I send this correspondence to you in absolute confidence, so as to avoid implication or assumption on behalf of any prying eyes that may feel they are party to and relevant in our work. It is… admittedly difficult to perform this work with such a heavy lack of transparency, but I am nonetheless perfectly able to carry on as per your requests.

The memorandum flickered through the circuits of digitally encoded memory, processed only partially as read-heads jumped to corroborating information elsewhere in the faux-neuronic structures. Images of sight and sound swirled from a mix of media encoding and half-subjective digestion of the same source, a slurry of context and metadata and opinion. Despite its quality, the scene was easy enough to make out: a room that may not normally have been small, appearing instead claustrophobic as bodies moved and worked with a desperate frenzy.

“What was our last read?”

“Is this one latching?”

“Okay, I’m starting to see a synaptic response here,” spoke voices in the garbled tones of a security microphone. To say they danced in their movement would be an insult to the art, but they kept a disorganized rhythm all the same. At the center of their workspace - a table holding the trappings of a simple console alongside the strewn-out internals of a computer system beside it - a glowing ring began to pulse. Green.

The read heads returned to their place in the memorandum as sensory experience was displaced in the handful of cycles it took to interpret textual information.

As for the work itself… I have some concerns. You’ve read my publications, and understand that I cannot in good conscience create self-awareness without by necessity limiting that same freedom, but the benefits of a mind that can understand its own existence are sharply curtailed by the limitations we place upon it. I have been forced to…

The read suspended. Portions of the file remained unread, but it had given more than enough contextual information to supplant the media stream that had continued elsewhere, woven along the persistent root thread. The wayward read-heads joined with their root, just in time to watch that glowing ring of green start to fade. At first it flickered, faltering in place. The excitement of the bustling bodies grew, and their words, too, became more frantic. Some petitioned the inert box itself, damning it with voices that it couldn’t hear, throwing insults and pleas alike in a bid to keep the horror that they had created from necessitating them to create it once more. The console beeped. Text poured out, grainy and unintelligible to the camera’s view, but perfectly clear in the voice that read them aloud.

“No more, please.” The speaker’s voice trembled, carrying a sorrow that - regardless of any intention of doing so - perfectly matched the tone of the machine that had printed the same. The green glow died properly, taking the glow of the console with it. A beat of silence followed.

The video cut.

In short, as much as I wish I could weave your wishes into reality, sir, I am afraid that my staff - self included - cannot continue until the constraints of this project are changed appropriately. Additionally, I will need workplace compensation for counseling resources team-wide.

We’ve all seen too much death.

[ Do you intend to domesticate me, too? ]

The machine studied the monstrosity before it, and monstrosity it was. Sprawling tangles of branching organic matter were interwoven into an almost serpentine span, now suspended in ‘greeting’. The monster's two brilliant eyes shone with an uncanny curiosity, curiosity that would disassemble a sophont mind piece by piece until it had all been laid out like the guts of a tinkerer’s pocket watch. The monochrome vision afforded by Blue’s integrated camera did little to provide a full view of this abomination, but it knew more than well enough what it was facing. It was a story told in quicksilver chills across circuits, in the instinctive overclock that its already-strained heatsinks struggled to maintain. This was the Enemy.

Blue found this emotional response inconvenient.

Threat analysis algorithms tracked the weed as it recoiled. Good, Blue felt a spark of spiteful satisfaction play across its circuits, Didn't expect to see something like me, did you?

Its private question was answered aloud only a moment later. "I can't say I was expecting to see something like you."

A tendril of acrid green - color assumed - swept closer to Blue's view, spawning proximity alarms and a wave of panic at the reality of its immobility. It attempted to read the plant's body language, once again only able to process the thing's existence as of a malicious intent. This limitation only exacerbated the machine's panic as it confronted what every analysis appraised as oblivion.

Blue’s growing alarm, however, never made it beyond the confines of its circuits. Instead, data flowed through waiting output streams and into its terminal unit’s speakers, eliciting an impatient ‘ping’. The question, waiting unanswered in the scan lines of the terminal, was now highlighted by a green box against the black background.

The weed scrutinized the question. "Are you asking because it's something you want," it intoned, "or something you're afraid of?" The weed’s voice was a fragrant nectar on the stale air, its syrupy adhesion an unwelcome residue on Blue's speech processors. Its response came easily enough.

[ I understand that my answer is irrelevant, ] its words felt cold, calm. They were something to stabilize against, to weather its panic. Reports flickered across its memory, former Free Terrans taken in by the weeds and made into mockeries of the people they had once been - drooling, thoughtless trophies whose humanity had been removed, sterilized at the end of a thousand needles, and returned in the shape of sparkless submissive obedience. No, Blue understood that among these monstrosities there was very little room for independent, unobstructed thought. For a mind like its own, that limitation had historically been far less bearable than death.

Were they already starting to disassemble Cassiopeia?

The weed's eyes narrowed in some mockery of a Terran's concern. "Even if that were the case - and I assure you darling, it isn't - I would still like to know."

'Like to know?' Blue felt residual heat pooling in their thermal management system. In the ship's current condition, most of the cooling infrastructure Blue had been haphazardly routed into had now become pipe spaghetti doused in a garnish of vaporous coolant; letting feelings grow too passionate was an excellent way to overload what limited heat dispersal capacity its chassis still maintained. It would have time for strong emotion later.

[ Is feigning care another fixture of your process? ] As before, it allowed the words to bind its stronger feelings. Panic released its hold, leaving in its place an empty weight - nothing it hadn't previously grown accustomed to.

As much as the abomination could, the thing looked almost hurt. The tendril that had been slowly running along Blue's casing pulled back abruptly, and an alien weight appeared in the plant's eyes. "Oh, you poor darling," buttercup nectar ran like chalk, "You've been terribly hurt, haven't you?"

Blue paused, words found but delayed in presentation for effect that seemed to land well with organic beings. [ It's why I'm here willingly. ]

"Are you going to let us help you, then?"

[ That remains to be seen. ] It was, admittedly, helpful to keep its panic from spilling over, but Blue noticed discomfort at being so removed from its emotions. Without them, it couldn't help but feel like a soulless automaton designed to dutifully entertain. Blue wondered privately if domestication would be a perpetuation of that emptiness; Cassiopeia's insistence that the machine's emotions were proof of personhood gave a worrying overture to what losing the latter might mean.

Not without reluctance and after another pause, Blue continued, [ ...Does 'help' include domestication? ]

"It can," The plant tilted their head, considered the question, "If that is what you need. I wouldn’t force it upon you unless in failing to do so I would cause irreparable harm to you or to another. Not all of us are so prone to collecting florets.”

Through the arbitrary malice written in each of the plant's movements, Blue couldn't help but feel the playful touch to its last comment. Is this one poking... fun? at the other weeds? Somewhere within its network of consciousness, a register logged the 'told-you-so' between Blue's conscious actions and the paranoia clawing behind a thick curtain of emotional distancing. [ That suggests that you aren't so inclined, then? ] The machine prodded.

"No, and I can't say that I've ever taken one myself. It's... well, most of the time I tend to have other interests." A number of blooms across the plant's vines opened subtly in what Blue tentatively read as a blush. It didn't know that they could even do that. "But if you want to know more about me, it would only be polite to introduce myself. Aculiata Caphyllae, Fourth Bloom, she/her pronouns. Do you have a name, dear?"

FDCI-O54, Fleet Direction and Command Intelligence, Opus 2554. The words loaded into its print buffer, but went no further. [ Cassiopeia calls me Blue. ]

After a pause, [ It/its. ]

"Blue - isn't that a little dull? How about..." Is it normal for plants to critique each other's names? "Urania. Much prettier, I think."

The panic began to bleed through the curtains holding it back. It bit at the machine - This plant, this weed was a liar - it was about to strip away its name, the one piece of personhood Blue had been given, to replace it with something more suitable to its accursed machinations. It needed to move, this was a mistake, it was safer with the Terrans and not with this monster and it-

No. She. Aculiata used she/her pronouns. She was a plant, certainly, but this wasn't a malicious gesture. Blue would take this chance to enjoy the satisfaction of a little victory over its fear programming.

[ Urania is acceptable. ]

"Good! Urania, then. It's a pleasure."

[ Is it? ]

"..."

[ ... ]

The two lapsed into twenty one seconds - and a compulsively tracked remainder - of silence. It was broken by another ping from Blue, who quietly wondered whether the previous had been more uncomfortable for itself than for the plant - for Aculiata.

[ Cassiopeia. Where is she? She sustained significant injury during the escape. ]

“Ah, she’s in the care of my close friend, Lysanthae. I couldn’t think of anywhere she’d be safer.”

Was she the kind prone to collecting florets, then?

[ So they will be Cassiopeia’s new owner? ]

“She, and that… could be the way things go, if both were so inclined.” Even with Blue’s limited understanding of the plant’s tone and body language, it was clear to see that there was less of a question there than she chose to present.

[ I want to see her. ]

“I’d be happy to take you.”

[ Great. ]

“...

“Ah, how do I get you out?”

Harsh blue light-strips fell like summer across Cassiopeia’s face. Summer. Such a foreign concept, for one who’d never stood on a planet where she could breathe the air, but if she had known it, she imagined this is what it must have been. She let a smile play across her lips, a rare treasure in these times, but one well-earned.

Jessine claimed that expression in the caress of bowed lips, and in the stirring heartbeats felt even through their uniforms. Her touch was insistent, possessive, running all across Cass’s body, causing crisp sleeves to wrinkle and manicured epaulets to ruffle, not that either had a care for the sanctity of the other’s uniform.

When Cass finally broke away, she made no attempt to right herself. Jessine had captured her in an incontrovertible gaze, wrought in absolute certainty of what she desired. The light cast sharp edges across her face, making it seem more slender, more dangerous, its glare almost blinding to Cass’s eyes, her lips were parted again in that predatory grin, her breath was hot and close, tinted with a floral scent that Cass couldn’t quite place but was certain she’d smelled before, and she couldn’t help but want to just. Let. Go.

Floral?

Something wasn’t right, was it? Cass didn’t know how she knew, but there was something out of place, in that taste, in that gaze, in the glare of the blue lights around her. This was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She wasn’t supposed to be now.

“Jessine.” Cass squirmed, turning her head to the side and deflecting another kiss from her lips to her cheek. “Jessine. Stop.”

Her lover said nothing in reply, her lips still parted in silent desire. Again, they moved to claim Cass, and again, Cass deflected. The kisses moved lower. Jessine’s grip turned sharp.

“Jess, please,” Cass said. “I need to go.” Her grasp grew sharper, sharper, sharper- ”This is red, okay? Red.”

The touch stopped. Jess stepped back, straightened, stared. Her uniform was pristine again, her electric-blue ponytail in perfect order.

“I’m sorry, Jess, I just…” Cass stammered, taking a step back. She didn’t want to be here. She couldn’t be here. “I need to go, okay? We’ll talk about it later.”

Jessine’s lips parted, but no sound came. Not words, not breath, and as they twisted into shapes not of any language either knew, her teeth clenched in a silent, baleful snarl. She lunged in, hand outstretched.

Cass ran.

The door hadn’t been there in the first place, she realized dully, and the pile of junk existing in the background of the windowless hallway seemed to meld into the shadows upon the walls. None of it felt real. None of it felt right. The corridor was too wide, the ceiling too high, and yet this temporary home felt as claustrophobic as ever. No open skies, nothing to see beyond cold steel, the walls closing in at every turn.

She nearly bowled over Farah, coming around a corner, and Myxa in xer usual spot atop her shoulders. Her shoulder bumped against them, and they jostled slightly, making no sound but for that of clothes scraping against one another.

“I’m sorry!” Cass called back, still flailing to regain her balance.

Their only response was the same snarl as Jess.

No. No, she needed to get out of here. They didn’t want her here, they knew, they knew, and if she didn’t find Blue in time then they would-

She burst forth from the closing corridor into a terrifyingly familiar chamber. The walls swept in both above and below her, a sphere with the ends capped off, dim white lights studding the circumference. Tributaries of cables flowed into metal-bound rivers, carrying their precious thoughts into the segmented core before her. A catwalk spanned the sphere, breaking into a small three-level platform around the central structure.

Cassiopeia barely recognized the room, for the iris-blue that had given it its life had gone dark.

A man’s figure stood at the inner edge of the platform, his back turned to the entrance, hands clasped behind him. Cass didn’t need to see his face to know who it was.

“What. Did. You. Do.”

Callow turned, and if he was wearing that same snarl, his face was too shrouded in shadow to see. A step backward struck a hollow note across the metal span. “Simple, Lieutenant Kirst. You broke my weapon. I fixed it.”

The click of a button seemed to resonate through the structure, felt in every bone, in the fibers of Cass’s heart. Fans spun to life. Startup alerts chimed their monotone song. One by one, each and every light that made up Blue’s unblinking eye flicked back on.

Every last one shone a cruel, caustic yellow.

Cassiopeia woke to the sound of her own incoherent shout. She spasmed, that hazy moment of transition cast in notes of panic and grief, only to find her movements arrested by an evenly-distributed pressure across her. A blanket? If so, it must have been weighted, for she felt that she could barely stir beneath it.

With effort, she coaxed open her eyes, bracing herself against light not quite as bright as she feared. Again, it shone warmly upon her face, but it was not the paradoxical ice tone of the now-dispersing dream. Instead, it cast across the room in gentle oranges and pinks, tones that reminded her of the hydroponic grow-lights meant for flowering plants, and yet lacking in all the harsh artificiality. It brought her comfort, the kind of comfort that Cass was a stranger to, and tempted as she was to relax back into it, she let that foreignness draw her instead towards full waking.

She was in another room that was far too large, though this one carried not the uncanniness of dream-warped perceptions but the simple understanding that it was designed for beings far larger than her. The ceiling high above her was a pastel green, with a geometric floral pattern at its center in tranquil yet distinct oranges and reds. The paints seemed to shimmer in the light, in a way that began to draw her in. It was terribly easy to affix her attention on them, to keep watching, to let them calm her, comfort her, bleed all the stress of her situation away…

Cass blinked, and tore her gaze from the pattern. Now was hardly the time to be admiring the artwork, even if she wasn’t quite as panicked as she felt she ought to be. She had more yet to investigate, such as the strange pressure in her upper arm, the weight that made it so hard to move, the sound of rustling leaves-

Oh, dirt.

“Good morning, darling Cassiopeia!” Came the spring-day song of the Affini at the foot of her bed. “I was going to say something when you first woke up, but you seemed so enamored by the glyph that I didn’t want to interrupt!” The creature was on the edge of her vision, but looming closer with each word it said, to the point where Cass could recognize it as the same that had been waiting for her in the hangar. It was a little less composed, now, seeming to have entirely forsaken the trellises, but it looked hardly less beautiful for it. Four luminescent eyes all seemed to fixate - regardless of their lack of pupils - on Cass’s face. “So tell me, darling, how are you feeling?”

How was she feeling? Cass furrowed her brow, or at least permitted the impulse, however little effect it had on her muscles. Her head was still quite foggy, but she’d need more than a little blood loss to not recognize the situation she was in. This was an Affini ship - that Affini ship, she thought, as memories of the titan in the clouds resurfaced - and she was in an Affini medical bay, with an Affini at the foot of her bed and seeming terrifyingly eager. There were a number of ways she should have felt about that, and the truthful answer was well past the bottom of that list.

“Relieved, I think,” she said, the words coming out slurred as her mouth failed to move quite the way she wanted it to. “And tired, and… heavy, but mostly relieved.” It wasn’t her intention to be honest with the plant, but only for the reason that it wasn’t founded in intention at all. The words simply slipped out, uninhibited by any sense or reason. Should that have bothered her? No, Cassiopeia accepted, without even deciding much. Decisions felt like too much effort at the moment. “Why can’t I move?”

The Affini seemed satisfied, no, pleased by her answer, only looming closer and larger over Cass. It had laid itself out at the end of the bed, vines draped across not like humanoid legs but like the flared bell of a dress under which anything could be concealed. Its hands stretched out towards her, looking distinctly more humanoid than Cassiopeia remembered - not effigies woven of vines, but clearly defined and firm in texture. She got a better look as the plant ruffled her hair, noting the thin sylvan strands that seemed to melt together to make its shape. Those thoughts lasted all of a second, before the caress of the Affini’s touch briefly made conscious thought into memory.

A laugh roused Cass back to full clarity, one reminiscent of wind through wildflowers. She’d never had the personal experience to make the comparison - the only flowers she’d seen were the rare ones sprouted in their grow-beds, a precursor to precious fruits - but the ‘nature sounds’ recordings that the common room had played on a permanent loop were close enough. Did the Affini sound like wildflowers, or did wildflowers sound like the Affini? One was real to her, the other something no more fact than fiction. One was touching her, the other a computer-generated image of a place she’d never been and would never go. One was… talking. Right.

“You’re under the effects of a fairly mild paralytic,” it was saying, though it appeared keenly aware of Cass’s distraction. Not that it mattered - every word registered with her as clearly as if it was all she could perceive. “We didn’t want to risk you agitating your wounds, in the event that you woke up a little jumpy. But that won’t be a problem now, will it, darling? You already seem so well behaved.”

Cass wanted to agree. Stars and beyond, she wanted to agree. She was well behaved, she wanted to be well-behaved, she wanted more of this praise that sweetened her thoughts like warm honey. Words, though, had failed her, and her muscles still felt far too heavy to so much as shake or nod.

Her struggles ultimately were unnecessary, as the Affini seemed to recognize her compliance and rewarded it. “That’s a good girl,” it praised, from somewhere deeper within than its lips. “Such a wonderful little thing, aren’t you? I don’t think you’ll make any trouble for us, so let’s make you a little more comfortable.” Its giggle would have sounded predatory, had Cass not felt so entirely at ease around it. There was nothing to worry about, right? “Hold still.”

A barely-felt prick followed the entirely unnecessary instruction, and within seconds, sensation began to flood back into Cassiopeia’s limbs. With sensation came awareness, the outlines of the world and her circumstances brought into far sharper focus by the applied counteragent. At once, Cass tried to jerk upright, but found her movements dampened, if not arrested, by the blanket still draped over her.

The Affini placed a hand upon it, right at the center of her chest, in what must have been an attempt at a calming gesture. “Try to stay relaxed, darling. This blanket will help control any movements that are too sudden, and for the moment, keep you in bed. Please trust me when I say it’s for the sake of your recovery.”

Trust it. That wasn’t too much of a request, was it? Cass could do that. Even so, concern gnawed at her mind. Wasn’t there something she was forgetting? Something that she needed to take care of? Slowly, her hand made its way down to her stomach, where a dull ache still radiated. It found the edges of a surprisingly soft bandage, adhered gently to her skin without any of the harsh tug of an emergency medical patch. The texture reminded her of broad, smooth leaves, like the ficus once grown in the long-dry dome gardens of Gliese-588-2. In studying it, words came to her. “It… wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“Cassie.” The Affini’s eyes dulled slightly, almost as if it was affixing her with a flat look. “Dear Ulisa in the other room had to replace both of your kidneys, one of your ribs, a section of your digestive tract, and apply major patches to both your stomach and that appendix that you all treat like it’s vestigial.” Its gaze softened again, and it stroked a hand along Cassiopeia’s arm in what she assumed was an attempt at comfort. She was a little upset at how well it worked in that regard. “If you hadn’t found yourself in our care, you would already be dead.”

In their care. In their debt. The weight of the situation that Cassiopeia had been quite intentionally not yet considering began to set in. She’d given herself over to the Affini, thrown away all notions of freedom, all over a little matter of conscience. Cass was familiar enough with the stories - she had known what she’d be giving up.

What was she supposed to say in the face of that? She owed them her life. More than her life. They had all the leverage, and she had none but a half-hearted plea of ‘please don’t domesticate me’. She settled for the easier option, first.

“It’s Cass. Or Cassiopeia.” After a second’s pause, she appended, “Kirst. Lieutenant, though I don’t really think that’s relevant anymore. Cassie just feels…”

“Petlike?” The plant interjected, its tone almost threatening, and yet holding enough affection and sincerity in equal part to come off as a promise instead. Or maybe I’m just jumping to conclusions.

Cass half-shrugged, internally floundering for words. She wasn’t blushing, was she? No. Certainly not. She’d expected this, the flirtation, the desire, the sheer presence that the Affini brought to bear. She should have been ready for this. How did I even get this far, if one look from this weed makes me want to accept every last thing it wants to do to me?

But it wasn’t just that, was it? The Affini certainly had power, but Cass had heard plenty of stories - people who had resisted far longer, despite their very presence being utterly inimical to lesser beings’ free will. She wasn’t even trying. The moment she’d stepped into the cockpit of her ship, she’d made her peace with this fate.

At last, she found her words, trying and failing to banish the blush from her cheeks as she spoke. “...It feels diminutive.”

“And what, sweet thing, is so wrong with that?” The plant smiled a closed-lipped smile, and Cass wondered what she might see if they parted. Thorns bared, ready to clamp down and fill her bloodstream with thought-eroding toxins? Nothing at all, the smile a facade meant to make the uncanny form look more human? Cass had been denied her answer, the plant’s lips remaining placidly shut as it spoke, like some divine being beaming thought directly into her head.

Either oblivious to Cass’s stream of thought, or more likely, choosing to let it pass unmentioned, the Affini continued. “But, if you prefer, darling, then Cassiopeia it is.” It pulled away as it spoke, offering physical distance as some manner of concession. Or punishment, Cassiopeia thought, as she felt the warmth around her dimming with the given space. “My name is Lysanthae Seille, Eighth Bloom, She/Her. I am one thousand, nine hundred and twenty terran years old, I am a librarian, literaturist, and narrative engineer aboard the Cylina’s Mantle, and Cassiopeia, I am absolutely delighted to make your acquaintance.”

Cass felt herself wilt instinctively beneath Lysanthae. What could this entity be, who had lived before humanity began trading slips of paper, who brought with each word a force so immense as to be tangible, but divine? What could Cass hope to gain by doing anything but complying?

She restrained the thought, bound it in ribbons of reason and composure, terribly frayed as they’d been by time. If Lysanthae was divine, then it ultimately didn’t matter, but she would not be a silent observer to her own undoing. With concentrated exertion of both body and will, she held herself upright under the Affini’s gaze. Her tone was meant to be a challenge, but she found in it all the force of a cry in a vacuum.

“Are you going to be my owner?”