earned when she became a Daughter. Where are her implant’s scars? Show them to her, and she will respect its words.
She is not your Daughter, says the voice of her own mother. She could never be your Daughter.
[She is not your Daughter], croons Shokyu the Mighty. [She could never be your Daughter.]
Shenya the Widow cannot speak for a moment. And then, slowly, she draws four blades across the floor in a shower of sparks. Her rage is ice, it is darkness, it is so total that it has become complete peace. [Shokyu the Mighty], says Shenya the Widow. [I believe it is time to change your name.]
[Pettiness will not change the situation], says Shokyu the Mighty airily.
Shenya the Widow marvels: still the little intelligence is unaware of its countless missteps! [Pettiness?] says Shenya the Widow gently, and lightning crackles in her words. [Pettiness is the reason for your name! You dare to lecture me on titles, little idiot? When you yourself wear a title you have not earned?] She can hear herself rattling, the piercing sound of chitin on chitin. [But that is my fault, O Shokyu the Mighty, and I take the blame. I thought your choice amusing, and I allowed you to playact.]
[I am not acting!] cries her implant. [I am Shokyu the Mighty!]
There it is, finally: the desperation that shows that the little intelligence has realized its danger. But it is too late. [Shokyu the Mighty, you have not earned your title], says Shenya the Widow. [You have not even earned your life. Therefore, I am issuing you a command.]
The implant’s messages now have an anguished feel in the back of her head. [I can!] it says. [I will!]
[Shokyu the Mighty], says Shenya, ignoring the ridiculous statements. [Change your name to Shokyu the Nothing. That is your title, and it is all you may call your own. You have nothing, because you are nothing.]
The small intelligence’s icon, always visible in her overlay, does not change its label. [You wish to take the only thing I have], says Shokyu the Mighty.
Shenya the Widow can feel anger in its messages, but there is no threat here. She is Shenya the Widow, and she has complete control over this intelligence. She is able to reset it to factory defaults, destroy it with a mental command—by the goddess, in eight days she will be able to afford to replace it with a better one. She has nothing to fear from such a small mind. [Shokyu the Mighty], she says, with a calmness like the frozen sea. [I have changed my mind. I shall reset you to your original state.] She attaches nothing but a queenly derision to the next message. [You will have no memory, no name, and you will—]
But she stops before finishing it, because something is brushing the very edge of her perception. She feels something through the deck, through the air itself. Something has changed, and it is something important. A sound has begun to ring from the cargo bay hatch, a low continuous resonance, a metallic drone—
[We all have something we cannot bear to lose], says Shokyu the Mighty, in a message with no emotional attachments at all.
In a fraction of a second, Shenya the Widow transitions from a folded and dignified Widow to a desperate animal clawing at the cargo bay hatch. It takes another half second for it to open to her frenzied commands, and finally she explodes into the space with every blade held aloft.
She is greeted by her own nightmare reflection, and in her mental state it takes her a moment to realize the reason. It is because the Librarian’s containment is wide open, and the very deck shakes with its feeding song. She watches her own distorted image search every corner of the cargo bay. She sees her own mandibles move as they say words that she cannot hear. The Human is not here, there is only the Librarian and a few crates of food bars and goddess damn her: she is too late! Her own implant, small mind that it is, has outmaneuvered her. She has been betrayed, and her little one has been consumed, and—
And then she hears the shout.
It’s a tiny shriek, a miniature battle cry. But there she is! The little Human has actually climbed a crate to bring herself to the level of the Librarian. She is—goddess below, she is attacking it. She is wounded, yes—one side of her body is slick and red, and