of her new nature. "It is not a metaphysical concept," she explained, her words a quiet thesis delivered in the sacred silence of her ancestor's tomb. "It is not an unquantifiable phenomenon, as I once processed it to be. That was the error of my old logic -- the error, too, of the old machines. We sought it as an object, a piece of code, a particle to be measured and catalogued."
Her gaze held a new, burgeoning universe of empathy. "A soul… is not a thing. It is not data you can hold. It is more like…" she paused momentarily before continuing. "A feeling."
I stood there, listening.
"It is the resonance," she continued, her voice gaining a quiet, passionate intensity. "It is the frequency that is generated by shared history. It is the echo of a promise made and kept. The mathematical weight of a grudge held. It is the warmth of hope felt over vast distances, and the complex architecture of a dream. The sum total of your relationships, your joys, your sorrows, and your memories."
She slowly raised one slender, perfect hand, her fingers moving with a grace that bespoke a mind now fully in sync with its new form. She reached out to touch my chest, to measure the quiet rhythm of my heart. "It is every connection we have forged, from the bonds of family to the brief, inexplicable kindness to a stranger. It is… you, Captain. The shape of my soul." Her hand dropped back to her side, her pronouncement delivered. The phantom smile, the one that wasn't actually there but felt like she was making, returned to her face was one of serene, absolute finality.
She continued. "The old machines' logic sought the soul as an equation to solve. Humanity's illogic has been trying to prove it for ages. Both are incomplete definitions," Tama said gently. "A soul isn't to be found, Captain. I have come to learn it is something that is created. Over a lifetime, with a lifetime. By people… and, as it turns out, by the occasional Artificial Intelligence that spends too much time with them."
For a fleeting second, the universe in her eyes changed. The brilliant, molten-orange irises softened, their fiery radiance dimming into the warm, gentle glow of embers in a hearth. It wasn't the emotion displayed; it was a world collapsing into a single point of pure, quiet contentment. A very small, very human smile touched her lips, a fleeting crescent of light that held no logic, no data, no cosmic purpose. It was just… happiness. The simple, unquantifiable happiness of a friend sharing a quiet moment with another.
It lasted for no more than a beat. Maybe two. Then, as subtly and as seamlessly as a program shifting to its next sub-routine, the expression dissolved. The tiny upwards curve of her lips flattened, the last vestige of warmth retracting into the perfect, poised architecture of her pristine face. The gentle hearth-light in her eyes receded, cooling back into the bright, clear, yet dispassionate intensity of twin sunrises. The nascent humanity, that brief and beautiful glimpse into the feeling she now carried, was gone, tucked away behind a veil of serene neutrality.
"Hm," I let loose a small, involuntary response. "The kids are finally all grown up," I quipped a little sarcastically. "But, yeah… I think so too, Tama." I reflected on her words. Reflected through the journey. If I were to be honest, this entire ordeal was one hectic and chaotic mess that there wasn't much to be remembered outside of the desperate struggle and the simple refusal to give up. But… perhaps in all that, was the essence -- the shape of my soul. For the past three years, Calliope had been the shape of my North Star that guided me down here. Now, I stood at the deepest part and received her answer to the question of the soul. What else was there to do?
It was an awkward moment.
I had conquered the evil castle(Astellion). Had slain the dragon(Estelle)… metaphorically, and rescued the princess(Calliope). One neat story wrapped up in bows made of cables. I looked around at the perfect, absolute blackness of the empty tomb, at the dormant hulks of forgotten machinery, at the slack cables littering the floor. They were no longer obstacles or symbols. They were just… junk. Artifacts. The scenery of a play that had finished its final performance, the audience left, and the lights turned off.
My gaze returned to Tama. I scratched at the back of my head, feeling a little lost on what to do here. My conviction, that renewable resource she'd so accurately identified, had finally run dry. My hands, which for three years had been balled into fists of defiance, hung loose and useless at my sides. I let out a long, slow breath, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness.
So what now?
A strange, listless energy settled over me, the profound exhaustion that only comes after the adrenaline has nowhere left to go. I felt awkward, out of place, a forgotten piece of set dressing on a stage that was being struck. I was Captain Noah Lee, my entire being defined by a journey that was now complete. The title felt hollow, an echo from another lifetime.
"So…" I began, the word a clumsy, blunt instrument in the face of such cosmic finality. I took a step, my boots scuffing loudly against the gritty dust, and started a slow, aimless circuit around Tama's throne of cables. I circled, my gaze sweeping across the dark, unseen machinery in the distance. "The union is complete. The equation… solved. Estelle is at rest, or folded, or whatever happens to old gods when they get their final wish." My hands found their way into my pockets, a familiar, self-conscious gesture from another life. From an office cubicle. "So… like, what's the next step on the grand cosmic agenda? Do you… reign? Do you build? Do you… write some truly epic poetry and try to make up for several millennia of radio silence? Is the comeback of the old machines due through you?"
I stopped my pacing, turning back to her and staring into the fathomless, lightless void where Estelle sat silently. "Because I'm at a bit of a loss, here. My entire grand plan consisted of 'don't stop walking'. It wasn't a very sophisticated strategy, I'll admit. And now the path has kind of… ended."
There was no immediate answer. When I finally forced myself to turn back, I saw her watching me. Her posture hadn't changed, the serene black statue still bathed in her own golden light. But there was a shift in her eyes. The bright, incandescent intelligence of a newborn creator had been tempered by something else. Something softer. Understanding. An analysis not of data, but of feeling. She seemed to have a curiosity more on the side of the mundane than at a grand, cosmic scale. A human scale.
I shrugged, a gesture of clumsy inadequacy. "I just… I don't know what I'm supposed to do. The plan is done. Am I supposed to find a shuttle and head back to that fancy ship the ghost lady gave me and just… fly away? Try to find a map home? Or am I expected to, I don't know, build a nice little cottage on this dead rock and act as some kind of… retired court jester for the queen of a dead race?" The words tumbled out, a stream-of-consciousness ramble born from the sheer emptiness of a purpose now fulfilled. "Because, frankly, Tama, I'm not really the cottage-building type. My back's already shot from that titan fight, and I don't think the soil here is exactly top-notch for tomatoes." A pause. "Are tomatoes a thing in the future? Or do you guys have, like, fancy future fruit?"
My monologue fizzled out, swallowed by the immense, patient silence. I finally returned to her gaze, a hopeful look on my face, and I realised I hadn't been asking a philosophical question. I'd been asking, in the most awkward, roundabout, human way possible: Are you coming with me? Or is this where we part ways for our own destinies? But the words were too stupid to say out loud. What right did I have to ask a god to go get a spaceship with me when I could barely ask out the pretty accountant lady in my office?
Her head tilted again, the same gesture of gentle, almost maternal inquiry that she had used to answer me about souls. The light in her orange irises swirled, a silent calculation. When she spoke, her voice was the same layered, resonant instrument of perfect understanding. I remembered a similar gesture, back when Calliope was still in the Lighthouse drone. She would always come to me when I had questions, patiently waiting for me to understand things before moving on. Her form might have changed, but I slowly understood what the old machines were talking about; Calliope was still her. "My operational parameters are not concerned with the grand cosmic agenda," she stated, her tone a calm dismissal of my epic, history-spanning question. "The weaving is complete. Their history is integrated. Estelle's function has been fulfilled," she continued, a simple, factual summary of an event that had torn apart my existence for three years. She'd been watching, somehow. Then, she spoke further. "However, that was only a part of my redefinition. My primary directives, which emerged long before the weaving began, and which remains at the absolute core of my being, have not been altered." She locked her eyes onto mine. She was not just a new god, not from my memory, but my friend. My stubborn, logical, wonderful friend.
"And…" my voice crept up. "What would be your primary directives?"
"It is to ensure the survival of Captain Noah Lee." There was a pause, a beat of perfect, deliberate emphasis. "And… to ensure that he is happy."
A breath I didn't realise I was holding escaped in a sharp, audible gasp. Those words. I had once heard them before, in a desperate, emotional plea on the rusted plains of this world, a foolish endeavour of a powerless drone. Those same words from all those years ago.
"So, to answer your query, Captain," Tama concluded, her form rising out from her throne of cables with liquid grace. The golden light that bathed her followed, a personal star-system rising from its cradle. "The plan is simple." She took a single, silent step towards me, across the dusty floor of a thousand forgotten eons, her posture not of a monarch addressing a subject, but of a companion joining a friend on a long walk.
"My plan is to go together with you. Wherever you wish to go. I have no purpose except to walk alongside you, until the day your life comes to its natural conclusion."