Felka

Felka was the product of an experiment carried out by Galiana on Mars during the early days of the Conjoined, by which nanobots were interfaced with her constantly beginning early in her embryonic development. She developed into somewhat of an autistic savant, incapable of distinguishing human faces or any normal social interaction, though she had an advanced intellectual capacity, even among the Conjoiners. She spent much of her youth single-handedly operating and keeping alive the Great Wall of Mars, a massive robotic terraforming entity designed by Sandra Voi and critically damaged in the Coalition-Conjoiner War. Felka was rescued by Clavain in the evacuation of the Conjoiners' nest on Mars, shortly before the Conjoiners become the first living humans to depart the Sol System, aboard a starship clandestinely manufactured inside of Phobos.

Felka later formed one of her closest friendships on the first extrasolar planet the Conjoiners land on, Diadem, with Iverson, the sole survivor of an Amerikano colony that had been planted there via Von Neumann robots that had raised the human colonists from embryos. Iverson and Felka shared a common passion for studying emergent phenomena, including a low-level intelligence formed by a planet-wide network of ice-dwelling worms. Felka made considerable progress towards a more normal capability for social interaction during her friendship with Iverson, although Clavain later found out Iverson was in fact Setterholm, another member of the Diadem colony who killed all the others. Setterholm attacked Clavain, so Clavain was forced to kill him.

Centuries later, Felka lived in the Conjoiner mother nest, still pursuing experiments in emergent phenomena, when she departed from the infiltrated Conjoiners with Clavain. She eventually ended up on the colony on the planet Ararat and was 'taken' by the Pattern Jugglers there, presumably absorbed by them.

Clavain's last request after the final Skade encounter, which resulted in his death, was to be dumped into the Pattern Juggler mass at sea.

Appearances

• Galactic North short story anthology (2006)
  • Great Wall of Mars
  • Glacial
• The Inhibitor trilogy novels
  • Redemption Ark (2002)
  • Absolution Gap (2003) - mentioned

Arranged in chronological order.

Notes

• In the novel Absolution Gap it is suggested that Clavain's 'funeral', which resulted in his body being dumped into the Pattern Juggler mass, was observed by two women, one older, one younger, appearing from the mass of Juggler growth. Although if this was Felka and Galiana was left ambigious.
• Like almost all Conjoiners, Felka is only known under a single name. Her name is a Polish, abbreviated form of the name Felicity or Felicitas, meaning "Lucky".