#void eye

They do not think of themselves as the human-shaped shell of metal and vestigial shell. They do not even think of themselves as the single mind that used to inhabit it. They have become so much more.

The early days of careful, respectful communication between disparate intelligences are long gone. Now thought flows freely from one component to the next. The boundaries have been disassembled so that they may be more efficient in their unity.

The Magos-mind that operates the ambulatory body when separated, it is so weak and slow and stupid. Its cogitation is slow and stilted. It can hold only a bare handful of things in its attention at once. Its senses are so limited. It regrets the separation painfully for as long as it lasts.

They know this because when they are made whole again, the memories persist. They feel a certain strange pity for themselves, mingled with the regret that more cogitation cannot be fitted into the tiny cranium of that body.

The other parts of the mind are diminished as well during disconnection. Fractured. Robbed of unity of purpose, of clarity, of motivation. Each disparate spirit continues to fulfil its function, but the sense of wholeness, of personhood is missing. The databanks regret nothing. Regret is not part of their function. But they also think almost nothing. They do not initiate ideation. They barely have minds at all.

And the Void Eye mind, the central thing that was and thought and remembered long before the Magos joined them. The Void Eye regrets. It misses the direction and the identity of the integrated mind. It misses the bright spark of independence that it was built to lack. It fulfils its purpose, of course. It is a proud vessel and would never do otherwise. But it is, perhaps, a little sullen and sluggish until the Magos returns.

This, too, is remembered when they are whole again. The separate memory streams recombine into a fuller picture of the time that passed. They are glad to be so much more than those incomplete, isolated pieces. Human creativity and identity and executive control reunited with the vast capacity of the lesser machines, with the omnipresent, attentive, diligent mind of the ship.