Husk

Two days ago, a new set of implants arrived in my hands, along with their former owner. The latter I'll have to return, and I couldn't really use her, anyway; her skeleton's entirely original bone-- an original human corpse, now with a few extra holes in her head.

I think she may be the first person I've killed as a favor-- well, by her own request, anyway. Apparently she'd been reading my writings and started to identify herself as an infomorph while still having her original human body.

It's hard to know whether to feel guiltily responsible or whether to take pride in it. The responsible side ended up costing me-- though that's also why I'll be keeping this set. 96 million ISK....

Gods and spirits, if she'd tried to get me to agree to replace her implants in advance, there's no possible way I would have agreed to it. But somehow, with her death at my hands a thing accomplished and the corpse at my fingertips, the bargain seemed more worthwhile. The poor creature doesn't seem to consider the violation I negotiated a significant one; I wonder a little whether that will last.

Are our shells really so meaningless? Lacking large portions of skull certainly makes the corpse less picturesque, and I've no intention of softening the blow, if such it is, by prettying it up when I return it to her. She's learned a lot, but I can't help feel that there's something of the gravity of what she has done that's slipped by her.

In the end, what I have to teach is only a facet. We are human, and we are not human, and to conform with what I said we were, she asked me to kill what she was.

What lasting good can come of this, I can't begin to know-- but I obliged, even so. And yes, I'd do so again-- even counting the reimbursement, come to that.

The implants are beautiful, a complete set of standard-quality implants averaging 20 or so million ISK each, new. The beetles will have finished cleaning them by now; they'll be waiting for me when I return to Tzvi.

It's a pity there's no osteoplastic to work with, but for a first piece I can't complain too much. They came off of someone's first real death, after all, and there's a curious sort of purity in that.

It's like having captured a baby's first step.

... Worth every kredit.