by Martha Wells
They were the first clients I’d had who hadn’t had any previous experience with SecUnits, so maybe I could have expected this if I’d bothered to think about it. Letting them see me without the armor had been a huge mistake.
At least Mensah and Arada had overruled the ones who wanted to talk to me about it. Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency. I’d rather climb back into Hostile One’s mouth.
I worried about it while they looked out the windows at the ring or watched their feeds of the hopper’s scans of the new scenery, chatting on the comm with the others who were following our progress back in the habitat. I was distracted, but still caught the moment when the autopilot cut out.
It could have been a problem, except I was in the copilot’s seat and I could have taken over in time. But even if I hadn’t been there, it would have turned out okay, because Mensah was flying and she never took her hands off the controls.
Even though the planetary craft autopilots aren’t as sophisticated as a full bot-pilot system, some clients will still engage it and then walk into the back, or sleep. Mensah didn’t and she made sure when the others flew they followed her rules. She just made some thoughtful grumpy noises and adjusted our course away from the mountain the failing autopilot would have slammed us into.
I had cycled out of horrified that they wanted to talk to me about my feelings into grateful that she had ordered them not to. As she restarted the autopilot, I pulled the log and sent it into the feed to show her it had cut out due to a HubSystem glitch. She swore under her breath and shook her head.
* * *
The missing map section wasn’t that far outside our assessment range so we were there before I made a dent in the backlog of serials I’d saved to my internal storage. Mensah told the others, “We’re coming up on it.”
We had been traveling over heavy tropical forest, where it flowed over deep valleys. Suddenly it dropped away into a plain, spotted with lakes and smaller copses of trees. There was a lot of bare rock, in low ridges and tumbled boulders. It was dark and glassy, like volcanic glass.
The cabin was quiet as everybody studied the scans. Arada was looking at the seismic data, bouncing it to the others back in the habitat through her feed.
“I don’t see anything that would prevent the satellite from mapping this region,” Pin-Lee said, her voice distant as she sorted through the data the hopper was pulling in. “No strange readings. It’s weird.”
“Unless this rock has some sort of stealth property that prevented the satellites from imaging it,” Arada said. “The scanners are acting a little funny.”
“Because the scanners suck corporation balls,” Pin-Lee muttered.
“Should we land?” Mensah said. I realized she was asking me for a security assessment.
The scans were sort of working and marking some hazards, but they weren’t any different hazards from what we’d run into before. I said, “We could. But we know there’s at least one lifeform here that tunnels through rock.”
Arada bounced a little in her seat, like she was impatient to get going. “I know we have to be cautious, but I think we’d be safer if we knew whether these blank patches on the satellite scan were accidental or deliberate.”
That was when I realized they weren’t ignoring the possibility of sabotage. I should have realized it earlier, when Pin-Lee asked if HubSystem could be hacked. But humans had been looking at me and I had just wanted to get out of there.
Ratthi and Pin-Lee seconded her, and Mensah made her decision. “We’ll land and take samples.”
Over the comm from the habitat, Bharadwaj’s voice said, “Please be careful.” She still sounded shaky.
Mensah took us down gently, the hopper’s pads touching the ground with hardly a thump. I was already up and at the hatch.
The humans had their suit helmets on so I opened the hatch and let the ramp drop. Close up the rocky patches still looked like glass, mostly black, but with different colors running into each other. This near to the ground the hopper’s scan was able to confirm that seismic activity was null, but I walked out a little bit, as if giving anything out there a chance to attack me. If the humans see me actually doing my job, it helps keep suspicions from forming about faulty governor modules.
Mensah climbed down with Arada behind her. They moved around, taking more readings with their portable scanners. Then the others got the sample kit outs and started chipping off pieces of the rock glass, or glass rock, scooping up dirt and bits of plant matter. They were murmuring to each other a lot, and to the others back at the habitat. They were sending the data to the feed, but I wasn’t paying attention.
It was an odd spot. Quiet compared to the other places we’d surveyed, with not much bird-thing noise and no sign of animal movement. Maybe the rocky patches kept them away. I walked out a little way, past a couple of the lakes, almost expecting to see something under the surface. Dead bodies, maybe. I’d seen plenty of those (and caused plenty of those) on past contracts, but this one had been dead-body-lacking, so far. It made for a nice change.
Mensah had set a survey perimeter, marking all the areas the aerial scan had flagged as hazardous or potentially hazardous. I checked on everybody again and saw Arada and Ratthi heading directly for one of the hazard markers. I expected them to stop at the perimeter, since they’d been pretty consistently cautious on the other assessments. I started moving in that direction anyway. Then they passed the perimeter. I started to run. I sent Mensah my field camera feed and used the voice comm to say, “Dr. Arada, Dr. Ratthi, please stop. You’re past the perimeter and nearing a hazard marker.”
“We are?” Ratthi sounded completely baffled.
Fortunately, they both stopped. By the time I got there they both had their maps up in my feed. “I don’t understand what’s wrong,” Arada said, confused. “I don’t see the hazard marker.” She had tagged both their positions and on their maps they were well within the perimeter, heading toward a wetland area.
It took me a second to see what the problem was. Then I superimposed my map, the actual map, over theirs and sent that to Mensah. “Shit,” she said over the comm. “Ratthi, Arada, your map’s wrong. How did that happen?”
“It’s a glitch,” Ratthi said. He grimaced, studying the displays in his feed. “It’s wiped out all the markers on this side.”
So that was how I spent the rest of the morning, shooing humans away from hazard markers they couldn’t see, while Pin-Lee cursed a lot and tried to get the mapping scanner to work. “I’m beginning to think these missing sections are just a mapping error,” Ratthi said at one point, panting. He had walked into what they called a hot mud pit and I’d had to pull him out. We were both covered with acidic mud to the waist.
“You think?” Pin-Lee answered tiredly.
When Mensah told us to head back to the hopper, it was a relief all around.
* * *
We got back to the habitat with no problems, which felt like it was starting to become an unusual occurrence. The humans went to analyze their data, and I went to hide in the ready room, check the security feeds, and then lie in my cubicle and watch media for a while.
I’d just done another perimeter walk and checked the drones, when the feed informed me that HubSystem had updates from the satellite and there was a package for me. I have a trick where I make HubSystem think I received it and then just put it in external storage. I don’t do automated package updates anymore, now that I don’t have to. When I felt like it, presumably sometime before it was time to leave the planet, I’d go through the update and apply the parts I wanted and delete the rest.
It was a typical, boring day, in other words. If Bharadwaj wasn’t still recuperating in Medical, you could almost forget what had happened. But at the end of the day cycle, Dr. Mensah called me again and said, “I think we have a problem. We can’t contact DeltFall Group.”
* * *
I went to the crew hub where Mensah a
nd all the others were. They had pulled up the maps and scans of where we were versus where DeltFall was, and the curve of the planet hung glittering in the air in the big display. When I got there, Mensah was saying, “I’ve checked the big hopper’s specs and we can make it there and back without a recharge.”
I had my helmet plate opaqued, so I could wince a lot without any of them knowing.
“You don’t think they’ll let us recharge at their habitat?” Arada asked, then looked around when the others stared at her. “What?” she demanded.
Overse put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “If they aren’t answering our calls, they might be hurt, or their habitat is damaged,” she said. As a couple, they were always so nice to each other. The whole group had been remarkably drama-free so far, which I appreciated. The last few contracts had been like being an involuntary bystander in one of the entertainment feed’s multi-partner relationship serials except I’d hated the whole cast.
Mensah nodded. “That’s my concern, especially if their survey package was missing potential hazard information the way ours is.”
Arada looked like it was just occurring to her that everybody over at DeltFall might be dead.
Ratthi said, “The thing that worries me is that their emergency beacon didn’t launch. If the habitat was breached, or if there was a medical emergency they couldn’t handle, their HubSystem should have triggered the beacon automatically.”
Each survey team has its own beacon, set up a safe distance from the habitat. It would launch into a low orbit and send a pulse toward the wormhole, which would get zapped or whatever happened in the wormhole and the company network would get it, and the pickup transport would be sent now instead of waiting until the end of project date. That was how it was supposed to work, anyway. Usually.
Mensah’s expression said she was worried. She looked at me. “What do you think?”
It took me two seconds to realize she was talking to me. Fortunately, since it seemed like we were really doing this, I had actually been paying attention and didn’t need to play the conversation back. I said, “They have three contracted SecUnits but if their habitat was hit by a hostile as big or bigger than Hostile One, their comm equipment could have been damaged.”
Pin-Lee was calling up specs for the beacons. “Aren’t the emergency beacons designed to trigger even if the rest of the comm equipment is destroyed?”
The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company. “They’re supposed to be able to, but equipment failures aren’t unknown.”
There was a moment where they all thought about potential equipment failures in their habitat, maybe including the big hopper which they were about to fly out of range of the little hopper, so if something happened to it they were walking back. And swimming back, since that was an ocean-sized body of water between the two points on the map. Or drown; I guess they could just drown. If you were wondering why I was wincing earlier, this would be the reason.
The trip to the map’s black-out region had been a little out of our assessment parameters, but this was going to be an overnight trip, even if all they did was get there, see a bunch of dead people, turn around and go back.
Then Gurathin said, “What about your systems?”
I didn’t turn my helmet toward him because that can be intimidating and it’s especially important for me to resist that urge. “I carefully monitor my own systems.” What else did he think I was going to say? It didn’t matter; I’m not refundable.
Volescu cleared his throat. “So we should prepare for a rescue mission.” He looked okay, but MedSystem’s feed was still reporting some indicators of distress. Bharadwaj was stable but not allowed to get out of Medical yet. He continued, “I’ve pulled some instructions from the hopper’s info package.”
Yes, instructions. They’re academics, surveyors, researchers, not action-hero explorers from the serials I liked because they were unrealistic and not depressing and sordid like reality. I said, “Dr. Mensah, I think I should go along.”
I could see her notes in the feed so I knew she meant for me to stay here and watch the habitat and guard everybody who wasn’t going. She was taking Pin-Lee, because she had past experience in habitat and shelter construction; Ratthi, who was a biologist; and Overse, who was certified as a field medic.
Mensah hesitated, thinking about it, and I could tell she was debating protecting the habitat and the group staying behind with the possibility of whatever had hit DeltFall still being there. She took a breath and I knew she was going to tell me to stay here. And I just thought, That’s a bad idea. I couldn’t explain to myself why. It was one of those impulses that comes from my organic parts that the governor is supposed to squash. I said, “As the only one here with experience in these situations, I’m your best resource.”
Gurathin said, “What situations?”
Ratthi gave him a bemused look. “This situation. The unknown. Strange threats. Monsters exploding out of the ground.”
I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a dumb question. Gurathin wasn’t as talkative as the others, so I didn’t have much of a sense of his personality. He was the only augmented human in the group, so maybe he felt like an outsider, or something, even though the others clearly liked him. I clarified, “Situations where personnel might be injured due to attack by planetary hazards.”
Arada came in on my side. “I agree. I think you should take SecUnit. You don’t know what’s out there.”
Mensah was still undecided. “Depending on what we find, we may be gone as long as two or three days.”
Arada waved a hand, indicating the habitat. “Nothing’s bothered us here so far.”
That was probably what DeltFall had thought, right before they got eaten or torn to pieces or whatever. But Volescu said, “I admit it would make me feel better about it.” From Medical, Bharadwaj tapped into the feed to add her vote for me. Gurathin was the only one staying behind who didn’t say anything.
Mensah nodded firmly. “All right then, it’s decided. Now let’s get moving.”
* * *
So I prepped the big hopper to go to the other side of the planet. (And yes, I had to pull up the instructions.) I checked it over as much as I could, remembering how the autopilot had cut out suddenly in the little hopper. But we hadn’t used the big hopper since Mensah had taken it up to check it out when we arrived. (You had to check everything out and log any problems immediately when you took delivery or the company wasn’t liable.) But everything looked okay, or at least matched what the specs said it was supposed to match. It was only there for emergencies and if this thing with DeltFall hadn’t happened, we would probably never have touched it until it was time to lift it onto our pickup transport.
Mensah came to do her own check of the hopper, and told me to pack some extra emergency supplies for the DeltFall staff. I did it, and I hoped for the humans’ sake we would need them. I thought it was likely that the only supplies we would need for DeltFall was the postmortem kind, but you may have noticed that when I do manage to care, I’m a pessimist.
When everything was ready, Overse, Ratthi, and Pin-Lee climbed in, and I stood hopefully by the cargo pod. Mensah pointed at the cabin. I winced behind my opaque faceplate and climbed in.
Chapter Four
WE FLEW THROUGH THE NIGHT, the humans taking scans and discussing the new terrain past our assessment range. It was especially interesting for them to see what was there, now that we knew our map wasn’t exactly reliable.
Mensah gave everybody watch shifts, including me. This was new, but not unwelcome, as it meant I had blocks of time where I wasn’t supposed to be paying attention and didn’t have to fake it. Mensah, Pin-Lee, and Overse were all taking turns as pilot and copilot, so I didn’t have to worry so much about the autopilot trying to kill us, and I could go on standby and watch my stored supply of serials.
We’d been in the air awhile
, and Mensah was piloting with Pin-Lee in the copilot’s seat, when Ratthi turned in his seat to face me and said, “We heard—we were given to understand, that Imitative Human Bot Units are . . . partially constructed from cloned material.”
Warily, I stopped the show I was watching. I didn’t like where this might go. All of that information is in the common knowledge database, plus in the brochure the company provides with the specifics of the types of units they use. Which he knew, being a scientist and whatever. And he wasn’t the kind of human who asked about things when he could look them up himself through a feed. “That’s true,” I said, very careful to make my voice sound just as neutral as always.
Ratthi’s expression was troubled. “But surely . . . It’s clear you have feelings—”
I flinched. I couldn’t help it.
Overse had been working in the feed, analyzing data from the assessments. She looked up, frowning. “Ratthi, what are you doing?”
Ratthi shifted guiltily. “I know Mensah asked us not to, but—” He waved a hand. “You saw it.”
Overse pulled her interface off. “You’re upsetting it,” she said, teeth gritted.
“That’s my point!” He gestured in frustration. “The practice is disgusting, it’s horrible, it’s slavery. This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—”
Exasperated, Overse said, “And you don’t think it knows that?”
I’m supposed to let the clients do and say whatever they want to me and with an intact governor module I wouldn’t have a choice. I’m also not supposed to snitch on clients to anybody except the company, but it was either that or jump out the hatch. I sent the conversation into the feed tagged for Mensah.
From the cockpit, she shouted, “Ratthi! We talked about this!”
I slid out of the seat and went to the back of the hopper, as far away as I could get, facing the supply lockers and the head. It was a mistake; it wasn’t a normal thing for a SecUnit with an intact governor module to do, but they didn’t notice.