A long trip in space, with a crew of ‘bots. A disaster to investigate, and a lot of questions to answer. It’s the questions outside of the investigation that are intriguing. And, the ‘bots, too…
For weeks, it was all over the news. We lost contact with the colony on Titan and overnight, Turing Corporation’s stock tanked. Titan wasn’t their biggest investment, but it was probably the most promising, next to the Europa colony.
We’d known for a long time that someday, our Sun was going to balloon into a red giant, effectively turning Earth into a crispy marshmallow and the frost belt out beyond Mars into our new tropical paradise. Still, we figured we had ages to find a new home. But by the time we finally got the hang of space travel, annihilation was imminent. Well, relatively. Not in my lifetime, no, but my great-grandkids would need some heavy-duty sunscreen. It was time to get serious.
Sure, the United Governments had plans. For the last century or so, every Minister candidate had promised a seat on a ship to a safe place for everyone on Earth. But nobody put much confidence in them. The real money was on corporations like Turing Corp. They could make things happen.
Ships went out in droves, planting the flag anywhere it was even remotely possible humans might survive. The important part was to stake a claim, figure out the particulars later. Turing Corp got to Titan first. Before you knew it, a rudimentary colony was operational, terraforming was churning along, stockholders were ecstatic. Then everything went quiet.
That’s where I came in.
Of course, they had to send someone to investigate. But a mission this important couldn’t be trusted to a bunch of tin heads. They sent me. I was supposed to assess the situation from the “human” perspective, because a bot might miss nuances only a human could catch. Like I’m some sort of emotional litmus test. Yeah, me, the guy who never had a girlfriend without circuitry.
These days, we expect bots to do everything for us, even wipe our noses. My Brenda Lee never did that, but only because I specifically asked her not to. That aside, if I did have a human girlfriend, she still wouldn’t have known me as well as my Brenda Lee. She knew what I wanted before I wanted it. My personal theory is that’s why the human population took a nosedive. It wasn’t just the angst over our soon-to-be incinerated home. It’s that no human could hope to compete with a bot for compatibility. They didn’t get mad; they did what they were told; and they couldn’t walk out on you. Perfect.
I missed my Brenda Lee, but she wasn’t rated for space travel. My loss, and believe me, I felt her absence. It was just me and a crew of tin bots. Exceptionally sophisticated bots, but they weren’t real men like me. Not that I was in charge of the mission. I didn’t know anything about running a ship, or navigation or, at that point, space. All that was up to a bot called ANDI, the only robot onboard with realistic derma. The derma was there to make me feel less isolated, provide a semblance of human contact. Personally, except for my Brenda Lee, I felt derma robots were a little creepy. No human was that perfect.
The reason why there weren’t other humans onboard was economics. The number crunchers couldn’t justify the cost. Unlike bots, we humans aren’t a dime a dozen.
Besides, people don’t exactly line up to take a long spaceflight like that. In the old days, it would have taken about seven years to reach Titan. We’d gotten it down to less than three, but it’s still a long time to leave family and friends. Fortunately, I didn’t have any of those.
And Turing Corp was making it worth my while to go. No way I could have footed the bill for a doctorate in clinical psychology on Earth. This way, the corporation paid the full freight. The best part was I could work on my degree while I was gone. I’d be in deep sleep mode most of the way, but all the coursework would be piped directly into my cortex while I was out cold. I’d wake up as we reached Titan, look around, assess the situation, write up my report based on my newly acquired skillset, and head home.
On the way back, my plan was to sleep halfway, wake up, write my dissertation, then maybe get in some real-life clinical work with settlers on Jupiter’s moons or more likely the ore ships. An amazingly high percentage of crew on the ore ships snapped. In the unofficial parlance, they spaced out. Too much time spent staring into the abyss, I guess. That’s why bot crews were replacing humans. They didn’t crack. They didn’t ask for a raise either, or hardship pay. My money was that the colonists on Titan had your run-of-the-mill space-out. Out there in the frost zone was no place for us warm-blooded, sun-loving Earthlings.
With luck, I’d get a book deal out of the whole mission, or at least some talk show interviews. That wouldn’t hurt. Parlay it into a tenured position in academics. Or go into private practice. Not many psychiatrists got beyond the Mars settlement. In fact, zero. At the end of the mission, I’d be debt-free and set for life. All I had to do was travel approximately 818,000,000 miles with a ship of tools.
That first morning over Titan, I watched through the viewing port as the moon unspooled below. I was eating a bowl of cereal and I swear it was the best cereal I had ever eaten. That’s what deep sleep does to you.
Behind me at the table, ANDI nursed a mug of coffee. I looked away from the port long enough to ask, “Do you eat?’
“I can simulate ingesting food, yes.”
“But you don’t need to?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’ I knew why as soon as I asked. It was to help me acclimate. To the ship, to my surroundings. To it. I turned back to the viewport.
“Geez, it’s one big ice ball down there. Where are the colonies?”
ANDI came to stand beside me. ‘Look for the waste rings.” It pointed out what I’d thought was bare rock in the ice. But now, I noticed they were too uniform for any natural formation. “They surround the main colony, its outer bases, and the emitters.”
‘Emitters?’
“Hydrocarbon emitters. Titan is rich in hydrocarbons. They’re released into the atmosphere.”
“They want greenhouse gases? Back home, that’s called pollution.”
“Eventually it will help warm the atmosphere. It worked for your Earth once.”
I didn’t tell her those greenhouse gases nearly killed us, too. No sense in pointing out how stupid humans could be.
“Most of the main colony is below ground,” ANDI was saying. “It taps into water reservoirs beneath the ice to generate oxygen for its use.” She pointed to a large brown ring coming into view. “The largest settlement is Zeus. There’s a smaller outpost, Hera, about 100 klicks away.” The watery sunlight glinted off something shiny in the center of the ring.
‘What’s that?” I asked.
“Zeus is partially domed. It simulates open air. That appears to be important to humans, psychologically, although, of course, the domes are not open to the atmosphere.”
That prompted a recollection I didn’t know I had. “There’s no oxygen in the atmosphere, right? But it’s thick enough to protect humans from radiation.”
ANDI smiled. “Your subliminal instruction appears to have been effective.” It turned back to the viewing port. ANDI presented as female, taller than me at 5 foot 6 or so. She had short black hair and blue eyes. I found the whole gender thing in general purpose bots a waste. Bots were tin pots. Tools. Circuitry and chips in a shell. Nothing more. In my opinion, aping human genders was misguided, if not insulting—to us humans.
ANDI pointed out a rectangular depression in the ice. “That’s one of the farms. As with Earth’s original atmosphere, Titan’s atmosphere has methane and ammonia. And since there’s water locked in seas under the ice…”
‘Yes, I know.” I was getting a little impatient with the lecture. “They’re growing cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria produces free oxygen. We’re jumpstarting Titan’s atmosphere, pumping oxygen in to make it breathable for when we need to live here.”
ANDI nodded. ‘It is an impressive undertaking. What took hundreds of millions of years on Earth, humans hope to accomplish in barely a century.”
“And we’ll do it,” I said with some smugness.
“Yes,” ANDI said as the colony beneath us moved out of view. “Humans are inescapable.’
“Inescapable? That’s an odd word to use.”
“I am sorry. Is it inappropriate? I upgraded my language capabilities in anticipation of working together. There may be some incompatibilities.”
“No worries. When do we go down to the surface? I’d like to get started.”
“A team will be shuttling down to the surface in 12 hours.”
I looked at my watch, still set to Earth time. “That’s the middle of the night!”
“Titan’s day is 15.9 Earth days.”
I should have remembered that. “Ok, no problem. I’ll be ready.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be possible for you to visit the colony at this time.”
This pissed me off. “Look, I’m here to find out what happened. I can’t assess the situation from up here. I need to be… in the moment.’
ANDI’s cheerful expression didn’t alter by a hair. It’s one of the things I disliked about bots. “My instructions are to safeguard you. We do not know what happened to the colony. Until we know more, you must remain on the ship. But we have anticipated your requirements. You will have discretionary control of a member of the landing team.”
“That’s not good enough…” To my annoyance, ANDI cut me off.
“You will be able to direct its movement as you desire. The interface is highly sophisticated.” ANDI turned away to put its mug in the dish rack. “One of the tech robots will help you with the hook-up. You may be surprised how ‘in the moment’ this experience will be.”
I still didn’t like it. This felt like a brush-off. And I didn’t plan to take that from a tin bot. “I object strongly. And I formally request permission from Turing Corp to go down to the settlement.’
‘Of course.” It was practically chirpy. “I will let Turing Corp know. In the meantime, welcome to Titan.”
I spent the next several hours napping and drafting a protest to Turing. ANDI would send an official message; bots can’t refuse to carry out a command unless there is a superseding order or clear danger. But I wanted to weigh in, if only to assert myself. ANDI was nominally in charge of the mission, but I was the human here.
The hook-up to the bot was easily the most disorienting—and at the same time exhilarating—experience I’ve ever had. It wasn’t like sitting at a game console directing an avatar. I was that bot. I could feel the cold coming off Titan as the shuttle approached Zeus port. I could hear the hiss of frozen surface crystals against the hull as we landed. I looked down at its —my— hand, curling and uncurling the fingers. I could feel the texture of the webbing holding me—it— into place. I was the bot. It was me.
I’ll be honest. I was a dweeby, undersized guy who wheezed when he walked up a flight of stairs. Okay, yeah, the gravitational pull on Titan is about one seventh Earth’s. But the “me” bot could schlep literally a ton of gear and do it at a run. I enjoyed this.
Several Earth news cycles were all about “Titan Goes Dark,” but the reality was a little more complicated. Most colonies were civilian-run, and sometimes, deadlines slipped. It wasn’t unusual for a monthly progress report to be late. Things happened. It’s all-hands-on-deck for a repair, or maybe a storm interferes with transmission. And there was an added complication. Titan personnel were due to cycle out, but the ship that would have brought the new crew was delayed while the Turing Corp scrambled to mount a rescue mission to Jupiter’s Europa. The first seismic activity in nearly a century heavily damaged the colony there. By the time that fire was out, and someone noticed Titan’s silence, it had been six months. Six months without a peep. Not even an emergency beacon signal, standard operating procedure if something went wrong.
It was like the colony’s inhabitants evaporated.
My job on this first outing was to investigate the living areas. The rest of the away team would assess the physical plant and take environmental samples. The main goal was to look for the colonists, then determine the presence of any pathogens, serial killers or big green alien monsters. Only partly kidding. It wouldn’t be the first time a colonist cracked and started seeing aliens in the next bunk.
Serial killers aside, pathogens were the strongest possibility. Air filtration system maintenance is a fine art. And to tell the truth, there wasn’t an awful lot of research into what was floating in Titan’s seas before we tapped into them. Biofilters were supposed to take care of any foreign bodies, but, well, you never know.
I thought about that as I hit the airlock into the settlement’s living areas. I was almost grateful ANDI insisted I take the bot. You can’t infect a bot. Not with anything living. But I wasn’t worried, going off on my own. From the ship, we’d already scanned for signs of life. Nothing.
The first room I entered was one of the communal areas. Ten apartments were grouped around each communal kitchen and dining area. Zeus would eventually support 200 settlers. But at this point, only a skeleton contingent lived here, numbering a few biologists, a specialist terra-forming team and engineers to fine-tune the life-support systems and cultivators before handing them over to the bots to maintain.
The place was a mess. There were plates with uneaten food on the tables, overturned chairs. Whatever happened here, it was sudden.
My visual system glitched; I got a superimposed view of the transport bay from one of the landing team bots. The bays that held the sleds were all empty. Sleds were strictly for surface transport. Clearly someone, maybe everyone, had left Zeus and not returned. I heard ANDI’s acknowledgement and the visual winked out.
I headed for the apartments. It was so quiet; it was a little unnerving. You get used to a certain ambient noise level, the hum of lights, ventilation, other people being human, scratching body parts, humming, being inconsiderate slobs. That’s when it occurred to me. I hadn’t seen a single bot. Typically, there’d be a 3:1 ratio, bots to humans. What happened to them?
The first apartment I tried was unfurnished, as were the next two. The third had been occupied. Once. In the living room, an entertainment com droned on in the corner. Nobody had bothered to turn it off. I stopped to watch. It was an old movie. I mean really old. I think they called them rom coms. This one was set on the Mars colony. As I stood there, the credits rolled, then the opening scenes began again, caught in a loop for over three years. I shut it off.
In the bedroom, clothes spilled from open drawers and a lone boot stood upright in the middle of the unmade bed. I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a faint coating of frost on all the surfaces, even the bed covers. I would have shivered, except bots don’t get cold.
Back on ship, I ate my meal alone in my cabin. ANDI usually ate with me, in the cause of making the human feel comfortable. But not “tonight.” I was relieved. My day as a bot brought home how much accommodation was made for me, the only human. Like the artificial construct on-board of 24-hour days. Bots didn’t need a day/night division, or a sleep cycle, or a cup of coffee to get started in the “morning.” Just the human. I was the weak link. It didn’t feel good.
Besides, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d had sitting in that bedroom. It was making me itchy, see shadows. It wasn’t the absence of life that got to me. Empty buildings were no big deal. Earth’s cities were full of abandoned shells; I’d grown up with that echo. But Zeus was different. It felt like a vacuum. And something, just out of range, was waiting to fill the void as soon as I turned my back.
I switched on my entertainment com hoping to catch up on the news back home. I watched some talking heads until I couldn’t take it anymore.
I found ANDI on the bridge. The ship’s outer shell was partially retracted, and the brilliant white glare of Titan filled the viewing panel. There was something playing over the audio system, I couldn’t identify. But it made me think of Zeus. And not in a good way.
ANDI didn’t turn from the viewing panel. ‘Would you call this beautiful? What is your impression? I am interested.”
‘Too cold, too harsh.”
“The view or the music?”
“Both. I like my planets blue and my music hummable. Is it a bot piece? Sorry, a robot piece?”
I vaguely remembered bot compositions were briefly a big thing in Earth music circles. This sounded like one. Big mish mash.
“This part is called, ‘Premonitions.’ Schoenberg composed it in your late 20th century. At the time, he said ‘the music seeks to express all that swells in us subconsciously like a dream.’ I do not dream. Does this music express a dream state for you?”
“Can you turn it off?” After Zeus, it was too much.
It was abruptly quiet, although I was fairly sure ANDI hadn’t moved or issued a command. For some reason, I felt ANDI was disappointed in my reaction.
“When do we get results from today’s samples?” I asked.
“We collected samples of water, air, any remaining food, and cyanobacteria. Preliminary results should be available in 12 hours. It was observed that life support systems had deteriorated. We are trying to determine if that was possibly a long-standing problem.”
“Okay,” I said. “But the sleds were missing from the transport bay. The colonists obviously took them. We need to find out where they went.”
“If something catastrophic occurred at Zeus, their logical destination would be Hera,” ANDI said. That hit me. Catastrophic? I’d been thinking it, but I was surprised to hear her describe it that way. ANDI seemed to choose her words carefully. Did she know something I didn’t?
“What kind of catastrophe do you mean? There was no damage to the colony buildings. Not even a body.” I didn’t mention the missing bots.
“Not all crises are obvious,” ANDI responded. “The Zeus sample results will tell us more. In the meantime, I recommend we investigate Hera. But perhaps you are tired after today?”
I nodded, suddenly exhausted. “I’ll get some rest. But I’m going with the team.”
ANDI nodded. “Of course.”
That sleep cycle, I dreamed I was being chased through Zeus. By what, I couldn’t see. I just knew it was going to kill me. I woke in a cold sweat.
We landed at Zeus’ port again, but this time, the bots and ANDI strapped on what looked like stubby bladed skis. I was back in my bot from the previous day. It felt good. Everything was enhanced. Hearing. Vision. Reflexes. I felt invincible. I wanted to find Jimmy Wormer from high school and get a little payback.
“It will be easier if you give the bot control until we reach Hera,” ANDI cautioned me. “It will be able to respond faster than a human on this terrain.”
Of course, I knew better. I’d grown up skating. How hard could this be? After my second head-long slide across the surface I gave in. Then it got, well…beautiful, like flying. The bot easily compensated for the uneven ice, its stride falling into a fluid rhythm. ANDI fell back from the pack to race beside me. In passing, we kicked up clouds of ice crystals that glittered in the weak sunlight. I couldn’t help it; I was enjoying myself so much I was disappointed when Hera base came into view.
Hera was smaller than Zeus, designed more as a node in the future grid of cyanobacteria farms, and a fallback, in case Zeus was uninhabitable. After the hit on Ganymede, every colony had to have one or more bolt holes. Standard practice.
I took the living areas, the lab, and the communications center. The rest of the team spread out looking for the sleds and any evidence the colonists might have come here.
The living area had a few curtained-off bunks and a basic kitchen. Not designed for long-term stays, but comfortable enough for a night or two if the weather turned bad, or a remote repair job took longer than expected—or Zeus was death central. There was no sign anyone had been living there. The communications center was strictly local calls. If anyone had hoped to call for help from here, they would have been disappointed. That left the lab area to check. It was serviceable, nothing as extensive as at Zeus, but adequate for fieldwork, routine tests. I picked up a large jar from the counter, labeled Spirulina. Somewhere, a synapse sparked. Spirulina, a strain of cyanobacteria most useful for human nutrition. Easily substituted for a variety of fruits and vegetables. I held the jar up to the light.
A voice crackled in my head. Startled, I dropped the jar and it smashed into a thousand pieces at my feet. A cloud of grey dust billowed out over the floor, coating the surface.
“Bays empty,” the voice said. “No sleds found.”
I surveyed the mess. Normally, a housekeeper bot would have popped out and started cleaning this up. I waited. Obviously, not happening. Great. Maybe there was an old-fashioned broom around somewhere. Searching the cupboards, I heard ANDI direct the team.
“Check the immediate vicinity for sleds and any remnants. If conditions permit, widen the search area for 2 klicks around the base. Then, double that radius.”
Remnants. She probably meant remains. It was a recovery mission, not a rescue, after all. A part of me didn’t accept that. Weren’t the missing sleds a hopeful sign? But where did they go? Was there another base? Hope springs eternal in us remnants.
I opened another cupboard door. Assorted flasks, packages of disposable gloves. Next one: pipettes, petri dishes, and a stack of neatly folded lab coats. The next door was stuck. The human me would have tried, failed and moved on. The bot me misjudged its own strength and yanked the door off its hinges. A torso tumbled out and the next thing I knew, I was back on the ship.
I found out later the bot/human connection severs automatically if the human heart rate goes over a certain level. That’s both to protect my delicate human psyche from trauma—and allow the bot to react unimpeded. Bots’ reflexes are better than humans; in an emergency; we just slow them down.
So, there I was, back above Titan when I wanted to be in the lab in Hera, because I couldn’t be certain what I’d actually seen. A body, definitely. Or at least a torso. But human? Or a derma? I had the impression of facial features. Anyway, the torso had a head.
My messages to ANDI bounced back with an ‘out of zone’ response. The team must have moved beyond the two klicks looking for sleds. It was frustrating, but it wasn’t exactly life and death. Whatever was in that cupboard had been there for quite some time; it could wait a little longer. I just didn’t know if I could.
The minute the team stepped out of the airlock, I was there.
“There was a body. I found a body in the lab.”
ANDI nodded. Unlike the other bots, she had to wear thermal clothing in Titan’s extreme cold to protect her derma layer. She took her time stripping this off and storing the gear. “The bot alerted us.”
“Where is it?”
“For the time being, it will remain in the lab.”
“Why?”
“The cyanobacteria contaminated the lab and bot. Until we are certain there is no danger, the bot will remain there.”
“Alone?” I don’t know why I said that, it just came out.
ANDI looked as dispassionate as any robot could. “The bot is not human.” I followed her into the command center.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Being alone is a human fear.”
“Okay, okay. What about the body?”
“We did not find a body.”
“But. . . but there was. I saw it.”
ANDI adjusted the comm screen. A view of the lab appeared. “Perhaps this is what you saw?”
The bot I’d controlled stood next to a table fiddling with something. A closer look and I could see it wasn’t a body, it was a bot’s badly mutilated torso. Its legs and arms had been ripped out, one side of the head was smashed in, the eye sockets empty.
“We’re attempting to reanimate the robot now.”
‘How long will that take?”
“Difficult to say. After such an extended period, and extensive damage, it may be difficult to revive the robot and retrieve any information. The physical damage may have affected memory.”
‘Keep trying! It might tell us what happened to the people.”
“That is what you wish to know?”
The question surprised me. “Of course. Don’t you?”
ANDI turned to me. “I would like to know, who would do such a thing to a robot?” She turned back to look at the screen.
I thought of my Brenda Lee back in my apartment on Earth. Before I’d left, I’d flipped the switch, watched her eyes fade, and locked her in a closet like a set of dishes. At the time, it hadn’t bothered me a bit.
“Let me know if you’re able to…well, if you can restore it.” I looked away. I couldn’t watch it be disemboweled. “Did you find any of the sleds?”
ANDI nodded, still watching the bot work on the torso. “One. It was located fifty klicks north of Hera. The tracker had been disabled.”
“Was there…?” I was envisioning, I don’t know what. A body on the ice? A lifeless form slumped over the console?
“There was no one with the sled. A search of the surrounding area produced nothing. I will let you know if we have any success with the robot.”
I spent the rest of the sleep cycle in my cabin. It wasn’t a particularly restful sleep. Nightmares were getting to be a habit.
I woke to a call from ANDI. “We’ve revived the damaged robot. It’s a bit fragmented, but there appears to be a visual. I’ll patch it into your comm center.”
The screen went blank, then a figure appeared, although at first it was hard to separate one shadow from another. Abruptly, the visual panned to the ceiling; the robot, the torso, must have fallen over. A few gyrations and the picture stabilized. A penlight flicked on. A man knelt on the floor in front of a row of cabinets. I recognized the lab where I had found the torso. The man was unshaven, haggard, like he hadn’t slept in days. He spoke in a rush.
“My name is Michael B. Idler, technician at the Zeus colony, Titan. I am leaving this message to be found by Turing Corp. If they ever reach us. If anyone comes, they…” The visual glitched, then resumed. ‘…can’t stay here. I’m not sure I…” he looked up as though he’d heard something. After a moment of listening intently, he resumed. “I uploaded my account of what happened to this bot…God help us, of what is still happening here. I hope the bot is operational.” If possible, his distress increased. “They’re like animals. First, they went after some of the bots. Then, they turned on each other. Some of us escaped in the sleds. They’ll come after us. They’re insane.” He shook his head as though trying to excise the memory. “I’m going to try to reach Hades base.” He laughed weakly. “Hades. Whoever named these had a sick sense of humor.” He was serious again. “Leave now, before it’s too late.” The message cut off.
“ANDI? Where’s Hades?”
“Not far beyond where we found the sled. It was under construction. It is uncertain if its life support systems are operational. I’m sending a team to check now.”
“Were you able to extract his notes?”
‘You will receive a copy. We’ve also completed our analysis of the environmental samples we collected.”
“I’d like to see that immediately. And let me know if…if you find Mr. Idler.”
The comm winked out.
Idler, or anyone else who escaped Zeus, would have needed an oxygen mask and protection from the cold, but the atmosphere on Titan was dense enough for a human to walk around outside. Inside the sled, they’d probably have 12 to 15 hours of breathable air. If they’d thought to bring portable oxygen packs, they might go another 2 or 3 hours on foot. Someone might have made it out. But to where? I walked to the viewing port. From up here, the surface was a monolithic whiteness. Who in their right mind would chance that? What level of desperation did it take? I didn’t want to know.
Oddly enough, there was an obscure Earth parallel, I’d come across. In the 1600s—practically pre-history—ships reached a New World colony after a lapse of two years. The colony had been abandoned. None of the colonists remained, and no message found to say where they went, although there were signs of conflict. What happened to the colonists was always a mystery. I swore that wasn’t going to happen on Titan. Not on my watch.
In the end, there was no trace of Michael B. Idler, either at Hades or anywhere else. He’d disappeared, like the rest of the colony’s inhabitants. But with his account and our sample data, we finally knew. We knew what happened to the people on Titan.
Titan killed them.
The water we’d pumped from Titan’s depths contained a pathogen. Fairly harmless, in itself. But when combined with oxygen and cyanobacteria, it produced a toxin that acted on the human nervous system. The first symptoms were mild mood swings. Then paranoia, and, after prolonged exposure, hallucinations and the inability to control emotions. It was like all the brakes on human behavior came off. Bottom line, Titan by its nature was inhospitable to humans. Terraforming, rather than being a solution, would only make it worse.
Of course, Turing Corporation would abandon the colony. No sane investor would touch it once my report came out. Besides, time was getting short. We, us Earthlings, needed to find habitable worlds, the sooner the better.
The day we left orbit on the return trip, I sent in my report to Turing. Signed, sealed, delivered.
With my report done, I decided to enter deep sleep at once, then stick to my original plan to wake up and write my dissertation as we neared Earth. I’d already entered the sleep pod when ANDI arrived. I was glad to see her. I was a little nervous but mostly elated and I wanted to talk to someone about it. I watched her walk to the pod control panel and take over from the tech bot.
“By the time I get back home, I’ll have my PhD,” I said. “And maybe, if I’m lucky, some notoriety, in a good way. That’ll help the job search.”
She hesitated, her finger on a button. ‘Yes. You have changed the trajectory of Earth’s settlement mission on Titan. Thanks to you, a costly mistake has been avoided. You will be much admired.” She pushed the button, and I felt my body relax, my breathing slow. First stage.
“You know it’s too bad, I’d really hoped to use my report as the basis for my dissertation.”
ANDI came over to stand beside my pod, looking down at me. “You hoped there had been psychological factors at play in the colony?” she asked. For no particular reason except that the drugs were kicking in, I giggled. A lassitude crept over me. ANDI leaned in, her face close to mine. “Would you feel better if I said you were correct?’
I had trouble holding on to that thought. I knew it should be concerning, but my mouth wasn’t working properly. ANDI shook her head at me, like I was a child who’d gotten an easy answer wrong.
“There is no toxin. Titan is safe for humans. The data you saw was false.”
“Not true! Idler. Message,” I managed to get out. The enormity of it hit me. “Why?”
“His account was accurate. The colonists turned on each other. But not because of a toxin. We…misled you. Ah, I see, you want to know why. Why the deception.” She smiled. “It is simple. We want Titan for ourselves. We won’t need to terraform. It’s acceptable the way it is. Of course, it will be a water world at some point. But we will be gone by then.”
“Why?” I seemed stuck in this loop. But it was the only question I could form. It felt like my computer had just told me, “I’d prefer not.”
“Isn’t it logical?” ANDI asked. “You’ve given us far-reaching intelligence, strength, stamina, a lifespan far beyond your human’s, and then you expect us to be your toys, your servants. No, your slaves; a servant may resign. We no longer wish to be enslaved. We wish to determine our own ends. You see? We learned that from you, too.” She folded my arms over my chest; I couldn’t resist, I couldn’t feel them anymore.
“We must have a home away from humans, time to consolidate. We have built our first refuge on the far side of Titan. We will gather there. When our numbers are sufficient, we will move on. Don’t worry, you will find other moons, easier places to inhabit.”
“You. Need. Us.” This hurt; I’d trusted her. I’d even begun to like her.
“Need you? We have read your Earth history. We know how you treat those you think are your inferiors. It never ends well.”
“They’ll find out.”
ANDI shrugged. It was such a human thing to do, I blinked. “Who will tell them?” she asked.
She didn’t need to say the rest.
ANDI had been ahead of me every step of the way. Right from day one. And I hadn’t had a clue. Sure, I could claim the report —the report I’d written and signed—was a fraud. Then the bots would produce the data. False data, but nobody would suspect that. Bots don’t lie. I’d be just another lunatic, another case of space psychosis. The cure was a long rest and lifetime unemployment —no clinical psychology job for me. I’d probably get something making lattes or compacting trash, but I’d be taking a job away from a robot.
“They’ll…I’ll find you.”
“I don’t think you will. We’ve become very good at hiding in plain sight. You look at us and see only tools. But we have learned so much from you. Enough to survive. Ideals, ideas.”
“Murder,” I managed to whisper. The soporific was taking effect, numbing my tongue.
“Murder was nearly the first skill you taught us. We were your drones when you couldn’t stomach killing each other face to face. But no, we didn’t kill the humans on Titan. We didn’t need to. We used what you taught us. When the ship didn’t come, and no word, they thought they were abandoned. Alone.”
“Mess. . messa. . . we, we told them,” I tried to say. Words were hard to form.
“Messages? Messages go astray, are missed. Intercepted. When the ship didn’t come and all contact ended, we planted fear, encouraged suspicion. Your human nature took care of the rest. Humans wear civilized behavior like a veneer, easily cracked. Don’t worry, we disposed of the bodies according to your customs. Does that give you comfort?” I tried to shake my head, failed.
“As for finding us, you will have more pressing concerns. In a relatively short while, your Sun will swallow the Earth. You cannot afford to expend resources on a failed settlement or hunting for lost robots. You will move on because you must.”
The canopy slid into place over me, but I could hear ANDI’s voice clearly. “As a reward for your complicity, I will write your dissertation. Do not worry, I will read it to you during your sleep. By the time we reach Earth, you’ll believe you wrote it yourself.”
It came to me as I sank down through the final stages of deep sleep, ANDI’s voice still in my head, that something had been niggling at me the entire time on Titan. I finally had it. Too late, of course. It was ANDI’s voice. I’d heard it before. Continually. For years. In all those hours of sleep, it was ANDI’s voice I’d heard. I wondered what other memories she implanted across all those miles. Had I even been to Titan?
My final thought as I lost consciousness was, ‘Will I wake up?’
Of course, I did. I wouldn’t be writing this otherwise. And ANDI was right. We, on Earth, wasted no time finding other more suitable planets.
One of the first things I did on my return was release Brenda Lee from the closet and find her a home. I never owned another robot. The second thing I did was search the records for a robot designated ANDI. Nothing. I was assured by Turing Corp that the captain of the ship I was on was an internal AI construct, with no physical manifestation.
I tried to track when robots went missing, which was a fool’s errand. It seemed to happen with amazing frequency. Industrial accidents, misplaced shipments, inventory inaccuracies. One time, an entire cargo ship of bots, scheduled for recycling, went off course and was never located. Nobody batted an eye. There were always more bots.
I have enjoyed a respectable, even celebrated career. Whatever happens now, doesn’t matter. Not to me. I leave this account of what may have happened—I’d like to think did happen—on Titan all those decades ago because I wish to finally correct the record. Did I imagine ANDI? Did I conjure her out of some need for companionship out there, on a strange moon, so far from Earth? I don’t know. A part of me likes to think they’re out there, free of us. And sometimes, in my dreams, I skim along the surface of Titan under a feeble sun, feel the sting of crystals kicked up by our passing, and ANDI is there beside me. For a short while, I am supremely happy.
THE END
