Chương 157: LOG-149.

Long strides took me out of my office and into the hallway, before I glanced upwards at the ceiling, frowning. My intentions for Thirteen weren't ready to get started on yet, there were no lesson plans I needed to intervene in either. What else… my meeting with the Reef's technical staff wasn't due for another while, and I'd just sent out my memo to the Nacres regarding the new training protocols for the Batches. …

With luck there wouldn't be any beatings or other forms of abuse I needed to intervene in, at least for the moment. Which left one thing that, if I was being honest to myself about, I'd been putting off just a little bit.

"... Shell, direct me to the Pearl restoration pools. Specifically the subsection currently containing Pearl 1A." There was a light pinging noise, almost as if coming from the air itself, before the familiarly toneless voice answered my order.

"At once, Overseer. Please follow the illuminated path to the restoration center." My irritation with the mental contamination was second to the painful sense of nostalgia that Shell's voice invoked. It had been, what, forty five years since I first woke up here? Forty five years since I'd thought that being turned into a Pearl was the worst of my worries. I was nearly fifty fucking years old, now. Hell, I was technically sixty seven if I included my time as a human. …

Shunting the thoughts aside, I did what I did best and hid my emotions, stalking forward, clawed hands folding behind my back as I went. It was time to finally see just what kind of damage had forced my predecessor into the Gem equivalent of a coma. — Gems didn't have hospitals. Or medics. Or doctors. Or any kind of real repair facilities. To be a Gem was to be indestructible. Perfect. Without flaw.

The mental gymnastics they did to ignore the fact that the Authority regularly spent Gems' lives actually made them almost human, in a way. Still, for most of their lives, they thought themselves unstoppable. … Right up until you weren't. A chip. A crack. A fissure. Unfortunate facts that didn't care how hard you believed otherwise. Perhaps some method of healing could have been developed, but it was hard to come up with a solution to a problem that was socially unacceptable to speak about.

Hell, I still wasn't sure whether it was only Pink Diamond, in her guise as Rose Quartz, that could heal Gems, or whether the entire line of Quartzes could do such a thing. But in Era Two, the Imperial attitude to injured soldiers and workers was generally focused on immediate termination and replacement. And if the Gem in question was unlucky enough to be merely injured, they were squeezed for every last drop of usefulness before finally being allowed to die. Pearls… were slightly different.

Because yes, they were Gems. But unlike the vast majority of other Gems, Pearls weren't manufactured in Kindergartens, using local resources and slivers of Diamond essence. No, Pearls, as my new programming very brazenly ensured I knew, were made almost exclusively with Diamond essence, alongside trace amounts of purified water and a carefully chosen seed material to give that essence something to anchor itself around.

It meant that Pearls were grown in a way very unlike other Gems, and thus had the extremely valuable capability of actually being possible to repair. To a degree, anyway. A shattered Pearl would be considered just as impossible to fix as anything else, but one that had been scratched? Chipped? Or otherwise marred in some way or form?

Some time spent in the same growth formula intended for the production of Pearls, with careful management of an attendant Nacre to ensure no overgrowth occurred, could ensure an injured Pearl came out good as new. Now free of any damage she had suffered, she would feel as fresh as the day she'd first emerged from the Reef's creation center.

Which was why I had a slightly contemplative frown on my face as I wandered the tranquil mixture of crystalline and stone-based architecture that dominated the restoration pools. On a whim I slowed, idly trailing a clawed finger along the edge of one of the peaceful bodies of what the ignorant would see only as water. To me, with a single look I was able to tell that the mixture here was well within tolerances, and perfectly suitable for Pearl repair. I had acted as Yellow Diamond's assistant for about a year.

Long enough that the Gem I'd been substituting for should have returned if the damage was merely something on the outer layers. Or at least she should have been well on the road to recovery. But she hadn't, and that, in my mind, left two possibilities. The first was that the damage was significantly more severe than a mere disfigurement of her gemstone's surface.

That she was suffering some form of structural fault, perhaps even teetering on the edge of shattering and only holding on due to the binding effects of the growth formula she was no doubt immersed in right now. The second was that Nacre Three had been willing to commit outright treason in order to keep her perfect creation in a place of supreme prestige. That 1A had recovered physically a while ago, but was being kept here against her will, kept from returning to her position at Yellow Diamond's side.

Unlikely, considering the presences of the other two Nacres. Three would need to have either tricked them somehow, or acquired some form of leverage to coerce them into going along with that kind of borderline suicidal scheme. Moreover, even Three's pride wouldn't have blinded her to the fact that Yellow Diamond would have eventually demanded to personally visit 1A, and at that point the truth would be out. Of course, speculation would lead me nowhere.

What would get me a proper answer was a personal inspection, something that was well within my rights as the Reef's supposed Overseer. There was another pinging sound as Shell presumably noticed my presence and responded accordingly, opening a narrow path to a notably sectioned off pool, slightly higher in elevation compared to the others.

Walking up the slight incline, I crept closer and closer to the edge of the circular reservoir, noting the sleek, almost clam-like shape of a console sitting just adjacent to it, before finally leaning over that crystal edge and peering inside. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Oh." It was hard not to wince at the sheer… scale of the damage present, the ridges and craters covering nearly the entirety of the gemstone's structure in a way that reminded me of an artillery bombardment. Suffice to say, Nacre Three had not been lying in her report when it came to 1A's damaged status, it seemed.

Hesitantly ducking closer to get a better visual of the ravaged Pearl, I couldn't help the low hiss that slipped past my lips in response to just how deep some of the damage seemed to extend, to the point that under literally any other circumstance, I would have anticipated the gemstone snapping in half. But whoever had brought her here had done their job quite well when it came to keeping that from happening.

The core of the structure seemed to still be intact, if notably degraded, with thin coatings of new material visibly growing outwards in response to the growth solution flooding into the cracks left behind by whatever attack had done this to 1A. But despite the borderline miraculous result, I wasn't sure that a complete recovery was even feasible.

1A might return to functionality, but so much had been lost that it was possible, likely even, that she'd be missing large chunks of her memory and personality development. An outright reset might even be necessary to prevent old memories and mannerisms from conflicting and causing some kind of episode.

"..." Staring at the not quite shattered Gem with pressed lips, I turned to regard the material she was currently immersed in, noting the almost gel-like substance when compared to the distinctly liquid filled pools outside, even as I heard a set of clicking footsteps growing louder from behind me. A hand rose, before a claw lowered into the thick slime, curling slightly before retracting.

This time, the solution attempted far harder to cling to the digit, and when it finally slipped off, I blinked at the distinct shine sticking to that part of my lightform. Small, golden sparkles which glimmered brightly, and slowly faded the further they remained apart from the greater pool. The difference was stark to say the very least, and if my new programming was correct in the assumption it was giving me…

"Concentrated Yellow essence." I hummed in confirmation at the words, even as Nacre Three settled to a stop beside me, inspecting the Pearl in front of us with a familiar eye.

"Rate of repair?" My question earned a glance out of the corner of my former Caretaker's eye, before she looked back to the splintered gemstone, sighing.

"Three hundred solar cycles, at minimum. Though every local planetary cycle is a trial in crisis management. She really wants to shatter, the poor thing. Shell will need to maintain a constant watch on her structural status the entire time, lest she break apart right underneath our noses." Ignoring the oddly empathetic comment from the Gem I'd watched personally shatter a Peridot with my own eyes, I remained silent, staring at the Pearl that was so stubbornly clinging to life.

Eventually, Nacre Three presumably managed to take the hint that was my silence, and walked away. Leaving me with 1A and my own thoughts. Three hundred solar cycles. Not quite years, given the date format was based around Homeworld's own long since disrupted orbit around its former sun, but close. Longer, actually. And during at least the next few decades, she'd be at risk of death. One bad day. One missed check in, and she'd die. Just another casualty born of a spat between uncaring, childish Diamonds.

I couldn't help but think of cold, floating corpses, drifting through a pink station as two titans battled within. And while their fate wasn't fully my fault… No, I'm deceiving myself. It was my choices, actions and manipulation of Yellow Diamond that led to that outcome. However complex of a justification I might construct to explain the final result as that of being something outside of my control, I will always know that to be a lie.

"... I'm sorry." I'm making pointless apologies to beings that aren't a factor anymore. This is self pity, nothing more. My hands clenched slightly at the bluntness of my foreign thoughts, even as I tried to think around them. … Was 1A's current catastrophic state somehow connected to me as well? Or was I merely a bystander to a tragedy that had nothing to do with me? I… could comb through the reports, maybe.

Check for potential slip ups and rumours of what few noble Gems might have been near the event, try and learn the full story, if I could. But in the end… would that really matter? Ultimately, the choice would still be mine to make.

"..." Slowly, my hand rose to hover in front of my gemstone. A flash of light heralded the appearance of a small bottle. One of thousands. It was trivial to rip the cork off with my thumb, and soon enough, I was holding the container over the Yellow essence infused growth solution, waiting. Did I need to do it? No. This one's life meant nothing to me, ultimately. And there were a number of ways her revival could cost me.

Thoughts of a certain scar covered Peridot came to mind, as just an example of how helping others could go wrong. The risk of charity. Logically, I shouldn't do this. But alas, I wanted to. With a tilt of my wrist, the pink, glowing contents of the bottle were tipped into the reservoir, visibly beginning to seep into and mix with the growth solution around it. I stood there and observed as the essence spread, idly depositing the spent bottle back into my storage, before folding my hands behind my back once more.

My expression felt like something I couldn't quite place, as 1A's gemstone began to glow with the light of restoration. How strange.