Not that I was about to mention to Control that I had worked on the program. Control didn’t know because Ocampo didn’t know, and I saw no reason to let either know. Control already thought I was stupid enough to believe its word on things. I wasn’t going to do anything to dissuade it of that notion.
It’s the bridge simulator program, I thought, to Control.
“It used to be a bridge simulator program,” Control said. “And for now, it will continue to be so. But we’ve adapted it to control the Chandler. Ultimately you will be able to control all the ship systems from inside of it.”
How will I do that? I asked. The simulator program is designed as a virtual space but tracks actual hand and body movements. I’m missing both.
“Here,” Control said, and I was in a virtual body. My view was clearly meant to be from head height; by thinking about it I could move it on a swivel, like I had an actual neck. I looked down and a stripped-down, visual representation of a human body was there. I imagined moving my hands and my hands came up from my sides, palms toward me, featureless where there should have been palm lines and fingerprints.
I nearly had a breakdown right then, I was so grateful. Even a fake body like this was better than no body at all.
Even so …
Some part of my brain—I think maybe the same part that argued with me earlier—was going Really? That’s it?
I knew what it meant. It meant that these assholes had taken my brain out of my body to run the Chandler, and I had to run the Chandler all on my own, and the way they intended me to run the Chandler was with a simulation of a human body I no longer had.
Which seemed, I don’t know. Inefficient. If you’re going to take the time to get rid of my body, then maybe take the time to create a control metaphor that takes advantage of not being limited to a human body anymore.
They didn’t take you out of your body for efficiency’s sake, said that part of my brain. Well, yeah, I figured that out a while back. It was about fear and control.
But still. Kind of a waste of effort.
I pulled myself back together (metaphorically), and looked around the simulated bridge.
Are you coming onto the bridge with me? I asked Control.
“No,” it said. “Please go to the captain’s chair.”
I nodded. The captain’s chair had a screen where she could look at the information from all the stations, either at once or one at a time. Captain Thao, like most captains, tended to take reports from her bridge crew, who were better at boiling down the information into what she needed to know immediately. But she could get all the information from the screen if she wanted to boil it down herself. Which meant that I could, too.
Likewise, the captain could control the ship from the screen if she wanted, rather than giving orders. Very few captains did, because things got complicated fast, and besides, if you want to make your bridge crew unhappy, the best way to do it was to try to do their job for them. The fact is that no captain was competent at every bridge station. Most didn’t try to be.
Except now I would have to be.
I sat in the virtual captain’s chair and pulled up the captain’s screen.
I’m ready, I thought to Control.
The virtual captain’s screen lit up, and all the department windows opened in a grid. Tapping twice on one of the windows would cause it to expand to full screen and become fully interactive. Only one department screen could be full screen at one time but you could also chain full-size department screens together and swipe through them to access them quickly. It was all pretty basic except for the fact that I would be responsible for monitoring and dealing with all of them.
I looked further at the captain’s start grid.
Some of these are blank, I said.
“Some of the ship functions you no longer need to control,” Control said. “You will be the only living thing on the ship and your living area is tightly sealed and controlled by us, so you will not need life-support controls. Likewise communications. We control those and several other ship-related functions. Others, such as engineering, you need to control only on a limited basis, and the maintenance of those functions will now be handled by us. The only ship’s functions you need to concern yourself with are navigation, weapons, and propulsion, including skipping.”
That makes things simple, at least, I thought to Control. I made the windows for navigation, propulsion, and weapons full-sized and chained them together.
I’m ready, I sent.
“We’re sending you a simulated mission now,” Control said. “It is a simple one, focused primarily on navigation. Let’s begin.”
* * *
Ten hours of simulation that first day, at least by the simulation clock, almost all of it dead simple navigation that as a pilot I could do in my sleep. I had a suspicion that the simulations were not specifically chosen for me by Control, but might have been simply on a list of simulations to run that it was running through.