“It is not my habit to seem anxious, lest I rouse fear in my subordinates. Internally I am a cauldron of seething anxiety and negative emotions. It’s quite painful.”

The ship analyzed the words for things it associated with sarcasm, but Niko seemed sincere and exhibited none of the physical signs of lying.

That in itself was not particularly meaningful. Many biomodifications allowed such signals to be suppressed, and that was a standard business practice. Arpat Takraven had possessed many such modifications, despite the outer exterior that seemed like a regular human’s. However, the ship factored it in nonetheless.

“I cannot go against the directives of the pilot.”

“That is Lolola.”

“Whoever is responsible for the motion of the ship is the pilot.”

Niko sat up straighter. “Ah! Perhaps we may discuss a few semantics.”

Atlanta left the captain arguing word definitions with the ship. She suspected that the captain and the ship both knew the discussion would be fruitless, but that both were enjoying it nonetheless.

She trailed the cookie scent along a corridor and down a stairwell to where Dabry and the ship were discussing something entirely different. Dabry stood at an improvised stovetop made from the crate Atlanta had once been stored in, combined with a disassembled heating unit.

The sight of her former prison—even though she’d been unaware of it all the time she’d been held inside—gave her a sinking feeling that made her wave away the lemon-frosted cookie that Dabry proffered.

He addressed the ship as he did so. “Some flavors will accompany other flavors, but you must go down to the subclassifications to really take advantage of this. For example, the dairy cheese classification, animal-based protein class three, is too broad. Let us say you have access to fresh produce from a farmship. If you go down a step, you might pair figs and honey with blue cheese, which is a specific subclassification, or delusion lichen and olives with banat cheese, which is yet another.”

Atlanta made a face. Banat cheese was horrible, tasting sour and corrosive all at once.

“I understand that some pairings are more felicitous than others,” the ship said. “But what I do not understand is why, precisely? How is this to be predicted?”

“It is a matter of taste,” Dabry said.

“But I can create panels that sort out the different tastes.” Atlanta flinched as the ship extruded a long shelf of tongue, studded with furry white buds, at her elbow. “There is salty, and there is sweet, for example. But a salty does not always go with a sweet, although sometimes it does and the pairing is pronounced very good indeed.”

“It is like music,” Dabry said. “You understand what I mean by music?”

“Music is the set of sound files that my owners sometimes listen to. A previous owner describes them as pleasing patterns, but I have never been able to tell what makes one pattern pleasing over another.”