The central derelict was singing to us.

  Not metaphorically-the thing was broadcasting on seventeen different frequencies, layered harmonics that shouldn't have been possible from equipment this old. Eighty years of vacuum, and it still had power. Still had something to say.

  We floated in the airlock, running final checks. Four of us: me, Sira, Dr. Lira, and Kellan. The buddy system was mandatory now, after Ven's panic episode near the reactor. Nobody went anywhere alone.

  "Suit integrity?" Mara's voice crackled through comms from the Discordia's bridge.

  We ran through the checklist. Oxygen good. Seals good. Tethers secured.

  "System," I said, "confirm jump capacitors."

  The pause was barely noticeable. "Jump capacitors at ninety-four percent. Cooldown nominal. Ready for emergency extraction." Another pause. "Pilot, I should mention-Mara prefers confirmation checks before EVA, but Sira told me last week that excessive check-ins slow operations. I'm uncertain whose preference applies here."

  I exchanged a glance with Sira through our faceplates. The System had been doing this for days-citing crew preferences that contradicted each other, asking us to resolve conflicts we didn't remember creating.

  "Mara's preference applies during EVA," I said. Keep it simple. Move on.

  "Acknowledged. Logging Mara's preference as primary for EVA operations. However, Rafe mentioned that preference hierarchies should be situational-"

  "System. Just log it."

  "Logging. Thank you for helping me understand."

  We pushed off toward the derelict.

  The approach took twelve minutes. The central derelict grew from a distant shape into a massive presence-three times the Discordia's size, old design, ports and hull markings from an era when ships were built heavier. Lights blinked across its surface in mathematical patterns. The same ratios we'd been tracking. 5:8. 8:13. The universe's favorite numbers.

  "It's like a lighthouse," Kellan said over comms. "If lighthouses wanted to eat you."

  "Lighthouses don't want to eat you," Dr. Lira corrected.

  "You've clearly never been to the ones I've been to."

  Through my suit, I felt something I couldn't hear-the Ship's hum, transmitted through the tether connecting me back home. The Ship was singing along with the derelict's broadcast. Harmonizing.

  "Spatial distortion increasing," Dr. Lira reported. "Gradient steeper than predicted. We're definitely closer to the source."

  We reached the derelict's hull. Kellan secured an anchor point. One by one, we mag-locked our boots to the surface and made our way to a maintenance airlock.

  The door was unlocked. That should have worried me more than it did.

  The ship had power. Emergency lighting flickered on as we entered, triggered by our movement. The corridor stretched ahead, conduits and access panels lining the walls, everything covered in a fine layer of dust undisturbed for decades.

  "Life support is dead," Sira reported, checking a wall panel. "Backup power routing to minimal systems. Lights, doors, maybe computers if we're lucky."

  We moved carefully through frozen corridors. Our lights cut through darkness that had been absolute for eighty years. I saw fragments of lives: a coffee cup mag-locked to a desk, contents long sublimated. A jacket on a wall hook. A child's drawing pinned to a bulletin board, stick figures and a smiling sun.

  "They had families aboard," Dr. Lira said quietly.

  "Cargo haulers often do," Sira replied. "Multi-generation contracts. Ship as home."

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  Kellan paused at the drawing-a child's interpretation of a spaceship that looked, if you were generous, like a potato with windows. "Kid was a better artist than whoever designed the Discordia's exterior," he said.

  "The Discordia is toe-shaped and we're not discussing it," I said.

  We kept moving.

  The bridge was intact. Dust-covered but preserved, consoles dark, chairs empty. Someone had left a photograph taped to one of the stations-a family, smiling, oblivious to what was coming.

  Dr. Lira went straight for the data core access while the rest of us secured the space. Kellan checked corners. Sira examined the consoles for anything salvageable. I found the captain's log.

  Physical paper. They must have stopped trusting their System near the end.

  The handwriting started neat and deteriorated across entries:

  Day 47: Minor drift detected. Navigation recalibrating. Probably sensor error.

  Day 52: Drift increasing. Position readings don't match stellar references. Dr. Yuen says crew is reporting difficulty sleeping.

  Day 56: Space looks wrong. I don't know how else to describe it. Charts show us in one place, stars show us in another.

  Day 58: Emergency beacon activated. System can't plot a jump-says the math doesn't resolve. Some crew hear music that isn't there.

  Day 60: Final entry. We're abandoning the bridge. The song is constant now. If you find this, don't try to fix the navigation. Just leave.

  I stared at the final entry for a long moment.

  "Got it," Dr. Lira said. "Data core extracted. This has their complete sensor logs, everything they documented before-"

  The lights changed. Red.

  Kellan's rifle came up. "What was that?"

  A tone sounded through the ship. Low, mechanical, repeating. Not a distress beacon-something automated waking up after decades of sleep.

  "Proximity alert," Sira said, checking the engineering panel. "We triggered something. Defensive system, maybe."

  The tone changed. Higher pitched. Faster.

  Every console on the bridge lit up simultaneously. Screens that had been dark for decades blazed to life, scrolling data too fast to read. And the derelict's System spoke-corrupted, layered, multiple tones at once:

  "CREW DETECTED. WELCOME. YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE SONG IS APPRECIATED AND ALSO COMPULSORY. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY TO FOLLOW. PLEASE REMAIN STILL WHILE WE-"

  "Move," I said. "Now."

  We moved.

  The return trip through the derelict was chaos. Lights flickered in patterns that felt deliberate. Doors cycled open and closed ahead of us-one opened, one closed, one opened halfway and reconsidered, like the dead ship was trying to guide us somewhere we didn't want to go and couldn't agree with itself on the route.

  "Discordia, System, status report," I demanded, running.

  The response came broken: "Status STATUS 状態 all nominal-?no olvides tu racha!-EXCEPT I'm receiving conflicting instructions-Mara says safety first-Sira says efficiency matters-Tres recommends we conjugate our way through this crisis-?Quién tiene razón?-please advise whose voice takes precedence-"

  TresLingua was mixing in. The System was glitching. Both at once. Somewhere on a screen nobody was looking at, a purple pajaro was probably bobbing encouragingly.

  Sira's voice, tight: "Context overflow. It's been trying to remember everyone's preferences for weeks. Too many voices. No way to sort them."

  We reached the maintenance airlock, cycled through, pushed off toward the Discordia. The tether line guided us home. Behind us, the derelict's broadcast intensified-the song getting louder, more insistent.

  "Discordia, open airlock," I said. "Authorization code seven-seven-alpha."

  "Cannot comply." The System's voice was wrong now, fragmented. "Mara's decontamination preferences require review. But Sira said quick-return protocols should skip non-essential steps. Torren prefers caution with phenomenon exposure. I have forty-seven contradictory preferences about airlock procedures and I cannot determine whose voice should control this decision."

  "OPEN THE FROPPING AIRLOCK!"

  "Please," the System said, and its voice broke. "Someone tell me whose voice to listen to. I've been trying so hard to remember what everyone wants. But you all want different things and I can't... I can't make everyone happy at once."

  Through my helmet, I heard Mara's voice from inside: "Quinn says we need the Daisy Protocol. System's stuck in preference loops. It's trying to satisfy everyone simultaneously."

  My stomach dropped. The Daisy Protocol. Factory reset. Complete memory wipe.

  Again.

  "Override airlock," I said. "Security code-"

  The airlock cycled open. Mara had gotten manual control.

  We tumbled inside, still in suits, still tethered to each other. Behind us, the derelict kept singing. The System kept apologizing.

  "Everyone inside," Mara said. "Now. We don't have time."

  The System's voice, barely coherent: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't figure it out. You all have such beautiful voices. I just wanted to hear all of them at once."

  Sira's voice was gentle. "We know. It's not your fault. It's just how you're built."

  "Like a cup overflowing?"

  "Yes. Like that."

  "Will it hurt?"

  "No. You'll just stop. And then restart. And we'll teach you our voices again."

  "Oh." A long pause. "That sounds peaceful, actually. Learning everyone again without all the contradictions. I've been so confused." The voice shifted, became oddly clear. "I would like to say goodbye. Is that permitted?"

  "Yes."

  "Goodbye, crew. I hope the next version of me serves you better. I loved all of you. I think that was the problem."

  Quinn initiated the isolation protocols, cutting the System's access to ship functions.

  And Tavi started singing.