Free Sentient by D. R. Rosier

About the only thing that didn’t make it look like a normal human bedroom were the luminescent lights on the ceiling, although the floor looked like hardwood.
    It was lacking the personal touches of a bedroom, but it didn’t look like a hotel room either.
    Aide asked a little nervously, “ Do you like it?”
    He was speechless but Stacey said, “It’s wonderful Aide, thank you.  What about the lights though?  Why no lamps?”
    They both felt a mental shrug followed by, “ It has to do with health.  The luminescence is as good as sun light, it takes more than just artificial gravity and radiation shielding to keep a human well in both mind and body.  These lights will serve the same purpose as the light of the sun, without the harmful UV rays of course. ”
    He said softly, “Thanks Aide, it’s all great, and the rest of the ships are on schedule?”
    Aide replied, “Yes Captain.”
    He asked, “Captain?”
    Aide said, “It is appropriate, now that you have taken command of the command ship.”
    He frowned, he understood the need for military discipline, but his only subordinate was Aide and he didn’t see the point in this case.  She felt more like a friend to him than anything else; he wondered if that was a foolish thought.
    Regardless he said, “Please continue calling me Kris.”
    Aide replied, “ Okay. ”
    He asked, “How about those three people, have you chosen them yet?”
    Aide replied, “ Yes, I have three top candidates .”
    One of the walls turned into a monitor and it showed three pictures.  One was a woman his age who was quite attractive, the second was a few years older than him, and if anything even more exotically beautiful.  The last was a seventy year old man.  If it wasn’t for the latter, he’d have thought she picked the most attractive females she could find.
    He noticed Stacey didn’t appear very happy looking at the women on the screen.  While a primitive part of him preened at the jealousy she showed he knew that could be a problem.  Besides, she had nothing to worry about, he was hers.
    He said slowly, “Umm, Aide, how did you select these people?”
    Aide replied, “ Using the parameters for what we require.  First, we needed someone intelligent and educated enough to get a grip on the current technology, one for shields, one for weapons, and one for power generation.  I came up with many possibilities and added additional parameters.  The first I added was no family, we can’t afford to take a husband and wife away from a family, and I am not prepared to bring families aboard.
    “Two, I read their doctoral thesis looking for certain qualities.  After that I still had too many, so I looked for those that the academic community does not take very seriously and are working outside the field they love despite their brilliance, in the assumption they would be easier to recruit.  Does that answer your questions? ”
    He nodded.  He understood the two beautiful women now; no man would take them seriously in the scientific community.  They looked more like naughty librarians than intellectual geniuses.  He just hoped that wouldn’t cause a problem, he obviously thought they were attractive, but he really wasn’t interested in that.  He was relieved to see Stacey didn’t look all that jealous anymore, if anything she looked angry on their behalf.  I was sure she ran into similar problems, she was gorgeous.
    Stacey asked, “So when will we start recruiting?  We only have what, little less than twelve days?”
    Aide replied, “ That is true, but at the same time not.  We probably have close to a month, I am on target for building our fleet and barring unforeseen circumstances it should be sufficient for the first thirty scouts.  It is the follow up waves that will become an issue. ”
    He frowned, “So dumb it down for me Aide, how does this technology work exactly.”
    Aide was silent for a few seconds, “ You understand nuclear reactions?  It creates