Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Travellers (Semi-Open RP between Tara and Catrin)

Tara took the knife, too focused on the oath to notice the flame. She cut across the pad of her hand, causing some blood to well up, and quickly grasped Catrin's hand so that the blood mixed. Tara then started to chant louder and the AI followed suit, light suddenly flared into existence in their hands, shining out from between their fingers and their palms, a soft, gentle heat suffusing them... the chanting rose to a crescendo and then suddenly, it stopped leaving only the last lingering echo of that almost angelic language that faded quickly. The feeling of a watching presence vanished as well. Tara took her hand away from Catrin and sat down heavily on her divan-chair, "The consequences are most grave." She said softly, "I swore by the honor of my Ancestors, by the blood that runs through my veins and by the most ancient and exalted blood of the Aedrimar Lineage of which I am descended, all the way back to Aeran and Ara, who were its progenitors, the youngest children of Terel the Eternal, father of all Terelains." She paused after uttering that last name, a respectful pause it seemed, "I swore also by the Light of the Three Sisters, the lunar Goddesses who guide, judge and protect the dead on their journey to the afterlife. If I break my oath then Ilaris will judge me badly and set me on a long, difficult journey to the afterlife, Senura will withhold her guiding light and I will become lost and Tara-Menil will not protect me from the dangers and, when I reach the afterlife, the Revered Ancestors will not look kindly upon me in my second judging, for I would have dishonoured the oldest and greatest of them."

The AI spoke then, "In other words, if she breaks her oath to you, Tara will face a torturous journey to the afterlife, condemnation by her Ancestors and many long trials of penance and after that the Queen of the Younger Gods, Tia'Ren, my still find her unworthy and prevent her from entering the afterlife until she has been subjected to yet more acts of penance." The AI shook its holographic head, "She will not break her oath, nor will I."

Catrin watched Tara cut across the pad of her hand, extended her hand for Tara to grasp and squeezed it when Tara did, then enjoyed the gentle heat that resulted, surprised at also feeling some sort of a presence nearby.

She sat down when Tara did and kept her bleeding hand in her lap, listening to her with a serious expression in her face. She stood up when the AI was finished speaking, and bowed to Tara, a little more deeply than before. “Quite an oath,” she remarked, her lips breaking into a wry smile. Blood was still dripping on the floor from her hand, and she noticed it when she sat back again, frowned a little and covered the wound with her left hand, closed her eyes for a moment and when she withdrew her hand, the wound had disappeared.

She looked back at the exhausted Tara and now smiled openly. “You really do seem to have a deep love for knowledge. I hope it didn't matter that I'm older than you are – I wouldn't know how to chant the oath, anyway, and I wasn't the one making it, after all.” She paused for a moment, then grew more serious and looked Tara in the eyes. “The significance of what you did wasn't lost on me.”

Tara gave her a wan smile, "I should hope so, it's not something I do every day, invoking the power of the Ancestors." When she mentioned her age, "Oh?" She seemed to perk up at this as her curiosity was again aroused, "So, you're more than a thousand years old? I must say you look good for your age."

The AI, who had retained the hologram, said, "Mistress... your hand is still bleeding."

Tara blinked and looked at the red fluid dripping into her fur, matting it, "Oh bother." She muttered, passing her uninjured hand over the wound and muttering something. The wound healed over and she sighed, "Bah, I'll get a shower later." Tara turned to Catrin and was about to ask about her own hand when she noticed the wound was gone. The feline blinked gain, a little owlishly, and smiled, "Well, I shouldn't say I'm surprised you managed to heal yourself. You can walk between worlds after all."

The AI turned its hologram to look at Catrin, or at least it seemed to, since the indistinct figure didn't have a face, "Miss Catrin, I wonder if you intended on taking up mistress' prior offer of taking you to a world you can fit into? I know that you can simply walk there, but I'm afraid mistress would be insufferable if I did not at least inquire."

Tara 'humphed' irritably, "I'm never insufferable!"

Catrin smiled when Tara perked up, and chuckled when she remarked about her looking good for her age, but her whole demeanour was somehow more dignified than before. “Why, thank you. This body regenerates well. You don't look bad either,” she answered cheerfully, then she smiled, “yes, I'm much older. It's... complicated.” She paused for a moment, considering what Tara just went through, before adding, “I'm probably the oldest member of my family due to my travel to universes with fast timeflows.”

She smirked rather wryly when Tara commented on her healing. “Trust me, those two aren't even remotely related,” torn between feelings of displeasure and relief when she recalled how her siblings mostly ignore the possibility of learning to use magic. On the other hand, at least they didn't have as many tools for causing problems as they could have.

Catrin looked at the AI's hologram when it addressed her “Thank you for bringing it up. What can I call you? To answer your question, yes, I would appreciate it. The oath would be rendered rather useless otherwise, wouldn't it, through a lack of time for researching your mistress's new specimen,” she said with a mildly entertained note in her voice.

Tara giggled, "Specimen? that's such an ugly word! I prefer the term...um... oh drat... what do I call the people I study in my papers?"

"Indigenous sapients." The AI supplied, "Or, 'the researched'."

"Oh! Yes! So...well... your not exactly indigenous are you? You're from a completely different universe! That's about as alien as you can get!" Tara said, then she stood up, a little more carefully than her normal exuberant self and said, "It'll be nice to have someone other than the AI to talk to."

The AI made a slight noise, but then thought better of complaining, he turned to Catrin, "You asked what my designation was, well, to be honest I don't have one. Normally I'm referred to by the name of the ship I'm serving on, or by ship and function if there are more than one AIs aboard. For instance I was called Tia'Ren's Light Tactical when I served on that battleship, since I was the AI in charge of the defensive systems."

Tara nodded, "Yes, sometimes we give the AIs names, or sometimes they choose their own, but mostly we just muddle through without them. It's not something anyone's really thought of. I mean, AIs are obviously sentient individuals, but it'd be kind of confusing after awhile."

Catrin smiled and shrugged. “Well, at least I'm a sapient, if not indigenous.” She turned to the AI's hologram when it started answering her, then she nodded. “I see. To broaden the question, how do I address you when I want to speak to you? 'AI'? Do I just speak into nowhere and if it's clear I'm not addressing Tara, you'll take the message?”

She turned to Tara. “You seem rather worn out. Shouldn't you be resting?” she teased Tara, quite sure she'd get an irritated reaction out of her, judging by her previous communication with the AI – she didn't seem quite inclined to care for herself very much if she could be doing something more interesting. She wasn't able to keep a straight face for long and ended up smiling merrily. “Sorry. But wouldn't you at least like to lie down? Or take a sip of a liquid to make up for the blood loss? I don't mind.”

A soft growl came from low in Tara's throat, "I am perfectly fine, thank you." She said primly, "I've suffered worse than a minor cut and a tiny bit of exhaustion."

There came a resigned sigh from the AI, "I can never get her to take proper care of herself."

"What are you, my father?" Tara asked irritably

"Heavens forbid!" The AI sad in mock horror, "To know I've set such an insatiable creature such as yourself on the universe, why, it'd be more than I could bear!"

The anthropologist pointedly ignored her computer, "As for him." she pointed at the hologram, "Speak wherever you will, call him what you want, and so long as it's not directed at me, he'll answer you."

"Unless I don't feel like it." The AI said.

Catrin chuckled at Tara's prim response, and the amusement in her eyes made it rather clear she was joking. Then she shrugged at the AI's response. “Fair enough.” She turned back to Tara. “Now what? Do you want to go on showing me the ship? Or would you rather talk? Or bicker with the AI?” she asked, slightly amused. “How long have the two of you been together?”

Tara's irritated expression instantly vanished as she started talking again, "Well, I could sow you the rest of the ship. But all that's left is the cockpit, the engine room, the bedrooms and the bathroom." She smiled, "This ship was supposed to have up to five people in it, ten at a very cramped stretch, so it's not all that big." She glanced at the hologram, "As for how long we've been together...um.. a while now, three centuries is it?"

"Three hundred and seventy six years, two hundred and fourteen days, sixteen hours, forty-seven minutes and six seconds, galactic standard, and counting, mistress." The AI said, "I've... enjoyed every nanosecond of it." The sarcasm dripped from the word 'enjoyed'.

"Hey!" Tara said, "I'm not that bad! Ahem! Anyway, If you want to talk more, that's fine with me!" Tara said. The scientist was always eager to talk; talking meant more data!

Catrin shrugged. “That does sound interesting, but we can always do it later, if you prefer.”

She cleared her throat at the AI's sarcasm. “I bet you're secretly appreciating your good fortune at having someone around who'll react to your sarcasm,” she said, directing it towards the AI's hologram.

She turned back to Tara. “Maybe I should explain why I insisted that you don't pass whatever I tell you on? It was mainly due to three things – one being the possibility of someone from my world walking over and gaining all that knowledge, the spreading of which I've been trying to prevent all my life, being from my culture, after all. The second one is, this universe has a very fast flow of time compared to the others. About a thousand years pass here for every year that passes in my home. Your 'slow development' of whatever technologies you might be able to develop out of this would arrive with lightning speed, if you managed to get through to the other universes. And lastly, I don't actually think it would be all that useful. The universe travel, for instance, has to do with having a certain ancestry and going through an initiation rite.”

Tara absorbed this, nodding slowly... "So... a thousand years in this universe is like a year everywhere else!?" She seem shocked by this, "That makes me...like... one year old! How awful!"

"I think your missing the point, mistress." The AI said mildly, "She makes an excellent point however. If the timeflow differential between our universe and others is so great, then any technologies we developed using her knowledge that proliferated beyond our universe would do so at a wild-fire-like rate. It has catastrophic implications, though if such power is hereditary and only unlockable through certain rites, that does significantly narrow down the chances of inter-universal contact and cross-pollination of technologies."

Tara sighed and rubbed her head, "Well, I guess I can see your point. So.. sharing this is bad and useless anyway... got you." She shrugged, "But it doesn't really matter, right? I mean we've all sworn oaths not to tell anyone, so my hands are tied even if I wanted to reveal your secrets, which I don't."

The AI then lowered the volume of its voice and directed into Catrins ear, so that it could actually whisper to her without Tara hearing, "Your surmise about my enjoyment of her reactions may be correct, Miss Catrin, but I think it'd be best she doesn't know that, otherwise my secret pleasure will be ruined."

Catrin waved her hand dismissively. “No, not everywhere else, but I think this might be a local maximum as far as timeflow is concerned. There are slower universes than mine, running hundreds of times slower, for instance. So it really is a spectrum, no need to feel bad about it,” she winked at Tara.

Catrin nodded when the AI was done speaking, and then answered Tara after she was finished. “It doesn't, I just thought you might want to know why you had to swear an oath in the first place. My main concern is that this knowledge would become commonplace in this world – after all, who is concerned with keeping ten thousand years old secrets secret, especially of they have no practical use and therefore don't seem dangerous, and then someone from my world would arrive here, gaining access to them easily, then probably doing a lot of damage with them.”

She grew a little more serious. “Plus, if you were still alive, things might not be very pleasant for you – you could be deceived, manipulated, even blackmailed or tortured for details, which hopefully won't happen if you don't tell anyone you have this knowledge.”

When the AI spoke into her ear, she didn't react visibly. It occurred to her that if Tara hadn't noticed in several hundred years, she wouldn't notice now even if Catrin told her every day at breakfast and dinner, but had no way of telling the AI without speaking aloud, so she decided to wait until she was alone in a room.

Tara yawned, a big, cat-like yawn that opened her mouth wide, exposing her sharp teeth. As soon as she stopped she put her hand over her mouth, her tail curling around her other hand in embarrassment, "Oh! Sorry! That...um.. the oath must have taken more out of me than I realised...uh..." She yawned again and then shook her head, "Darn it.. ah..well... I think, perhaps, we'll speak more later. It seems my body won't let me stay awake."

"I shall activate your shower on the lower settings for you, mistress. You'll want to clean that blood out of your fur before you sleep." The AI said.

Tara nodded and stood up, the movement oddly graceful, despite her tiredness, "I'm sorry Catrin. Um... I'll talk to you after I've had a rest... try not to go walking off to another universe whilst I'm gone, okay?" She gave her another smile and started walking to the aft section where the bedrooms were, "Oh!" Tara said, calling over her shoulder, "If you want to sleep, the AI can show you were the rooms are, just pick a free room."

Catrin smiled. “There's nothing to apologise for. And of course.” She got up and nodded goodbye to Tara, then she smiled and called after her, “Thank you! Sleep well.”

After Tara seemed to be out of earshot, she spoke to the AI. “You know, if she hasn't caught on yet, she probably wouldn't realize anything even if I kept telling her every day. It's weird how people are blind to the patterns they go through all the time,” she mused and then she smiled. “Or maybe she knows and is humouring you. Either way, no worries, I won't mention it again.”

The computer seemed amused, "Yes, well sometimes I think she's only humoring me... other times she's so naive and child-like, despite her years, that I'm certain I've fooled her." The AI gestured towards the corridor Tara had disappeared to, "My mistress is something of an oddity, or at least she appears so to me. She's a thousand years old, an accomplished academic, and yet she's got the same enthusiasm and naivety as a five-year old kitten. I'm not sure whether it's cute, horrifying or a clever facade she uses to get people off-guard so she can suck information out of them like a sponge."

The AI's attention wandered for a moment, "Hmph... We'll have to get that heat regulator unit fixed. Every time she has a shower I've got to readjust the damned thing to stop it shutting down entirely and pouring freezing water on her... Honestly the last time that happened her scream almost shattered the crystals that form part of my cognitive matrix."

Catrin chuckled. “It's an attitude often displayed by the wisest sages, you know.” Then she smiled at the AI's comment. "I would have thought that you'd have a perfect control of everything on board. Shower temperature seems rather minor."

She looked around. “Would you mind directing me to a bedroom? I'd like to put my backpack away, and maybe take a nap.”

The AI made an actual snorting sound, "Hardly,I just control the software. It's the actual hardware that's faulty and guess which one of us doesn't have hands to go and fix the damn thing?"

At her request, the hologram started walking towards the corridor leading to the aft section, "The bedrooms re back here, follow me." He led her down the corridor until they came to a small circular area with a few doors branching off from it, though directly in front of them the corridor actually continued past the circular area "These are the bedrooms, if you carry on straight down you'll hit the engine room." His tone went half-serious, "You can go in, but no touching. The last thing I need is you accidentally causing the energy core to implode. I do not want to have to explain to the authorities why this planet exploded." The hologram then pointed to a door which was slightly ajar, "That's the bathroom... if you listen carefully you'll hear Tara singing in the shower." That seemed to amuse him immensely, "She might have a lovely voice, and don't tell her I said that, but it can get annoying when she sings the exact same song over and over again for three centuries."

Catrin smiled and then followed the hologram. “Is there a reason why Tara doesn't fix it?”

She nodded when he informed her about the bedroom positions and the engine room, and smiled when he explained about not touching anything. “No making the planet explode by touching things. Got it.” Catrin thought for a moment. Did the AI just imply that he would survive the whole thing, for long enough to have to explain to the authorities? Interesting.

She smiled when he commented on Tara's singing, and went over to one of the bedroom doors to take a peek in a bedroom, having no idea what she'll see. “You know, it seems strange that someone would make a ship controlling unit who can get annoyed by having to listen to a song over and over again. How can you stand the boredom of having to do the same things over and over again, not really having a choice of just walking away when you stop enjoying what you're doing?”

The room she poked her head into was mostly featureless; bare silver-grey walls, smooth and reflective, whilst the only furniture was what appeared to be a bed, more a long vaguely rectangular shape flowing out of the floor, made of the same bare metal of the hull. There were a few small ledges on one wall, which could act as shelves and that was it.

The Hologram was stood outside, "At the moment, the bedroom is set to its default, which, as you can see, is rather barren. Once you pick a room, just tell me what you want in it and I'll replicate the design as much as I am able. You may not have noticed when you entered the ship, but the hull is made of a smart metal which reacts to certain preprogrammed commands. So long as I know what I'm doing, I can reshape the rooms to fit any specification, colour pattern, etc."

The Hologram then crossed its insubstantial arms and seemed amused, "And as for being bored... consider that my processing speed is far superior to any organic mind, I'm quite used to repetition when dealing with organics. My thoughts, or at least my lesser runtimes, occur at near lightspeed. In comparison, the pauses organics take between words, or to breath, stretch like an eternity. Luckily for my sanity, I need only devote a small fraction of my resources to most conversations and most of my higher functions are occupied with maintaining this vessel... and if Tara gets too insufferable I can always concentrate my higher processes to contemplate something more interesting... contemplating the mathematical basis of reality, for instance." The computer seemed slightly amused by her question, "Most organics don't consider that sort of thing, I don't think it occurs to them. But I don't mind... despite some of her more irritating habits, Tara is one of the more pleasant people I've served under. More pleasant than some fellow AIs in fact."

Catrin stepped into the room and looked around, then she shrugged. “Is any of the other bedrooms different from this one?” If not, there probably wasn't any point in looking at the other ones. She eyed the bed. It didn't seem very comfy in its current state.

She turned to the hologram when it started speaking about its superior processing speed and smirked. “Okay. Then the only logical conclusion is that you enjoy being annoyed by Tara's singing, otherwise, you could easily treat it just like any other repetitive thing she's doing.” That gave her a thought. “Since you can hear what happens in the bathroom, and everywhere else, it occurred to me... do you also get visual data from all of the rooms?”