-
Eluna again held Matea's expressive hand, an intangible cameraderie forming between them. Eluna grew up an only child, loved and spoiled in unbroken measure by her parents. She'd always wondered what it would be like to have a sister. Maybe there's family you're born into, and there's family you find? She could see the expression in her eyes that the Machine couldn't. And it suddenly became clear to her exactly what Suri had supposed to her. Maybe there was a window into her own humanity through a machine's perspective. She squeezed Matea's hand again.
"This is the first time I can remember not being alone since..."
Since...
She still didn't understand how to quantify that. Where the change happened. For once, that seemed to matter a little bit less. She'd found a family. Even Rix.
She glanced at the astromech after another bout of digital sass, and replied simply bzeet-bweedle-oop-zwat and winked.
-
Rix swiveled in surprise and offered a cheerful, arpeggiated reply. Suriyesh rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
"Oh, gods. As if he needed any more encouragement."
Suriyesh often spoke of her collection of droids as a family. As brothers, sisters. It wasn't because of some high-minded idealism, or a philosophical position on artificial intelligence. It was because of moments like this. Because she didn't have another category that made sense of her experiences. They were her family, because she belonged with them, felt safe with them, could be herself among them.
They were her family. All except for one.
-
In the back corner of the cargo pod, walled off out of sight and out of mind, an ice-blue ocular blinked slowly in the gloom, patiently waiting, studiously observing. Only when the conversation on the shop floor dissolved into mere social chatter, banal and clinically insignificant, did it wink out and return to sleep.