Tanya decided to move the head from Drake One’s platform to her lab. The platform was set up as a hub to the base, and it was the route through which everyone had to pass to go anywhere else. Each traversal would distract the robot sufficiently enough that it became an annoyance. The lab was a little less convenient, but that had the benefit of getting far fewer visitations.

Winterwing followed as she carried BRAWN in the crook of an arm, listening as the head amused itself telling anecdotes and jokes through the long echoing hallways. Tanya made monosyllabic responses with less and less enthusiasm as they went.

“I feel like I should remind you that you spoke of this plan to tease out information in front of me, to be sporting,” the head said.

“I imagine you'd be able to infer motives even if we hadn't,” Winterwing responded.

“Then why continue?”

“We, we are in p-p-pursuit of another robotic head, one that has a goal of wiping out organic life,” Tanya said. “He's not as s-s-sophisticated as you, but I s-s-suspect your insights may be helpful.”

“Another head?” BRAWN asked. “Does… does he like board games?”

“Uh, you know, I have not had an opportunity to ask.”

The lab somehow looked the same and different from how Winterwing recalled it. It was still a disaster, but the disaster had shifted in intensity and subject alongside Tanya’s focus. Projects that had been in progress as Winterwing had worked there, trying to glean information from the Saurian book, were now shoved aside or cannibalized to become something else. He had little understanding of any of it, but he tried to give anything that looked hazardous a wide berth. No reason to walk out missing fingers, if it could be helped.

Tanya cleared off a space on the workbench she favored in the corner, and BRAWN was given the place of honor on its surface.

“Droid is an impressive construction, f-for what he has to work with,” Tanya explained. “His methods are blunt, but there’s intellect there. I am hoping you could p-provide some insight into what being a personality running on hardware is like. Maybe if I can’t figure out where he is or how he got his tech, I can at least try to f-f-figure out his plan.”

BRAWN seemed to find this amusing. “Do you think you could adequately explain what being a personality running on biology is like?”

“Exhausting,” Winterwing interrupted. Tanya made a scoff, though did not offer a reprimand.

“Do you think you could explain the concept of exhaustion?” the head continued.

“You must have a power supply in there,” Winterwing gestured awkwardly.

“Sure.”

“I don’t have a charge display. Exhaustion is the warning that you need to stop your tasks.”

BRAWN considered this, and looked to Tanya. “He’s pretty good.”

“Oh, don’t compliment him,” Tanya said, “he’ll be more insufferable.” Though, Winterwing noted, she did not say it in a way that seemed to be anything other than a friendly jab. She turned her attention to a nearby pad, priming it to take notes.

BRAWN watched, and voiced again. “I have been programmed with instructions to protect certain information from outside. I could simply refuse to answer any questions.”

“You could,” Tanya agreed.

“And that I am also programmed to respond very negatively to threats.”

“What about what you said before?” Winterwing asked. “About aligned objective?”

“My objective is the capture and return of Saurian Prisoner 476 and his accomplices,” BRAWN said. “I believe I made this very clear.”

Tanya tapped at her pad. “Well, you’re currently without a working chassis and we can’t focus on Dragaunus if Droid is being a nuisance. It is c-c-complimentary to your objectives to help us.”

BRAWN was silent for a moment, before doing the best impression of a sigh one could give without needing lungs. “Clever.”

“You’ll cooperate, then?”

“For now.”

“Good,” Tanya said, turning her attention back down to note taking. “How long have you been online?”

“I have been running approximately three million continuous hours, I replaced an identical unit of identical function and memory that failed from a critical bit flip error.”

“Three million hours?” Winterwing asked.

“Three hundred and forty years,” Tanya said aloud.

“It's possible to run that long?”

“I'm more surprised a bit flip could be fatal.”

“The medium between universes is very disagreeable,” BRAWN said. “Many things that should be improbable outpace their normal boundaries.”

“You're that old? Three hundred years?” Winterwing asked again.

“My internal chronometer claims so. That’s the best answer I’ve got for you. As I said, it is very disagreeable there.”

“And you were given the same data as the unit before you?" Winterwing pressed.

“Are you sure you’re not psittacine?” BRAWN queried.

“And that unit had been in operation since the Saurians were first put into limbo?” Winterwing asked.

“That is what my internal record shows, yes.”

Winterwing turned to the worktable behind him, carefully picking up some of Tanya's half finished circuitry and setting it aside, dusting off the papers sitting below: the copied collection of illuminated Saurian manuscripts. He thumbed through them until he found what he was looking for, and held it up for the head to see.

“Can you read this?”

BRAWN paused, before responding. “It’s an older script, and the handwriting is atrocious, but it is legible to my language analysis routine.”

Winterwing coughed a laugh, “You had me trying to brute force meaning out of these for weeks, and you had a translator sitting under your floor?”

“I… I guess it never occurred to anyone he would have such a thing,” Tanya gave an apologetic smile. “Silly assumption. He would need to be able to read it as part of his duties.”

Winterwing moved over the to the workbench BRAWN was sitting on, and arranged the four critical pages before it, so that their combined hidden image was visible and in plain view.

“What does it say?” he asked it.

BRAWN considered the collection, before answering carefully. “I hope you understand what you’re asking has a complex answer.”

Tanya made an aggravated noise. “Oh, you two are made for each other.”

“Several of these words have meanings depending on context that is not present in these pages, that the author knew, and presumably anyone they intended to read it. I can provide statistical guesses.”

“Well, I can’t even guess, so you’re still going to be taking this further than I did,” Winterwing said.

BRAWN gave one of its robotic nods. “This does not appear to be complete phrases, more of an itemized list, or perhaps it is intended as code. The order may be significant, I can not determine it.”

JUMBLE / PINPRICK / PALL / CONSTELLATION

DELICATE / FICKLE / STUBBORN / RARE

EYES / LIGHT / HUNGER / RAY

REJECTION / MEDIUM / INTERVENTION

SALINE / SALT / WATER / SUPPORT

SURGICAL / INJECTION / INGESTION

BLOOD / BARRIER / CAVITY / ASSIGN

SPRAY / FINGER / TENDRIL / ROOT

FEVER / DELIRIUM / DEATH / TERROR

SPOILED / WASTED / LARGE / CROP

FIRST / BEST / STRONGEST / ANGRY

CANDIDATE / APPARITION / EXPERIMENT / CHILD

FIBER / STRING / RED / TRACE / ARCANE

FABRIC / WEAVING / SHEET / TISSUE

BIND / TIE / CHAIN / EVADE

YEAR / MONTH / HOLIDAY / TIME

SIX / SIX HUNDRED / DOZEN / SAND

SUCCESS / TENTATIVE / REBELLIOUS / LOUD

PATIENT / COMPANION / WARD / IRRITANT

FALSE / ENTITY / FRIEND / APPREHENSION

AIR / CUT / BURN / DETACH

AUTOMATON / CLONE / PUPPET / DRUDGE / THRALL

BRAWN was kind enough to list these out and wait for them to record each before continuing. When he was finished, it apologized again for the content.

Winterwing and Tanya stared at their list of words, silently. BRAWN had been honest. What they were holding was not an explanation, or a diagram, or anything as precise as could have been hoped for at the height of the infection crisis.

Yet there was something in the revelation that made it more interesting than disappointing: The words told a story, vague and jumbled, and its presentation as a narrative with clear beginning, middle, and conclusion made Winterwing uneasy. Perhaps if BRAWN had been able to provide them with a direct essay of instructions that had been cold and clinical, it would have both been more useful to Tanya, and less distressing.

“Light, hunger,” Tanya mumbled.

“Is that helpful?” Winterwing said.

“If it’s describing the parasite?” Tanya’s jaw clenched and unclenched as she thought. “Maybe. It must be eating something, but I haven’t been able to d-d-determine what. The tissue around it is fine.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Everything alive has to take in energy somehow. I don’t think it has anything as complex as eyes or teeth, but it’s a statistical approx-pproximation of what the text means to say,” Tanya looked at the page.

“It eats light?” Winterwing asked doubtfully. “Like a plant?”

“Most plant life collects a small band of energy,” Tanya shrugged. “Stars put more out than visible light. The universe itself is swimming in radiation left over from its creation. That the parasite hasn’t shriveled and died suggests its f-feeding on something that it’s getting regular amounts of. If I could find out what, I might be able to block it and starve it.”

Winterwing did not tell her that Emily herself had not been eating, at least not anything substantial. That wasn’t something for him to say. But it raised the question, that if the parasite was not feeding on her, and she was not replenishing herself, and neither were looking worse for wear, what was keeping either of them alive?

“It’s all still analogy,” Tanya said. “Notes, maybe. But BRAWN’s right, it wasn’t written for anyone else to understand, w-whether or not there’s a language barrier.”

Winterwing turned to BRAWN. “This writing is something Dragaunus was building. Do you know anything about it?”

“This is new information to me, or at least the surviving part of my memory core,” BRAWN responded.

“Your job was to guard him?”

“My assignment was the custody and supervision of Saurian prisoner 476, yes.”

“And that’s been your task for the last three hundred years?”

“Not specifically, no, prisoner 476 is significantly younger than myself.”

“Younger? If he wasn’t in your care for experimenting on people, and he’s too young to have been in the ruling family, why was he there?”

BRAWN was quiet for a moment, before responding. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a prison, what was he sentenced for?”

“Sentenced for?”

Winterwing blinked. “These were supposed to be the most advanced and enlightened people in the galaxy?”

Tanya seemed hesitant to answer. “I, I guess so?”

“Why does it sound like they have a prison full of people who are only there because they were born there?”

Tanya had visibly slumped, the sudden burst of insight that they’d been handed fading away, replaced with gravity. “I don’t know the terms of the treaty. I-I-I’m not sure anyone does, anymore. I’ll ask Wildwing.”

“What’s he going to do about it?”

“I don’t, I don’t know. Maybe we can r-r-renegotiate.”

“I am quite sure the builders will be unable to meet your requests,” BRAWN said.

Tanya asked the obvious question. “Why not?”

“You’re not authorized to have that information,” the head answered.

She must have seen Winterwing’s scowl, and said “We can’t fix it right now but we can think of something. Maybe if we ever get to the d-d-dimensional gateway tech on the Raptor.”

And when he said nothing, and she cleared her throat to get his attention, Winterwing voiced his thoughts aloud.

“Do you think the difference between my planet and yours is on mine the extrajudicial timespace prison didn’t have a break out?”