Martha Wells: All Systems Red

Ratthi smiled at the console. “Because Dr. Mensah is our political entity.” He made a little gesture, turning his hand palm up. “We’re from Preservation Alliance, one of the non-corporate system entities. Dr. Mensah is the current admin director on the steering committee. It’s an elected position, with a limited term. But one of the principles of our home is that our admins must also continue their regular work, whatever it is. Her regular work required this survey, so here she is, and here we are.”

Yeah, I felt a little stupid. I was still processing it when he said, “You know, in Preservation-controlled territory, bots are considered full citizens. A construct would fall under the same category.” He said this in the tone of giving me a hint.

Whatever. Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds. And the entertainment feed, where the bots were all happy servants or were secretly in love with their guardians. If it showed the bots hanging out watching the entertainment feed all through the day cycle with no one trying to make them talk about their feelings, I would have been a lot more interested. “But the company knows who she is.”

Ratthi sighed. “Oh, yes, they know. You would not believe what we had to pay to guarantee the bond on the survey. These corporate arseholes are robbers.”

It meant if we ever managed to launch the beacon, the company wouldn’t screw around, the transport would get here fast. No bribe from EvilSurvey could stop it. They might even send a faster security ship to check out the problem before the transport could arrive. The bond on a political leader was high, but the payout the company would have to make if something happened to her was off the chart. The huge payout, being humiliated in front of the other bond companies and in the news feeds… I leaned back in my seat and sealed my helmet to think about it.

We didn’t know who EvilSurvey was, who we were dealing with. But I bet that they didn’t either. Mensah’s status was only in the Security info packet, stored on SecSystem, which they had never gotten access to. The dueling investigations if something happened to us were bound to be thorough, as the company would be desperate for something to blame it on and the beneficiaries would be desperate to blame it on the company. Neither would be fooled long by the rogue SecUnit setup.

I didn’t see how we could use it, not right now, anyway. It didn’t comfort me and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t comfort the humans to know the stupid company would avenge them if/when they all got murdered.

So midafternoon the next day I got ready to take the little hopper back within range of the habitat so I could hopefully pick up intel from the drones. I wanted to go alone, but since nobody ever listens to me, Mensah, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi were going, too.

I was depressed this morning. I’d tried watching some new serials last night and even they couldn’t distract me; reality was too intrusive. It was hard not to think about how everything was going to go wrong and they were all going to die and I was going to get blasted to pieces or get another governor module stuck in me.

Gurathin walked up to me while I was doing the pre-flight, and said, “I’m coming with you.”

That was about all I needed right now. I finished the diagnostic on the power cells. “I thought you were satisfied.”

It took him a minute. “What I said last night, yes.”

“I remember every word ever said to me.” That was a lie. Who would want that? Most of it I delete from permanent memory.

He didn’t say anything. On the feed, Mensah told me that I didn’t have to take him if I didn’t want to, or if I thought it would compromise team security. I knew Gurathin was testing me again, but if something went wrong and he got killed, I wouldn’t mind as much as I would if it was one of the others. I wished Mensah, Ratthi, and Pin-Lee weren’t coming; I didn’t want to risk them. And on the long trip, Ratthi might be tempted to try to make me talk about my feelings.

I told Mensah it was fine, and we got ready to lift off.

I wanted a long time to circle west, so if EvilSurvey picked us up they wouldn’t be able to extrapolate the humans’ location from my course. By the time I was in position for the approach to the habitat, the light was failing. When we got to the target zone, it would be full dark.

The humans hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night, from the crowding and the strong possibility of dying. Mensah, Ratthi, and Pin-Lee had been too tired to talk much, and had fallen asleep. Gurathin was sitting in the copilot’s seat and hadn’t said a word the whole time.

We were flying in dark mode, with no lights, no transmissions. I was plugged in to the little hopper’s internal limited feed so I could watch the scans carefully. Gurathin was aware of the feed through his implant—I could feel him in there—but wasn’t using it except to keep track of where we were.

When he said, “I have a question,” I flinched. The silence up to this point had lulled me into a false sense of security.

I didn’t look at him though I knew through the feed that he was looking at me. I hadn’t closed my helmet; I didn’t feel like hiding from him. After a moment I realized he was waiting for my permission. That was weirdly new. It was tempting to ignore him, but I was wondering what the test would be this time. Something he didn’t want the others to hear? I said, “Go ahead.”

He said, “Did they punish you, for the deaths of the mining team?”

It wasn’t completely a surprise. I think they all wanted to ask about it, but maybe he was the only one abrasive enough. Or brave enough. It’s one thing to poke a murderbot with a governor module; poking a rogue murderbot is a whole different proposition.

I said, “No, not like you’re thinking. Not the way a human would be punished. They shut me down for a while, and then brought me back online at intervals.”

He hesitated. “You weren’t aware of it?”

Yeah, that would be the easy way out, wouldn’t it? “The organic parts mostly sleep, but not always. You know something’s happening. They were trying to purge my memory. We’re too expensive to destroy.”

He looked out the port again. We were flying low over trees, and I had a lot of my attention on the terrain sensors. I felt the brush of Mensah’s awareness in the feed. She must have woken when Gurathin spoke. He finally said, “You don’t blame humans for what you were forced to do? For what happened to you?”

This is why I’m glad I’m not human. They come up with stuff like this. I said, “No. That’s a human thing to do. Constructs aren’t that stupid.”

What was I supposed to do, kill all humans because the ones in charge of constructs in the company were callous? Granted, I liked the imaginary people on the entertainment feed way more than I liked real ones, but you can’t have one without the other.

The others started to stir, waking and sitting up, and he didn’t ask me anything else.

By the time we got within range, it was a cloudless night with the ring glowing in the sky like a ribbon. I had already dropped speed, and we were moving slowly over the sparse trees decorating the hills at the edge of the habitat’s plain. I had been waiting for the drones to ping me, which they would if this had worked and EvilSurvey hadn’t found them.

When I felt that first cautious touch on my feed, I stopped the hopper and dropped it down below the tree line. I landed on a hillside, the hopper’s pads extending to compensate. The humans were waiting, nervy and impatient, but no one spoke. You couldn’t see anything from here except the next hill and a lot of tree trunks.