Book 7. Chapter 29: Path of the mitespeaker
Aztu stopped laughing straight away. “No. Absolutely not. Are you trying to kill him?”
The Icon didn’t stop smiling for a moment, head tilting slightly. “What a fascinating interpretation of mite communication protocols! Though I should inform you that my extensive databases show zero recorded instances of death during standard data exchanges. Festival Cruises cannot officially diagnose technical malfunctions in non-company software, which is highly unfortunate for you miss Aztu.”
“I thought you worked with the mites all the time.” I asked, turning to Aztu. “What’s wrong with them?”
She sighed, “First, you both have no idea what it takes to successfully get a human to speak with mites. Where do I even start with this one? I do work with them, but it’s a… complicated process.” She turned to the Icon next, “Have you seen any other human or another program talk to mites besides yourself?”
The Icon shook her head. “As I would not dream of insulting or belittling you officially, might I instead point out that my observations of mite-human interactions has been somewhat limited by the notable absence of humans since the mites arrived, for the past several centuries. Would you like me to read out all zero entries? I can repeat them slowly if needed.”
The protofeather laughed at that, “All right, I suppose that one’s on me. I should get to the point first instead.” Aztu fully turned to the blond woman, blue eyes growing small and narrowed. “How many times have you connected with the mites?”
“Unfortunately, company policy requires me to maintain strict confidentiality on matters that do not involve guests. However, I can let you know technically irrelevant information such as one plus zero equals a grand total of one and there are at least ten seconds within a minute. And then hope that you can draw your own conclusions from that.”
“Grand total of one time, and ten seconds of connection at best.” Aztu said, summing it up. “And I take it just getting in contact with them was the hard part, not actually speaking to them?”
“Why yes, one plus one is indeed two. Very well done miss Aztu.” The Icon gave her a tiny clap.