Laure And Jaccavrie

Poul Anderson, "Starfog" IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 709-794.

We are told, on p. 714, that:

the cybernetic brain of Daven Laure's spaceship, Jaccavrie, is aware, thinks and has "conation," which turns out to mean not cognition but volitions;

this "brain" is also described as a "computer";

(presumably, a single artifact could be both a computer and an artificial, inorganic brain, although a mere computer is not also a brain because the former functions without consciousness whereas the latter generates consciousness);

Laure does not anthropomorphize this computer but then he does not anthropomorphize nonhuman intelligent beings either;

instead, he thinks that cybernetic and alien brains have analogies to his human awareness, thoughts and volitions;

he regards his ship as a friend although some of his colleagues regard theirs as elaborate tools.

If the ships are aware, then they are not mere tools but maybe they do not object to their Rangers regarding them as such?

The recorded voice of  a Kirkasanter woman is a "...husky contralto..." (p. 713) whereas Jaccavrie's voice is "...mezzo-soprano..." (ibid.) Like everyone else, I have heard such terms but, like some others, I do not know their precise meanings. (Jack on Coronation Street summed up all operas as "The tenor wants to give the soprano a good 'seeing to' but the baritone won't let him.")

The computer knows which kind of female voice and idiomatic language are best for Laure - and these are not the same as those that he would prefer. He finds himself inwardly engaged with the Kikasanter contralto, an early signal to the reader that he will be attracted to the woman when he meets her.