will place a real premium on. Freco will, too. Whether you actually want to go out on a ship or not, by the end of this, you’ll be highly sought-after.” Yeah. He’d be sought after, all right. He would never be found, was the problem.
He wanted to know why they were at war. Not in generalities. Those had been good enough for him before, but not anymore. He wanted to be in a room with the person who’d made the decision, who’d said, Go, and explore whether there had been other options. Because there was dissent. There were protests. There were people who said contractors like Surplex had tentacles all through Service, and manipulated public sentiment in favor of the war, the purpose of which had shifted somehow from driving salamanders back from human territory to absolutely exterminating them as a species, and was that strictly necessary? Was forging into VZ actually the same war that everyone had agreed to after Coral Beach? Because back then, there hadn’t been corporate AI pouring itself into battleships along with 22 percent of global GDP and making decisions that were literally too sophisticated to question. That part seemed dubious to him now. It felt really dubious.
He knew what was happening. He was inventing a comforting fiction in which it was okay to talk to the salamander because he didn’t owe the human race anything. Still, these thoughts grew in his head until he was furious. Everyone but him was home and safe and happy.
He cried a little.
When his core reached sixteen hours remaining, he decided to shut it off. It would stop feeding him oxygen, he would grow dizzy and pass out, and that would be that. It was terrifying, but he couldn’t stand waiting around to find out whether he was going to betray his own species.
There was probably no teaching unit on dealing with capture because it was too horrifying to contemplate.
He gave himself an hour to think about it. Then he dipped into his filters and dialed them down to zero.
After a minute, his eyes began to sting. This wasn’t an effect he’d expected. He squeezed them shut, but the pain intensified. Something burned in his nostrils. “Ack,” he said. As soon as he opened his mouth, someone rammed a flaming fist in there. His tongue sizzled; he heard it. He yelped and brought up the filters and choked and spat until the pain subsided.
When he could speak, he said, “The atmosphere contains a chemical that produces acid on contact with moisture. Sulfur trioxide, perhaps.”
His core readout continued to tick. In fifteen hours, he wouldn’t asphyxiate. He would dissolve.
* * *
—
The blue salamander returned. It perched on its back legs like a dog and watched him.
“Go away,” he said.
Its head tilted. “Gikky.”
He didn’t respond.
“Gikky. Pak pak.”
“Gilly doesn’t want to pak pak. No pak pak from Gilly.”
“Yek,” said the salamander.
“No.”
“Yek.”
It rose. He flinched, but there was nowhere to go. The stench of cat urine intensified. The salamander’s head bobbed. Its jaws cracked open. A noise grew in its throat. He felt the stirrings of a force.
“Fuck!” he said. “Okay! Yek!”
The salamander dropped to the floor. “Pak pak.”
“Yes.”
It lowered its head. “Mak. Tak.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Mak-tak,” said the salamander. It took two steps forward and lowered its head again. “Gikky.”
“You’re Mak Tak? That’s your name?”
“Mak. Tak.”
“I’m going to call you Martin, because it sounds less like someone throwing up.”
“Mak. Tak.”
“Yes. Yek. Hello, Martin.”
“Hek. Hek.”
“Don’t bother learning hello. You won’t need that.”
The salamander fell silent for a few moments. “Pak pak.” When he didn’t respond, it grew agitated, stepping to the left. “Pak pak.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. You killed my ship.”
“Kik. Sssik.”
“Yes. You know the ship, right?” He used his fist to mimic it flying, opening his fingers to represent the explosion. “Gilly’s ship.”
“Gikky sik.”