Tangle in the Dark - Kassidor

about Ava. Other humans were merely clutter for her. Shechose Thom because he wasn’t much clutter and her sexualneeds were modest. She probably had her hormones set atabout 30% like most of the senior officers. She acted like itanyway.He knew that Ava would be loyal to the mission becauseshe had no reason not to, not because of some heartfeltcamaraderie. Her friendships were tepid, but she still neededthem. “Let’s not keep harping on this,” Kelvin said. “Ifnothing else it’s a waste of time. We all know that if Ava isagainst us we’ll never receive another time slice. Since we arestill receiving time slices, we have to assume she’s on ourside.”“She could have created this whole war for her ownentertainment,” Heymon said. “She has the power to do that.She has the power to contain Alan, and he had the power tomake us see a huge and ancient civilization in place of abiodisaster. She could be storing all the real signals from Soland feeding us this script.”“The laws of technology allow it,” Elmore said, “but I’veseen her soul and know she hasn’t got the ambition.”“True,” Kelvin said278