Ship’s Notes: Mr. Okoro and Myjer’s Extraction

I can feel the manufactory complex thrumming within myself.  I don’t even pretend to understand half of the processes, but feels… strange.  I can feel parts of myself buzzing with full activity, shaping metal, baking ceramics, printing processors, doing… other things.  Ms. Moreau looks to be using most of the devices, though some she seems to be studiously avoiding.  Perhaps she is suspicious of the Edenite nano-technology, and prefers more conventional tools.  Or perhaps those are the devices not useful for the current project?

Still progress roars ahead.  We have slowed to exactly the speed of light, which gives us nearly two megaseconds to finish preparations and go over plans.  Alternate plans have been made, but a gateway bluff seems like the best plan.  If it fails, at least we have the time to scan defenses, have Madam Elsie get in contact with her order’s chapter on this planet, and understand the situation more holistically.

But this leaves me with time to think.  Ayokunle Okoro.  That was my name.  I knew it already, but it was fading away so swiftly.  Now it belongs to someone else.  I had thought that I became a ship, but it appears that I was simply copied onto a ship.  And not even a copy, but… something else.  I am no buff businessman, confident and naturally in charge.  Perhaps the mind is a plaything of the body.  Or the soul is.  I don’t know.  Maybe the differences come from me having hidden, or my different role.  Is the soul a plaything of the situation?

I am the Astral Zephyr, not Mr. Okoro.  The crew who saw the video were shocked to see the human I once was.  Poor Gestler probably assumed I was some fair-skinned lady, like the females on his planet.  But either assumption is wrong, of course.  My skin is ablative shielding, not pale like the Edenites, not dark like Okoro.  Perhaps I should forget about who I once was, and only look to the future.

Yet, even as I say, that, I know it’s not true.  Mr. Okoro is right, I do find some kinship with him.  He asked me to fulfill a promise for him, to help him, and it was so natural to do his bidding.  Gestler would probably consider it a psychological attack – power Mr. Okoro holds over me.  But my past does hold sway, and my past is part of who I am, just as real to my identity as my present.

I may have the chance to talk with Mr. Okoro during negotiations.  I don’t know if I would want to do that.  Just Ayokunle’s existence makes me feel… less real, less important.  Just a copy.  I want reassurance, but who among my crew could I turn to?  Susana, perhaps, but she would simply show me why I shouldn’t think that.  Not quite what I am looking for.  I have a psychologist, but I don’t know if her skills are specialized to humans, or more general sentients.  And I’ve never talked with her.  I just need a friend, really.