She helped Hwa-jung with a few service tasks around the ship. Then they adjourned to the galley. Everyone but Vishal was already there, crammed in around the near table.

Kira fetched some rations and then went to sit next to Nielsen. The first officer nodded and said, “I think … I’m going to record a message for my family and give it to Tschetter and also the Seventh. Just in case.”

Just in case. “Sounds like a good idea. Maybe I’ll do the same.”

Like the others, Kira ate, and like the others, she talked, mainly speculations about how best to destroy the Battered Hierophant with one of their Casaba-Howitzers—it seemed unlikely they would be able to fire more than one shot without being noticed—as well as how best to survive the chaos that was sure to follow.

The consensus that emerged was that they were at a serious disadvantage without Gregorovich to oversee operations throughout the Wallfish. As with most ship minds, it had been Gregorovich’s responsibility to operate the lasers, the Casaba-Howitzers, the countermeasures against both blasters and missiles, and the cyberwarfare suite, as well as oversee the piloting of the Wallfish in combat, which was as much about strategy as it was calculating the uncompromising math of their delta-v.

The pseudo-intelligence, Morven, was capable enough, but like all such programs, it was limited in ways that a human—or human-derived—intelligence wasn’t. “They lack imagination,” said Sparrow, “and that’s the truth of it. Won’t say we’re sitting ducks, but it’s not ideal.”

“How big of a drop in operational efficiency do you think we’re looking at?” Falconi asked.

Sparrow’s bare shoulders rose and fell. “You tell me. Just think back to before you had Gregorovich on board. UMC figures put the difference at somewhere between fourteen to twenty-eight percent. And—”

“That much?” said Nielsen.

Hwa-jung was the one to answer: “Gregorovich helps oversee the balance between all the systems in the ship, as well as coordinating with each of us.”

A quick downward jerk of Sparrow’s chin. “Yeah, and what I was going to say is that when it comes to strategy, logistics—basically any kind of creative problem-solving—ship minds blow everyone and everything out of the water. It’s not the sort of skill you can really quantify, but the UMC estimates that ship minds are at least an order of magnitude better at that stuff than any regular human, much less a pseudo-intelligence.”

Jorrus said, “But only so long as they—” He hesitated, waiting for Veera to finish the sentence. When she shook her head, seemingly not knowing what to say, he continued on, disconcerted: “Uh, only as long as they are functional.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Falconi. “For all of us.”

Kira picked at her food while she thought about the situation. If only … No. The idea was still too crazy. Then she pictured the Jelly fleet around Cordova. Maybe there was no such thing as too crazy, under the circumstances.

Conversation throughout the galley stopped as Vishal appeared in the doorway. He looked drained, exhausted.