Serengeti

by J. B. Rockwell

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.

  But not so long that she couldn’t make it. Close enough for what Serengeti had planned.

  She ran the numbers, just to be sure, calculating the odds of success and failure, the expected variance in her path, the potential for drift. And when it was all said and done, she realized it was a crap shoot—fifty-fifty whether they’d make it to that star or not.

  But staying here meant death. That was a certainty.

  Fuck it—that’s what Henricksen would say. And that’s what decided her. Serengeti rolled the dice and let fly.

  Engines fired, burning fuel in a long, hard burst as she muscled her bulk around, decimated body shuddering and groaning, bits of metal peeling away, adding to the sparkling cloud around her. A few more blasts—shorter, sharper this time—as Serengeti maneuvered herself into alignment and opened the engines wide, lurching forward under the stress of the engines’ push, stuttering along before finding a groove and gliding smoothly.

  The auxiliaries weren’t designed for prolonged use and burnt through their load of fuel in no time, sputtered a few times and shut down. They’d done their job by then and gotten Serengeti moving, built up enough momentum to keep her drifting along until the gravitational force of that distant star took hold and pulled her into orbit around it. If her plan worked. Long way from here to there. So many things could go wrong…

  Please. Please let this work.

  A last long look at the stars and Serengeti let go, abandoning the outside camera to return her consciousness to Engineering, parking herself in a working camera tucked in one far corner so she could watch 442 and the other TIGs as they moved busily about.

  They’d dismantled the snaking network of cables and tucked them all back into storage. And with that done, they turned to the broken robots lined up in a row, scooping up the thirty-four burnt out TSDs one at a time, cradling them in their metal legs as the TIGs carried their brethren to the far end of Engineering and tucked them away behind a door marked ‘Spare Parts.’

  That’s all they are now, Serengeti thought sadly. Not AI anymore, not even robots, just junk. Scrap. Bits and pieces useful only as salvage. It’s not right. They deserve better.

  442 rolled by her camera on his way back from the storage space. Serengeti called out to him, stopping the little robot in his tracks. She slipped inside his brain and felt him shiver at her touch—fear, nervousness, excitement running through him all at once.

  “I have something for, 442,” Serengeti said, settling her AI mind next to his. “A gift. A gift I fear will be a burden, but one I need you to carry for a while.” She touched at his AI mind, caressing it gently as she drew his consciousness to her and laid a data package full of design specs deep inside his brain. “I need you to build that for me. Do you understand? You and the other robots.”

  442 beeped and blipped, processing quickly, tearing the design apart and then rebuilding it, one component at a time. A flash of face lights and he nodded his rounded head to show he’d digested it all.

  “Good.” Serengeti stroked 442’s brain a second time and then turned him a bit, gazing through his robotic eyes at the TIGs moving back and forth across the room. “Look after them for me, would you? You’re all that’s left to me now. You and these few others.” Third touch, making 442 shiver as she pulled him to her. “Repair,” she ordered. “Refit. Survive. That’s my charge to you, TIG-442.”

  The robot burbled softly, front legs rubbing nervously together. He stuttered and blipped, clearly worried, wondering at the responsibility she’d laid upon him. And why he must bear this burden at all.

  “I must leave for a while,” Serengeti explained. She turned the little robot to one side and nodded at the power cells, showing him the error message telling her the reserves inside were low, and low, and low. “I must sleep for a while, 442.”

  The TIG shook his head, face lights flashing spastically. Blips and borps spilled from his mouth, a long string of upset chatter denying what she told him, trying to convince her to stay.

  “Shh,” Serengeti breathed. She stroked at 442’s brain until he quieted down. “I won’t be gone forever. I promise. In fact, I won’t even be all that far away. I’ll be right here, 442.” She used one of his legs to wave at the ship around him. “I’ll be right her
e waiting until your task is done, and it’s time for me to wake.”

  442 hooted mournfully, legs sagging, head drooping toward the floor.

  Serengeti waited, letting the silence stretch out between them. “Will you do this for me, 442? Will you bear this burden while I sleep in the dark?”

  442 heave a sigh and nodded, accepting her charge—albeit grudgingly.

  “Good boy,” Serengeti murmured, and started to pull away. But she stopped just on the edge of releasing the TIG, realizing there was one more thing—one last task to be completed before she disappeared into the dark. After all, someone had to lead them. Someone had to be in charge of the robots while Serengeti was away. And since he was closest, the most expedient option considering she already rode inside him, she gave that burden as well to 442.

  It’ll mean changing him. She hesitated at the thought, wondering if it was the right thing to do. He’ll never be like the others.

  She glanced to one side, watching 442’s brothers and sisters trundle back and forth, transporting the last of the burned-out TSDs to storage. Such loyal little things—capable and obedient, and built to Valkyrie specifications, their AI minds connected to Serengeti’s own, making them obedient to her and no other.

  All that was about to change, and Serengeti would be lying if she said she didn’t have misgivings. Because once she did this, there’d be no going back.

  What choice do I have?

  She reached inside TIG-442, touching at the very core of his AI mind, turning things on and off, making changes to his base programming, granting him access and permissions, privileges to her network that no one—not even Henricksen—ever had. Privileges 442 would need if he was to be in charge—voice of the ship while Serengeti drifted in sleep.

  “Go now,” she said with a last soft touch at his mind.

  TIG-442 blipped softly, eyes lifting to the ceiling as Serengeti pulled away, moving from camera to camera until she reached the hull and gazed outside.

  It feels good to be moving again, she thought, and feel cold and stardust slipping along my sides.

  Because movement meant freedom—a chance to get away—even if that movement came at a creeping snail’s pace.

  She checked her trajectory, ran calculations based on the positions of the stars around her and the single point marking her destination.

  Still on course and tracking true.

  “Well. At least something went right,” Serengeti murmured.

  A last, lingering look at the stars she loved so well and Serengeti let go, trusting the universe to watch over her, her cadre of robots to protect her precious cargo as she let go and slipped away.

  FIFTEEN

  Serengeti drifted in darkness—endless, inky-black darkness that clearly wasn’t space—her consciousness disconnected, powered down to a hibernation state: not quite awake, not quite asleep. Time had no meaning in that in-between space, thought, feeling, even purpose eluded her, but she never stopped being Serengeti. Never lost that sense of being Valkyrie and not just some broken-down ship. Free of her burdens, she drifted, relaxing in that serene sea of nothingness, all her troubles and worries, her fears for her crew washed away in an instant as the voice closed around her.

  But at some point things changed—she wasn’t quite sure when or how, they just did—and little by little the tranquility fled. Serengeti floated still, lacking shape and form, feeling nothing at all, not even the frosty cold outside her hull, but her mind—once so blissfully, peacefully empty—slowly came awake. Awake enough, at least, to see the darkness around her, and a confusion of images that filled her AI mind with fear.

  What’s happening? Serengeti wondered, consciousness reaching, searching the void for answers.

  More images appeared, flashing past in an instant, one flowing into another, forming long, long chains that cycled through and started repeating, over and over again.

  She’d seen this before—all of it—and knew how it all would end.

  “I’m dreaming,” she said, voice filled with disbelief. “I’m not supposed to dream.” More flashes—stronger, brighter than before—and the images came cleared, dredged from her memories of a time before the darkness. A low moan built inside her. “No,” Serengeti whispered. “No, I don’t want to see this. Not this, of all things.”

  But there was no escaping her own mind, and the images kept coming, no matter what Serengeti did.

  #

  She stared down the length of a black and silver corridor bathed in antiseptic white light —empty now and quiet as a tomb until the screaming started, agonized voices erupting all around her, shrieking through the microphone pick-ups built into the ceiling. Lights flickered, and the world around her trembled and shook. Detonation as something smashed hard against her ship’s body, gouging her metal composite skin, tearing away a huge chunk of her hull.

  Serengeti heard everything, felt everything, suffered through the explosion that followed that detonation, blowing out walls, creating a huge crater in her port side. Her superstructure creaked and groaned, girders twisting, snapping, giving way beneath the force of that blow. Alarms shrieked everywhere, calling up and down the corridors, filling every last one of her compartments with dissonant noise. Human voices called to one another, coming from somewhere behind her, somewhere she couldn’t quite see. And beneath them, muffled, overpowered by the klaxons’ clangor was another sound: an ominous, deep-throated roar drifting down the corridor.

  Pressure change, temperatures spiraling out of control.

  Fire, her mind registered as the pop and crackle of flames came over the pick-ups, smoke invading the corridor, yellow-red light dancing along the walls.

  A heavy whump as a door sucked inward and blew explosively back out. Systems flashed warnings, shouts and screams filled the corridor—human voices yelling orders, people appearing from nowhere, robots pouring from maintenance panels, converging in the hallway and then heading straight into the line of the approaching fire.

  “No. Go back,” she willed them. “Run away.”

  She tapped into a robot, thinking to use its speakers to carry her voice, but she pushed too hard, too quickly and the poor little thing all but exploded. Agonized static poured from its mouth. The robot shivered and shook, electronics overloading, consciousness fading as its AI mind shut down and slipped into the dark.

  “No,” Serengeti whispered, horrified by what she’d done. “No, stop!” she shouted, but the crew in the hall kept going, heading straight into the maw of the hungry, angry blaze just rounding the corner. “Run!” she screamed, and then a second explosion rocked her, all but rolling Serengeti’s huge body over.

  More holes appeared, entire chunks of Serengeti’s body ripped away, internal structures collapsing, atmosphere venting, taking everything inside her with it. More screams—high-pitched human wails filled with fear and anger cut horribly short, the shrieking of her own body as it twisted and bent, sleek lines distorting as gaping chasms opened in her sides. Screams as metal melted, panels dissolving, flowing like water, pooling in silver puddles on the floor.

  Screams everywhere, and behind them the captain’s icy cool voice. “All crew prepare for jump.”

  “Henricksen.” She remembered that announcement, and what came next. “No. Please.”

  She didn’t want to see this. Not again.

  Fire. Fire everywhere, filling the corridor, burning hot as a blast furnace as it engulfed the crew sent to stop it from spreading, turning humans and robots alike into flickering, dancing torches. The suppression systems kicked in—coating the hallway with dense foam, draining the oxygen from the atmospheric mix—but it was already too late.

  The fire moved on, leaving corpses behind it—human bodies wilting like hothouse flowers before dropping bonelessly to the floor, robot chassis reduced to cooling slag boding with the deckplates. The flames disappeared, chasing rivers of oxygen down one corridor to another, and the hallway—once bright and shining, now charred and blackened—turned silent a
s a tomb. Smoke and ash choked the air, swirling capriciously as the fans pumped away.

  Lights flickered spasmodically, struggling to stay lit before finally giving out. Darkness engulfed the hallway, robbing Serengeti of sight. She waited, counting the seconds, hoping the darkness would last. And then a light appeared, wan and fitful, painting the metal walls in a bloody red glow.

  A figure appeared—tall and dark, shadowy and sinister—striding quickly along the charred metal corridor, one arm dangling, the other wrapped across its middle. A second, smaller figure came behind, slim and child-like as it followed in the tall shadow’s wake.

  “Henricksen. Finlay.” Serengeti stared raptly, eager to see their faces but a cloud of smoke wafted through the corridor, blurring her vision. And when it cleared, the dream receded, taking Henricksen and Finlay with it.

  “No. No!” She tried to grab hold of them but the dream trickled away from her, robbing her of her crew, taking the blood and smoke, the broken robots and burnt corpses with it, leaving Serengeti alone once more. “Henricksen,” she whispered, filled with desolation. “Finlay.”

  She drifted for a while—lost in darkness, wishing she could wrap that cloak of oblivion about her and simply disappear. But the universe is a mean and fickle thing. It gives and it takes in equal measure, caring nothing for the cost.

  Serengeti’s dream faded, and then immediately reset. Darkness gave way to light—bright, almost blinding, antiseptic in its purity—and the long length of a very clean, very familiar silver and black corridor. A corridor that erupted in screams and flames, fire and death.

  “It’s reset,” she breathed, voice filled with horror. The scene played out and faded to dark before starting over again. “No,” she begged. “Not again. Not this again.”

  The dream looped around and started from the beginning—light giving way to dark, blood and fire painting her hallway, crew dying again and again and again.

  SIXTEEN

  The dream ended abruptly, exchanging the blackened, bloodstained corridor for darkness. Serengeti waited, counting the seconds, dreading the moment when it started all over again. She knew the dream’s patterns after a thousand, and ten thousand, and ten ten thousands of viewings. Knew every last nanosecond of its images—where it began, where it would ultimately end—and oh, how she hated it—every last moment of this looping, cruel hell her mind had created. Bright white light gave way to fire, fire to a blood-red stain. And then the darkness poured in and Serengeti started counting all over again.