You are listening to a Clarksville magazine podcast. I'm your host and narrator Kate Baker. Welcome to our fourth story for the month of November 2023 issue 2006. I hope that the story is finding you well, warm or cold depending on where you're joining us from in around the world. I want to thank you for your ongoing support of the magazine.

If you are a subscriber, if you donate on Patreon.com forward slash Clark's World,

we cannot thank you enough.

And if you haven't yet, please consider doing so this holiday season.

As I've mentioned before, and I know that I keep mentioning it, but any bit helps.

Amazon has really screwed us over with some changes that they made.

And we're working our way back to get some subscribers and to replace that

lost income. Any help that you can provide would be amazing. Our story is titled The Parts

That Make Me and is by Louise Hughes.

Now, Louise Hughes is a speculative fiction writer and time traveler from the northeast of England.

She enjoys wandering around the hills and dales, fictionally, literally, and preferably with a flask of tea.

Her work has previously appeared in Strange Horizons, Kaleitatrope, and Interzone.

And Louise is also no stranger here at Clark's World.

If you like what you hear, you can go back to AI aboard the Golden Parrot.

So my dear listener, I hope you can sit back, relax, and let me tell you a story.

When my awareness returned, I was laying on a table in the repair lap,

and the oldest part of me was gone. The new part weighed different, tasted strange on the filaments of my sensory system.

Good morning. Polador, the irate Wales engineer, ran a final check on me and declared repairs complete.

The rest of the crew was already out of medical.

We were hiding safe in low orbit until the security scan stopped.

A relief, but for the loss of that small piece.

Was it part of your original structure?

...