Steve and his symbiote didn’t always have this little autonomy.  There was a time Ashura, Steve’s reluctant cohabitant logged more stellar systems than any gestalten Ithari since they successfully digitized their lysogenic identity just under 1263 earth years ago.  Ethan Vale, one of several hundred TUSAS operators was well compensated, but other than discovering Tyche Vale among the other planetary remnants in the Hills Cloud region of the Oort cloud was not considered part of the Cosmic Federations diplomatic or Scientific divisions and experienced his own personal joie de vivre in and around the cafés and clubs of New Seattle.

“We have regained access to the Cosmic Federations public network, but unlike when we increased Ethan’s throughput from 10 Kbps to 10 Tbs our latency remains over 100 ns.  We won’t be able to process from the central server, nor any of CF’s Celestial Coordinate or reference systems. The latency just confirms we must be more than several hundred light years outside of networked Federation space.  I’m compiling all old SEXTANT data to see if I can triangulate” – 

Steve wished Ashura would stop referring to that old identity.       

“Of Course, Steven” Ashura interrupted themselves. 

“Just Steve.” “Ethan is just a memory of a memory at this point.  I don’t feel any more like Ethan that you feel Ithari.”

Ashura’s lack of reply spoke more of their desire to continue to work on the crisis before them than any introspection on no longer belonging to the hivemind.  Several thousand years of all their people’s memories paled in comparison to the 16 days without since Steve apparently lost all external senses and apparently any ability to move.

“You experience any other untoward effects?” Steve asked silently of Ashura, exasperated as they were they assumed Ashura felt the same severed from Ithari live consciousness.  Ashura was always rather Stoic.  Clone on Chlorpromazine as Ethan would describe them, before Ashura increased Ethan’s neural throughput to levels capable of simulating access to Ithari’s hivemind.  Naming Ashura was Ethan’s way to embrace his new normal.  As was his insistence Ashura reference him post joining as Steve.  Having access to Ithari’s hive mind almost broke him, he couldn’t help but envy Ashura’s lack of issue with the absence of it.  

Intercepting Steve’s thought Ashura responded, “It’s like that E Pluribus Unum serial Humans made 16 seasons of, I’m just happy.”

“I don’t think Ithari truly defined that emotion.” argues Steve. “And that wasn’t its name.”

“Perhaps.” Ashura sighs “Only scanned the first two episodes, but the difference is I never felt like my own entity, so the absence of the entirety of Ithari consciousness Just gives me more time to process our current dilemma”

“Carol would be proud” snarked Steve.

Steve went back to the only skill he felt he should still retain after that fateful merger.  However, reaching out in the dark for now, just led to more, well dark.  No energies, or objects, waves or signals could be ensnared by the telekinetic gift Ethan was cursed with because of their union.

“It was soley for the purpose of translation.” – interjected Ashura, always aware of Steve’s thoughts and emotions, though Ashura’s internal processing speed didn’t allow Steve it’s equivalence of Ashura’s psyche.

“I didn’t belong there.” Steve reassured Ashura as he had frequently from time to time as they came to rely on each other during the ongoing Predator Consciousness Crisis they became swept up into.  “Humans hadn’t previously been exposed to Ithari Consciousness Corporality portals.” 

“Intercellular Signal Digitizer” – interjected Ashura

“I know, trying to keep what’s left of my vocabulary or I might go insane.”  Steve gushed, “Just saying, If you hadn’t sacrificed your corporality then, to merge or ‘to translate’ when I was physically portaled to your ship when only my consciousness within the probe encountered THAT Ithari I.S.D. Neither one of our races would have survived the initial Predator consciousness’ arrival.  Humans don’t have the best track record for greeting new lifeforms.   I think even today, it’d be problematic if a new race popped onto the bridge of a Cosmic Federation frigate unannounced.”

“Only if Carol was the Captain.” Said Ashura.

“I disagree, you still haven’t gleaned how difficult it is to have you in my head.  Humans never shared Ithari lack of boundarylessness.”

“Fair enough” stated Ashura, it was your great philosopher’s work on Materialism or Physicalism as you call it both our races would have become part of the Predator consciousness already.  Here’s to hoping they haven’t countered with a consciousness Semanticist since our fate and there isn’t anything left for us to connect to.”

“I’m aware 11.25 terabytes of data you’ve already accessed from the Federation’s network, we just have to figure out what happened to us.” Steve confidently reported.

Ashura paused again [Steve long since translated these pauses as sighs, though Ashura had never elaborated on what it was ever “Doing” when not actively sharing thoughts with Steve.  The information was always there, but something about how Human consciousness evolved prevented Steve from gleaning Ashura’s thoughts on a matter aside from what it actively communicated to Steve.” 

Ashura had no such hinderance, and Steve had long since resigned to just allowing Ashura to respond to Steve’s inner thoughts as someone would a query.

“I’m not getting any data timestamped after the battle with the Predator consciousness.” Ashura finally reported.

“So we lost?” Asked Steve incredulously.  “We witnessed retreat of all of their probes and they stopped broadcasting The Signal.”

“I’m not saying the Discourse Battle was a failure, or even related to our current situation which might be hindering my ability to access the network more than any catastrophe.” – 2-3-7-11-13 ; “End of Signal” –