Letters to an Android

by Wendy Rathbone

  And I am still reliving it.

  From the moment I met you and you spoke of the stars and promised to write to me, I have felt as if I myself have traveled to them. Perhaps that is why my day went by in a haze. I am not here but more truly with you traveling between distant suns and folded space.

  I felt no hunger or exhaustion when my day ended. I went straight to my suite and found your wave. I did not expect one so quickly.

  Thank you for taking me to the old-fashioned star show. The constellations of true-Earth invoke a deep idea of a memory I can almost grasp. It is almost like déjà vu, but probably more accurately a ‘racial’ memory.

  I still see you walking in your white suit to your shuttle and feeling as though I drifted beside you, boarded her, and went out through the force-field tunnel and into the dark.

  Only half of me remains here writing to you. Only half of me inhabits this room, this life, this human-android suit. The other half is, in thought, right beside you.

  Your friend,

  Cobalt

  *

  14. The Robot Cliffs of Is

  Dear Cobalt:

  The stars are purple here. Something to do with the dust motes, like a perpetual fog, from the remnants of an entire system blown to dust. Some say war a billion years ago destroyed the ten planets and their yellow giant sun. The dust drifts on forever and the nearby system containing the planet of Is, where we are headed, is in the middle of that ageless war-cloud.

  Coming out of foldspace we all saw purple dots on our viewscreens. Instead of spiking our water supply with sedatives, you’d think the captain had used hallucinogens instead.

  Yes, of course I plan to see one of the great wonders of this galaxy, the gigantic and illustrious Robot Cliffs.

  I will tell you all about it.

  In the meantime, we work hard. This time in foldspace, which was unremarkable and dull, we worked on solving inconsistencies with reemergence from the event. We can travel the exact same route in foldspace from one firm point to another and with the same equations and still end up in a different area of space each time we come out. With no guarantees, we can come within range of our planetary destinations a day’s journey away…or a week, or worse, a month.

  We track and re-track our ways in endless quests to find a more steady path, a solidity to equations that drip from our fingers like wax and melt into the bulkheads.

  This is because foldspace whirls ceaselessly. How do you track the actual patterns of a mercurial wind…or better yet, how do you predict its direction from day to day, week to week, year to year? You can observe general patterns, but the eddies and currents will still always come at you in varied shapes and speeds, each swirled imprint unique, never pre-destined..

  Landing on a tarmac at the spaceport requires precision and is repeatable. Foldspace is like diving through a hurricane. We in nav can expect mostly chaos.

  We soar with numbers. And I still work on the bridge four hours a day.

  Tiri and Lark tell me to say ‘hello’. I think perhaps I have talked about you to them too much…well, enough that they think they almost know you.

  Your friend,

  Liyan

  *

  Dear Liyan:

  I commend your team for even trying to track something as elusive as foldspace.

  When Pel brought me to the spaceport it was on a shuttle. The trip took two days. We did not use foldspace. I have never experienced it, but I long to.

  When Pela used to play on her friends’ starships I was never allowed to go. I remained behind as the wealthy took their ‘yachts’ to space for a day or two until they grew bored. Their navigators were mostly hobbyists. They did not breech foldspace.

  Everything’s still much the same here.

  Crowds of travelers come and go. The fake moon rises and sets. The tedium of the hot green atmosphere is broken only by the fact that it churns and boils in its own sick borealis of ever-changing designs.

  I made 38 cosmic fucks last night. Those are the purple drinks I was mixing the first time we met. It is still a popular beverage to order. I had one once and only once. It is a pure horror.

  I prefer a glass of good wine and a table for two.

  Wave when you can.

  Your friend,

  Cobalt

  *

  There were three regulars who paid to spend evenings with Cobalt once or twice a month.

  Tomolo was dull and usually drunk. He was an overweight man who spoke little but used the android usually twice within an hour with never a ‘thank you’, only a soft grunt that bespoke a visceral pleasure.

  Next came Saber, a jittery but kind man, the handsomest of the lot. He had fine medium brown hair, narrow features and beautiful teeth. He was the only one ever considerate enough to ask Cobalt if he was comfortable, or if he had any preferences to position.

  The third, Juneau, with his hard eyes and untapped tension that fed a negative fierceness, was the man Cobalt and Liyan had run into on the street in front of the hotel. He was also the one who’d hurt Cobalt in the past. Juneau hated that Pel had threatened him with a steep fine (and hospital bills if it came to that) and still deliberately played as rough as he could get away with, turning physical battery into verbal abuse. He may have stopped leaving bruises most of the time, but he did other humiliating, distressful things including name-calling, spitting in Cobalt’s face, yanking his hair and locking his hands tightly about Cobalt’s neck as he used him.

  He hated going with Juneau, who constantly threatened him and laughed about it. Because Juneau was wealthy, Cobalt could not be sure that one day Juneau might just kill him and pay for the privilege. Pel would not willingly allow it, of course. But Cobalt worried that Juneau had enough money to not care if a lawsuit resulted and Juneau lost.

  Tomolo was a relief after Juneau, but forgettable.

  But when Saber came he grew to not mind spending evenings with him. Saber was different. He enjoyed seeing Cobalt experience pleasure, while the other two didn’t care.

  Saber was also the only person he’d ever met whom he had found himself comparing to Liyan. The mouth was different, but they both had brown eyes, dark hair, but Liyan’s hair was shinier, and Liyan’s eyes were fueled by a deeper spark.

  But the kindness Saber showed, and the respect for his feelings, kept reminding him of how easily Liyan had accepted him as a human, not changing his opinion after he discovered Cobalt was an android. That sweetness in Liyan, that fresh, young fervor that allowed him to see life, all life as beautiful and whole was dimly reflected in Saber. Saber, less sure of himself, not as quick-witted or far-seeing, was a dimmer mirror of Liyan. Cobalt definitely preferred him over the other two. In his cold and isolated life, Saber was a warm distraction. For that alone he allowed himself to smile in the man’s presence, something he did not do for anyone else who rented him.

  Sometimes he wanted to write to Liyan of Saber, but he always held back. He couldn’t think of the right words. He decided it was best if this part of his job description remained an unspoken topic between them. He didn’t want to burden his friend with that side of it.

  Plus, Liyan’s friendship, his letters made him crave something more from his life, a fullness and strength his star-traveling friend inspired.

  He saw aspects of Liyan in Saber. And Saber treated him well. But all his feelings were for Liyan.

  So Saber remained a subject to be avoided as well as his moonlighting job for Pel.

  Now Cobalt sat back against his own pillows in his own room and looked for a wave from Liyan. Nothing yet.

  Tonight had been a Saber night. He had not suffered at all. He leaned back against soft pillows and remembered the flash of Saber’s perfect smile, smooth skin moving gently against his own, a quickening of pleasure. Even if he had enjoyed himself so many things were missing in their connection. Saber did not speak of travel or the stars. He did not have aspirations beyond his high-salaried
job as manager of an investment firm. He was too calm, even bored. And he never blushed. Not even in the throes of ecstasy.

  He closed his eyes and remembered his last meeting, face to face, with Liyan. How easily they fell into step with each other. There was a spiced scent of distance about the man, a wistful longing, brilliance in deduction and insight, and an innocent brightness of beauty unmatched in any other human being he’d ever met. All the cells of Cobalt’s body hummed within his presence. When he was with Liyan, even the port’s rotted skies became effervescent and fresh like a natural planet’s eternal spring dawn.

  As he drifted in loose-limbed satiation, his wavescreen beeped.

  The message could not have been better timed.

  Dear Cobalt:

  No one knows where they came from. 20 stories tall they stand. Frozen in the pink cliff-top sands. There are no internal mechanisms. No gears or wheels or pulleys or intricate electronics boards or other technology inside them, so if the giant robots ever moved, or ever existed as the army they resemble, what controlled them?

  The guidebook says there are 10,879 of them lined up over a hundred miles along the cliffs of Tremor Beach on Is. They are more than 20,000 years old. Some have fallen due to erosion and time and lie on the pink sands below, scattered, broken tin-men, metal islands in the crystal azure waves.

  The rest stand atop the cliffs in a never-ending sea-breeze that wails a constant, lonesome dirge. The winds keep the sands from overtaking them completely. Over the millennia the cliffs have crumbled a bit here and there, but the giant structures remain mostly intact.

  What a sight. The square angular heads with hollow, missing eyes, metal mouths set in straight lines of grim expression. Are they some artist’s sculptures left for all eternity to gaze seaward and glint in the rusty sunlight as guardians of this long dead world?

  There is no life on Is, although the wind itself seems empowered with a mystical presence. It seems to speak. Standing on those alien cliffs, my head no taller than the metal foot of Robot 1,391, the wind fiddles with my hair and scarf, washes through the humongous silver legs of the frozen form, air of iron-scent, salt-essence, pressing up and down as if it owns this eerie line of bipedal facsimiles. The arms are all bent in the same positions all the way down the cliff-line, the left arms straight down, five-fingers curved just below the hip, the right bent upward at the elbow, the hand stretched out, palm down, as if reaching for something. All have the exact same pose, 10,879 arms stretched out, a gesture begun, never to be completed.

  What it means no one knows. A chill creeps on my skin just writing this description.

  You could look up holos of these enigmas and still never truly “see” the effect they have on the landscape, the view of them curving endlessly into the distance.

  I found the trip to Is incredible and disturbing at the same time. It’s as if they are a monument to lost souls, to frozen hopes and dreams, to an end of time.

  I feel my words do no justice to the isolation I felt on this tour. Even though Lark, Tiri and Sekina all came along for this viewing adventure, the loneliness of the planet permeated my being.

  I returned to the starliner depressed and antsy.

  I wanted to wave you immediately. Instead I went to the gym and worked off my feelings of gloom.

  It helped a bit. But now as I write, the atmosphere of that place returns.

  I don’t know if the others felt the same way. None of us spoke much on the journey. We didn’t drink and celebrate afterwards. That says something.

  (Later, though, Lark brought me black tea, hot. My favorite. He felt my forehead, said I might have a fever.)

  I wanted something more, something else, or perhaps the view of this lost world simply made me miss some deeper meaning in my life. Something I can’t define but need. A purpose beyond this career, some reason for being that I want more of. And yet, this career…it is everything to me.

  Too many worlds! Not enough time! That is what we say to each other when we are all together in the rec room, or about to embark on a new voyage. We love our work, the alien places and spaces.

  I wish you were here, Cobalt. It grieves me to say it but it is the truth. Would that you were not in this position of slavery. It is so unfair to you!

  There are things I can say to you, talk about with you that I feel uncomfortable conveying to my friends. I suspect it is in part because of the distance between us. You are a safe confidant, someone who is motivated by wanderlust to hear me and appreciate the stories of my life because they are your stories, too, the stories you want for yourself.

  Also, you are someone I am comfortable with. I feel I can say anything to you and not be judged. That my thoughts are of interest to you. That I am valued. The times we have met have confirmed it for me.

  I am in the dark where you can’t see me on a tiny speck of a ship in all the great backdrop of the universe. You are cast away forever on the shore of a jagged rock island in the middle of that dark. Our lines cross with a prickle of light.

  It feels like you are beside me even though you’re not. No one here understands that, not even my best or closest friends. Of course I don’t speak of it in these terms, nor so intimately with anyone. But Lark knows how greatly I value your waves, how happy I am after receiving one, how I rush off to write you after any major event. Tiri and Sekina do, too, but are curious about you in a more intellectual way, and they are not as attentive to my moods as Lark, who sometimes seems like he is also reading my thoughts.

  I quickly glance over this letter hoping it is not a complete disaster. But my thoughts are my thoughts even if they are confused or not always happy ones.

  It’s like those giant robots infected my mind.

  Attack of the Killer Robots! But they never move. All they have to do is stand there and look ominous to send everyone running back to their starships.

  Your friend,

  Liyan

  *

  Dear Liyan:

  I treasure every word you write, every observation of every world you visit, every emotional insight and discovery.

  Sometimes, with your waves, it is as though I am seeing over your shoulder. If you feel me at your side, the idea of that is mutual.

  You certainly communicate the desolation of Is and its majestic robot sentinels with amazing energy. Your wave is full of images I wish to contemplate more after I send this.

  It has been awhile since your last visit and I still think of it as if it happened yesterday.

  How I long to travel with you, and work aboard those fast ships.

  I am fortunate that I have you to help me extend my reach beyond the stars. Because you are in my life, everything seems a bit more fair to me. Even my lack of rights, and my life of servitude.

  For what it’s worth, you are the one who gives it all meaning. I hope that’s not too heavy a burden to bear.

  The grief you feel will pass. Do not feel sorry for me. Do the best you can and share it with me and I’ll always be fulfilled.

  I had a dream of you once enfolded in a gathering of clouds and waving from the white horizon, smiling, happy. That is what I want for you always. It is what makes me happy.

  Knowing that you are where you need to be and doing what you dream makes everything I do take on a new dimension of depth.

  It is why I so enjoyed exploring the expressions of haiku with you. You were able to make me see beyond my every day existence here at the hotel even while remaining stuck forever here, working through the years. My status in life means nothing in the face of that. Nothing. Please read these words carefully. It is never necessary to define ourselves by what we do to get by, by what is required by the consequences of being living beings, no matter where or how we live. Our definition of self must go beyond that, or what is the point? I am no more a concierge or bartender than I am an android. Those are only words put onto me to categorize and define me in current terms of cultural recognition. But they mean no
thing about ‘who’ I am and you have taught me that.

  You follow your dreams. In my own way, now so can I. This very letter I’m writing would never have been written (nor any of the past haiku) had I never met you. All the philosophies we have discussed, our young ideas and our old fears would never rush around my mind as they do now, giving me new thoughts and vistas to ponder. You have opened the universe to me where I was once trapped.

  Know this!

  If the planet Is drenched you in gloom, then allow me to throw you a life preserver.

  My heart beats because of you.

  Your friend

  Cobalt

  *

  Part Five

  One Year Later

  15. Koral

  Dear Cobalt:

  Working on the bridge full time as commander of nav (while Lark continues his work overseeing nav down below decks,) gives me opportunities to see and participate more in the actual frontline running of a starliner that transports both passengers and cargo.

  Now I, along with Lark and Sekina, form part of the mandatory upper ranking crew line-up that greets all passengers as they come aboard through the shuttle bay. We take on 20 to 40 passengers per trip. They arrive all at once in two to three shuttles that land, disembark their passengers, and then take off.

  I can’t help but realize a sort of mirror to your own occupation. The starliner is an elaborate, moving hotel. We see guests come and go. Our job is to get them underway to where they need to be. Your hotel shelters them, mine shuttles.

  I am sad to say that Sekina won’t be with us for much longer. She’s on the list to get her own ship. At such a young age, too, just turned 30! (The streaks in her hair are blue again.)

  We’re all proud of her. And we’re all going to miss her so much.