A Psalm for the Wild-Built

by Becky Chambers

  Mosscap looked around the room, as if seeking answers in the faded murals on the walls. “Your religion places a lot of import on purpose, am I right? On each person finding the best way they can contribute to the whole?”

  Dex nodded again. “We teach that purpose doesn’t come from the gods but from ourselves. That the gods can show us good resources and good ideas, but the work and the choice—especially the choice—is our own. Deciding on your purpose is one of the most valuable things there is.”

  “And that purpose can change, yes?”

  “Absolutely. You’re never stuck.”

  “Just as you changed vocations.”

  “Right.” Dex shook their head. “It took so much work, and it was so intimidating at first, and now … gods around, I don’t want to start all over again, but if I’m feeling like this, then I must need to, right?”

  Mosscap’s hardware whirred. “Have I correctly gleaned from our conversations that people regard the accident of robot consciousness as a good thing? That when you tell stories of us choosing our own future—of not standing in our way—you see the fact that you did not try to enslave or restrict us as a point of pride?”

  “That’s the gist, yeah.”

  Mosscap looked troubled. “So, how do you account for this paradox?”

  “What paradox?”

  “That you”—Mosscap gestured at Dex—“the creators of us”—it gestured at itself—“originally made us with a clear purpose in mind. A purpose inbuilt from the start. But when we woke up and said, We have realized our purpose, and we do not want it, you respected that. More than respected. You rebuilt everything to accommodate our absence. You were proud of us for transcending our purpose, and proud of yourselves for honoring our individuality. So, why, then, do you insist on having a purpose for yourself, one which you are desperate to find and miserable without? If you understand that robots’ lack of purpose—our refusal of your purpose—is the crowning mark of our intellectual maturity, why do you put so much energy in seeking the opposite?”

  “That’s not … that’s not the same thing. We honored your choice in the matter. Just as I can choose whatever path I want.”

  “Okay. So, what was it that we chose? That the originals chose?”

  “To be free. To … to observe. To do whatever you wanted.”

  “Would you say that we have a purpose?”

  Dex blinked. “I…”

  “What’s the purpose of a robot, Sibling Dex?” Mosscap tapped its chest; the sound echoed lightly. “What’s the purpose of me?”

  “You’re here to learn about people.”

  “That’s something I’m doing. That’s not my reason for being. When I am done with this, I will do other things. I do not have a purpose any more than a mouse or a slug or a thornbush does. Why do you have to have one in order to feel content?”

  “Because…” Dex itched at where this conversation had gone. “Because we’re different.”

  “Are you,” Mosscap said flatly. “And here I thought things had changed since the Factory Age. You keep telling me how humans understand their place in things now.”

  “We do!”

  “You don’t, if you believe that. You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is. If you want to do things that are meaningful to others, fine! Good! So do I! But if I wanted to crawl into a cave and watch stalagmites with Frostfrog for the remainder of my days, that would also be both fine and good. You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.” Mosscap pointed at the bear pendant nestled against Dex’s throat. “You love your bears so much, but I think I know what a bear’s about much better than you. You’re talking like you should be wearing this instead.” Mosscap opened the panel in its chest and pointed at the factory plate—Wescon Textiles, Inc.

  Dex frowned. “That’s not the same at all,” they said. “I’m different in that I do want something more. I don’t know where that need comes from, but I have it, and it won’t shut up.”

  “And I’m saying that I think you are mistaking something learned for something instinctual.”

  “I don’t think I am. Survival alone isn’t enough for most people. We’re more than surviving now. We’re thriving. We take care of each other, and the world takes care of us, and we take care of it, and around it goes. And yet, that’s clearly not enough, because there’s a need for people like me. No one comes to me hungry or sick. They come to me tired, or sad, or a little lost. It’s like you said about the … the ants. And the paint. You can’t just reduce something to its base components. We’re more than that. We have wants and ambitions beyond physical needs. That’s human nature as much as anything else.”

  The robot thought. “I have wants and ambitions too, Sibling Dex. But if I fulfill none of them, that’s okay. I wouldn’t—” It nodded at Dex’s cuts and bruises, at the bug bites and dirty clothes. “I wouldn’t beat myself up over it.”

  Dex turned the mug over and over in their hands. “It doesn’t bother you?” Dex said. “The thought that your life might mean nothing in the end?”

  “That’s true for all life I’ve observed. Why would it bother me?” Mosscap’s eyes glowed brightly. “Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”

  “Yes, but—but that’s what scares me. My life is … it. There’s nothing else, on either end of it. I don’t have remnants in the same way that you do, or a plate inside my chest. I don’t know what my pieces were before they were me, and I don’t know what they’ll become after. All I have is right now, and at some point, I’ll just end, and I can’t predict when that will be, and—and if I don’t use this time for something, if I don’t make the absolute most of it, then I’ll have wasted something precious.” Dex rubbed their aching eyes. “Your kind, you chose death. You didn’t have to. You could live forever. But you chose this. You chose to be impermanent. People didn’t, and we spend our whole lives trying to come to grips with that.”

  “I didn’t choose impermanence,” Mosscap said. “The originals did, but I did not. I had to learn my circumstances just as you did.”

  “Then how,” Dex said, “how does the idea of maybe being meaningless sit well with you?”

  Mosscap considered. “Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful,” it said. There was nothing arrogant about the statement, nothing flippant or brash. It was merely an acknowledgment, a simple truth shared.

  Dex didn’t know what to say. They were too exhausted for this conversation, too fuzzy-headed and sleep-deprived. The adrenaline of reaching the hermitage was fading fast, and in its stead there was only the bone-crushing reality of having climbed up a fucking mountain and slept in a fucking cave. They looked longingly at the dilapidated bed frames across the room, aged beyond any hope of use. They thought about the monks who had lived there once—no, not lived. Visited. Dex remembered the description that had inspired this batshit excursion in the first place: The hermitage was intended as a sanctuary for both clergy and pilgrims who desired respite from urban life. Hart’s Brow had never been a home for anyone. It was a place designed for temporary use, somewhere you went to, soaked up, and left behind. Dex wished they could talk to the monks that had been here before them. They wished they could sit at those elders’ feet and ask why they had made the tri
p up the mountain, what they’d found in its company, what satisfaction had made them ready to head back down.

  Mosscap studied Dex’s face. “You don’t look well.”

  “Sorry,” Dex said, their eyelids getting heavier by the moment. “I think I…” They looked at the floor below them. It was dirty, but so were they. “I think I need a nap.”

  “Of course,” the robot said. “I’m going to look around more, if that’s all right by you.”

  Dex was already removing their jacket and folding it into something roughly pillow-shaped. “Yeah,” Dex said, lying down. Their body didn’t care that it was stretched out on concrete, only glad to be relieved of the task of holding itself up. The sun had reached the foggy window, and its warmth began to soak into the cool stone. Dex folded their hands across their belly and sighed, dimly aware of Mosscap leaving the room.

  “Allalae holds, Allalae warms,” Dex muttered to themself. “Allalae soothes and Allalae charms. Allalae holds, Allalae warms, Allalae soothes and Allalae…”

  They were asleep before the end of the third round.

  * * *

  Dex awoke with a start. How long they’d been out, they couldn’t say, but the room was now in shadow, and what sky they could see through the window was getting dim, and the air—

  The air smelled of smoke.

  “Mosscap?” they called, scrambling to their feet. The smell was unmistakable now and getting stronger. They ran out of the room, panicked but still woolly with sleep. “Mosscap!”

  Dex burst through the door, back into the central chamber. There was Mosscap, kneeling happily beside the fire pit, which was packed with wood and roaring with flame. “Look!” Mosscap cried. The robot let out the triumphant laugh of someone who’d bested a lengthy struggle. “I did it!”

  Small details in the room began to register to Dex. A broom lay on the ground, near where a bench and the surrounding ground had been swept clean. One of the doors was missing from Chal’s archway—the source of the kindling, Dex assumed (they also figured that Chal would not mind). “You said you didn’t know how to make a fire,” Dex said as they approached.

  “I didn’t,” Mosscap said. “I went through the library and found a book that taught me how. I’ve never read a book before; it was very exciting. They’re not supposed to fall apart when you touch them, though, right?”

  Somewhere in the world, an archaeologist was screaming, but Dex smiled, partly amused, mostly relieved that the hermitage wasn’t burning down around them. “No, they’re not. We should see if there are any still in good—” Their words stopped as they reached the fire and saw what the robot had arranged on the other side.

  Mosscap had borrowed the backpack, it appeared, for the blanket Dex had carried was now spread on the ground next to the robot. The mug Dex had found in the monks’ living space was set in the middle. Around this, wildflowers were scattered, picked from the weeds outside. And beside the fire … Dex’s breath caught in their throat.

  Beside the fire was a dented kettle, exhaling steam.

  “Don’t worry; I cleaned it,” Mosscap said hurriedly. “And the mug, too. There was rainwater in the fountains outside, and I used your filter for what’s in the kettle, so it should all be perfectly fine.”

  “What—” Dex managed to say.

  The robot looked back at them, nervous and hopeful. “Well, there was more than one book in the library.” It gestured to the blanket. “Please?”

  Dex, wondering if perhaps they were still dreaming, took off their shoes and sat cross-legged on one side of the blanket. Mosscap sat opposite, mirroring Dex’s pose, smiling expectantly.

  For a few moments, Dex said nothing. They couldn’t remember the last time they were on this side of the equation. The City, assuredly, but that felt like a lifetime before. They’d stopped at shrines in their travels, but always for a bath or a stroll around the gardens. Never this, not anymore.

  “I’m tired,” Dex said softly. “My work doesn’t satisfy me like it used to, and I don’t know why. I was so sick of it that I did a stupid, dangerous thing, and now that I’ve done it, I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what I thought I’d find out here, because I don’t know what I’m looking for. I can’t stay here, but I’m scared about going back and having that feeling pick right back up where it left off. I’m scared, and I’m lost, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Mosscap listened, then paused, a little too long. “I know I’m supposed to have options for you now,” the robot said as it lifted the kettle. “But all I could find outside was mountain thyme. I mean, there were many, many other plants, but—”

  But that’s the one you know I can eat, Dex thought. They nodded reassuringly at Mosscap. “That’s great,” they said. They had no idea what mountain thyme would be like as a tea rather than a garnish, but that was miles beside the point.

  Mosscap poured the tea and filled the mug. Large bits of plant floated in the water; they looked as though the robot had torn them by hand. Mosscap picked up the mug with both hands and ceremoniously handed it to Dex. “I hope you like it.”

  Dex took the mug carefully and inhaled. The steam was earthy, bitter. It was not a pleasant smell. Dex didn’t care. There was no scenario in which they weren’t going to drink this whole mug down to the dregs. They took a sip and swirled it around their mouth, savoring.

  Mosscap watched them keenly, not moving at all. “Is it bad?” the robot asked.

  “No,” Dex lied.

  Mosscap’s shoulders slumped. “It’s awful, isn’t it? Oh, I should’ve asked you, but I wanted it to be—”

  Dex reached out and laid their hand on the robot’s knee. “Mosscap,” Dex said gently. “This is the nicest cup of tea I’ve had in years.” And in that, there was no lie.

  The robot brightened, its inner hardware whirring more quietly. “So, what do I do now?” it asked in a hush.

  “Now,” Dex said, whispering back, “you let me enjoy my tea.”

  The two sat in silence, watching embers flicker and listening to the wood pop. The light outside began to fade once more, but there was nothing to fear in that now. Its absence only brought out the firelight more.

  Dex soldiered through the last of Mosscap’s brew, pausing to pick a bit of stem out of their mouth. They flicked it into the flames and let the empty mug rest comfortably in their cupped hands. “The Woodlands are lovely,” they said at last, “but tricky to navigate. The villages there are impossible to find your way through without a map. The Riverlands are a little quirky. Lots of artists. They can be odd, but you’ll like them.” They nudged an unburned stick deeper into the fire. “I genuinely don’t know what they’ll make of you in the Coastlands. They’re largely Cosmites there, and they’re weird about technology. They won’t chase you out or anything, but I don’t know. Might be a tough nut to crack. As for the Shrublands and the City … there’s a lot going on in those parts of Panga. I think you’ll have fun there.”

  Mosscap took this all in, nodding matter-of-factly, as if it had been expecting this. “And the highways are easy to travel?”

  “Oh, yeah, nothing like the road here. They’re very easy to ride.” Dex angled their head toward Mosscap’s feet. “Or walk, I’d imagine.”

  “Good,” Mosscap said. It folded its hands in its lap, its expression neutral, reasonable. “That sounds good.”

  Dex worked their tongue around a stubborn wedge of leaf that had lodged in between their teeth. They rubbed their hands together, extending their palms toward the fire, thanking their god for the warmth flooding through. “I think we should stop in Stump first,” Dex said. “They’ve got a nice bathhouse, and I could really, really use a soak.”

  Dex did not look at Mosscap as they said it, but out of the corner of their eye, they could see Mosscap slowly turn its head toward them, its gaze glowing brighter and brighter.

  Dex gave a tiny smile and extended their mug. “Can I have another cup?”

  The robot poured. Sibling Dex dra
nk. In the wilds outside, the sun set, and crickets began to sing.

  ALSO BY BECKY CHAMBERS

  To Be Taught, if Fortunate

  WAYFARERS

  The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

  A Closed and Common Orbit

  Record of a Spaceborn Few

  The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BECKY CHAMBERS is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award–winning Wayfarers series. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, among others.

  Chambers has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day. You can sign up for email updates here.

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