Achilles remained silent.
Mansa Nguna smacked her lips while looking at him up and down with lazy gold eyes that held the particular quality of someone encountering a specimen that defied the categories they had spent eons constructing.
Her expression moved through several calculations simultaneously, professional assessment mixing with the genuine curiosity of a scientist who found unexpected results.
"Bounded Lifeforms never cease to amaze me."
She shook her head slowly with something approaching fondness.
"Okay. Come here and let me see what this integration is all about."
Achilles went forward, following the impulses and commands she sent through the Engineering she believed had taken hold within him, his movements carrying the precise quality of someone responding to direction rather than acting on independent will.
