Those Left Behind

by Alan Davenport

  Paul turned to the wall monitor and said, “This concludes the emergency council meeting for colony for the continuation of humanity number seventy-six. Eliza, please stop recording.” The computer emitted a single tone. Paul turned to the people in the room and said, “Meeting adjourned. Let’s get to work people.”

  Chapter 4

  As soon as Mary and Max were back in the main tunnel, Mary, unable to contain her excitement, hugged and kissed Max with all of her might. “I cannot believe it, Max! Father is letting me help. ME!” she said, unable to believe it. When she looked into Max’s face, she was puzzled by his expression. “What is it, Max? You don’t want me to help?” Max reached up, put his hands upon her shoulders and pushed her away. “Save the hugging and Kissing for Tiny,” he said with a funny little laugh.

  Mary’s mouth made a little O when she realized what he was saying. She stepped back and turned her face away. “I am so sorry Max! I did not think…” Suddenly she stopped herself and shouted, “Tiny!”

  Completely taken by surprise by her sudden change in subject, Max asked, “What about Tiny?”

  Now it was Mary’s turn to be red-faced. She rapidly spoke, “He thinks that father doesn’t want us to get married and have children because he is special. He doesn’t know it is because of the reactor. I have to go explain it to him!”

  Max, his embarrassment of a minute ago completely forgotten, pointed down the tunnel towards Tiny’s room and said, “Go! Meet me in the storage chambers when you can. I can wait a little bit for your help. This is important. Go to him now. Go!”

  Mary ran down the tunnel. Several people tried to stop her and question her about the meeting. She ignored them all. Mary normally was not rude, however today things were different. She was a girl on a mission and that mission was to go comfort her best friend. Nothing else mattered to her at the moment.

  She slid to a stop at the doorway to Tiny’s chamber. Most of the colonists’ rooms were stark affairs with just the bare minimum for comfort. With the endless shortages, decorations were very low on most people’s priority list. Tiny’s room was an exception. Completely filled floor to ceiling with brightly colored bits of plastic and other cast-off items, it was all a riot of primary colors arranged in neat, geometric patterns.

  Tiny lay face down on his cot with his face buried in his pillow. His body shook with soft sobs. Mary stopped short when she saw him. Standing motionless for many seconds, her hand went to her cheek and brushed away a tear which formed at the sight of his distress. “Tiny,” she softly said. He did not answer. She stopped and sniffed back further tears. “Tiny!” Mary repeated, a little louder this time. Again, he did not answer. Mary ran over to him and lay down beside him and hugged him.

  Tiny finally spoke. “Leave Tiny alone!” he blubbered.

  Even though Tiny could not see her with his head buried deep in the pillow, Mary shook her head and said, “No Tiny. We need to talk.”

  Tiny tried to wriggle free of her grasp and said, “Tiny no talk! Tiny can’t marry friend Mary. Tiny stupid. Make stupid babies. Go away! Leave Tiny alone!”

  Mary sniffed back a tear and vehemently said, “No Tiny, you are wrong. That is NOT the reason father doesn’t want us to have babies. There is another reason. It is a good one and I agree with father.”

  Tiny was not convinced. “No, Tiny stupid. Paul knows this. Paul HATES Tiny!”

  Mary stiffened in shock at his words. “No Tiny. You are WRONG! Father doesn’t hate you. He is very fond of you. We ALL are. The reason we can’t get married and have babies because the colony is in TROUBLE.” Mary hesitated. The implications of what she was about to say hit her full force. “Tiny,” she said softly, “The main power reactor is about to fail and when it does we are all going to die. We can’t have babies because we will not… They will not…” She shuddered, trembling in fear at the significance of what she was about to say. “We will not live long enough to see them grow up.”

  Tiny stopped sniffing. He turned to face May. She reached up, brushed his tears away and caressed his cheek. Tiny looked at her with the wide eyes of a child and asked, “What is rack-tor? Tiny does not understand.”

  Mary took his giant hand in her small ones and said, “RE-AC-TOR, Tiny. It is what makes the power that makes the lights, the fans and the heat work.” She squeezed his hand and said, “Without power we will all die in the cold and the dark. Now do you see why father said no to us getting married? Father loves you like you were his own son.”

  Tiny, normally slow on the uptake, understood perfectly this time. “All die?” Mary nodded and then his face lit up and he said, “Mary go fix rack-tor. Mary is smart. Go fix it, friend Mary. Then we can get married!”

  “If it were only so simple,” she thought. Aloud, Mary smiled and said, “Yes, Max and I are going to try.” Tiny grabbed Mary’s face, pulled it to him and gave her a great, big kiss. Mary hesitated for a second but then she relaxed and fell into the kiss. “Come on,” she said breathlessly, “Come help Max and I. We might need your strength.”

  His sadness of only a moment ago completely forgotten, Tiny said, “Yes, Tiny will help friend Mary and friend Max!” The young couple got up and walked hand-in-hand towards the storage caverns.

  The storage facility that Fred maintained was contained inside a vast underground cavern. It was poorly lit because many of the overhead lights were burnt out. In the gloom, stalactites hung from the ceiling and dripped a constant stream of water which formed stalagmites which grew upwards from the floor. In places the stalactites and stalagmites met in the middle forming colorful columns that glistened with wetness where the meager light fell upon them. Endless lines of rusting shelves overflowed with various items and parts of items. Everything was coated with a thick layer of dust. Time had taken its toll and most of the objects on the shelves were nothing more than rusted scrap which nobody had bothered to throw away. To most people, the room was full of nothing but junk. However, to the ever-inquisitive Mary, it was a treasure trove as rich as any mythical fantasy dragon’s hoard.

  Mary bustled into the cavern. Her head swiveling left and right, looking for Max and Fred. “MAX!” she bellowed into the room. Her voice reverberated weirdly in the open space. Tiny’s face lit up with glee. “MAX! MAX! MAX!” he shouted, giggling at the sound of his own echoing voice. Mary squeezed his hand and shushed him. “Quiet, Tiny. We will not be able to hear him reply!” Far off to her left, Mary caught a faint answer. “Over here, Mary!” She took Tiny’s hand and led him off through the poorly lit stacks. “I wish we had a flashlight, Tiny,” she muttered after stumbling on a bit of cast-off debris.

  Mary found Max and Fred, pouring over the hulking remains of the seven repair robots. Each bot was two meters long by one meter wide, had eight arms, all tipped with various tools and grippers, a vertical staff tipped in stereographic video cameras and sat upon dual rubber tracks. In its center was a recessed tub for carrying items. Each bot sat motionless, covered in a thick layer of dust. Many of the bots were missing various parts and accessories. Max was in the midst of an animated argument with Fred.

  “WHY did you take so many parts from these bots, Fred?” he asked, obviously quite upset. “How am I ever supposed to fix one of these things if it is missing most of its parts?”

  “Well… I didn’t… you know…!” he sputtered.

  “Yes, you did, Fred. Who else would have come in here and taken parts from them? Don’t lie to me!” He shouted, pacing back and forth and throwing his hands up in the air in his frustration.

  Fred lost his temper and shouted back. “I am NOT lying! I meant that I didn’t expect anyone to ever try to fix them! A lot of the parts were taken long before I was even born and assigned to this job, too.”

  Max, with an ashamed expression on his face, muttered “I’m sorry Fred. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. It is just… it is just that the task seems so impossible. It is so important that I succeed too. I don’t know what to do!” Letting out a deep sigh he
repeated, “I’m sorry Fred.”

  Fred laid his hand upon Max’s shoulder. “I understand. I really do. Truth is, I DO know how important these bots are it is just…” He fell silent. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and continued, “Truth is… I’ve kept it quiet but… well, the colony is in trouble even without the reactor failure. We are out of spare parts. Do you think I LIKE digging in the garbage dumps? I am doing it out of desperation. We are running out of parts for the most basic items. Hell, there are not even any spare light bulbs anymore. Without manufacturing bots, we are doomed just as surely as we will be when the reactor fails. The death will just take a little bit longer, is all.”

  Max looked Fred in the eyes. “It’s really that bad?” he asked. When Fred sighed and nodded, Max said, “No wonder you are always so stressed out, Fred.”

  Fred smiled grimly in appreciation of Max’s understanding. “Yeah. People are always coming to me for parts… parts that ran out even before I was born.” He waved his hands in the air in frustration. “What am I supposed to do? People always yell at me when I tell them that I cannot help them. Do they think I do it on purpose?” His shoulders slumped in resignation. “Nobody wants to hear that there are no more spare parts. I have had to live alone with the knowledge we were in trouble. Nobody knew and I did not want to alarm anyone. The burden has been killing me.”

  Max grabbed Fred’s arm and said, “Well, now you don’t have to shoulder the burden alone any longer. You have us.” Max looked over the hulking remains of the repair bots, His shoulders slumped and he said, “This is pretty hopeless, isn’t it?”

  Fred looked over the remains and said, “Yeah, it sure looks that way.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Well, we have to try anyway.” He pointed to a bot at the end of the line. “That one was the last one that functioned. I have left it alone and have not scavenged any parts off of it. I think that one will be your best hope.”

  Max walked over to it. He flipped up a small panel covering a small screen and keyboard and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. Not even the slightest flicker from the tiniest of the LED indicator lights. It was completely inert. Half under his breath he muttered, “Stone dead.”

  Fred shook his head in agreement. “Yeah, there are no more rechargeable eternal batteries of the type these bots need remaining. They need a rather specialized battery with a large current capacity and 48 volts of direct current. This is to run all of the bot’s various power tools. We don’t have any of these batteries left. We scavenged all of them from the other dead bots to keep this last one going. When that last battery stopped holding a charge, we had to put the bot in storage along with the other ones.”

  Nobody said anything for a minute or so. They stood there, looking at the line of dead robots and contemplated the hopelessness of the task assigned to them. It was Mary who spoke first. Her face lit up with an idea and she asked, “What about other batteries. Do you have any other batteries Fred?”

  Fred looked at her, annoyed. “Didn’t you listen to me? There are no more batteries that will fit these bots!” Mary tried to ask again and he cut her off. “How much plainer can I be? There aren’t any more 48-volt batteries!”

  Max, his face wrinkled up in a frown, turned to Fred and said, “No Fred, don’t yell at Mary. She is my student and has a good head upon her shoulders.” Max felt a thrill of hope and with a slight tremor in his voice, asked, “Mary. What are you thinking? Do you have an idea?”

  Mary blushed, put her hand on Fred’s arm and asked, “Why are those batteries so special? Why can’t we use some other batteries in their place?”

  Fred looked at her and sadly said, “It’s the voltage Mary. No other batteries we have are 48 volts. We have a decent amount of flashlight batteries. They are one and a half volts. That is WAY too low a voltage to operate the bot. We also have some big 12-volt batteries that we use in the power wheelbarrows and farming tractors but they are only produce one quarter of the needed voltage.” With a deep sigh he finished by saying, “As you can see, we have nothing that will power the bots.”

  Mary, rather than be put off by Fred’s pronouncement, became quite excited. “You said those 12-volt batteries are big? Do they have a large current capacity?”

  Fred responded to her as if talking to a child, “Mary. Did you not listen? Their voltage is way too low. They WILL NOT WORK!”

  Max ignored Fred’s blustering and excitedly asked, “Mary, what are you thinking? Do you think you can retrofit them somehow?” When Mary enthusiastically nodded, Max turned to Fred and said, “Can you please go fetch us some of them for us please?” Fred opened his mouth to complain however Max cut him off. “Mary is a fixer. It is her job to know things. Things that you do not know, Fred. Humor her.” He turned to Mary and asked, “What do you need him to fetch, Mary?”

  Mary, nervous, said in a soft voice, “I need four of those big 12-volt batteries and some heavy double-ought gauge wire and some connectors to hook them all together.”

  Fred grumbled, “I still think it is a waste of time. Those batteries are HEAVY, too!”

  Mary, with confidence in her voice, said, “Fred, do you remember back when you were in science class? If you hook up batteries in series their voltages ADD TOGETHER. Twelve times four is forty-eight volts. I am sure I can make it work!”

  Fred froze in place. His face lit up and he said, “Oh!”

  Tiny smiled and said, “Tiny can help Fred carry heavy batteries!”

  Max grabbed Mary in a bear hug and spun her round and round. “Mary! You are a genius!” he said, full of hope for the first time in a very long time.

  Tiny returned, grunting under the weight of one of the heavy batteries. Fred took the sensible route and used a wheeled power wheelbarrow to carry the other three. Mary’s face fell when she saw the batteries. “Oh wow,” she said in dismay, “They are too big to all fit into the bot’s battery tray.”

  Max nodded dejectedly and said, “Yeah. Now what?”

  “Dunno,” Mary said and just stood there, her face tight with disappointment. Tiny stood off to the side, grunting under the weight of the massive battery he held. Mary smiled and said, “You can put that down now, Tiny. Be careful that you do not damage it.” Tiny did not put the battery on the floor. He walked over to the repair bot and placed the battery into the storage bin on the robot’s back. As soon as Tiny stepped back, Mary ran up to him and gave him a hug. “Tiny!” she shouted, “You are a genius!” Tiny did not understand why his friend called him that however he smiled, jumped up and down and shouted, “Tiny jeen-yus! Tiny jeen-yus!” Mary hugged him again and said, “Yes dear, you are!”

  Max walked up to Tiny and shook his hand. “Thank you, Tiny!” Tiny still did not understand why he was being praised however he beamed with pleasure anyway. Max walked over to the bot and examined it with growing excitement. “What do you think, Mary. Two batteries in the battery compartment and the other two in the storage tray up top?”

  Mary walked over to the bot and examined the panel covering the battery storage compartment. She studied it for a second and then said, “Max, hand me a 10mm socket wrench please,” she asked. Max handed her the wrench and watched, smiling at his student, as she expertly removed the cover. Mary grabbed a tape measure from Max’s toolbox and measured the space inside. Next, she measured one of the large 12-volt batteries. After a second she smiled and said, “Yes, I CAN fit two of them in here and the other two will fit in the storage tray on top as well. I can do it!”

  It took her an hour to do all of the work. Much of the time was spent just removing the old, dead 48-volt battery from the compartment. “Darn it! Who designed this to fit so TIGHTLY?” she shouted after scraping her knuckles for the third time. Max chuckled and said, “Engineers, Like us.” Mary shot him a half sour, half amused look. Max laughed some more and said, “In their defense, they never expected anyone to actually have to REPLACE the battery. It was supposed to be eternal, after all. They never expected the bot itself to ou
tlast the battery.” Mary chuckled and said, “I suppose so,” and then she went to work preparing the hookup cables.

  When she was ready, she triple-checked her work. Under her breath she checked off the steps. “Red is the positive connection, plus. Black is the negative connection, minus. To hook them in series red on one battery goes to the black on the next battery and so on. Red cable from the bot goes to the positive terminal on the first battery and the black cable from the bot goes to the negative terminal on the last battery in the chain.”

  Max smiled with pride and said, “That’s correct, Mary. You don’t want to hook it up backwards or you will fry the bot’s electronics. Be careful about short circuits too. You don’t want to know what happens when you short out a big battery like one of these.” Mary gave him a little knowing smile and he grinned and said, “Yes, the results are quite spectacular.” Mary laughed and asked, “You know this from personal experience, do you?” and reached in to make the final connection. “I admit nothing,” Max said with a little chuckle.

  There was a tiny spark when Mary made the final connection. She jumped and began to back away however she stopped herself when she realized that there was not going to be any spectacular fireworks. Nothing appeared to happen. Mary’s shoulders slumped and with a defeated look upon her face, she sat down, put her head in her hands and cried, “It didn’t work!” With a sob she added, “I was so SURE it would work!”

  Max, noticing the glow of a little red LED on the control panel, hurried over to Mary, squeezed her shoulder and said, “Don’t give up just yet, Mary!” He pointed to the panel and said, “Look!” Mary quickly got to her feet and walked over to the panel. She stared, fascinated by the little red glowing LED. “Now what?” she asked Max, unsure how to proceed. Max, trembling with excitement, said, “See the power button? Press and hold it down for three seconds.” Mary did so and she shrieked and jumped back when the bot emitted a rather loud beep. The LED turned green and little screen on the access panel lit up and displayed “GENERAL MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR ROBOT GMR-1000 STARTUP IN PROCESS. BATTERY VOLTAGE NOMINAL. STARTING ROBOT AI VERSION 1.15.01. STARTUP SUCCESSFUL.” A split-second later, the dual cameras on the vertical shaft elevated, turned towards the four people and the bot said, “I am general maintenance and repair robot designation forty-one. I do not recognize any human in my presence. Please provide personal designations to continue.”