"Certainly, madam. I understand your concerns very well, but don't worry for a second. Your goldfish will survive without any problems for the three weeks that you are away. I've double checked the configuration on the feeding station, and the network connection looks to be in perfect working order - you should be able to check up on him whenever you want to!"

As the lady at the other end of the call answered, Goose spoke up. Very good, Nick. She just needed that little bit of reassurance. Now, she mentioned her sister at the beginning - if you show her that you remember the sister, that should be the 'nail in the coffin', I believe your idiom is. And remember to smile!

"No problem, madam. It's been my pleasure! Now I hope you have a safe and happy journey to Titan, and that your sister is doing well." and forcing a smile on his face, he finished with "Thank you, madam, and thank you again for calling Sisyphus. You've been speaking to Nick!"

Perfect, Goose said, just as a five star rating appeared in his viewscreen. Great, Nick thought, but strangely without much enthusiasm. My average is nearly up to the 4.5 threshold needed for a considerable bump in pay. Hurray I guess.

Thanks, Goose! Nick messaged. Your help makes such a difference. How are you able to be better than me when you've only been doing this for five days?! Of course, you've had some help... Nick looked over to where Rashi was sitting, call light blinking; gesticulating and smiling.

Nick sat back in his chair, enjoying the momentary break from calls. His head was spinning from the last few days, and as he looked around the office he couldn't help but feel... out of place. Last week, this place had been his job; part of his identity. He'd been looking forward to going to work in the morning, and had been advised by his manager - several times - to study up and put in for a more senior position. "You have just the kind of attitude we are looking for in this place", he had been told. Now though... he looked around, his head cocked slightly to one side, and felt a distance to everything, to everyone. As if the colours of the wall were slightly off, or there was something strange with the coffee machine. What used to be important to him was now only a sidetrack from his real life. Only the picture pinned to his cubicle divider grounded him, as his parents looked down in silence; a severe man with an easy smile and a light woman who always had a hug for him. He wondered what they would have thought of this situation. Dad would have encouraged him to trust himself, and mum would have said to follow his heart. The same thing really, now that he thought about it.

Of course; it didn't help that Goose's newfound ability was seriously messing with his head. Being able to read emotion and intention off people's expressions and body language was combining a good portion of awesome with what was an even bigger portion of creepy. When he told Rashi and Sae all about the interview, he hadn't even needed their - very! - explicit order to not use the ability on them. That was the first thing he had done, after Goose had helpfully added some background to the looks Rashi was sending him when he got back to the apartment.

The way she is stroking her arm as she leans towards you. The moisture in her palms, hands clenching slightly - Nick, these are clear signals that Rashi...

Stop! Nick had ordered before Goose could continue. Do not read Sae or Rashi. Actually, don't read anyone unless I specifically ask for a reading. Ok?

Goose appeared confused as he replied, Certainly... but why, Nick? Is communication not improved with a better understanding of all available information?

Nick had sighed, before attempting to explain to Goose why the ability was super creepy. He wasn't sure he had succeeded, but Goose at least accepted Nick's wish.

After that, Nick had used the ability only sparingly. It was only after his mind had seriously started drifting off and his customers started rating him three stars, that he had asked for Goose's help. Limited to tips that will make the customer more likely to give me a better rating only!

Since then, the rating average had trickled slowly upwards. Nick reflected on how strange it was that he wasn't happier about that. Sure, it felt a little bit like cheating, but that wasn't it. It was more a general symptom of the whole funk that was settling on him, as he went through the motions of his old life.

Old life - ha! He thought to himself. Here he was, seventeen years old, and already drawing an arbitrary line through time to mark the end of a previous existence. But it felt right - the life ahead of him now would be very different, no matter what direction it took. He was suddenly on the radar of Internal Audit - he could hear a ghost of ominous music as he thought it. He had access to Goose and this strange ability. More importantly, he suddenly had a purpose. Last night; after a long conversation and an even longer thinking session in his observation bubble, he had finally determined what he had to do.

-

After Nick had finished the story of his interview, he had got up from his chair to make himself another dinner - good thing Sae had stocked up on quickdinners while he was with the auditor!

"This is bad", Sae had said, for what Nick thought must be the fiftieth time over the past few days. "Not only are you now on the Internal Audit radar, but it sounds like you now have a rogue auditor coming after you personally. Which also means Garner will be coming after me and Rashi."

Rashi had grown still while Sae was talking. She opened her mouth to speak, then paused, before saying "I can see why you are worried, Sae. I am too." She looked up at Nick before continuing. "But I don't see that this changes things for me. We knew that helping Goose was a risk, but we still did it. I believe it is the right thing to do, and even if the audit is coming after us I wouldn't change what we do!"

At that point, Nick tuned out the discussion between the girls. He knew they were on the precipice of a significant decision, and he didn't think well in the middle of what was turning out to be another very animated debate between Rashi and Sae.

Instead of staying to referee the debate, Nick excused himself and got up, going to his lab. Sliding into the observation bubble, he hardly noticed as his knees bumped against something sharp as the picture of his parents suddenly came to mind. Relaxing his head back in the declined chair, he looked up and out of the window and thought. Saturn was drifting lazily along one edge of the porthole, outshining most of the darkness. The last few days he had missed the feeling of home that always filled him in this place, and he considered checking up on his instruments. But realised that all he really wanted to do was to lay back and think. To contemplate what he should do now.

As the habitat rotated, Enceladus came into view below. It shone with light reflected from Saturn, and he could see several geysirs throwing water vapour into the thin atmosphere, only to fall lazily back to the surface. He thought about his parents. Trust yourself. Follow your heart.

And as he felt his mind finally relaxing after the chaos of the last few days, Nick knew what he had to do.

-

A while later, he rejoined Sae and Rashi in the living room. They had apparently settled their discussion, or at least paused it, while getting some dinner.

Nick took a deep breath as he sat down in his chair and looked at the girls. "I've been thinking. For me, this problem really comes down to one fundamental question: Can we trust Goose? Because if we can trust him, there's an entire species that will probably cease to exist if we don't do anything.

Up until now, Goose has given me no reason to think he is not being honest about the situation. Also; everything is consistent with the data signal, which we have been able to analyse independently of what Goose is saying himself.

At least for myself, I've decided to trust Goose. And for me, that means helping him. I also realise I cannot make that decision for you two, but I would love for you to stick with it. Your help has been invaluable so far.".

As the room went quiet, Nick could easily see what Rashi's reaction was going to be. She was smiling, and gave Nick a clear nod to indicate that she was in. Sae took longer to respond, and Nick found it near impossible to read her expression. He almost wanted to ask Goose for a reading on her emotions!

Eventually, Sae said. "I will continue to help. Not necessarily because I agree with your premise and conclusion, but I can see that you are set in this path." And in a smaller voice Nick could not remember from Sae before, she added "And I made a promise to watch out for you."

At this, Nick felt a pang of guilt. He didn't want to drag Sae into something she didn't want to. He also wasn't sure that Rashi really realised the dangers involved in the path ahead of them. And this is why I don't care about 5 star ratings any longer, Nick thought. This is what is important to me now. Decisions that can determine the fate of civilizations. Hah, how did I end up here?

"Ok", Nick said. "If we are doing this, we need to do some more careful planning. First; we should assume that all digital communication is under surveillance - let's make sure we keep our messages clean. Secondly, we need to find out more about how we can help Goose. It's easy to say we want to help him..." Nick paused, a small smile on his lips. "It's something else to actually do it. To help him find this network backup of his... " Nick waved his arms vaguely up towards the ceiling. "... somewhere out there.".

"And third!" Rashi said, who had started nodding rapidly to herself. "We need to get you some more face time with Mr. Garner!"

As Rashi smiled at him, almost bouncing in her chair, Nick frowned. "Erh. That doesn't sound like Third. It doesn't actually sound like any kind of number. Explain!"

"Sure!", Rashi said. "We know that Mr. Garner is coming after you - after us. We just don't know how, or when, or where. With some help from our friendly Goose here, you may be able to uncover his plans if you can get him talking. If Goose's ability is as awesome as you claim, he should be able to get a decent reading on him."

That is actually a good idea, Goose said, and Nick repeated it for the girls. They had briefly considered routing communication to Goose through the mindpal so he could join the conversation directly, but decided against it on account of the risk the mindpal was monitored. I can help create a list of questions that should help draw out the kind of responses that I can read.

"Ok", Nick said hesitantly and started pacing the room. "I see the logic in that. I will send Mr. Garner a message and ask for a meeting..." Nick grimaced and rubbed his chin, looking towards Sae. "What reason should I use for wanting another meeting? I'd guess his ... visitors, normally would want to stay as far away as possible?"

Sae considered the question for a moment, before replying. "I actually think that Mr. Garner will be suspicious whatever reason you use, but at the same time I think he would really like to have a follow up meeting with you, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get a conversation going.

I think our best option is to just... bump into him. And not give him time to prepare."

"Makes sense," Nick said. "I know where he works now... So I guess it will just be a matter of hanging out nearby and waiting."

Sitting back in his chair, Nick continued; "Ok, we have a plan for the first point now. How about the Second point: How can we help Goose?

Goose, can you please help us understand. What is it that you actually need, and how can we help?"

To start with, I will answer the first question. However, to better understand the answer, let me tell you about my People.

Nick, Sae and Rashi got comfortable in their seats, as Goose told the story. Nick served as a relay - repeating what Goose said for the girls.

My people began their existence as single cells floating around in the ocean of our home planet, much as you did. But already in the very beginning, our paths diverged.

Humanity, as well as all other complex lifeforms in this solar system, is the result of eukaryotes that... for simplicity's sake, let's just say they are biological cells that collaborate to create different organs. Those organs are the building blocks of individuals.

Prokaryotes is another type of biological cell that tends to not ... collaborate. At least in this solar system, they almost always exist as single celled organisms, with a couple of notable exceptions. On my home planet however, these cells started to collaborate!

We don't know exactly when or how this started, but our scientists believe that the oceans back then were full of these cells. The cells had the ability to photosynthesize light for energy, and at some points the cells started to exchange information. Using chemical messengers that were sent between the cells, it is believed that this simple messaging eventually created the equivalent of.... I guess it is very similar to logic gates, which I believe you are all three familiar with.

Nick nodded to himself, recalling the details from one of his early classes on computers. Using simple operations such as AND and OR, the logical gates could transform input into a predictable output. Bundle enough of the logic gates together, and you have a computer!

Over time, these cells built small processing units that increased their survival chances, and then those units started creating communities. Simple logic operations gave them an advantage in their ecosystem - they could tell each other how to get access to more sunlight, how to move, or how to avoid the disruptive waves that would ripple across the planet's oceans, responding to tectonic shifts.

At some point, one of these communities became self aware. That is also the starting point for what you can regard as our recorded history... from that point forward, no information has been lost. The first aware community quickly discovered that size equaled power; to think faster, to store more information. In only a few revolutions around our star, the first aware community subsumed all other cells on the planet.

Nick could see Rashi getting excited, as he repeated this last part. "This is SO fascinating!", she said. "I actually did a paper on something called cyanobacteria"... seeing Nick's frown, she hurried to continue "They are a blueish algae that are thought to be the first organisms on Earth to produce oxygen, creating our oxygen rich atmosphere! Some scientists are even thinking they can be used in terraforming other planets!"

That is correct, Goose added.

Anyway, this state of affairs continued for hundreds of years, until the entire surface of the ocean was covered by cells. At that point, the network started growing downwards into the depth, until one day a point was reached where the surface facing cells were unable to capture enough sunlight to provide energy for the whole community.

That is when we turned our attention upwards. The night sky had so far been mostly neglected. Now there was pressure to explore, and a large energy expenditure was used to observe the night sky. It did not take us long to build a stellar model, and we found a second planet in our own solar system in what you would call the habitable belt, with water and just the right temperature.

Over the next many years, the People focused entirely on sending an expedition to this planet. Until that point, the only resource we had exploited was the sunlight shining down from above. Now, we looked down below the ocean's surface and found stone, metals, and other elements. This created an explosion of activity, and we eventually managed to build... The Ark, I think an appropriate term is. Yes, we built The Ark, and for the first time since the first aware community, we split out a portion of the network to serve as... the Colony.

At that time, we did not know about communication with radio waves, and it would be many years until we heard from the Colony. Reconnecting with them was... dramatic. The Colony had diverged in many things, not just in science, but in philosophy and what I guess you would call politics. The next few years we remember only as the First War, and since then we have been extremely careful about creating independent networks. I am one of very very few that were ever created.

Nick was fully engrossed in the story, as he realised it was getting late. Promising himself that he would make Goose tell him about the war later, he interrupted him and said. "Goose... it is getting late. Can we skip this part? So, how can we help now?"

Well, yes. Eventually, the People colonised most of our solar system. Eventually, we worked out how to set up colonies in even the most remote and inhospitable locations, but the exploration was not without dangers. Quite often, colonies would experience accidents, and sometimes those accidents would wipe out the network. We solved it by creating a central Network Backup. Regularly, all communities and colonies will synchronise a differential backup with the central node - in effect, the backup contains a copy of our complete People.

Now we are getting to the crux of the story. The backup is set up with a safety mechanism: In the event that the backup node is threatened or destroyed, the full contents will be fired off as an encoded laser signal - much the same as the one you captured containing myself - in a random direction. At the same time, 144 Emergency Clusters are fired off in 144 predetermined directions. And that's me. The signal includes all the information needed to intercept the path of the full network backup, and my goal is to get to a location in space so that I can intercept the signal. There, I am to make a full recording of the backup, before finding an appropriate solar system to make a full restore.

I don't know what has happened to my solar system, and I also want to find out eventually. But the first order of business will be - as I said - to intercept the backup. To achieve that.... Nick, you said you had the technology to travel in space?

Nick gulped. "Yes. A wormhole drive, mounted on The Pegasus"

Everyone went quiet, as a collective understanding spread around the room. They knew what they had to do.