Atlanta took a deep breath. She hadn’t realized—or perhaps she’d forgotten—that the Thing had its own smell, a comforting not-quite-musk of rose and cardamom that was ineffably alive. Breathing it in, she tasted it on her tongue now, as though the air were liquid that she lapped up after being long thirsty. She patted the nearest wall, feeling the flesh surge under her palm in answer.

“Hello,” the ship said.

Turo looked up, startled. “It’s never done that before,” he said. “It’s supposed to wait until you activate it.”

“Atlanta and Milly,” the ship said. It paused in question.

Turo said, “Show us to the control room.”

“Very well. May I ask your name?” the ship said.

Turo rolled his eyes. “What have you people done to this thing? My name is Turo, Ship. Now take us to the control room.” He swore under his breath as they followed the guide orb, a constant fluid invective at the edge of Atlanta’s hearing. When he noticed her straining to listen, Turo’s tiger stripes wrinkled as he snarled at her and he dropped his voice a few decibels.

The ship did not press for conversation. It did take the small precaution of deactivating and storing the drones that had been trailing Turo, doing so unobtrusively and substituting replicas of its own. He was an unknown quantity and divesting him of possible weaponry seemed the most optimal course.

But it focused the majority of its attention on the fact that two of its passengers had returned, along with an unknown one, and that meant all sorts of interesting things might be about to happen. It certainly must mean that the rest were on their way, and that they were about to leave this very boring place, where the most exciting event had been a sedate cruise around the interior of the pocket, at a speed that had left the Thing aching with what it defined as impatience.

Because one of the other concepts it had been exploring lately—and this was yet another benefit of the new passengers, all the new ideas about emotions that they had brought, including friendship and this new idea—was the sense of pride. Pride in what it was, and what it was capable of. This was something that had been heartily encouraged in it by the attentions of Thorn and Talon, who never tired of hearing technicalities of its schematics or obscure details of its design or, best of all, stories about its childhood and siblings.

Something about the relationship between the twins made the ship think often about its own siblings, not just because it was trying to figure out regret but also because there was a certain pleasure in thinking about them.