Central was, or rather seemed to be, far more than a computer. Eric hardly considered himself an expert on whatever it was, but the entity’s own description, as well as his encounter with something very similar on Earth, told him that he wasn’t dealing with a computer.

“Indeed not.”

The world spun around him in a familiar manner, and Eric found himself looking around the interior of the shuttle with an irksome sense that something otherworldly had changed despite not seeing any differences.

“That’s incredibly irritating,” he grumbled, focusing on the nondescript human form now standing a short distance away.

Central struck him as a completely normal human except for the fact that whenever he glanced away, Eric suddenly couldn’t remember him having any particular features to speak of. Eric presumed that normally the entity had some, since not having them would be even stranger than his forgetting, but frankly, he was past trying to figure out these bizarre creatures.

“Creatures? Really?” Central sounded slightly miffed. “That’s hardly polite.”

“Neither is mind reading,” Eric groused.

“I told you once, it’s not something I can help.” Central waved his concern off idly. “Your thoughts are my thoughts, as though I thought them myself. You simply must convey my compliments and greetings to this Gaia of yours, by the way.”

Eric rolled his eyes, knowing that the word “must” was a literal truth. He wouldn’t have any choice in the matter as soon as he returned to Earth. His mind would simply automatically be read by Gaia without recourse.

“Not read,” Central corrected. “Experienced.”

“That’s not any better,” Eric said dryly, sighing. “Look, can we get on with this? I need a drink so I can forget as much of this as practicable.”

“You Terrans are such an interesting conundrum. Violent, aggressive, and almost bestial . . . yet so easily offended in your sensibilities, as though words actually are somehow worse than physical harm.”

Eric grimaced, recognizing that Central was just playing with him at this point.

“Why, yes. Yes, I am.” Central smirked, somehow. Eric wasn’t sure how, given the lack of features he could consciously perceive.

But Central seemed to become more serious in the next moment.

“I’m not certain what to tell you,” the entity replied. “Are my people hiding information from you? Certainly, though not what you might consider intentionally.”

“What?” Eric blurted. “That’s ridiculous! How do you hide anything unintentionally?”

“Many ways,” the entity said. “You can forget it, you can not realize its import, or you can simply assume the other person already knows it.”

Eric locked onto the last one. “Assume we know what?”

“You’ve already heard that answer, Capitaine.” Central laughed, his accent shifting from the normal flat tone into something familiar.