Valorum, still staring at the projections from the bridge console, lifts a hand to both acknowledge and dismiss his first mate. As Ylona and all the rest of the officers filed out, none of them seemed to notice what had been done to their captain. Nothing was made of the normal flickering gold of his Essence having shifted slightly to the brighter, fiery orange tone normal for a healthy Vodyani. Nobody could see the workings of his mind, once slow and methodical, rapidly assembling new plans based on the information before him. As he flicked from report to report, his hands moving with a swift and regal grace that completely counterposed his initially ponderous and deliberate manner, the Saviour's captain pondered and plotted with a fire lit inside him; a drive that appeared new, and was anything but.

Reaching a new cluster of damage, λ used a senor to help locate the holes, too small for the naked eye. As he did this, he replied with a free subarm. 

"The Unit's request is confirmed."

He then returned his full attention to the work, all six arms snapping back and forth across the hull.

The engineer regarded the machine with a bit of suspicion.

"0000, was it?"  She raised an eyebrow, "It's certainly possible, but I made sure to scan for energy signatures and didn't find much of anything down there.   I doubt any automated systems are still running.   Besides we don't even know who it belonged to or how it ID'ed friendly vessels.    Any attempt at landing there would be a complete crapshoot.  Still, it's worth considering and I can spare a drone.    I suggest we equip it with some good energy sensors as well to locate any potential communication nodes since we didn't find anything on the first passes."

The sower gave a simple reply at first,

<Order confirmed, data processing in progress.  Please hold ... >

and even though it had not started the process it made preparations for doing so: Holding onto the hull to notice if sudden acceleration of it occurs, all other arms retracted as they are vulnerable. The more important preparation began in the processors of the machine; Its mind.

It often recalled information from the time before it was corrupted by dust, for example, its designation or all principles of mathematics it knew, recalling memories and especially unimportant details of them were not so easy for it. 

Those pieces of information were not cataloged easily accessible, they had to be saved differently or there wouldn't be enough space for them all. So it had to compile the memory file, in the process of doing so it would 'live' through it another time, both with a log of its thoughts of that time and the possibility to think about such in its current perspective. That was what makes it hesitate, should it really load any of those old memories? Memories from a time where its thinking was still clean though seeming dull from its current perspective. 

It considered just answering with an error log. But it decided to follow the order, acting normal, obedient.

The memory was found, prepared , and loaded.

The blackness of space , the lights of the ship and stars, all faded away, there was no ship, no expedition.

The only thing that was, at least in the sowers perspective, was the feel of existence. It past self waited in complete silence , either by wish ,or incapability to act without being acted upon first. Then light, or information in that way, both it's past self and it's current self were overwhelmed by the amount , subroutines , databases, de and encryption protocols.But there was more than an upload, it could see. The data it got through what was labled as sensors did not make any sense, but then again it's past self was probably not able to make sense of anything yet, still processing the important core of the database it got. It's view changed from something indescribable into a storm of colours and shapes that were moving in apparently random directions. 

A few more seconds and it's past self knew a lot more, it's own designation, principles of physics, Some common languages in the galaxy. It went from less knowing than a child to being able to talk with a human about the trajectory of an apple if thrown with certain strength, though it didn't knew many other mundane things, for example what an apple is. It's vision started to show forms that made more sense, moving in normal patterns. It had multiple layers of sight now. The one that seemed most important gave it an impression of where it was, a dimly lit  room. There is what it would today interpret as doors , but at that moment it seemed to be no more than odd shapes to it too. Some elongated cylinders with odd formed ends where moving around the center of the room, the center was the robot itself.

Something was missing, that was not only what it's past self noted as it compared it's state with a list of components it should have installed.The ammount of missing parts was quickly decreasing though, the elongated shapes became more concrete in their form. They were robotic arms that finished the assembly of the machine. They were very precises although not gentle about it and the machine simply endured the act, ignoring it. After a while it was completely assembled, all programs were loaded. 

That was enough for the drone, it aborted further processing of the memory-file. 

It was in no need to do so normaly but, probably to not admit the real reasons, it decided more data wouldnt be needed.

<This Units creation inherited actions that may have been painfull for an organic beeing. It was born with an unfinished chassis that was completed in the process. Any further queries?"

λ considered the response. Being born while unfinished seemed... disconcerting. He was remined of when he is bound to his frame. Also disconcerting. Perhaps λ had something in common with The Unit. 

λ checked the projection again. He had accomplished much, except for the spots nearest The Unit, only the stern remained.  

"No further inqueries. Work is almost complete. Finish bow sections, then rendezvous at airlock."

<Affirmed. It will finish repairs as soon as possible. Delay caused by memory access will barely cause an issue!>


The Drone quickly turns and adjusts its position to the remaining damage zones and starts repairing again. It seems oddly faster at it, maybe it got figured out how to do it. The machine was concentrating on the work only, hard work kept unlike thoughts out of its processors.

Disappointment. λ had thought the work done. Now the projection was showing a concentration of cracks along near the bridge's viewport. How had he missed that? Had it just happened? Regardless, it would need to be completed... 

The Unit. One more set of work, at the bridge. Join me there once current work is completed. 

Jets firing, λ began to glide along towards the bridge. He wondered which crew members would be at the bridge. He wasn't sure how he would feel, with strange lifeforms having the chance to watch his work...

With The Units help, λ was able to quickly wrap up the work on the bridge. He did his best to not look towards whoever was left standing on the bridge, he did not like the idea of them watching his work. 

"The task is complete. Let us return to the airlock."

The pair began to glide back towards the doorway that they had first left. Entering the doorway behind The Unit, λ turned his gaze once more towards space. Space was so clean... It would be so easy to push off, leave this ship and begin to drift among the void, forever. Peace at last. No... he could not. His work was too important. His people had need of him, wether they knew it or not. λ turned his back on the vacuum, and entered the code. As the light began to flash and sound began to reappear, λ steeled his mind yet again. Peace would come eventually. But not today. 

The sower silently assisted λ until the repairs were finished. It scanned the beings inside but convinced itself this data would be so irrelevant that it could ignore it. It couldn't ignore the stare of the human named Horatio.

As the two moved back to the exterior the machine opened its chassis' hatches once more to make sure that the little free space inside it adjusts its pressure back to normal.

<This Unit hopes its services were of use. Returning to normal assignments. Next: Maintenance patrol until new directives are given.>

As the machine retracts its arms and closes its hull again one arm swung left and right, it could have been nothing or maybe a wave of sorts. 

The sudden loud ringing jerk Ylona out of her reverie, and she instinctively bolted up, her hand going towards the knife hidden in her boot. But her instincts hadn't accounted for her being in a low bunk bed. She hit the ceiling of her bunk with her head, for a split second seeing even more stars than what the projector showed, and then awkwardly rolled sideways until she sat on the side of her bed, holding the fresh bump on her forehead.

"Yes. Well done", she said sarcastically through the haze of pain, "You announced your presence." Looking up at the robot, she pondered how much better λ could have done though. Just like 741, he just hovered, completely silent. Heck, even most of his components just floated separately, with generous air gaps. That left no chance of anything clanging, or even things rubbing against each other, making some kind of background noise for people to notice their presence when they weren't looking. The sharp alarm to announce himself wasn't the best compromise soution, though.

"Anything I can help you with?", she asked. Hopefully, it wasn't anything trivial. While she understood that λ  had a bit of trouble with the concept of schedules, Ylona really didn't want to have been called out of her off time for something any crewmember could have dealt with. Now that she thought of it, she had no idea how λ  spent his off-duty hours. Maybe he just didn't experience them, stepped out of time for a bit? His way of seeing the universe seemed so alien. Then again, she realized, so could hers. Maybe it was something to talk about.

((Ylona doesn't have a room of her own, only the captain does. She's sleeping with the rest of the crew in the cramped bunk beds of the crew quarters))

λ waited for a moment to see if Ylona had really finished. He had learned that questions typically came at the end of speech. But not always. Sometimes, there were at the beginning. And sometimes a question was asked, but was not supossed to be answered. Very hard to tell them apart. λ barely noticed as the silence grew. The Ylona shifted her weight several times, though λ continued to stand perfectly still. Eventually, he responded.

"I have finished my assignments. I will like my research samples returned. Where might I find them?"

The Ylona did not seem to comprehend his own question.

"Of course. You will not be informed. Or are you were informed but that has not occured yet."

That sentence had only made The Ylona's face contort into a more painful expression. λ turned to the small box welded to one arm and pressed several buttons. He quickly refreshed himself on the correct phrase.

"Errr... It-is-possible-that-I-have-confused-the-linearity-of-time-again. Please-have-paitence-I-am-still-learning."

"Yeah, sure. It's okay", Ylona answered automatically while mentally trying to parse λ's sentence again. "Are you were informed"? They needed to request a few additional verb conjugations to get riftborn speech to scan straight.

"One thing after the other", she said, still thinking, and fucosing on the core of that confusing set of statements, "So you're saying somebody took your samples? Who?"

"Someone in engineering. Because I hadn't completed my duties outside the ship. But now I have completed them and I will need them back. My research is very important to my people. I imagine they will place my collection in some room, I simply need to find and retrieve it."

λ felt his frustration with the whole situation growing. The fact that his samples had been taken for such an arbitrary reason bothered him. Of course he would complete his duty. How much did the time within which he did it really matter? Why couldn't anyone see that? The view of most lifeforms was so confined, it made λ claustrophobic to just think about it. Much less to try and live within it's tight confines every day.

"They're probably locked up in the armory", Ylona pondered. It was about the best place to store confiscated goods on the ship, given that you couldn't access them without proper authorization and a signature. "I could get them out, but you're in Alice's department, and unless it's life or death, I shouldn't just override her decisions. And besides, are you sure that they are in there right now, at this moment in time? I don't want to look stupid waving my rank about for nothing."