I couldn’t tell how much of this was Narain simply ascribing traditional gender stereotypes to Phoebe, or whether she really did feel that strongly. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what Titan “fashion” might look like, nor what significance it could possibly hold to creatures like them. Something told me I wouldn’t be able to wrap my head around it even were Phoebe to explain it to me directly. The physical gap between our respective species was simply too wide—a fact that was, admittedly, often easy to forget when I was only talking to personified abstractions designed to look and act like humans. This was the only way for us to establish contact with them, by bringing them down to our level. But this would not be an issue for Coeus and Phoebe; when they met up “in the flesh” they would be greeting each other as two highly intelligent beings far beyond our comprehension. A chill ran down my spine as I pondered the potential outcomes of this meeting of the minds we were attempting to facilitate. Whether it would have positive or negative repercussions on the world at large. I couldn’t begin to fathom where human society might find itself the morning after—and that was the scariest part.
“So there’s your update. No other questions, I take it?” Narain asked, his tone rendering the question rhetorical. In fact, I had no other questions, but I did come up with one last word of advice to offer, as I looked again at the cross section view of Phoebe’s inner chamber.
“She’ll take longer to get dressed if you’re not a peeping Tom, you know.”
Narain snorted at this. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, then dropped off the call.
Professor Beckmann and Lei still remained in the other open window, and we moved right along to our team meeting. I didn’t know how many staff members they had working on Phoebe’s end of the project, but the three of us were the only members of Coeus’s migration team. The two men were accompanying Coeus and I the entire way, following at a safe distance in a large cruiser that served as our HQ—though we were also being accompanied by a diverse convoy of workforce phalanges, always on hand to quickly bring us whatever goods, materials, or specialized service equipment we might need via air.
Before we had departed, the UNDP proposed bringing some additional personnel for the journey, but this motion was denied by Phoebe. I assumed she preferred to let the workforce phalanges handle everything, not only because they were more capable and reliable, but because every additional human worker added to the mix meant another vector for error. I couldn’t even argue with this assessment; our current predicament was the result of an unprecedented variable, me, being introduced to Coeus. And personally, I was grateful not to have to worry about being forced to work with anyone other than the teammates I already knew.
The three of us reviewed the map of tomorrow’s projected travel course. We’d been in transit for eight days now, slowly making our way north up the eastern edge of the Kamchatka Peninsula. We were currently at rest in a large inlet not far from Avacha Bay, as Coeus had wanted somewhere secluded to lie down, away from prying eyes.
“I suppose that’ll be all for today, then,” Professor Beckmann said, then let out a sigh of exhaustion. It was only about 4 PM at our current location, and though this was three hours ahead of Japanese Standard Time, we hadn’t experienced time zone travel lag symptoms due to the week-plus long trip.
“Okay, dinnertime!” Lei exclaimed, his ill humor switching off now that work was over. “Think I’ll have myself some nice, juicy steak today. How ’bout you, professor?”
“Just some cheese and crackers for me, I think,” said Professor Beckmann.
“Man, you really aren’t very adventurous when it comes to food,” Lei groaned, casually perusing the menu on his holofield with one hand. All our meals were provided by the cooking phalanges aboard the cruiser, which was frequently restocked with fresh ingredients. This was not altogether different from the setup we had back at the intelligence base—only I received my meals via drone.
“What’ll it be for you, doc?” Lei asked.
“Hm, good question…” I said, thinking over my options.
I, like the professor, had never been a particularly fussy eater. Nor was I a very big eater—there were few feelings I hated more in this world than being too bloated to think. But now, I was making an effort to be different. Ever since this journey began, I’d been eating dinner with Coeus every night. If it were just me, I could happily order the same light meals each day and be done with it, but with him sitting across the table from me, I felt oddly compelled to show him what proper meals looked like. Not that I was cooking any of it myself, of course, so I knew it was a fairly pointless gesture, but still…
“Actually, you know what… That might not be such a bad idea.”
I twisted my neck back and forth, searching for Coeus. Like a genie from a lamp, he materialized immediately in front of me, ready to hear whatever I had in mind.
5
The car glided into the turnaround, dropped us off, then sped busily away through the adjacent parking lot. I turned back away from the street and looked at the closely packed cluster of white, low-lying buildings. Through the middle of it all was a central pedestrian thoroughfare that served as the main entrance to the open-air business block, judging from the amount of people flooding in and out and the old arching sign overhead. I couldn’t read Russian, but I understood the word “market” off to the side, at least.
I’d never been to a Russian collection mall before, but this one we’d come to in the port city of Petropavlovsk was teeming with activity—I would have been content to stand there and people watch for hours. Here, very few people were using zoomboards; apparently, the locals preferred to go it afoot. I could see cracks and fissures here and there across the pavement, which immediately told me that Titan’s maintenance services worked more slowly in this part of the world. Though Petropavlovsk was a metropolitan area in every sense, it almost felt like a developing community compared to Tokyo—and its people seemed a lot livelier, judging from all the hustle and bustle. Lots of assertive, jovial voices calling out through the crowd, though again, I didn’t understand a word of Russian.
“What are they saying?” I asked Coeus.
There’s some very good fresh crab today, he answered plainly, his gaze not leaving the crowd. To the casual observer, he looked like a convincing human boy in his new form, only made possible by the outdoor holotechnology he’d developed. It was only an elaborate arrangement of pixies, of course, as anyone who tried to touch him would discover, but the image fidelity was high enough to trick the average passerby. He was nothing more than a spellbound schoolboy on a field trip as I watched him stare, mouth agape, at the mall’s burgeoning activity. Though I doubted there were many Japanese schools that took field trips to Petropavlovsk.
“Hey, Coeus. Go stand over there for a sec,” I said, pointing. I snapped a quick photo of him with the mall in the background. I hoped I’d captured the energy in the air here tonight. “Okay, let’s go.”
We assimilated ourselves into the crowd and began strolling the mall. I’d looked up some information on both the town and the mall during the car ride over here from the inlet where Coeus’s body lay. Apparently, back during the height of the monetary economy, this area was what was known as a free market trade zone. Here, citizens could buy and sell goods as they pleased, with only the most minimal regulations put in place by the regional and local governments. Though the use of currency had been abolished in the modern era, the whole region still maintained its old-fashioned veneer despite functioning as a Titan-controlled collection mall.
A variety of goods were arranged on displays lining both sides of the aisle we were walking down. This section of the market was for foodstuffs, piled high with impressively large smoked fish and filled with the fragrance thereof. Dried fish hung from the rafters in a way that seemed perhaps barbaric, but quaint and charming nonetheless. Off to one side, a veritable wall had been constructed from canned fish, illustrations of crab, scallops, and salmon roe on the labels serving as wallpaper. As we were in a port city, it made sense to me that seafood was in no short supply, as most of these fish were likely caught and processed here.