Free For Want of a Nail by Mary Robinette Kowal

For Want of A
Nail
    With one hand, Rava adjusted the VR interface
glasses where they bit into the bridge of her nose, while she kept
her other hand buried in Cordelia’s innards. There was scant room
to get the flexible shaft of a mono-lens and her hand through the
access hatch in the AI’s chassis. From the next compartment, drums
and laughter bled through the plastic walls of the ship, indicating
her sister’s conception party was still in full swing.
    With only a single camera attached, the
interface glasses didn’t give Rava depth perception as she
struggled to replug the transmitter cable. The chassis had not been
designed to need repair. At all. It had been designed to last
hundreds of years without an upgrade.
    If Rava couldn’t get the cable plugged in and
working, Cordelia wouldn’t be able to download backups of herself
to her long-term memory. She couldn’t store more than a week at a
time in active memory. It would be the same as a slow death
sentence.
    The square head of the cable slipped out of
Rava’s fingers. Again. “Dammit!” She slammed her heel against the
ship’s floor in frustration.
    “If you can’t do it, let someone else try.” Her
older brother, Ludoviko, had insisted on following her out of the
party as if he could help.
    “You know, this would go a lot faster if you
weren’t breathing down my neck.”
    “You know, you wouldn’t be doing this at all if
you hadn’t dropped her.”
    Rava resisted the urge to pull the mono-lens out
of the jack in her glasses and glare at him. He might have gotten
better marks in school, but she was the AI’s wrangler. “Why don’t
you go back to the party and see if you can learn something about
fertility?” She lifted the cable head and tried one more time.
    “Why, you little—” Rage choked his voice, more
than she had expected from a random slam. She made a guess that his
appeal to the repro-council didn’t go well.
    Cordelia’s voice cut in, stopping what he was
going to say. “It’s not Rava’s fault. I did ask her to pick me
up.”
    “Yeah.” Rava focused on the cable, trying to get
it aligned.
    “Right.” Ludoviko snorted. “And then you dropped
yourself.”
    Cordelia sighed and Rava could almost imagine
breath tickling her skin. “If you’re going to blame anyone, blame
Branson Conchord for running into her.”
    Rava didn’t bother answering. They’d been having
the same conversation for the last hour and Cordelia should know
darn well what Ludoviko’s answer would be.
    Like programming, he said, “It was
irresponsible. She should have said no. The room was full of
intoxicated, rowdy people and you are too valuable an asset.”
    Rava rested her head against the smooth wood
side of the AI’s chassis and closed her eyes, ignoring her brother
and the flat picture in her goggles. Her fingers rolled the slick
plastic head of the cable, building a picture in her mind of the
white square and the flat gold cord stretching from it. She slid
the cable forward until it jarred against the socket. Rotating the
head, Rava focused all her attention on the tiny clues of friction
vibrating up her arm. This was a simple, comprehensible
problem.
    She didn’t want to think about what would happen
if she couldn’t repair the damage.
    Being unable to download her old memories meant
Cordelia would have to delete herself bit by bit to keep
functioning. All because Rava had asked if she wanted to dance. At
least Ludoviko hadn’t heard that part of the accident. Rava
rotated the head a fraction more and felt that sweet moment of
alignment. As she pushed the head forward, the pins slid into their
sockets, as if they were taunting her with the ease of the
connection. The head thunked into place. “Oh, yes. That’s
good.”
    She opened her eyes to the gorgeous vision of
the cable plugged into its socket.
    Cordelia spoke, her voice tentative. “It’s
plugged in?”
    For another moment, Rava focused on the cable
before her brain caught what