Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 570
of ensuring her immediate safety, but at the very least I could
try to send a signal out so that if she survived she would be
recompensed for my destruction.
I began to record everything that was happening.
The swans made a cocoon around me, and spun tails of
thread a thousand kilometers up and down. They poured
current into these tails, and the tug against Ventus’ magnetic
field swung us out and away, towards Diadem. As this was
happening they were making fists and hammering on my hull,
seeking entrance. I was surprised that they had not simply
crushed me, and it took some hours before I realized why they
were being so gentle. They thought I might be carrying
passengers.
I recalled that the Winds are protective of living things.
They are conscious, and have ethics and priorities, and on
Ventus their priorities put human life well below the integrity
of the ecosphere as a whole. In space, their priority would be
to protect fragile life forms, since there is no ecosphere to
manage there. They would be hostile to me as a technological
construct, but as nurturing as possible to the lives within me. I
had no proof for this theory, but it made sense from what I
knew of them.
Their fingers began to pry the seams of my hull apart. As
they entered they ate away the machinery in their way. They
were curious about it, in the way that a surgeon is curious
about the extent of a growth that has to be excised. The instant
they realized there was no life aboard, they would crush me to
dust and be gone.
I was not built with the latest technology, but I did have
the ability to repair myself and create replacements for
damaged parts. Near my power core was a nanotech assembler
station. I diverted all my resources to this as I felt my airlocks