Activation Degradation, page 3
The other robot said “lose your materials” in the same way Unit Four had said “I’m so sorry” to Unit Two.
This, the necessary spacewalk, concerned Unit Three. It was afraid for it.
Unit Four leaned its CPU housing against Unit Three’s, unsure of what other gesture of reassurance it could make. “I will use caution.”
Moving away from its sister unit, Four glanced back for only a moment before climbing steadily into the airlock. The door thunked behind it. A resounding, final sort of sound. A green-lit bar on the hatch showed the atmospheric pressure inside the lock slowly dwindling, seeping out, leaving the room, eventually, in total vacuum.
With trepidation, Unit Four climbed up between the bulkheads.
It wasn’t the ladder or the tunnel it was afraid of. On the contrary, the shaft itself was a comfort. This end of the hub held the organics; all around the robot, liquid proteins floated between the thick walls of the vat. Similarly, those walls now protected Unit Four—cradling it in their center. But only for its brief journey up the ladder.
Once it left the shaft, however, there would be nothing to protect it from the harshness of space.
It reached the top just as the airlock lighting on the exterior door signaled the all clear. Forcing itself not to hesitate, it broke the outer seal, flinging the hatch outward.
A vast emptiness met it on the other side.
A vast aloneness.
The hub curved away from it on all sides at a six-degree angle, the surface slightly convex. The arms reached out like a starburst and continued their constant plod, swooping “above” and “below” Unit Four’s position.
In the center of the hub lay the communications tower—their connection to the ansible relays that allowed the AMS units to connect in near real-time with Earth.
On the opposite side of the hub lay another tower—a large, coiling ion-plasma capture station, which passively absorbed the radiation from Io’s taurus and converted it into electrical power for the platform. Power that supported the platform’s uplinks. Power that transformed the proteins in the vats into robots. Power that had given Unit Four its functionality.
Moving deftly within the shell, Unit Four found the beginning of the hub’s access tracks—a series of small, curved anchor points, branching out in two directions from the hatch. Perfect for lodging a grasping pad into. It exited the hub easily, pushing the door closed behind it, sealing itself out.
It simply needed to crawl to the end of one track and wait for arm-C to align. A small leap from the stationary hub to the rotating arm should prove easy.
But best be sure all systems were working on the hard-body first.
As promised, it immediately tested its jets. Using interfaced commands, it chose a point-three-second burst.
The jet engaged. A puff of whitish gas erupted from a rear port.
Unit Four was not prepared to counter the force.
It had miscalculated—the light spurt sent it barreling forward, stealing the atmosphere from its air pumps.
It lost its hold on the track. The front of its shell scraped across the hub’s plating, and its grasping pads scrambled for purchase as the robot careened toward the edge, where the platform’s arms were yawing round like the blades of a giant fan.
Flailing, it searched for any protuberance. But the jet had sent it bowling away from the path.
The lip of the hub came closer.
Beyond—just darkness.
Unit Four’s vents fluttered. It rolled, twisted itself. Hit its jets again.
The new angle thrust it away from the edge just in time. Saving it from a tumble into nothing.
Unit Four caught the track right before its body threatened to sail past it once more, stopping itself with a mighty jerk.
Its pumps roared. Its fluids surged. Action chemicals and danger signals ricocheted through its extremities. With a stutter of air rattling through its torso, it gave itself a moment to recompose itself.
It didn’t need any more diversions, distractions, or sudden failures.
“You all right?” its handler asked. “What just happened?”
Unit Four wasn’t sure exactly what kind of information Earth received about its minute-to-minute functionality, but likely its biometrics had just spiked.
“I’m fine,” it insisted. “I am on my way.”
It set a grasping pad into the next divot, then the next, pulling itself along, determined not to let its own constant miscalculations get the best of it.
Chapter Three
The shell echoed strangely here, in the dead of space, where there were no outside sounds to compete with those of Unit Four’s own mechanics.
If it chose, it could change the registering frequencies and the sensitivity of its hard-body’s sensors. It could let the shell pick up Jupiter’s aurorae—let the ping of charged particles bouncing off the magnetosphere rattle through its CPU.
That might make it feel more grounded. More anchored.
Less . . . adrift.
Hoping the reconfiguration wouldn’t seem too strange to its handler, it set new parameters for the shell’s instruments, and shifted the detected radio signals into the audio frequency range.
The planet sang.
A haunting, clicking reverberation—akin to something one might expect from a creature dependent on echolocation—filled the confines of its hard-body. The sounds were soaring, ghostly. Of nature and yet seemingly preternatural.
Unit Four felt much better for the song’s company.
And yet, it was another reminder of its lifetime limits. Of the radiation constantly surrounding it, eating its time away.
“I want to go over the primer you have on the invaders,” its handler said, interrupting Unit Four as it adamantly tried to focus on grab, pull, grab, pull. “Call it up for me.”
Unit Four searched its databanks, found the files quickly, and spread them open.
“Twelve files?” it asked. “That’s all?”
Its one job was to fight the invaders. It had more information on how to sauté spring onions than it did on the aliens.
“We don’t have a lot of primary source materials, I’m sorry. Our interactions with the invaders have been quick and violent. They come into the solar system every few cycles. They buzz our planets, once in a while break something, then buzz out again. Occasionally there are battles—dogfights. But those have all ended in . . . Doesn’t matter. Point is, I wish there was more for you. It’s important that you integrate everything we do have, so that you have the best shot at engaging them effectively. I need to make sure your software is executing correctly, all right?”
“All right.”
“Should we talk skirmishes, or ship design first?”
“Ship design.” It pulled up the image files. There was a set of precisely drawn and professionally organized schematics, but they were light on tactically useful information. Another file contained a single blurry picture of a boxy craft. Hard lines, not the roundness of the boats. Sharp points and right angles. Long, but not branching. The image was so degraded, Unit Four couldn’t even identify its primary materials or decide which parts might perform which functions. Another set of pictures displayed various explosions, though Unit Four couldn’t tell what, exactly, was exploding. In one, something that might have been the platform hung off to the right.
“Most ships we’ve seen have had thick armor plating,” its handler said. “Heavy stuff. We can bore in, but one shot won’t bore deep enough. As far as we’re aware, they don’t have frequency-shielding like our boats.”
“Weapons?”
“Energy weapons—phased anti-plasma, same as yours. Though theirs seem to have a higher rate of fire than those on your boat. We don’t have any records of physical projectiles, bombs, or destabilizing tactics—no transient electromagnetic disturbances or anything.”
Unit Four called up the accompanying vid files. There were only two of them. The first was all of three seconds long. In it, a craft, different from the ones in the blurry pictures—larger, but with those same hard-cut corners—darted across the camera’s field of vision. A glowing-green shot of anti-plasma fire followed.
The next clip was even shorter. The image was completely blacked out, but there was one point eight seconds of a sound. A high-pitched screeching that grated in Unit Four’s microphones. The sound was consistent, never changing in volume or note. Hard to tell if it was artificial or biological.
“The ship you’ll face is likely larger than the boat—way more massive,” its handler explained. “That means you’ll be more maneuverable, but also that they’ll be able to outrun you in a straight line.”
“And what of the aliens themselves? There are no records here of their makeup—their vulnerabilities, their environmental requirements—nothing.”
“No one’s ever gotten a good look. And we don’t have any samples.”
“Even with the skirmishes, no one has recovered—?”
“There’s nothing to recover, Unit Four. The skirmishes end with . . .”
“End with what?”
Its handler sighed. “At best, the invaders’ ships are obliterated. Sometimes by us, more often by them. Most of the time they simply get away, leaving a wake of destruction behind. You can’t let them get away this time. We’re counting on you. If the mine goes down, if we lose power—”
“I understand,” Unit Four acknowledged.
“You should have a file with sets of telemetry readings,” its handler continued. “That’ll help you get a feel for how their ships move. But I have to warn you, there’s no real pattern from fight to fight.”
Unit Four pulled up the real-time recordings, let them run through its CPU at highly expedited play speeds. The battling ships were little more than labeled dots on a three-dimensional field. It noted the invader’s maximum velocities, accelerations, their maneuverability, their tendency to attack and then immediately retreat.
“Will you port me the trajectory our invaders—this ship—came from?” it asked.
“I can give you all the data we have from first detection,” they said. “But the buoys didn’t see them until they were well within Jovian space. We weren’t even sure the ship wasn’t just passing space junk until it started carving up our equipment.”
A moment of blankness followed, then a searing, internal light whited out Unit Four’s cameras for point zero six seconds as the information was uploaded via the long-distance ansible link.
The craft’s incoming trajectory told it little.
“There is truly no further information?” Unit Four asked.
“I have a few more audio files, but they’re just . . . there’s nothing in them but the dying cries of Berserker bots and AMS units. I can give them to you if you want, but I don’t see how they’d help.”
No, that definitely wouldn’t help, but Unit Four was still sure there had to be more. Something its handler simply hadn’t thought to give it, maybe. “The invaders have never tried to make contact?” Unit Four pressed. “There are no other records?”
There was an unnatural pause.
“We have . . . accounts. There’s a reason we call them invaders,” its handler said. “Again—this info isn’t relevant to your mission. Your job is to stop them, and you don’t need a whole sordid, third-hand history lesson to do that.
“There are things you’re better off not knowing. Trust me on this. You already feel too much—that’s my fault. Your engineered endocrine system is in overdrive, and if you . . .”
“If I what?”
“There are cruelties you don’t need to deal with. You’re a maintenance robot. This is already more worry, danger, and hardship than I ever would have wished for you.”
“I am a maintenance robot,” it agreed. “Which means I was designed for hardship.”
“Not this kind.”
It couldn’t tell if they meant its body or its software wasn’t designed for this kind of hardship. And did they mean the hardship of defending its world from the invaders, or the hardship of the history they refused to burden their charge with?
So many variables, and not enough hard data.
Unit Four looked around itself. Into the depths of black, black, black beyond the solar system. It found the brightest star in its field of vision—the sun—a cold spotlight at this distance. It let its camera’s track the length of arm-C, measure the distance it still had yet to climb to get to the hangar. The distance to the buckling in the middle.
Yes, I was designed for hardship.
“Would you like some music?” its handler asked suddenly.
“Music?”
“Sounds help focus biology . . . as I gather you’ve already discovered, given the chirping-wailing thing coming through. Is that the aurora? Anyway—it’s rudimentary physiological programming. Sounds at certain beats per minute can sync things like bio-pumps, gas exchange, chemical production, systems circulation. Would you like to switch to music?”
“If you think it would help.”
The soft flutter of a string instrument playing in A minor flooded its microphones—the music coming from the hard-body, rather than inside its CPU. The tinkling of piano keys soon joined the sound—a gentle pitter-patter. Like falling water from the sprinklers, from the washer heads in the bot-scrubber—where it might have cleaned its exterior of Unit Two’s remains, had there been time.
At first Unit Four thought its handler was trying to sooth it. Calm it. But soon the pitch of the music rose. Soprano vocals joined the instruments. The song progressed at one hundred and thirty-nine beats per minute.
The sound felt solid. Driving.
Motivating.
It ignored the lyrics. The lyrics were . . . sad. About loss.
“Is this all right?” its handler asked.
“Yes,” it said. And no, it thought.
It liked the music, but it made it think of Unit Two.
Unit Two, which should have been climbing right beside it.
Unit Two, whose activation period was too short.
It looked forward again, toward the buckle in the arm. Where it had known loss for the first time.
Then it threw its grasping pad forward, hauling itself onward with new vigor. It would rid the mine of the invaders. For Unit Two.
The song played on a loop. Each crescendo pushed it farther, sent a surge through its joints. And then the music would fall, a moment of silence would dot the transition, before the soft beginning would play again. Each opening note felt like new hope. New drive.
Reaching the pinched portions of the hull, it carefully assessed the exterior damage.
A piece of one microwave dish was lodged in the outer plating. A curved section of it rose high, several meters above where Unit Four clutched like a scuttling insect to the access track. It had no way of knowing how stable the flotsam was—if touching it or climbing on it would disturb the material and send it spinning dangerously away.
“There they are!” came a sudden shout in its shell. “They’ve started firing again. How far are you from the hangar?”
“Approximately two fifths of the way across arm-C. At the impact site.”
“Good. You’re making good progress. You’re doing very well, Unit Four.”
It appreciated the praise, but it still didn’t feel like it was doing very well.
The dish cut across the track, preventing Unit Four from continuing along the steady line. It would need to divert sideways, around the tube of the arm. It slid one of its shelled pads into the breach and was rewarded with a shock through the shell. Luckily, nothing shorted out. It tried again, pulling at a different bit of flayed material.
“Are the chemical terminals active in the hangar?” it asked as it struggled along.
“Yes,” its handler said. “You’ll need to give the boat’s cradle a few injections before taking off. The ship’s biomechanics have been dormant for the past three days.”
“Will there be sufficient supply if I inject myself as well?”
“Absolutely. I expect you to shoot up—several times, if need be. What do you think you need?”
“Mixture thirty-seven should suffice.”
“Five-hydroxytryptamine heavy,” its handler said contemplatively. “You know, your current levels aren’t all that far from normal. I know you feel. A lot. But you’re actually within acceptable standard deviations right now, I promise.”
“Don’t you ever feel . . . unbalanced?” it asked.
“Of course.”
“In those moments, wouldn’t you do anything to feel balanced again?”
Its handler laughed. “Remind me to tell you about recreational drugs when you get back.”
Back from battle.
If it felt unbalanced now, during a more or less steady climb, how would it fair under the gun? When a single instant separated it from victory and oblivion?
“How often are space-based conflicts with the invaders successful? What percentage of our craft are victorious?”
Silence.
“How many of us survive?”
Nothing in them but dying cries.
“Just focus on your climb.”
Chapter Four
It made it around the disk without incident, and without further shocks. The remainder of the climb went quickly, smoothly.
Unit Four pushed the conversation with its handler from its executables queue. It even considered erasing the memory altogether, because their silence, their hesitancy, only worried it further.
They were just trying to protect it, of course. Protect it emotionally. Upon activation it had decommissioned its first friend, then worried it was malfunctioning. It didn’t need the cold, hard truth about its odds for survival as well.
What difference did it make?
The hangar’s hatch was easier to access than the hub’s. A few keystrokes had the airlock releasing on its own, inviting Unit Four inside without protest.
The robot had accepted its role as pilot and protector, and yet, as soon as it was locked inside, it didn’t want to go back out.
