power Watertower Station for centuries. Clouds roil, spiraling into pressure systems that dwarf the lightning storms. This is a seething killer of a planet, a furious sphere with her home in its gravitational grip, one that would like nothing more than to shred her and everything she loves into constituent atoms…and in her current mindset she might not even object because the planet would look so beautiful doing so.
Slowly, Sarya’s mind pulls free of the savage magnificence down below. She finds, embarrassingly, that she is trembling. She is—oh, for the goddess’s sake, she is actually crying. There is actual liquid on her face. She wipes it away with the sleeve of her utility suit, throwing her Network unit out of focus for a moment. That’s one disadvantage of a Human body: the continual leakage.
When the overlay returns, it is filling with symbols. They highlight hundreds of silhouettes against the fire of the planet, each one cutting a black, perfect, sharp-edged hole in its brilliant surface. While she has been succumbing to her embarrassing Human nature, her unit has been busy cataloguing these shapes, comparing their outlines and positions with some public database or other, and attaching labels as it figures things out. The chunkier forms are mountains of ice from the rings, towed into nearby orbits and waiting to be harvested. Some are outstations, built for purposes she can’t guess at. Some are ships. Not that she has any kind of experience with ships, but even without her unit’s help she would have known their silhouettes from the icebergs. Now she squints against the fury of the planet and attempts to read their names. There’s the blocky outline of [Spearfisher]. That’s [Burst of Blossoms] drifting over there, next to the long thin shape of [Brand New Super Large Cargo II]. Farther out, she can see the tiny pebble shapes of [Riptide] and [Swiftness], the gleam of [Blazing Sunlight]…and there are hundreds more.
Her eyes flick from one ship to the next as, behind her, one of the teacher’s bodies continues in her excruciatingly mundane voice. “…the largest water-mining operation in twelve lightyears,” says the end of the latest sentence. “And it has been so for nearly a millennium.”
[When will we run out?] asks a student behind Sarya in brilliant white symbols. The words crowd into her periphery and block her view of the planet below, the first unwelcome appearance of the Network in her short experience.
“That is a good question,” says the teacher’s voice. “I will have an answer for you in just a—”
“It is an excellent question, Broca,” says a rich new voice. It is a kind voice, a warm voice, the type of voice that invites trust. “If we ship water at today’s rates,” says the voice, thrilling Sarya’s very soul, “we’ll be in business for the next nineteen thousand years.”
Sarya would have thought nothing could pull her from the splendor outside, but she didn’t count on that voice. She turns, searching for a speaker. She’s heard the voice of Watertower before, ringing out over the concourse or giving announcements in the corridors, but always distant and impersonal. Now she is in its very heart, and she is embarrassed to find that her Human eyes are burning. Again.
A silver glow hovers in the center of the room, between two of the teacher’s bodies. [Ellie (she family), species: Independent, Tier: 2.7], says the space beside the glow.
“Hello, Ellie,” says one of the teacher’s bodies. In a bit of insight provided by Sarya’s new Network unit, a yellow [annoyance (slight)] is overlaid near the narrow face. “Perhaps you would like to give the rest of my presentation?”
“I would love to,” says the silver glow, its voice rolling through the observation deck like a warm wave. “In fact I have already prepared a little something—just in case you needed my help again.”
“That’s the station intelligence,” whispers an awe- and mucus-filled voice at Sarya’s elbow. “My dads say she’s super smart.”
“Your fathers are sweet to say so, Jobe of Jonobo the Larger,” says Ellie, and Sarya feels a start beside her as Jobe hears his own name in that gorgeous voice. “And it’s true, relatively speaking. I am the only tier three intelligence on the station.”
“To clarify, students,” says the teacher, “Ellie is a two-point-seven. There are no threes on Watertower.”
“Exactly,” says Ellie smoothly. “An amusing fact: that’s approximately five and a half times the average intelligence of this class!”
“And yet below average for a station this size,” says the