Serengeti

by J. B. Rockwell

  “It’s wonderful, Tig.”

  Serengeti laughed with pure joy, forgetting her shredded body, leaving her worries about Cryo and her crew behind. For a moment—just a moment—Serengeti allowed herself just to be. To live in that moment and remember the bliss that came with being a Valkyrie class starship drifting close to a star.

  “I wish you could see this, Henricksen. I wish you could be here to share this with me.”

  Henricksen. Cryo. She should go there and look in on them. But there was one last thing to check on here before she headed back inside.

  “The antenna?” she asked.

  “Still there.” Tig turned a bit, pointing ahead of them.

  She could just see the tower with its collection of dishes and panels jutting out up from her hull.

  Tig walked over to it, stopping at the antennae’s base. “Bit dinged up, few pieces broken off, but it’s still working. Lost some of the panels in the blast,” he said, pointing to scars and broken pieces along one side, “but Tilli and I managed to fix it. Knew you’d want it working.”

  “I do. I most definitely do.”

  The comms array was important, more important now, in the wake of that scavenger ship’s arrival, far more important than Tig could have ever imagined when he built the thing.

  Tig turned a circle around the tower, while Serengeti took a long, hard look. “Made a few improvements,” he said shyly, pointing at the middle and the tippy-tippy-top. “Amped up its power, added a few more panels and collectors. Works better now. Can pick things up that are further out in space.”

  “And?”

  Tig shrugged and popped open a panel, snaking a little cable out, connecting one end into a socket inside himself, and the other into a corresponding socket in the antennae. The channel opened and Serengeti listened closely, hoping for chatter, fearing to find the sound of human and AI voices cluttering up the line. But there was nothing. Nothing but silence on the other end. Even with the added capacity there was still nothing on the line.

  Serengeti sighed—relieved and disappointed at the same time. She’d held out hope that the Meridian Alliance would come, but after years and years and years, she still found herself alone.

  Time to stop dreaming, Serengeti. Henricksen again, sounding less than sympathetic.

  “If only I could,” she said bitterly. “If I could just stop dreaming, maybe this would all end.” A last look at the nearby star and she turned Tig around, putting its light behind her. “I’ve seen all there is to see here. What’s next?”

  “Engineering,” Tig said.

  Not the answer she expected. “Engineering. Not Cryo.”

  Tig heard the question in her voice, but he just shrugged and rattled his legs against the hull plating, choosing to ignore it.

  “Anything you want to tell me before I get there?”

  Tap-tap. Tappity-tap-tap. Tig seemed about to say something and then shook his head.

  Tig and his secrets. She was really getting tired of secrets. It better be a good one this time, Tig.

  “Fine,” Serengeti sighed. “Have it your way. Let’s go.”

  Tig waved Tilli ahead, letting her guide them back inside the hull.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Engineering looked a bit more disheveled—broken robots thrown around, neat rows of scavenged bodies knocked over, scattered about—but otherwise much the same as the last time Serengeti visited. Except, that is, for the fuel cells sitting at one end.

  “Both of them?” she asked quietly. “Both fuel cells are damaged?” Not surprising, really, considering the force of the blast and the damage she’d seen outside, but still, both of them felt like a kick in the pants. “You’re sure one’s not just compensating for the other?”

  Tig shook his head, leg ends wringing worriedly. “Casings are cracked,” he told her. “They’re both leaking, just at different rates.”

  “I don’t suppose you can fix them?”

  “The lesser damaged of the two, but the other…” Tig shrugged his legs—that was as good as ‘no.’

  Serengeti sighed wearily. Based on experience, an unrepaired leak would only get worse over time. “So how bad is it?” she asked, cutting to the chase.

  Tig brightened a bit. “So, here’s the thing.” He rolled close to the fuel cells, pointing at the gauges on the front before moving to the back and squeezing himself into the space between the fuel cells and the wall. “Wiring was pretty fried. Tilli replaced most of that already, and is working through the rest. And these fittings and connections? See the cracks? The corrosion? Every last one them needs to be replaced. Still scrounging for parts. Making progress though.”

  Not quite so bad then. Not nearly as bad as Serengeti feared when Tig first broke the news.

  “We’re closer to the star now,” Tig continued, “which means the photovoltaic cells in the hull plating can drink in more energy, and at a faster rate.” A pause and a sigh before he delivered the bad news. “Unfortunately, the two damaged fuel cells pretty much negate any advantage we get from that. Sorry.”

  “So, it’s a draw,” Serengeti said, sighing herself.

  “Afraid so. On the plus side, power-wise, we’re not much worse off now than we were before the explosion.”

  “That’s not really saying much.”

  Tig shrugged and worked his way back out into the room. “We’re doing what we can.” A hint of defensiveness in that. She’d obviously hurt his professional pride.

  “I’d hoped for better,” Serengeti told him, “but it could have been worse.”

  “A lot worse,” Tig nodded.

  Tilli added her agreement, head bobbing up and down.

  “What about Cryo? Was it damaged as well?”

  Tig shrugged, started to nod, then shook his head.

  Serengeti really wasn’t in the mood for this. “Enough with the shrugging and the head bobbles, Tig. No secrets this time. No bullshit. Was Cryo damaged or not?”

  “Depends how you look at it. Probably best if I just show you,” he added at Serengeti’s irritated sigh.

  He whistled for Tilli and beat feet, abandoning Engineering as he followed a long and winding path to Cryo. A path that went outside first—that being quicker and easier than trying to navigate the shattered corridors and piles of mounded debris the scavenger ship’s destruction had left—before heading back in.

  Even knowing what had happened to her, it still hurt Serengeti to see all that damage to her internal and external structures. She tried to ignore twisted metal and gaping wounds and focused on the stars instead, but when Tig ducked back inside, the damage lay all around—melted panels, twisted girders, cables and wires dangling grotesquely everywhere she looked.

  Tig zipped through it, high-stepping with his jointed legs into the cold confines Serengeti’s corridors, and further in it wasn’t so bad. Ice clung everywhere, hiding the burns and scars, covering over some of the smaller holes. But as Tig twisted and turned, they passed long stretches where the ice had broken away, revealing buckled, twisted panels, composite metal walls marred by smoke and fire.

  My insides are like my outsides, Serengeti thought, eying a pitted stretch of wall. All my body is full of holes. All my energy, everything that’s me dribbling away. Slipping through my fingers like tiny grains of sand.

  Oh, boo-freaking-hoo, Henricksen’s voice growled. Yer not dyin,’ Serengeti. You just need a good long stay in spacedock.

  “Not sure spacedock can fix this,” she murmured. “Not sure this body’s salvageable.”

  Body’s not Serengeti, he reminded her. Never was.

  She thought on that a long, long while.

  Tig ducked into a maintenance shaft and shimmied down a ladder, glancing up now and then to make sure Tilli still followed. He stepped off on the next tier, raced down the hall, turning left and right and right again until there was nowhere left to go.

  The corridor ended, not a door or a wall, but at yet another gaping hole looking out on the dark and stars. />
  “Where are we?” Serengeti asked.

  Tig flashed a smile and cleared his throat. “Ta-da!” he cried, flourishing one jointed leg grandly.

  “Yes, Tig. Another hole. Thank you for pointing that out. Now if you’re done wasting time—”

  “No-no-no.” Tilli scuttled over, pushing Tig out of the way. “You’re doing it all wrong.” She pointed at her eye and then through the hole where the corridor ended.

  That didn’t make any more sense to Serengeti than Tig’s leg flailing. “I don’t—”

  “Look. Out there.” Tilli pointed again—through the hole and down to the right, where a rounded metal shape protruded from Serengeti’s side.

  “Cryo,” Serengeti breathed. She pulled up the ship’s schematic—a plan now sadly, woefully out of date—and retraced their route as best she could. “Aft. Aft side of Cryo, opposite the airlock door.”

  Which meant close to her own aft end, since that’s where Cryo’s exit point was.

  Port side aft took heavy damaged during the run-in with Osage before jump. The scavenger ship’s explosion must have finished what that long ago battle started, exposing the lifeboat nestled inside her when that section of Serengeti’s body tore away.

  “Is it damaged?” Serengeti asked worriedly. “The crew…are they alright?”

  “Why don’t you take a look for yourself?” Tig smiled and pointed at a camera.

  “Be right back.” Serengeti left Tig and Tilli in the hallway and flicked from one camera to another until she found the one that looked inside Cryo.

  Darkness inside. Not good.

  She panned the camera around and zoomed in, spotting the palest of pale glows coming from the bottom of the cryogenic chambers. Serengeti sighed in relief. Lights—any lights—meant power, and lights on the sleep tubes meant they were still working—still doing their job, keeping her frozen crew alive. Serengeti counted quickly, tallying up all those pale lights, and found a handful were missing: six tubes gone silent and dark in the time she’d been sleeping.

  Finlay. Henricksen.

  Hard to see in Cryo’s dim interior, but in the way of all AIs, she’d memorized the layout of the cryogenic chambers, marking those that were empty, and those that were occupied when Cryo sealed itself up. Finlay had taken the pod right beside the door, Henricksen a unit near the center of the back wall. Serengeti checked and saw Henricksen’s light still lit, readout scrolling slowly. Finlay’s was dark, pod completely shut down.

  “Finlay,” she whispered, voice filled with mourning.

  Finlay’s darkened pod stared back at her—silent, accusing.

  “I’m sorry, Finlay. There was no other choice.” She wished she could see her, but the darkness hid Finlay’s face.

  “I’m sorry, Finlay. I’m so sorry.” Serengeti pulled backward, not wanting to see Finlay’s darkened tube anymore. Not wanting to think about her frozen face.

  The robots were quiet when Serengeti returned to them, sensing her melancholy mood, not daring to ask. “Six crew lost,” she said quietly. “Finlay…”

  Tig hooted mournfully as Serengeti trailed off. For a long time, they just stood there—Tig and Tilli looking outward, Serengeti looking with them, none of them saying anything, just…staring, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

  “So why am I here?” Serengeti asked them. “The crew…what did you mean to show me, other than Cryo’s exposed bum?”

  A sad attempt of humor, none of them really laughed.

  Tilli glanced uncertainly at Tig.

  “Go ahead.” Tig nodded encouragingly and moved back at bit, giving Tilli room to slide past him and open a panel in the wall.

  The magic device lay inside, the same one Tig used for all his staged events. Tilli pulled it out and held it up, cleared her throat to get their attention as she pointed to the electronic device she held and then pointed it at Cryo’s rounded end showing outside.

  “Yes, Tilli. I get it.”

  The Grand Reveal. Another little show that started out as cute but quickly got tiresome. Luckily, there were only eight of those damned docking clamps, and half of them already busted free.

  “Please get on with it,” Serengeti said, not quite covering her irritation.

  “Oh.” Tilli drooped, looking disappointed. This was her first attempt at the Grand Reveal, after all, and she’d probably been prepping for ages.

  Serengeti felt bad for ruining Tilli’s big moment. She summoned the last of her patience and forced some enthusiasm into her voice. “Alright, Tilli. Big moment. Show me what you’ve got, girl.”

  Tilli perked back up, rallying her spirits and she went on with the show. Big smile for her audience, and she turned to the wall, standing on her tip-toes as she reached up and slotted the little device into place, completing the recently repaired circuit. A surge of power—lights flaring up and down the hallway, wires flashing, fizzing, burning out—and Serengeti’s micro-sensors lit up, transmitting the thunk and rattle, the heavy, clanging crash of a docking clamp letting go.

  Serengeti looked outside and saw the docking clamp holding tight to Cryo’s ass end dangling in the depths of space—loose now and floating lazily with no gravity to hold it down.

  “Ta-da!” Tilli raised her legs, shaking imaginary pom-poms in celebration, an effect that was entirely spoiled by the fact that she still faced the wall.

  Tig coughed politely. “Turn around, Tilli.”

  “Oh!” Tilli flushed brightly and twisted, tank treads screeching against the frosted decking. “Ta-da!” She flashed a smile, flailing those pom-poms like there was no tomorrow.

  “Very nice, Tilli.” Serengeti clonked Tig’s leg ends together. “That makes…what? Five docking clamps? Five of the eight knocked free?”

  Tilli winked and shook her head, smiling widely.

  Tig tittered and bounced on his tip-toes, fairly dancing in the hall.

  “What are you two up to?” Serengeti asked suspiciously. “There were four clamps left last time I checked, and—what?”

  Tilli giggled, leg ends lifting to cover her mouth. “Four. She thinks it four.” Another giggle.

  Tig laughed aloud, turning in circles.

  Did I get it wrong? Serengeti wondered. Are they laughing because the poor, broken AI ship can no longer count?

  She checked her records, confirmed they’d only loosened four of the docking clamps before she went into that long stretch of dark. “Alright. I give up. What happened?”

  Tig scurried forward, holding tight to the wall with two legs while he hung his head out the hole at the end of the corridor. “Look there,” he said, pointing at Cryo’s bulbous hind end.

  Serengeti sighed in annoyance. “Yes, Tig. You broke that one loose. That’s very good, but—”

  “You’re not looking,” he scolded in a sing-song voice. He pointed again, more insistently this time. “There. Near the middle of Cryo’s backside wall. And over there,” a twitch of his leg, moving it left then right, pointing at the ragged edges where her body wrapped around the lifeboat. “What’s missing?”

  “I don’t—oh!” Now it was Serengeti’s turn to be embarrassed. Eight docking clamps held Cryo in place—three here on the backside, three more on the front, one on either side—all of them identical, ringing the lifeboat around. Serengeti looked outside and saw one of the rear-mounted clamps dangling loosely below the lifeboat’s bulging sphere, but the other two were missing. Missing, not hidden. Not broken away. Gone entirely, except for the end piece that connected to Cryo—that was still there. The rest of it—the docking strut, the swing arm, the hydraulic motors that ran the whole complicated mechanism—seemed to disappear. Vanished into thin air.

  “Explosion tore them loose,” Tig said.

  “Tore them loose, tore them loose!” Tilli giggled and flailed, prancing in a circle.

  High explosives, Henricksen’s voice said. Best way to solve a tricky problem.

  “Droll, Henricksen. Very droll.”

  Tilli kept da
ncing around but Tig stood there, looking from Tilli to Cryo outside like he was waiting for something.

  Do the math, Serengeti.

  Henricksen’s voice again. She’d be lost without him. Serengeti tallied the numbers and found the total came to seven.

  Told ya.

  “Shut up, Henricksen.”

  Tilli stopped dancing and flashed her face lights at Tig, wondering who Serengeti was talking to.

  Tig shrugged and raised a leg, twirling its end beside his head.

  She thinks you’re crazy, Henricksen offered helpfully.

  “Who knows. Maybe I am,” Serengeti murmured.

  She didn’t feel crazy, but she supposed it was possible. After all, her last maintenance visit had been a long time ago—years upon years upon years—and who knew what glitches her damaged systems had developed in that time. AI were machine minds but built on human brain specifications, so it was possible, if improbable, that she’d lost a few of her marbles along the way.

  The design specs say I shouldn’t dream, but I picked that up along the way. Maybe that’s the first step—the first indication of an unstable mind.

  She waited, expecting Henricksen’s voice to pipe up and offer some snarky comment, but Henricksen was strangely silent. She wondered if that was significant. If that voice’s sudden desertion was her subconscious indicating its agreement.

  Didn’t matter. Crazy or not, Cryo is almost free. And after that…

  “What happens after that doesn’t matter either,” she said softly, studying Cryo through Tig’s eyes. “We’ve got one docking clamp left now. Just one.” And two faulty fuel cells throwing up alarms, reminding Serengeti it was time she made herself scarce. “I must go now, little ones.”

  “No!” Tilli’s cobalt eyes blazed brightly, shining with sudden fear. “No, please. Last time—”

  “Shh. I won’t be far. Not this time. This time I go to sleep of my own choosing. This time I won’t let the darkness drag me down.”

  And she wouldn’t be alone. Not this time.

  Serengeti leaned Tig close, touching his cheek to Tilli’s, and then Serengeti flitted away, racing along her broken network to the bridge. And there she slipped to sleep—peacefully this time, dreaming her dreams of days gone by. No fire this time, no destruction. Just Henricksen swapping pithy bits of wisdom, keeping Serengeti company in the dark.