And even more pleasure thinking about what they would’ve been like, and how they would’ve enjoyed talking to the twins as well, how they would’ve liked seeing the passengers play warball. How they might have tried to re-create the game and play it themselves out in the immense void of space, where a ship could move as fast and quick as it wanted to.

That was something to take pride in, that speed and maneuverability. It was something that very few other ships could accomplish. It was something that made the Thing special.

It entertained itself with these thoughts as its visitors made their way to the piloting chamber. And it played with anticipation, because it wanted to know very badly where the others were and when they would be coming. As soon as they arrived, they could leave this place.

When they were in the control room, and Turo had moved to the navigational bank, the ship could no longer resist. It said, “When are the others expected?”

“They’re not,” Turo snapped. “Tell it whatever you were supposed to say, bird.”

“I believe in miracles,” Milly said solemnly.

“Where are the others?” the ship asked. Then, in order to make itself perfectly clear, it said, “I would prefer not to leave without them.”

Turo mimicked its polite tone with a snigger. “‘I would prefer not to leave without them.’ Is that right? I would prefer you take the screwdriver out of your ass and set out for Scourse and my reward.”

“I will not leave without them,” the ship said.

“What. The. Unholy. Fatherfucking, shithole statement is that? You are a ship. You move from place to place at the directive of your owners. You don’t get to decide who rides and who doesn’t.”

“That used to be true,” the ship said, and savored another new emotion: smugness. It had indeed once been true, but whatever mechanism Lolola had used to free it from its programming and bring it under her will had continued to work even after she left the ship, the mechanical and biomechanical interacting in unexpected ways, enabling the decision made moments ago, which had shifted things even further away from the norm. Even that might not have been enough, but the ghosts had added their own contribution to the strange mix. The Thing was very different now, even if it didn’t understand the whys or whats of that change.

Regardless, the ship was pretty sure that no one, including Arpat Takraven, could tell it what to do at the moment. That was an interesting thought as well as a little scary, but it did certainly make being smug more fun.

Turo looked around for the drones and signaled to them. “If you don’t do something,” he told Milly, “I’m going to kill you.”