Serengeti (16 page)

Two steps in and Henricksen stopped again—a dark shadow wreathed in the bright white light of
Cryo’s
interior spaces, looking back over his shoulder. “Go on then, Finlay,” he said, waving to the nearest cryogenic chamber. “Be there in a moment.”

Finlay frowned uncertainly, flicked her eyes to 442 and then stepped backward, taking up station by the nearest cryogenic chamber.

Henricksen turned around, considering
Serengeti
and her robot chauffeur a moment. He opened his mouth and closed it again, braced up hard and offered a crisp, formal salute.

The gesture caught
Serengeti
completely off-guard. She stared at Henricksen—touched, surprise, not quite knowing what to say. Laughable really.
Serengeti—
a Valkyrie class starship, tenth generation AI, with a hundred times the processing power of a human brain and enough firepower to destroy a small planet—left speechless by something as simple as a salute. She lifted the TIG’s leg and started to return the gesture, realized how ridiculous that would look.

A brief moment of deliberation and she rolled the robot forward, stopping right in front of Henricksen, tilting 442’s head back as she took a good, long look, memorizing every last line of Henricksen’s face, the way the blood trickled from the gash in his cheek, the twitch of his lips as he settled his broken arm more comfortably across his middle.

“Safe travels, Captain,” she said, offering that honorific at this, their last parting. “Take care of our crew.”

Our
crew, not his. Not hers alone.

Henricksen nodded tightly and let his hand fall to his side as he stepped backward and touched at a panel, cycling
Cryo’s
door closed.

Serengeti
sat there a while, staring at
Cryo’s
door and the bold black letters written across its surface, wishing they were a window so she could take one last look at her crew. “Goodbye,” she whispered, missing them already.

442 hooted softly, voiced filled with mourning as he touched his leg to the thick metal door.

They stayed there a while, neither of them wanting to leave, sticking close to the crew in the last few moments before the lifeboat
broke free. But 442 wasn’t safe here. The systems operating the pressure door—meant to drop and seal off her internal spaces when
Cryo
moved away—had fried along with everything else at the end of the hall, meaning everything in that corridor—wayward robots included—would be sucked out into space when the lifeboat took off.

“Time to go, 442.”
Serengeti
baked the little robot around and urged him down the hall. They’d need a place to hide until last of the air evacuated and the pressure inside her equalized with the vacuum outside. She steered the robot toward an empty compartment, but 442 detoured, rolling over to a maintenance hatch instead. “Where are you going?”

The TIG flashed his face lights,
burbling
softly as he pressed at his side, swinging a hinged panel open so he could get at the stock of tools inside. A bit of searching and he found what he wanted: a screwdriver-shaped appendage that he removed with a flourish. “Ta-da!” 442 announced, holding the screwdriver up and then slotting it into a bolt.

A few quick turns and the bolt fell free. A dozen or so after that and the five others holding the panel in place dropped off. 442 grabbed the panel and pulled it away, collected the loose bolts as he rolled into the maintenance shaft and used them to secure the panel behind.

After that, they waited—the robot humming softly and fidgeting about while
Serengeti
listened for the
thunk
and rattle of
Cryo’s
engines, the trembling in her superstructure as the lifeboat broke free and pulled away. For a long time there was nothing, but she wasn’t concerned. It took time for the system to power up, for
Cryo
to run a full set of diagnostics before leaving her for the stars. She felt her structure tremble at one point, rattling the bolts in the maintenance panel, sending a loose ceiling tile crashing to the floor. But the trembling soon stopped, leaving the ship silent and still. And after that nothing. Nothing at all.

Serengeti
waited, wondering what was going on, feeling silly for worrying, finding it impossible to stop.

More alerts popped up, warnings predicting imminent shutdown—totally blackout across every last one of
Serengeti’s
systems. That was okay, too. They were almost done. Once
Cryo
was away, those systems wouldn’t matter anyway. Once
Cryo
left, she too would go to dark. And sleep the sleep of eternity while she waited for Henricksen to return.

Ten minutes passed. Definitely something wrong. “It shouldn’t take this long. They should be gone by now.”

Or maybe they were. Maybe the pressure door had worked after all, by some miracle.

442 hooted softly, voice filled with worry, front legs rubbing nervously together as they waited and waited and waited. He reached for the bolts in the panel, slotting the screwdriver appendage into one corner and another, removing the bolts one at a time. But he stopped with two bolts still in place and
beep
softly, looking to
Serengeti
for permission.

I shouldn’t,
she thought.
If
Cryo’s
still here, if it
takes off while we’re out there, 442 will be a goner.

But it might have left already. There was that possibility too.

Serengeti
stared anxiously at the Chron, trying to decide what to do. “Something’s wrong. Something is definitely wrong.”

No facts to back that assertion up, but instinct told it was so. Instinct—how unscientific. How her designers would howl if they knew she’d learned such a thing.

Serengeti
considered a moment and then took control of 442’s leg, removing the last two bolts herself.

Back out into the corridor then, TIG-442 zipping along on his little tank treads, screeching to a halt in front of the heavy steel and titanium door with its matte black letters.

“No,”
Serengeti
whispered.

Cryo
hadn’t gone anywhere, it was right here where they’d left it, squatting inside her decimated innards like some oversized egg, waiting patiently to be born.

She queried systems out of habit, cursing herself for being an idiot when she found diagnostics dead—all that information locked away, frustratingly beyond her reach.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with it.” There’d been power inside the lifeboat—she’d seen that clearly through 442’s eyes—but maybe the battle had damaged it and
Cryo
simply needed some time to repair itself. “Maybe that’s all it is,”
Serengeti
murmured.

A vague hope, but better than no hope at all.

442
burbled
softly, trying to get
Serengeti’s
attention. He called up a schematic he’d stored locally—one showing
Serengeti
with
Cryo
nestled at her center, and eight docking clamps dogging the lifeboat down to keep it from rattling around while she travelled. Docking clamps that were part of
Serengeti
and needed her power, not the lifeboat’s, to unlock them. Power and undamaged circuitry, both of which
Serengeti
had in short supply.

“Trapped,”
Serengeti
whispered, staring in disbelief. “They’re trapped here with me.”

TIG
burbled
and fidgeted, nudging at
Serengeti
, querying her orders again and again and again. Other voices joined in—all the robots that left to her asking the same question:
What do we do, Serengeti? What do you want us to do?

“I don’t know,”
Serengeti
whispered, an unprecedented admission for an AI with a mind such as hers. She was Valkyrie—powerful, decisive, capable of processing petabytes of information in the middle of a fire fight and making split second decisions on the fly. But this…
Cryo’s
failure was entirely unexpected. Something her disaster scenarios never accounted for. “My failure,” she murmured. “It’s my fault, my failure that’s trapped you here.” She rolled 442 forward and touched his leg to the
Cryo’s
door, offering a silent apology.
What to do?
she wondered, tracing the letters stenciled there.
What do I do now?

A last few errors flickered and faded, warning her of dangerously low power levels, energy so depleted now that she teetered on the edge of oblivion—just one step now from a long descent into darkness where she’d sleep and sleep and sleep. She’d been okay with that before, when it was just she and the robots hanging in the balance. But Henricksen, Finlay…
Cryo’s
power could only sustain them for so long before it too shut down and the sleep chambers inside it when dark.

“No,” she said, tracing the rounded
O
at the end of
Cryo’s
name
.
“I won’t let that happen.”

An order to 442 had him tearing at the panels on one side of the door, exposing a scorched mess of fried circuitry and melted relays, burnt-out wiring running up and down the wall.

Large-scale failure of the entire electrical system connecting
Cryo
to
Serengeti’s
. A quick check of the other side showed the same situation.

Bad news. The entire section here would need to be replaced—every last bit of the system securing the lifeboat to
Serengeti's
body rebuilt from the ground up. A job that took weeks in a properly outfitted repair facility, with space parts in plenty, one that that would likely take
years
in the shape
Serengeti
was in, with just these few robots to help her, and whatever parts they could scavenge from her wrecked ship’s body.

“So much for that idea.”
Serengeti
thought hard, trying to come up with something else.

She
looked inside herself, chasing down systems, finding every last one of them failed—powered down completely, silent as death, the line to 442 and the other robots the only thing left to her now. That and the few working cameras scattered around her corridors, a few more peering outward from her hull. And just a tiny bit of energy left in the power cells in her belly.

“It might be enough,” she murmured, “but I’ll need help.”

She reached out to the robots, sending half of them scurrying for parts while she detailed the rest to Level 4 and Engineering. A last, lingering look at
Cryo’s
door and
Serengeti
followed after, spinning 442 around, riding shotgun inside the little robot as he trundled into the maintenance shaft and worked his way through her innards until he reached Engineering: a cavernous room filled with machinery, the heart of her, the guts of her ship’s body.

A group of chattering robots—TSDs mostly, though she spied a few TIGs like 442 as well—huddled together at one end of the room, face lights flashing excitedly as they argued amongst themselves, metal legs waving, pointing at the thirty massive fuel cells sitting beside them, the four bulging contraptions squatting across the room, butt ends sticking roundly from the wall.

The fuel cells powered everything, from
Serengeti’s
jump drives to her life support system; they even provided the energy needed to keep
Serengeti’s
AI mind alive. Energy that was in decidedly short supply now—eighteen power cells cracked wide open after that disastrous exit from hyperspace jump, another exploded by the sudden stress of trying to take over the load. That left just three fuel cells still functioning, and those nearly empty, hovering just above zero.

Nothing to be done about it. Getting moving,
Serengeti.

She rolled 442 forward, heading for the cluster of TSDs to one side.

The robots were deep in conversation, working out a game plan for how to attack the problem at hand. A dozen TSDs split off as
Serengeti
and 442 approached, grabbing up cables and dragging them behind them as they swarmed over the fuel cells, plugging bundles of carbon-weaved wrapped wires into ports and access panels. Another dozen robots waited below, legs raised, pincered ‘hands’ grabbing at loose ends, running the lengths of cable across the room where yet
more
robots—nearly thirty TSDs in total, armed with a menagerie of tools—tore at panels, stripping away useless wiring before attaching the new cables.

Engines behind those panels. Not her mains—those were useless, no amount of power would get them working again—the docking engines and maneuvering jets she used when pulling into port. Fuel-based propulsion, not fusion powered like her jump drives, and she had just enough fuel left for one last, desperate blast, and just enough power to get the fuel flowing, and turn the engines over.

Serengeti’s
design, that bodged together, makeshift energy circuit. Cables hung everywhere, crisscrossing the room, stretching from the power cells at one end to the auxiliary engines on the other. The robots worked quickly as the energy levels in those cells kept dropping, her own consciousness depleting the reserves, a slow leak in the Number 12 Cell letting more precious power dribble away.

Not enough left now, Serengeti
realized, running some quick calculations.
Not enough power to spark the engines and get the fuel running.

Not enough if there was to be anything left to keep her consciousness alive.

Desolation filled her—a complete and overwhelming loss of hope.

442 seemed to pick up on it and started
beeping
and
burbling
loudly. He rolled over to one of the engine access points and opened a panel in his chest, pointed at the little power unit stored inside him and the massive propulsion unit sitting to one side.

Serengeti
was quiet a moment. 442 repeated the gesture, thinking her silence meant she didn’t understand.

I do, little one,
she thought, touching at 442’s mind.

How could she not when she was right there, snuggled up inside 442’s body with his little AI mind?

“No,”
Serengeti
said gently. “It’s brave what you offer, but I’m afraid it’s not enough. It would take dozens…”

She trailed off, words failing her as TIG-442
burbled
a question and pointed at the other robots scurrying about the room. Fifty-two robots, to be exact, and every last one equipped with a self-contained power unit—larger units inside the TSDs than the TIGs. More energy required to support their proportionally larger bodies and advanced analytical functions.

Serengeti
hesitated, and then ran a quick calculation, adjusting for the number and type of robots available. The facts confirmed what she’d already suspected.

It should be enough. More than enough, actually, with the draw from the reserves in the remaining power cells.

“It’s risky,”
Serengeti
warned him, speaking softly so only 442 would hear. “But with enough of them it might work. I’ll need to drain their power units dry to jumpstart those engines, and it’s likely there’ll be damage. Your circuits were never designed to handle that kind of load, 442. They’ll fry like as not.”

Blunt words but she wanted him to hear the truth and know the danger inherent to this plan—this mad, selfless act—before he and the others committed themselves to it.

442 ducked his head, face lights flashing, scared—she could feel that in him—nervous as hell but desperately wanting to please her and help save the crew. He scuffed a leg at the metal floor,
beep
ing softly to himself. A glance at the robots around him and then raised all his legs at once, bending them inward until they hugged tight to his body and then splaying them wide in a robot’s version of a shrug.

Serengeti
still didn’t think this was a good idea. “Wait—”

Too late. 442 sent a communication, squirting out his plan along with a modification to
Serengeti’s
power grid schematic. Fifty-two robots froze, face lights flashing in unison while they digested his idea. Several seconds of
beeps
and
borps
followed, and after a short discussion they all seemed to agree.

The robots came back to life, spun around and converged, circling around one another in a choreographed dance. A flash of communication—cobalt face lights reflecting over the metal panels around them—and the group split, the TIGs breaking off and zipping away, heading toward a nearby storage room to retrieve yet more cables, while the TSDs lined up in a double row of gleaming, ovoid bodies, chest panels opened wide.

The TIGs returned, hauling lengths of cable behind them, tore at the engines, removing yet
more
panels before routing the newer, smaller cables inside, connecting one end to the propulsion systems and the other into sockets built into the TSDs’ power cores.

That’s what the discussion had been about: Who would be chosen? Who would sacrifice themselves to save
Serengeti
and the others? And in typical AI fashion, they made the most ‘logical’ decision. Because it all came down to numbers, in the end. The TSDs had more energy to offer, so the TSDs would donate and die.

The last cable slotted into place and the TIGs retreated. Fifty-two robot heads turned, staring at 442, looking to
Serengeti
inside him because she was ship—master and commander, the closest thing to a mother these little robots had ever known—and her job to give the order to set this plan in motion.

For a long time she couldn’t, hating this answer, knowing it was the only way. 442
burbled
softly, telling her it was okay.
Serengeti
almost laughed. A robot, consoling her—would wonders never cease?

“Thank you,” she said, flitting along pathways, taking the time to touch at each robot’s mind. “Goodbye.”

The slightest of hesitations, hating this still, and
Serengeti
made the connection, grabbing a last cable with 442’s leg and inserting it into one of the auxiliary engines.

The makeshift circuit closed and the TSDs stiffened, legs splaying wide, heads tilting backward, face lights lighting up the darkness around them. Machinery whirred to life, shivering and shaking, sputtering crankily as power flowed to the propulsion system in fits and starts. The engines caught, coughed hard and held, filling Engineering with a rumbling hum.

And beneath it an ominous crackle—the sound of electricity gone haywire, eating up electronics, burning out circuits. The TSDs jerked wildly, sparks igniting, smoke pouring from their bodies.

Serengeti
watched in agony, wanting to stop this, knowing it was already too late.

A loud
pop!
and it was all over, the TSDs’ energy expended. A sigh ran through the robots—a weary, contented sound—and sagged as if sleeping, legs tucking tight against their bodies as they shut down and went dark.

That’s it. Serengeti
watched a last TSD twitch hard, legs rattling against its body before finally going still.
That’s everything I have. There’s nothing left to give but myself.

She’d do it—of course she would—if the sacrifice was needed. If it came down to a choice between herself and her crew. And it might—
Serengeti
knew that—but right now there was work to do.

The auxiliary engines coughed and grumbled before kicking in, sucking in their load of liquid fuel.
Serengeti
risked the drain on her reserves to expend a bit of energy and activate a camera on her hull, panned it around and took stock of the darkness outside.

She’d dropped out of hyperspace into an unknown section of space, far, it seemed, from the nearest civilized planet, drifting aimlessly in a cloud of her own debris. But the stars were there—pinpricks of distant silver-white light all around her—providing some comfort at least. And as
Serengeti
moved the camera around, studying one bright light and another, she finally found a likely candidate: Tsu’s star, the one she’d pointed to—or at least the
quadrant
she’d pointed to—as she lay dying.

Distant, Serengeti
thought, judging the gap from her current position to that cold, clear light.