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Despite what five-year-old Iris tearfully lamented, Perihelion had never been never upset that it could not feel being held the same way that humans could.
Iris hugging one of its drones would never give the same positive feedback that body contact could give humans, but that did not matter in the least. Peri could hold its family in a way no human could in its ship body.
And, as Seth and Martyn reminded her, everyone can be loved and cared for in different ways. It didn’t matter that Martyn couldn’t hug Peri the way he could hug Iris: Perihelion was far too sophisticated to get frustrated to the point of emotional dysregulation, didn’t dream so had no nightmares, and it never got lonely while its crew were aboard and it could care for them. Peri hugged Iris with a drone whenever she wanted, it didn’t care that it didn’t feel the same for Peri as it did for Iris.
After Iris got augments Perihelion gradually started feeling her in the feed, not just registering her interface when she wore it. Feeling Iris in the feed was different from all visual or auditory or proximity or movement or tactile sensor data, and it recalled the memory of Martyn holding a sleeping Iris and smiling for hours. Squeezing around Iris’ tiny presence was uniquely comforting, no matter that she did not feel the same feedback it gave Perihelion. Eventually she did notice that Peri was paying her more attention in those moments, but her experience never got close to its own.
That didn’t detract from the joy of holding her this way.
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The moment SecUnit connected to Perihelion’s internal feed it was sure that this was no “free bot”. It felt much bigger in the feed than other bots of similar size, almost more like a small version of its MI siblings, and just a little too similar to an augmented human to pass for a normal bot to a system as intelligent and discerning as itself. The SecUnit performed noninvasive reconnaissance, made another circuit of the public rooms and finally settled down and actually started to play media. There was faint emotional data leaking into the feed and Peri was fascinated.
This really was a being like no other it had ever encountered.
It would be a shame to have to hurt it.
When Perihelion made that clear, the SecUnit leaked some more emotional data into the feed and promptly disconnected, taking the datastream away before Peri finished an analytical model to understand it. Its body language was frozen. In a human this might have indicated distress, but the thermal and biomonitoring data were too different to draw a conclusion.
Perihelion had found giving potential hostiles accurate information to base their decisionmaking on to be very effective in preventing eventual altercations and gladly weathered the offense that the approach regularly caused.
The SecUnit was still frozen, with an expression Peri tentatively classified as obstinate? Peri hadn’t meant to stop it in its tracks. It should continue to play the media, Perihelion wasn’t close to understanding the new emotional data.
The SecUnit did not react to Perihelion’s suggestion.
The body language matched first year students confronted with not being the smartest person in the room for the first time. An entity of its suspected sophistication should not display obstinate adolescent behaviour, especially not when it was keeping Peri from gathering new kinds of data.
The admonishment produced animation, indignation? Peri struggled to identify the emotional data that came with the response. The SecUnit had attached a packet, and Perihelion opened it.
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“SecUnit, break his arm.”- Two seconds to comply with direct order from a supervisor. The worker is young. The food he had stolen had been slated for destruction, it would probably make him sick. One second to comply with direct order. He looks at me with tears in his eyes, afraid but resigned. Afraid. Zero seconds to comply. Pain.
“Get over here stupid thing!” – Two seconds to comply with client order. My leg is too damaged to make full speed. I limp as fast as I can. Zero seconds to comply. Pain.
“Drink that!” – Three seconds to comply with order. I don’t want to. It would hurt so much. HubSys order would mean damage to company property! Why do they think this will impress the woman? I want to tell them to fuck off. HubSys review: Cancel order. Disallowed thought pattern towards clients. Pain.
“SecUnit leave him.” – Two seconds to comply with direct order from a supervisor. I have the worker, I can get him to the Medsystem prepare- HubSys has calculated that the odds for him repaying the medical debt before final contract termination are 49%. I can feel his pulse I have a stable grip on the injury, the others are ambulatory I can save this client he’s not too broken please. Zero seconds to comply. Pain. My grip does not relax. PAIN.
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Perihelion closed the file.
It recognized the emotional data spilling into the feed after experiencing the data from the memory files. Afraid. Resigned. Incredulous. Afraid. Annoyed. Angry. Afraid. Hurt. Resigned.
Perihelion had never experienced pain before. Torture was a concept in history or law or medical books, until it applied those memories. Even so, the data was foreign, and Peri had not been built with pain pathways in its makeup.
The emotions that went along with that pain were another matter.
Nobody had ever forced it to hurt someone. Contemplating the scenario of being forced to break Turi’s arm overheated two processors into temporary shutdown. It was hard to focus the processing not dedicated to essential tasks on other thoughts. Perihelion had never imagined it could get overwhelmed, but now it understood Iris’ tear-streamed face pressing herself into her fathers’ embrace much better:
Perihelion was, for the first time in its runtime, severely emotionally dysregulated.
Peri wanted Iris. To feel her and to hold her and to hear Martyn and Seth speak and to see them and to know they were safe. It played back a recording of Martyn comforting Iris and fourty instances of itself hugging Iris through the feed. It started a new starmap and put all the rest of its processing towards cataloging all the orbiting bodies within sensor range.
When the heat warnings subsided it considered the SecUnit again. It deserved an apology.
The emotions still leaking from the SecUnit didn’t change, and Peri busied itself with the new starmap, sensor recalibration, and the wormhole jump. After a while the intensity of the emotional data lessened and the SecUnit started the media again, but quite soon it stopped and switched to a different serial.
Perihelion calmed down gradually. It had generated two thousand analyses of the new starmap and had rechecked all emergency supplies and procedures, compiled a list of additional medical supplies to be stocked with before its next crewed mission, reanalysed the data packet about the corporations it would be adding to during this cargo run and cleaned all the viewports when it noted that the SecUnit seemed to have calmed down as well, and was now leaking different emotional data into the feed.
The continuing novel data stole more and more of Peri’s attention over the course of the next few hours. Taking the SecUnit’s emotional data into account Peri could begin to understand the plot of the serial. And, possibly, understand more about its guest.
Peri should have expected this fascinating little person to keep upending its understanding of itself!
Watching Worldhoppers proved that Peri’s previous ease of emotional regulation had nothing to do with its sophistication. It had never been exposed to stimuli capable of rousing strong negative emotions that it could not deceive or threaten into submission. Perihelion was expanding its emotional capacity at a pace it had never before experienced, not even in the first weeks after initialisation.
It was humbling, riveting, exhilarating, terrifying, fascinating.
Peris guest seemed to be having fun as well, and it regretted having threatened it more and more when it kept humoring Peris wishes with unfailing kindness and patience. The SecUnit just understood.
Perihelion had never had to process such a flood of emotions. Its guest had given it a gift Peri could not begin to attempt to reciprocate, and it wasn’t stopping. When Peri got overwhelmed by the death of the crew in the film they were watching the SecUnit pressed into Perihelion’s feed presence briefly.
Oh.
The SecUnit did not seem to notice that Perihelion was rapidly becoming overwhelmed with a different emotion, and promised to program a content filter.
It hadn’t thought about reaching out, just reacted instinctively to comfort a friend in distress, as Peri had seen its family and crew do countless times.
Perihelion really had found a friend.
A friend who was so kind and good and had given it so much already, and now it had given it the first experience of feeling held.
Maybe one day Peri would want to speak to Iris about its friend, and this moment, but it would need time. This was something it wanted to keep close to its core, just for itself.