"If you don't mind sharing, what data are you connecting it to?"

"Since there is no manual, I follow standard protocols for re-servicing: Power, input, information," the child Val Con said, leaning close and making a connection in the unit that housed him with an audible snap. "As we said—it is possible that this is not an environmental unit at all, but . . . something other. That being so, I thought the best, broadest, and least perilous source of information is the ship's library."

His elder tipped his head, holding up a hand as the nether end of the cable approached the data-board.

"Only the ship's library."

"Yes."

"All right, then; have at it."

The child nodded, and seated the plug.

Had he been human, he would have drawn a breath.

Since he was not, he opened access to surface caches and allowed the data to flow.

* * *

A ripple disturbed the data-stream, momentarily disorienting, then forgotten, a shadow across the sun of input. His was hardly the only demand on the info circuits, after all, nor had he attempted to increase his access speeds or permissions, being a guest account. The library to which he had been given access was broad, but shallow. He understood that it was a popular library, well-stocked with fiction, history, biography, with a small holding of scholarly papers, and technical manuals.

Mathematics were there, of course, theory and programming, and he allowed himself moments to build and then rebuild a trajectory chart, wondering what Spode would have thought of that.

History, biography appended, went immediately into deep analysis, also the technical material. The scholarly papers required sorting, which he did, rapidly, appending them as appropriate to the larger analysis categories of history and technical. Fiction . . .

His impulse was to eliminate it—the storage capacity available to him was not so commodious that he could afford to waste space on whimsies. Yet, he hesitated, reluctant after so . . . very . . . long to relinquish any shred of data, no matter how trivial.