Serengeti (21 page)

Tig shivered in answer.

Serengeti
sighed and shut his sensors back down. But she held him there a while longer so she could drink in the sight of the stars. Selfish thing to do, wasteful considering they were low on power, but she’d earned a little selfishness after all her time in the dark.

“Quite the sight, aren’t they, Tig?”

Tig cycled the filters on his ocular lenses, processed some data and then decided she was correct.
Serengeti
almost laughed.

“They look…pure from here, don’t they? Henricksen told me the stars twinkle when you look at them from planetside. The light passing through the atmosphere—”
Serengeti
broke off as Tig shuffled his legs and coughed. “Am I boring you, Tig?”

“
Beep?
” Tig pointed at his chest, face lights flashing a question. “
Beep-beep-beep,
” he assured her, waving all his legs at once. But he flicked his eyes to Tilli, saw her shuffle around, throwing glances at the distant solar array.

“Alright, I get it. Proceed, Tig.”
Serengeti
released the little robot, letting Tig and Tilli continue their journey. She flipped to the camera in the robot’s thorax and stared at the stars, feeling a strange sense of yearning at being so close and yet unable move closer. Unable to break free of her endlessly circling orbit and wander the universe around her. “Someday,” she whispered, making a promise to herself. “Someday this will end and a new journey will begin.”

Tig
beeped
softly, trying to get her attention.

Serengeti
sighed wistfully and flicked forward, peering through Tig’s eyes as they rounded the crest of her port side and reached the top of her hull.

Tig rolled to stop and panned his head around, giving
Serengeti
a panoramic view of her shimmering, starboard-side hull.

“Beautiful,” she murmured, smiling to herself.

“
Beep
?” Tilli cocked her head in question.

“Yes,”
Serengeti
laughed. “You too.”

Tilli
burbled
happily and shuffled to one side, moving closer to Tig. The two robots reached for each other without looking, twining their leg together like lovers.

Love. Another complex emotion. Far more complicated than anger or sorrow, sadness or regret.

Can a robot feel love? Serengeti
wondered, watching the robots swap communications between each other.
Can I?

That was the better question. Fondness, certainly—she had that in spades for the crew trapped inside her—but love?
Real
love? She knew the concept but the actual application…

How does a crystal matrix brain even know what loves is?

You’re a tenth generation, super-powered AI brain mounted inside a warship’s body,
Serengeti
, not some besotted little schoolgirl.

Henricksen again. More pithy wisdom.

Yeah-yeah, I get it. Stop whining and get with the program.

“Why are we here, Tig?”

Tig let go Tilli’s leg and started chattering away, telling her how the hull plates had gotten dirty, slowing the solar collection rate. It took a while—a lot of extra effort they hadn’t planned for—but he and Tilli managed to sweep and buff and polish every last speck of space dust and debris away, returning the panels to optimal working order. A wave of his legs and Tig rolled toward the bow, showing her the forest of panels they’d erected there, pointing out linkages and connection points, components they’d had to replace.

Time, Serengeti
thought, adding all those unplanned tasks up. They were all important—every last one—and Tig had been right to not ignore them, but the more time he and Tilli spent on these tasks, the less they had to work on the one
Serengeti
had set them to.

“Enough,”
Serengeti
said, as Tig continued to prattle on.

Tig rolled to a stop in the middle of the solar panel forest, face lights flashing and swirling, letting her know his report wasn’t yet done.

“I know. I get it. You two have been busy as beavers and I appreciate, but I’ve seen enough of the outside for now. Engineering, Tig. Show me what’s gone on down there.”

Tig slid his eyes to Tilli, but she just shrugged and looked away. He hesitated a moment, glancing to one side, dancing on his tip-toes as he turned in a circle.

“Tig.”
Serengeti
touched the little robot’s brain, stopping him in his tracks. “I’ve seen all I need to see here, Tig. It’s time to go back inside.”

Tig sighed and nodded as he reached for Tilli’s leg. They turned together, putting the starlight behind them as they stepped down into shadow and slipped through a gaping hole in
Serengeti’s
side.

#

She braced herself as they entered Engineering, knowing what she’d find, but it was still hard to actually see it. Still difficult to look upon all those broken robots and not wonder at the cost.

Tig rolled inside as if it was nothing, inured to the sight of all that death after living among it for so long. Tilli followed close behind him, switching from her tank treads when Tig did, the two of them picking their way through the cables and bodies on their jointed, insectile legs.

They’d straightened things up while
Serengeti
was away, collecting the robots scattered about the floor, lining them up against the wall with the others, closing their panels so they didn’t look so dead inside. Hardly a necessary undertaking, but it made Engineering look less like a robotic charnel house and more like a well-maintained mausoleum.

Serengeti
appreciated the effort, but when she looked about her, she saw more wasted time. She couldn’t bring herself to berate Tig, though. Not for this. Not for seeing to his brethren, and giving them some semblance of dignity in death.

Tig crawled his way across Engineering, high-stepping over cables, dodging debris and spare parts floating around him until he reached the bank of fuel cells against one wall.

He’d warned her there was a problem, but hadn’t wanted to tell her what it was. Easier to show her. Easier to let
Serengeti
see for herself that one of the three fuel cells left to her was leaking badly—so badly it had started to leach power from the other two. After three years of charging, the power levels in all three fuel cells should be full, even with the small drain from her own consciousness, the robots recharging and using their tools. But a check of the power meters showed the two undamaged fuel cells hovering just above half full and the third all but empty—spewing energy out as fast as the hull collected it and fed it here.

Damn. Another setback we can’t afford.

Nothing to be done about it,
Henricksen’s voice said
. Deal with it and move on. Keep pushing through.

“Right,”
Serengeti
said softly. “Shut it down, Tig. Shut the leaking fuel cell down before it damages the others and we lose all three.”

Tig objected, insisting he could fix it. That he was already working on it and with a little more tinkering, he could slow the leak down.

Serengeti
listened for a while and then cut the robot off. “No, Tig. There’s no time, and we can’t spare the parts. Not unless you’re telling me you can fix the leak completely. Not just slow it down,” she said, as Tig renewed his objections. “
Fix
it.
Really
fix it so it works as well as the others.”

Tig fell silent, staring at the failing power cell, face lights swirling slowly.

“Can you?” she asked him. “Can you fix it?”

Tig thought a moment and then shook his head.

“Didn’t think so. Shut it down.”

Tig gestured to Tilli, waving her over to the cracked power cell. She scuttled behind it and disappearing into the dark, cramped space between the fuel cell and the wall. Micro-sensors picked up
pings
and
bangs
, the sounds of metal on metal as Tilli cut the failing fuel cell’s connection to the rest of the power grid.

A crackle of electricity, the whir of machinery spinning down and the fuel cell went dark.
Serengeti
stared at it, wishing they could have fixed it, but the truth was, she didn’t think they needed that third fuel cell now. Not if she altered her plan a bit and took herself out of the equation.

Tig won’t like it
.
Nor Tilli either.

Tilli crawled from behind the wall of power cells and scurried back to Tig’s side.

I should tell them
,
Serengeti
thought, and then realized she didn’t need to. She’d granted Tig unprecedented access to her network. He could sense her thoughts, and the feelings that came with them. Knew what
Serengeti
had planned and immediately started to object again.

“Shh. We’ve not got time for that now, Tig.” She stroked at Tig’s AI brain until he quieted down. “
Cryo,
Tig
.
That’s what’s important. The rest of it…the rest of it’s just what-ifs and maybes. Can’t really worry about that. Let’s focus on
Cryo
for now and let the rest of it work itself out later.”

Tig didn’t like it, nor Tilli either, just as she’d predicted. But they didn’t have much choice in the matter and grudgingly accepted.

Serengeti
stoked electric fingers across their cheeks, offering what comfort she could. “Now then,” she said, changing the subject. “What about that task I left you? How far have you gotten with that?”

Tig perked up a bit and started chattering excitedly. He whirled around and grabbed Tilli by one leg, dragging her with him as he scuttled out of Engineering.

Tig went flat-out down the corridor, zipping along on his tank treads, all but throwing himself into the ladderway, barely touching the rungs as he descended to the level below. Twists and turns, one corridor connecting to another and another, until they reached a stub of a corridor, and the thick shape of
Cryo’s
dull grey door.

Serengeti
rolled Tig right up to it and then reached up, touching his leg to the blocky, black letters stenciled across the metal. She paused to wonder if
Cryo’s
systems were still working, if Henricksen and the others were still alive or if the lifeboat was yet another graveyard she carried inside her bowels.

“No,” she whispered, angry with herself. “They’re in there. They’re alive.”

They
had
to be.

Serengeti
let Tig’s leg drop back to the floor. “Alright, Tig. We’re here. What do you have to show me?”

Tig
beeped
happily, face lights curling in a cat-that-got-the-cream smile as he opened a panel beside the door and retrieved a tiny piece of electronics he’d set inside.

“You planned this,”
Serengeti
accused. “You set this all up.”

Tig shrugged and
burbled
, denying everything, but his face lights gave him away. Tig always did have a flair for the dramatic.

“Scamp.”
Serengeti
chuckled. “All right. Show me.”

Tig’s smile widened, stretching from one side of his face to the other as he opened another panel and slotted the little electronic device inside.

Click!

Tig turned around, throwing his legs in the air. “Ta-da!”

Serengeti
looked round, flicking from Tig’s eyes to the camera in his thorax, expecting something magical and amazing after all the buildup. But everything looked the same. As far as she could tell, nothing at all happened.

“Tig?”

Tig smiled in anticipation, looking very pleased with himself.

Five seconds passed, ten, and still nothing.

“Umm…Tig?”

“Uh-huh?” Still smiling, still looking immensely proud of himself.

“I don’t think—whatever you did, I’m not sure it worked,”
Serengeti
said gently.

“
Beep
?” Tig tilted his head, pincered leg lifting, pointing at a camera high above him. One of the few that still worked on this level.

“What? It’s just a camera, I don’t—”

Tig pointed again, more insistently this time.

She flipped her consciousness to the camera—mostly to humor him—and looked down on the hallway, watching as Tig waved cheerily and pointed at
Cryo
’s door.

What on earth is he up to? Serengeti
wondered. She checked the power levels out of habit, saw them dip a bit more, dropping below the halfway point.
Can’t stay. I can’t stay here much longer. We need to preserve the power
.

“I don’t understand.” A hint of impatience crept into
Serengeti’s
voice. She’d indulged the little robot’s antics until now, but the showmanship was starting to wear thin.

Tig held his front legs up, urging
Serengeti
to be patient. A wink of one cobalt eye as he tapped a leg against
Cryo’s
door and turned his head, staring expectantly at
Serengeti’s
camera.

“I still don’t get it.”

Tig
wonked
in frustration and repeated his routine: tap at the door, point at the camera, tap at the door, point at the camera—over and over and over again, Tilli copying him after a while, as if two of them doing the exact same thing would somehow help
Serengeti
understand. And maybe it did, because at some point it finally clicked in her
brain.

Not the camera or the door—what was
behind
the door. That’s what Tig and Till were trying to show her.

“You could have just
told
me, you know.”

Tig shrugged and kept right on smiling. Damn him and his flair for the dramatic.

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

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

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

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

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

“Forty-six.”
Serengeti
sighed heavily.

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

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

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

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

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

“Tig—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tilli shook her head, crouching lower to the ground.

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

Tilli eyed him uncertainly, then uncurled a bit.

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

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

Nothing.

“Tig. What is—?”

Thud! Thunk!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tig shrugged and nodded, shrugged again.

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

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

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

“Tig.”

Tig sighed and raised his leg above his head.

“One. That’s it?”

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

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

“And the rest?”
Serengeti
asked him.

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

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

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

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

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