Snowflake cleared her desktop of the completed project file. The shape of the commdesk’s photon-projection reverted to the default landscape. The terrain was dominated by a simple floating cylinder bracketed by two square grids forced by perspective into acute diamonds. The grid wall represented a plane upon which the shadow cast by the cylinder was either a circle or a square, depending upon your axis of preference.
It was a reminder to herself that the truth of a matter was largely dependent upon ones point of view, that all angles should be considered when analysing a problem and that stepping beyond the thoroughly documented dimensions only complicates things unnecessarily.
It was an illustration she had stumbled across in her social studies, simple enough for her herself to encode into the holodeck yet profound enough for her to want to.
Adopting a chi at rest pose initiated the daily ritual. It was a physical exercise, a dance of sorts, incorporating many of the sweeping and expressive movements that can be found in the martial arts and Ida’s spirit-stirring mnemonic sequences.
A fluid open palmed reach pushed the central cylinder into it’s own shadow. Sliding into but not beyond the boundary wall.
The remaining circle flashed, enlarged, became dominant as it re-orientated itself to float parallel to the desk and spawned six colourful spheres one after the other. Each sphere sped to the edge of the circular plane equidistantly, while the mothering circle faded to a faintly glowing ring.
Snowflake embraced the nearest sphere then released it with widely expanding arms, causing the planet to grow, it’s spin now noticeable, it continents and oceans prominent. Just one of the three temperate worlds she oversaw in this system, a fourth temperate planetary sphere from a different system remained simply within reach, just beyond the current focus, should she wish to beckon it.
The dominant fore-world whirled and zoomed down to hone-in on the planetary command and control centre. Here Snowflake could review any of the meetings and conversation her algorithmic-ally calibrated simulacrum had taken part in upon the planets service. She favoured this personal touch, the remotely collected data could be directly fed into her sensory implants so she could minutely monitor every twitch and heartbeat of the planetary staff she oversaw.
Many of the minimally capable refugees and homeless now sworn to service would be found stations to attend in these facilities. Not necessary the most efficient use for them but the calculated losses were acceptable.
She was pleased that her review of the production facility managers reaction to these decisions had not led to any notably negative responses.
The same was true for each of the worlds she virtually visited in turn, stoppages and logistics difficulties were each resolved with a pre-programmed gesture, slide or swipe. While her avatar delivered those graceful directions in the form of fully expounded upon diplomatic language, succinct and clear, just as they had become accustomed to.
On occasion, as was her wont, she would drop in to personally deliver an astute observation gleaned through her prosthetic senses. Just enough to inject a desired edge.
With six fully developed worlds to manage, some more than others, even this minimal effort amounted to a significant workout.
The same results, or better, could be achieved from the pod, with much less time or physical strain.
This method kept her fitter tho and better able to personally defend her vulnerable state, she told herself. Yet the truth cast its angular shadow even as she turned away from it. The pod was so so similar to the clone vat she had awoken screaming in when time began.
River’s rescue was a delivery from an endless formless void of self-awareness where there was no self to be aware of. River gave her an identity, a purpose, the charisma and training to accomplish that purpose. Their survival, everything they had accomplished together was due to the painstaking care she, Snowflake Tem, had put into analysing the effects of carefully weighted personal presentation.
She had told no one that the screaming in her skull had never stopped.