Serengeti

by J. B. Rockwell

  Serengeti flipped again, probing at pathways, running along damaged circuits that three years’ worth of effort had finally repaired. Cameras lay here and there along that pathway and she glanced through each one until she found the one she wanted.

  She stopped, and stared, for a long, long time.

  “Cryo.” Serengeti smiled in pure, unadulterated joy.

  To her relief, she found light inside the lifeboat—not much, just pinpoints here and there, flickering displays showing status of the hyper-sleep units—but light, any light, meant power, and power meant her crew was still alive.

  She panned the camera around, studying the entirety of Cryo’s space, flipping through filters until she found one that allowed her to see the best. She zoomed in then and took another look, taking her time, noting the tubes that were active, others that were dark.

  “Forty-six.” Serengeti sighed heavily.

  She’d hoped for better, feared it might be worse. Forty-six frail crew left to her, when she’d entered the battle with three hundred and twelve. Forty-six crew still living, stilling Serengeti’s worries that every last one of them was dead.

  “You’ve done well,” Serengeti said, returning to Tig and Tilli in the hall. “Thank you, Tig.” She slipped inside him and drew a tiny bit of power, brushing electric fingers across his chromed face. “Thank you, Tilli.” A second touch, this time at Tilli, who stiffened and beeped in surprise before melting with pleasure.

  Serengeti laughed softly as the pink-bowed robot spun in circles, cooing softly to herself. She left the robots in the hallways and flipped back to Cryo, taking a good, long look at the crew inside it. She found Henricksen after a bit of searching and lingered a moment, staring at his face through the tube’s frosted glass.

  Part of her wanted to stay there forever, just looking at Henricksen’s face. But the power levels in the fuel cells kept dropping, and she knew she had to leave. “Sleep well,” Serengeti whispered. “I’ll be back soon. Promise. Just…wait for me, Henricksen. Just a little bit longer.” She slipped from Cryo’s camera and back out into the hall where Tilli spun happily, humming softly to herself. “Time I got going, little ones. It’s time for me to return to sleep.”

  Tilli stopped spinning and drooped like a wilted flower. Tig whistled shrilly, shaking his head.

  “Tig—”

  He waved his arms and rolled close to Tilli, laying his cheek against hers, whispering words too soft for Serengeti hear. Keeping secrets from her as they spoke to one another in their rapid-fire exchange of face lights.

  Tig’s face lights flashed and flared before settling into a settling into a steady, swirling glow. He straightened and looked up at the camera on the wall, waving his legs at Tilli beside him, Cryo’s door at the end of the hall, the walls to either side. A burst of staccato chatter erupted from his mouth accompanied by much gesticulating at his robot companion.

  “Tig. Tig! What’s going on?” Serengeti demanded.

  Tig waved for her to wait, as Tilli blinked and turned, considering Cryo’s door a moment and then shaking her head.

  More chatter from Tig—a long string of beeps and borps punctuated here and there by a demure chirrup from Tilli. That went on for a few seconds before Tig wonked loudly, bringing their discussion to end.

  Tilli wilted again, legs sagging as she hunkered close to the floor.

  Tig shifted, face lights swirling anxiously. He lifted a leg and lay the end beside his mouth as he leaned close to Tilli. “Ta-da!” he said softly, and then stepped back, front legs raised high as he bounced up and down in excited anticipation.

  Tilli shook her head, crouching lower to the ground.

  Tig’s face lights flashed a frown of irritation. He nudged at Tilli until she looked him. “Ta-da!” he repeated, legs raised in victory.

  Tilli eyed him uncertainly, then uncurled a bit.

  Tig nodded encouragingly, pointing at Tilli and the door, the walls to either side, before returning to Tilli again, pushed at her, chortling reassuringly until Tilli lifted herself up and self-consciously cleared her throat.

  “Ta-da!” Tilli fluttered her legs in a half-hearted attempt at Tig’s grandiose flourish, and then blushed in embarrassment and hunkered back down.

  Nothing.

  “Tig. What is—?”

  Thud! Thunk!

  Something moved inside her—Serengeti’s micro-sensors picked it up. That and a persistent buzzing those same micro-sensors translated as metal grating on metal—an angry, agonizing sound that went on, and on, and on. A clunk and rattle came afterward, shaking the desk plates, causing the robots to skip about.

  Something’s come loose, she thought. Something really, really big.

  The micro-sensors reported more rattling, and a heavy, metallic clang.

  “Ta-da!” Tilli said proudly in the silence that followed.

  Serengeti blinked and then laughed aloud, caught completely off guard. Tig spun in excited circles, and making her laugh harder still. Three years. Three long years of concerted effort, eight spent waiting before that, eleven years in total with Cryo stuck inside here. And now, at long last, Tig and Tilli had found a way to get the docking clamps undone and set Cryo free.

  “How soon?” Serengeti asked eagerly. “How soon can it take off?”

  Tig slammed to a halt, blushing furiously, sneaking sheepish glances at the camera. “Beep. Beep-beep.”

  Nervous, nonsensical sounds—not his usual electronic jabber. The rosy glow started to fade from Serengeti’s dreams. “Can it break free?” she asked him, carefully modulating the tone of her voice.

  Tig shrugged and nodded, shrugged again.

  That’s when it hit her: noise in the hallway, but not enough. Eight docking clamps on the lifeboat—there should have been a hell of a lot more rattling and clanging than that.

  “How many?” she asked him. “How many docking clamps have you managed to break free?”

  Tig looked up the camera, dropped his eyes back to the floor, kicking at bits of debris floating nearby.

  “Tig.”

  Tig sighed and raised his leg above his head.

  “One. That’s it?”

  Tig nodded apologetically. One docking clamp coaxed loose, seven others still holding Cryo in place.

  Disappointment washed over her, wiping the last of Serengeti’s joy away. Tig hung his head, legs sagging inward as he settled onto his tank treads and stared miserably at the ground.

  “And the rest?” Serengeti asked him.

  Tig glanced at Tilli, exchanging a brief spurt of rapid-fire communication. There seemed to be some disagreement at first, but they eventually concurred. Tig leaned to one side and lifted a stalk of his legs off the ground—seven this time—and extruded fingerlike appendages from two of them to add to the count.

  Not the most efficient way of doing math, but when Serengeti added everything up, the count stood at seventeen.

  “Seventeen years,” Serengeti breathed. The weight to that number almost crushed her, a weight measured in the lives the human crew sleeping inside Cryo. Seventeen years—she had no idea if the lifeboat’s power could last that long, and even if it did, how much would be left?

  Enough to fire the engines, she thought, and set it on its course. But the sleep chambers, life support, the other higher level functions…there’s just no way of telling.

  The sleep chambers only sipped at the power once the crew inside were frozen. They might make it, iced down as they were, and if they didn’t, if the cryo chambers failed…

  Then they’ll sleep of infinity until their travels come to an end.

  “Seventeen years, Tig. It’s a time to wait. So much could happen between now and then.” But at least the robots had given Serengeti some hope, and given her crew a chance. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for that.” She touched at Tig and Tilli, smiling to herself as they shivered and blipped, face lights flashing madly, scattering cobalt light across the iced-over walls. Hard, so very hard to leave
them, but staying here wasn’t really a choice. “I must sleep now, little ones. And you have work to do.”

  The robots hooted mournfully, metal legs rattling against the floor. That reminded Serengeti of something—a task she’d almost forgotten. Again.

  “Tig,” she said sweetly. “Fix the damn translation routine.”

  Manually interpreting that robot pidgin was bad enough when there was just one robot running about. The two of them together—beeping and borping and carrying on—was working on her last nerve.

  Tig blinked and lifted two front legs, tapping them beside his mouth before raising one to his temple and offering a slightly sheepish salute.

  Good enough.

  A last touch at the two robots and Serengeti retreated, following the pathways back to the bridge and the darkness, slipping down and down and down to where the dream waited, running rampant in her mind.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Everything ran like clockwork for a while—amazing, really, considering nothing at all had gone to plan until now. Tig and Tilli worked patiently away, crawling through her innards, swapping out parts, rebuilding circuits, refurbishing the mechanisms that held Cryo’s docking clamps in place, waking Serengeti now and then to update her on their progress.

  Progress. Such a lovely, comforting word. Serengeti counted her blessings, grateful for the robots’ efforts, and that something finally seemed to be going smoothly.

  But part of her didn’t trust it. Part of her kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Sleep and wake, sleep and wake—time ebbing and flowing, one year chasing another. The bow on Tilli’s head faded—bright pink dimming to a muted shade of coral. Tig’s carapace acquired more scratches and dents, more greasy smudges on his once-bright metal body.

  Three years of effort completed the circuit on the second docking clamp, allowing Tig and Tilli—with Serengeti in attendance, sharing the momentous occasion—to bust it free. Three more and they pried a third docking clamp loose, but the fourth one proved tricky—balky as Serengeti’s long lost Number Ten probe. Nearly four years passed—four years of stripping out wires and scavenging parts—before Tig woke Serengeti to tell her that fourth clamp was ready to be undone.

  Behind schedule already, Serengeti thought as she listened to Tig’s report. Barely halfway through the job and we’re already behind. That can’t be a good sign.

  To make matters worse, Tig told her they were running short of spare parts. More bad news, considering a cursory inspection of the circuits connected to the docking clamps on Cryo’s aft end indicated they’d be much more difficult to repair.

  Lot of damage there. Mounds of debris standing in the robots’ way.

  No sense worrying about it, Serengeti told herself as Tig the grandmaster prepared the next show. Nothing to be done.

  Tig flourished his leg, his magical electronic device clutched between the pincers extruded from its end. A glance at Tilli—who nodded eagerly, obviously this grand unveiling every bit as much as the one before—and he slotted the device into the wall.

  The micro-sensors went crazy, translating the vibrations in the decking into rattles and clanks echoing up and down the hall. A sharp clang and heavy thump, and yet another docking clamp grudgingly let go.

  Power levels dropped precipitously, the fuel cells’ carefully stored up energy expended in a huge, sparking lump, causing error warnings to light up everywhere, screaming for Serengeti’s attention.

  She acknowledged them, and then cleared them—every last one—feeling a vague sense of disquiet settle over her.

  That shouldn’t have happened. We shouldn’t have needed anywhere near that much power to complete such a simple operation.

  But the deeper in they got, the more damage the two robots found. Circuits, relays, miles and miles of wiring connecting the many and varied sectors of her network, and all of it shredded, decimated, bodged together spit and bailing wire. Tig’s device closed the repaired circuit, sending power racing along broken pathways, but most of it was wasted—disappearing into the ether without ever reaching its destination.

  Tig and Tilli worked tirelessly, plugging the holes they uncovered, chasing down the worst of the energy-wasting offenders, but each fix seemed to reveal another problem. No way the robots could fix everything. Oh, they tried—chasing down one rabbit hole and another, slapping hot-fixes in place where a more permanent solution simply wasn’t possible—but in the end it was hopeless. Like trying to stop up a leaking dam with your fingers. Or hold back the tide with a wall of sand.

  How do I tell them that, though? How do I tell these eager little robots to stop?

  Serengeti lingered in the corridor a while, praising Tig and Tilli profusely before pulling away, flitting along the broken line of cameras until she reached the bridge.

  She hesitated there, on the edge of letting go—knowing she should because the power levels couldn’t sustain her, but not wanting to. Hating the thought of slipping back into the dark, the feel of the dream’s chrome and blood shadows flickering across her mind.

  Man up, Serengeti.

  Silly phrase—one of the more ridiculous bits of wisdom taken from Henricksen’s book—but it served its purpose. Serengeti steeled herself and disconnected, hating the feel of the dark.

  #

  Awareness came slowly, the darkness retreating like treacle, leaving Serengeti muzzy and confused. Each time was harder. With each waking, she found it more and more difficult to shake the dream off.

  Serengeti shook herself, trying to clear the cobwebs from her AI brain. “Tig,” she called, beginning the ritual of waking. “How long, Tig? How long have I been asleep?”

  Silence on the bridge. That was unusual.

  Serengeti tapped into Chron and stared at the numbers it fed back.

  3356. Something about that didn’t feel right. She counted backward and found two more years gone. Two years since her last waking. Too soon. It’s too soon.

  “Tig?”

  Still nothing—no voices in answer, no glowing cobalt eyes, nothing at all coming back to her calls. Serengeti reached for the camera, pointing it downward as she peered through its lens. “Tig? Tilli?”

  “Beep. Beep-beep.” A chromed face appeared from the darkness—one face, just one, with a single pair of cobalt eyes.

  Something’s wrong. Two faces. There should be two faces to greet me, not just one.

  And all that damned beeping should’ve stopped by now.

  Serengeti pulled a bit of power to her, sparking a light, bathing the robot in soft illumination, turning its tarnished silver carapace an even more tarnished shade of bronze. “Tig,” she said, greeting the robot.

  “Serengeti.” Tig nodded at the camera.

  “Ah. I see we can speak now,” she said lightly.

  Tig flushed and ducked his head, burbling nervously.

  Something’s definitely wrong, she thought, eying the little robot. But at least the translation routines haven’t gone on the fritz again.

  “Where’s Tilli?” she asked, voicing her initial concern. The two robots were almost inseparable—one never far from the other. Waking meant Tig and Tilli together, standing side-by-side as they waited to greet her. Serengeti shivered, disliking this change in the robots’ patterns. “Where’s Tilli?” she repeated, when Tig remained silent. “Has something happened to her, Tig?”

  Tig looked up at the camera and shook his head.

  That’s a relief.

  “Where is she then? Why isn’t she here?”

  Tig pointed at the ceiling above them. “Outside.”

  Not quite the answer she expected. Tig whirled around before Serengeti could ask more questions, legs waving wildly as he scurried across the bridge and into the corridor outside.

  “What in the world…?” Serengeti stared after him, surprised by the abrupt departure.

  Not like Tig. Not like Tig at all.

  She chased after him, flitting from camera to camera until she caught up with the littl
e robot, and settled inside Tig’s metal shell. “What’s going on?” she asked, sensing the anxiousness inside him. “Is it the docking clamps? Have you run into a problem?”

  Ten years to clear four docking clamps—they really couldn’t afford more setbacks and delays. The last time she woke, they’d been running out of parts, though, forcing Tig and Tilli to start cannibalizing other systems, because there simply wasn’t any other choice.

  “Tig. Talk to me. Is it the docking clamps?”

  Another shake of his Tig’s head. She was losing patience with this cryptic nonsense.

  “Then what’s going on?” Serengeti demanded. “Where’s Tilli? Why isn’t she here?”

  “Outside,” Tig repeated, and picked up speed, racing along the icy hallways, scrambling up the ladderway to the top tier of the ship.

  More hallways there—a seemingly endless series of corridors and crossings that eventually brought them to the hull. Tig rolled to a gap and traded his tank treads for his legs as he scurried inside.

  “I’m really not interested in stargazing right now, Tig. Where’s—?”

  A dark shape appeared in front of them, blotting out the stars. Lights flashed and flared—cobalt fire drawing complex patterns.

  “Tilli,” Serengeti breathed, voice filled with relief.

  Tig called out to his pink-bowed companion using swirling patterns of light, and then scuttled through the last layer of hull plating until he reached Tilli’s side.

  Stars blazed all around them, as cold and pure and brilliant as ever. Serengeti hardly noticed them. She wanted nothing to do with daydreams and scenic vistas right now. She just wanted to know what was going on.

  Unfortunately, Tig still didn’t seem to be talking. He greeted Tilli and then set off, following his winding path across the hull with Tilli following at his side.

  “Tig. Stop.” Serengeti grabbed roughly at the robot’s controls, freezing his motors, bringing him to a lurching halt. Tilli kept going for a few feet before realizing Tig wasn’t with her and turning around, face lights flashing in question. “Speak. Now,” Serengeti ordered.