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When he was a baby, J had to rock himself to sleep.
That was not because he was neglected; quite the contrary, he was being given an enormous amount of care and attention because of the priceless jewel that he was.
It was increasingly rare, in the modern day and age, to find children born with exactly the right combination of traits: physical disability so profound that it could not be reshaped by medical practice into anything resembling a ‘standard’ human experience and lifespan, but mental ability undamaged, bursting with energy and ready to make connections to a universe of sensory data that biology had conspired to deny it. Severe abnormalities, for one reason or another, often did not survive to be born at all, or could not be maintained long enough to be transplanted successfully, or had lost too much brain function to interface with artificial appendages. And of course all children deviated from the pure average in many ways, but most of those were simply part of the fabric of life and others could be assisted by surgery or prosthetics or gene therapy if desired.
Even those who might wish, once they were old enough to understand the situation and state an opinion, that they had become Brains as infants were almost never given that option. The prospect of severing a person from a mostly-working physical body in exchange for only a slim chance at being able to adapt to a shell was considered as horrifically unethical as mutilating healthy embryos to increase their odds at developing into acceptable candidates. Central Worlds needed Brains, badly, to operate their most complex and sensitive equipment with speed and reliability, but the rights of the person won out over the desires of the system. For now.
In the same service of the rights of the person, though, parents of a suitable candidate were no longer given any choice about what would happen to their offspring. If a child had no chance of a meaningful life in their unaltered body, then the state was morally obligated to provide treatment. A small number of campaigners objected, since a shellperson was essentially born into debt-servitude to which they had never consented, forced into the labor for which they had been “saved” until they earned enough to buy out their own contracts. The government position on the subject was that a), no one got to consent to being born, and b), it really wasn’t any more ethical for the parent to make the decision on the child’s behalf. Therefore, children verified as candidates were whisked away for emergency treatment as soon as could possibly be arranged, and the only choices that the biological parents had were how much psychological support leave to request and whether or not to maintain contact for the future.
J rocked himself to sleep because that was all the motion available in the first style of shell that infant Brains were connected to. Very basic sensors, very basic back-and-forth, but clear reactions and clear feedback to his tiny nervous system, teaching it to see the technology as his body, an extension of himself.
As the months progressed, new inputs and connections would be added, mimicking biological development. An ordinary baby’s brain would double in size within the first year of their life, forging millions of new neural pathways by the minute. An enhanced brain could develop even faster. It was critical to boost the development of cybernetic life by presenting as much data as the young mind could safely handle. Sight, sound, motion, emotion - long before the “conditioning” that kept shellpeople emotionally balanced and rewarded by their duties, there had to be social interaction. They had to make friends and play games, with each other and with their carers. They had to feel safe and supported. They had to recognise the value and the fragility of all life, whether it resembled theirs or not.
By the time he was a year old, J had wheels to scoot around on, heavy pushers for self-righting, tiny manipulators for pushing beads along tracks, telescopic vision, a radio receiver, and a little round speaker from which he could communicate in two human languages.
Shellpeople celebrated developmental milestones, not birthdays, so J didn’t notice anything special about the date, nor did he find anything remarkable about the softpeople who had found their way into the Central Laboratory School, other than that one of them was much smaller than any softperson he remembered meeting before. Even this wasn’t particularly attention-worthy. Shell bodies came in many sizes, why shouldn’t soft bodies?
The unusual thing was the way that this small person scampered over and crouched next to J, while the taller visitors hung back. “Jamie?” said the stranger. “How are you Jamie?”
“Ver’-well-thank-you,” said J automatically. He understood politeness, as he understood that his ‘official designation’ was Jamie, even though most of the time people didn’t use it.
The small stranger made an expression that J couldn’t quite recognise, but seemed to fall somewhere in the ‘unsatisfied’ category. Had he done something wrong? “Mum said we were going to see Jamie,” said the stranger. “Jamie’s a baby. You don’t look like a baby. You look like some kind of robot dog.”
“What’s a dog?” J asked.
The stranger looked surprised, then determined. “A puppy. It’s got soft fur all over, and four legs.” The soft person crawled around briefly on hands and knees to demonstrate. “And they run and jump and go ‘Woof! Woof!’ and lick your face.”
J thought about that for a moment. He rolled rapidly back and forth on his wheels, careful not to hit his guest, and then slammed both pushers at high velocity into the ground, making his body bounce upwards slightly. “Woof!” he said.
The stranger laughed. “Good boy!” he said, and patted J’s shell. “That’s right. You’re not my brother, but you can be my pet!”
"Arnold!" shrieked the scandalised mother waiting at the side of the room - for, as it turned out, this was J’s biological family, come to meet their lost child at last.
While the family would return several more times over the years to congratulate J on his development and ability to contribute to society, the most meaningful repercussion of that first meeting, for J, was the new area of interest that it raised for him: animals.
Living creatures other than humans were a negligible part of a shellperson’s education and experiences. They would be mentioned to some extent in science classes for reference purposes, both to compare to the human experience and to explain the delicate balance of ecology and environment, but they were not something that most shellpeople were expected to interact with directly. Animals often reacted badly to spaceflight, so the majority were transported as frozen embryos whenever possible, or even as sperm and ova to be combined later as required. Spaceships, like Central Labs itself, were tightly-regulated environments designed to keep out unexpected life-forms. Even humans could not come and go without permission.
As he grew, J sought out stories about dogs. The adventures of a veterinarian in an ancient place called Yorkshire explained a great deal about the lifestyle of the pampered pet - not something J wanted to emulate, even if they were beloved members of the family. The story of a dog named Buck resonated more strongly: at first, exactly such a pet, living a happy but limited life, then pressed into working alongside humans in a harsh and life-threatening environment, suffering pain and sadness but also knowing companionship and accomplishment. In the end, he left his human connections behind to live free in the wild. Was that what it would be like for a brainship that made payoff and chose to leave service? Was there a hidden society of wild brainships in a faraway nebula, howling and wrestling with each other for dominance?
He read other stories. Some were simply depictions of lifestyles hard to picture from inside a shell in a laboratory, like softpeople walking in gardens where birds could fly in and out freely, snakes and lizards slipped through the mud, and foxes snuck in to raid in the night. J preferred stories from the animal perspective, even though many of the most famous stories were sad. Clever mice, loyal horses, misunderstood skunks, even rabbits that marched to war. Sometimes the teachers even made suggestions of their own favorite books or vids. Shellpeople were encouraged to have hobbies, after all, and a special interest could someday lead to a special skill or a useful piece of knowledge in an unexpected situation. Perhaps their Jamie would grow up to become a research ship or an environmental courier, perhaps even the governing Brain of a large hospital base, monitoring all the patients within.
J thanked them for their suggestions, read his stories, completed his homework, and dreamed of being a great tzeinch undulating through Vegasian waters.
The years went by. J graduated, neither the top of his class nor the bottom, and at his own request was planted first into a speedy little singularity-powered ship, one that could zip from point to point faster than almost anything in the Central Worlds arsenal, but couldn’t carry much in the way of a cargo. Definitely not a nursery ship or a biological transport. The XJ-1020 was a fast courier or a scout ship, popping in and out for information and then away before trouble could follow. It wasn’t what most of his teachers had expected from him, but J knew what he wanted: to travel far and fast and feel the stars under his wings, to learn and see and explore. But more importantly, he didn’t want to do it alone.
The graduation of a class of new Brains was like the ringing of a dinner bell to prospective Brawns. Any who were available would flock to the planet in hopes of being chosen. Not just one, but several possible ships, all seeking partners! However, just because the class graduated at the same time did not mean they became available for launch at the same time. Ships had to be assigned, technical work had to be completed, and transplantation surgeries had to be carried out (and once in a very rare while something went tragically wrong during that procedure, a loss which could be cushioned only slightly by the reality of other new partnerships being born). Therefore, rather than a chaos of ships all demanding partners for the same dance simultaneously, generally each had a chance for a separate debut. There were always more Brawns than Brains, so even the last to the ball would have a range of options, but there was no denying that some ships were more hotly contested than others.
The XJ-1020 was a small vessel with no room for crowds, saving J the trouble of having to host a partner-picking party. He scheduled appointments for individual meetings, applying a bit of randomisation to the assignments rather than ordering them based on CW’s compatibility charts. Central Worlds did not know everything, after all! J was determined to give everyone a fair chance to make a first impression.
Soon enough, though, he was faced with mild regrets. The first man to grace his decks, Xanthos Particol, had been only interested in the military capabilities of the ship. While J knew that a scout ship might be called on to face some dangerous situations and was willing to serve when necessary, he had no desire to go around looking for fights! The only saving grace of that situation was that CW had also agreed in their ratings that this brawn was a bad fit for J’s personality.
The next wasn’t much better, for different reasons. Bibiana Santos was a woman who largely lived in her head, as far as J could tell, and was drawn to the prospect of a solo ship making long-distance runs mostly so that she would have as much time as possible for uninterrupted reading. He didn’t dislike her - actually he admired her mental focus and thirst for information - but he was looking for a partnership with someone who wanted to share discoveries and ideas with him, not someone who would rather be left alone.
When Robin Ishikawa - a curiously mismatched name - hesitantly stepped on board, he at first expected more of the same, another person too quiet for his tastes. She was so delicately built that he wondered how she had passed the required Brawn physicals unless those slender bones had some sort of enhancements (not that he objected to enhancements!). Little steps, almost hopping, little tilts of the head as she took in the space… perhaps it was only because of her name, but she did remind him a bit of a bird. Would she also fly away if startled? “Hello,” he said gently.
She froze in place, her eyes widening. “Jamie? Is that you?” she asked after a moment.
“Well, there’s no one else in here,” J said.
She laughed. “I’m sorry! It’s just - I was expecting a woman.”
Huh. “Would you prefer me to be a woman?” J asked. “I could do that.” It wasn’t something that actually mattered to him all that much. He’d been labeled “he” as a baby, but that was based on the human body that he wasn’t really using anyway. He’d stuck with it out of convenience because nothing else seemed appealing enough to be worth the effort of changing his registration.
“No, no,” she shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that - well, I heard that ships were usually female, and the only ‘Jamie’ I ever knew was a woman, so I assumed. Which was silly of me, because some people think ‘Robin’ is more likely to be a male name, so I should know better. Names can be anything, really.” Her long fingers twitched restlessly, and she clasped her hands together to hide them. “I want you to be whoever you are, that’s all. It’s nice to meet you, Jamie.”
“Actually…” J said. “I know it’s on my records, but I don’t really use the name Jamie. It’s a softperson’s name. It doesn’t feel like me.” He hesitated, then spoke quickly. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a softperson! But I’m not one. I’m a ship. I don’t have arms and legs, I have engines. And I like them!”
“They’re very nice engines,” she agreed. “What would you like me to call you?”
“Just J, for now,” J said. “But if we decide to travel together, maybe we’ll come up with something else.” J did like the idea of having a special name given by someone who actually knew him. Non-brainships sometimes had special names like Enterprise or Avenger or Manhattan Cafe, so why shouldn’t he?
Robin nodded again. “Please call me Robin, for now.” She unclasped her hands. “Ah - can you show me around?”
J flicked open the door to the next area. “Certainly.”
He guided Robin around the ship and its facilities - his facilities - casting his voice and flashing lights to draw her attention one way or another. He admired the way her black hair gleamed under the lights, like a panther’s fur, and also the way that she neither avoided nor fixated on the metal column that stored the flesh parts of his body. He had told her that he was the ship, and she accepted that, speaking to him comfortably wherever she went.
But would she understand his other thoughts and dreams? No one in his classes had. He’d learned to keep his feelings to himself, lest someone accuse him of being badly adjusted to shell-life. (Which he wasn’t! He’d passed all the psych tests! He was perfectly healthy and well-balanced and capable of maintaining himself and a Brawn through long periods of inactivity and closeness in deep space. There was nothing wrong with a few flights of fancy, was there?)
“Why do you want to be my Brawn?” he asked suddenly. “This is a small ship with specialised capabilities. There’s a lot of tasks we wouldn’t be good at. What did you train for, at the Academy? What did you see yourself doing?”
Robin looked down, her gleaming hair falling around her face. “Please don’t laugh,” she said softly.
“I won’t laugh at you,” he promised. “Unless I’m sure you’re telling me a joke, which I know you’re not, right now.”
She took a deep breath. “I used to read all these adventure stories, when I was a kid. My favorites were stories of dreamers, girls who were clever but not strong, girls who had to run away to escape their fates. And they’d make friends with horses or dragons, and then they’d have the freedom to go anywhere they wanted. They’d outwit the villains rather than fight them, rescue their friends, stop the evil plans… They could be heroes.”
Horseback! She knew about horses! J tried to temper his enthusiasm. “A courier ship doesn’t usually get a hero’s glory.”
Robin shook her head. “It’s not the glory. That’s something for the public, with medals and honors. It’s not the part that matters. I want to make a difference, even if it’s just to one person’s life. I want to help people, I want to serve, but everyone says I’m too sensitive. I have trouble with crowds. I can’t be a soldier or a diplomat. Doing courier missions - maybe we’ll carry a message that saves a world, someday. And until then, at least I’d get to travel with a friend.”
“Or a trusty steed?” J asked.
She flushed. "You’re a person, not an animal - "
“People are animals,” J said. “And sometimes animals can be people, in their own way. I like to read adventure stories, too, but I always loved the ones about animals. I can share some with you, if you’d like to talk about them after?”
“I’d like that.” Robin brushed back her hair. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be insensitive. I’m new at this.”
J chuckled. “So am I. Anyway, I like the idea of being your steed. Your protector.” He pondered. “I don’t know why they call the human partners Brawns anyway. I’m much bigger and stronger than you are, even in a little ship like this. It’s my job to carry you and keep you safe.”
She laughed. “So what is my job, then?”
“Directions, good conversation, and clever hands?” A working animal’s human partner would provide affection and grooming regularly. J didn’t have fur to brush, but he did require cleaning and maintenance, which was sort of the same thing. “I mean. If you’re interested.”
Robin brushed her fingers against the nearest bulkhead. “I think - I hope - that we’re going to be very good friends.”
“Partners,” said J. “A team.”