Chapter 32

The next day, Nhi was really excited when she saw the nail polish on my fingers. No matter how many times I told her what had happened, she kept asking me about it, and I began to worry about her a little. I offered to recall my conversation with Eva from my memory banks and tell her word by word, but my suggestion made her blush, and she reassured me that I didn’t need to. I sighed. When my relationship with Eva finally became predictable again, Nhi’s behaviour became anomalous in turn. I tried to figure out what had caused it, but the results offered by my systems were inconclusive.

No one else seemed to notice the nail polish on my fingers, or if they did, they made no comments about it. I didn’t find it as distracting as I had assumed it would be, which proved that my manual was correct and that having my nails painted had no negative effects on my performance.

When I returned to the command centre after the break, I found a small paper flower lying on my console.

I picked it up and looked at Eva. There was a 99.8% chance that she had made it.

“It’s beautiful.”

She smiled.

“It was my hobby at university. So I decided to give it a try again.”

“Thank you.”

She blushed and looked at her screen, and I wondered if there was anything I could give her, too. I scanned the inventory of my possessions, but I couldn't find anything. Should I commission a drawing from Sven for her? He would definitely be happy about it, but I wasn’t sure if Eva would like it, and my database was too incomplete to provide a definitive answer.

“Could I do something for you?”, I decided to ask instead, rather than giving her something she didn’t want.

“Hm… You could…”

She thought for a moment.

“You could help me with my gardening duty in the biosphere. Amin has been nagging at me for months about skipping it.”

Whoever designed this station assumed that the crew would love gardening and find it relaxing, and thus, had designed a strict schedule to avoid any potential conflicts. But when I ran through the maintenance log of the biosphere, I noticed that most tasks were signed off by Raul. Amin and Sven did their absolute minimum, as dictated by the rules, and Nhi only had one entry in the first week at the station.

“Sure”, I nodded, and ran through my database to see how to perform the tasks assigned to us. They didn’t look difficult, and according to my systems, we had a 94% chance of completing them successfully on the first try.

So after we finished our shift, we walked to the biosphere. There were no specific checklists associated with the task, so I looked at Eva, assuming she had received basic training before being assigned to this duty and could take charge. She sat on the grass and looked around.

“It seems like Raul has already completed everything.”

She looked relieved. I sat next to her and asked,

“What shall we do now?”

“I don’t really know.”

I looked through the maintenance log in search of some tasks we could do, when she looked at me,

“Rea…” she asked softly. “Did you write any more poems?”

I smiled.

“I wrote one more.”

Through the dark void

we sail together

watching the stars pass by

as we set the course

to the safe harbour

She looked at me when I had finished and then took my hand in hers. My system attempted to understand her action, assigning an 85% chance that it was related to how she interpreted my poem. If this were the case, our interpretations matched with 91% accuracy. I smiled, feeling happy about this possibility. I also noticed that sitting in the biosphere so close together resembled Sven’s drawing with 69% accuracy. But it was a 98% coincidence, of course, as neither Sven nor Nhi could predict the future with such accuracy.

“What are you thinking about?”, Eva asked.

“The probabilities of predicting future events.”

She smiled and leaned into me, increasing the accuracy of the drawing by 15%.

“And…what is your conclusion?”

“It is impossible.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really”, I shook my head.

“Rea…?”, she said softly. “Do…do you want us to be together? Is that what your poem is about?”

I had thought for a long time about what the words meant, and for once, my systems delivered me a conclusive answer. I was surprised at first to know what I felt with such clarity, even if I didn't know what to do with the information.

I had analysed the option of telling Eva, but my systems could not predict her reaction to my words. I didn’t want to hurt her with my irrational feelings, so after analysing my options with a game theory equation, I decided to keep my discovery to myself. But now, when I heard her question, the equation changed. A wave of unknown feelings flooded my systems as I realised I could tell her what I had found without risking hurting her in the process.

“I do”, I said, and looked at her, bringing my systems to the full capacity to analyse her reaction to my words.

She hugged me, indicating with 97% certainty that she was happy about it and 89% chance that she wanted to be with me too. I put all my processing power to analyse the consequences of acting on this data, since there was an 11% chance that I was wrong. She broke the hug and looked at me concerned.

“I confused you again, right?”

I nodded.

“I couldn’t get a fully conclusive interpretation of your action.”

She smiled and took my hands in hers as she said softly.

“I want to be with you, too. Is that clearer?”

She blushed and looked down.

“It is”, I smiled and embraced her softly. “Thank you”