After three decades of waiting, lying dormant in Serengeti’s belly, Cryo finally came to life.
“Beep?” Oona asked, tilting her rounded head to look up at Tig. “Beep-Beep?”
“That’s right,” Serengeti said softly, touching at Oona’s face. “They’re free. It’s time for them to go home, and leave us in this place.”
TWENTY-NINE
The whir of Cryo’s machinery filled the corridor, its buzzing rattle shaking the deckplates, setting the robots’ metal carapaces to thrumming. A good sound, that, and welcome after so much silence. So much emptiness and loss. That sound meant life and Serengeti clutched it to her, memorizing the feel of it, the shape of it, savoring these last few moments with her crew before Cryo took them away.
The hum changed, taking on a sharp-edge, almost angry edge a half second before the engines kicked in—fierce, throaty, roaring as they ignited—and shoved hard at Serengeti’s body, pushing to break free. Eager to leave the womb and abandon the wreck of Serengeti’s for the brilliance of the stars. A kick as the engines ratcheted upward, sending shudders up and down Serengeti’s body, knocking panels loose, at that debris to trickles of flotsam and jetsam already floating in the air. And after that came a punch in the gut Serengeti half-expected. A sharp twisting like a knife in her guts as the more damaged of her last two fuel cells finally gave up the ghost. A chaotic rush of power flooded through her, the fuel cell voiding its load of energy as it died.
More shuddering after that, the trembling in Serengeti’s body growing increasingly violent. Tig took a quick step backward, and then a few more, grabbing at Tilli’s leg, scooping up Oona and cradling her against his chest as he retreated from Cryo’s door. More shaking and the trio of robots skipped away, moving all the way to the end of the hall. Best to be safe, after all, and watch the grand departure from a distant. No reason to fear being sucked out—not this time, not with all the atmosphere gone—but anything at all could happen when the lifeboat finally broke away.
Seconds ticked by with Cryo’s engines roaring like dragons, battering at Serengeti’s broken body, making the hallway flex and buck. Another push—harder this time—and Cryo’s door pulled away from the hallway, the black letters on its surface growing smaller and smaller as the lifeboat moved away
Serengeti stared through Tig’s eyes, watching the starlight slither across Cryo’s silver-white surface. The egg transformed, becoming a small, bright moon taking its place within the cosmos, leaving Serengeti’s shredded remains behind. “Thank you,” she breathed as Cryo left her. “Watch over my crew. Keep them safe for me.”
Warning messages flared to life, screaming for attention. Serengeti acknowledged them and then shoved them all aside. She knew she was in trouble. Didn’t need those flashing red errors to tell her that. One fuel cell let go earlier but a quick check showed the other was still limping along, sucking up energy from the solar panels outside to feed itself and keep doing its job.
Not much energy there, though. I’m burning through power faster than the fuel cell can collect it. I can’t stay. Serengeti watched the power meter tick downward as creeping black veil fluttered in—a dark harbinger lurking at the edges of her consciousness. No matter what I do, no matter how many times I sleep and wake, I can never stay.
But she wasn’t ready to go just yet. So she brushed the next set of warnings aside, saying nothing to Tig or Tilli, to little Oona who wouldn’t understand.
Cryo fired its main engines, the backdraft from its propulsion system flaring white-hot as the Sun, bright as the start that bound Serengeti here in endless orbit. The robots reached for one another, huddling close together as the backwash from Cryo’s engines licked at Serengeti’s abused body, making her juddered and shake, creak and groan. Yellow-white fire lit up the corridor, shimmering across chromed metal, painting the robot’s faces in silver and gold. Silver and gold, and blue behind it, chasing across the robots’ cheeks, swirling around their eyes.
A third kick—a brutal, bruising punch—and Cryo escaped completely, pulling away from Serengeti as it clawed its way into open space. And once free it reoriented, activating navigation to access the course Serengeti had programmed into its brain all those years ago. A last few adjustments, maneuvering jets fidgeting with the lifeboat’s trajectory, and when its aim was true, Cryo set off, taking Henricksen and poor dead Finlay out into the stars.
“Bye-bye!” Tig and Tilli called together. Oona waved her legs enthusiastically, adding her piping trill of a voice to theirs. “Bye-bye, little ship. Bye-bye, Serengeti crew.”
Serengeti wanted to join them, wished she could share the robots’ excitement at seeing the lifeboat off, but her heart was conflicted—half of it filled with sorrow, the other radiating joy. So she left the adieus to Tig and his family and just watched silently as Cryo left them, bright sphere dwindling to a tiny, twinkling star as it moved out of her cameras’ range.
“Safe journey,” she whispered, casting those words across the depths of space. “Remember me,” she added in her softest voice.
More warning messages—flashing red indicators calling urgently, stridently, refusing to be ignored this time. And with them came that dark curtain, creeping closer, reaching for Serengeti with clinging hands.
Serengeti sighed. Out of time. I’ve run out of time.
Tig coughed politely. “Umm…Serengeti?”
Worry in Tig voice, sensing the change in Serengeti’s mood as her mind touched at his. Tilli picked up on it too and burbled softly, clearly upset. But Oona—precious little Oona with her tiny hand-drawn mouse—just looked confused. Confused and a little sad, because everyone else was. That broke Serengeti’s heart.
“Come here, little mouse.” She turned Tig away from the empty doorway and pulled Oona close, reached for Tilli with Tig’s jointed metal leg and hugged her to his side.
She could feel them for a moment—all three of them at once, their collective consciousness filled to overflowing with warmth and light and life. Not life as biology defined it maybe, but AI life was every bit as pure and true as the frozen lives sleeping inside Cryo.
Serengeti drew that feeling inside her, storing it away with all the other memories she’d gathered, all the wonders and horrors, the pain and laughter and every other thing that made her Serengeti and not just ship. And then she gently disengaged herself from the robots and quietly slipped away, moving to the camera high above the little robots so she could freeze an image of the three of them together and take it with her when she slipped into the dark.
An error message intruded, flashing angrily, refusing to be ignored. Serengeti sighed in irritation and shut it off. Shut them all off while she was at it because there no longer seemed to be a point. Nothing would be working soon anyway. Not even she. And those error messages were really, really annoying.
The soft sound of peeping drifted from below. Oona looked up at the camera, face lights swirling in complex patterns as she trilled an anxious question, sensing something was wrong. That life as she knew it was changing in a very fundamental way. She just didn’t know what it was. Tig and Tilli had suffered through this drill before, planned for this day for years and years and knew what must come next. But Oona…Oona was naïve and innocent, a stranger yet to sorrow, unlike Tig and Tilli who’d seen more than their fair share.
“I’m going to sleep again, little ones. And this time, I think, it will be for far longer than ever before.” Intuition made her speak so, though that wasn’t in her design specs either. Like love and dreaming and all the other things Serengeti picked up along the way. “I’m sorry.” She reached for Tig and Tilli, for Oona between them, brushing electric fingertips across their shining chrome faces, smiling to herself as they shivered and sighed. “I wish I could stay, but…” But staying wasn’t an option. Not right now anyway. “I have to go,” she repeated softly.
They argued, of course, asking her why and why and why, when would they see her again, what they should do while she was gone. But S
erengeti had no answers to offer. She just listened quietly to the chattering robots until their words eventually ran out.
Silence then—three robot faces looking up at the camera, Serengeti looking back down.
“You’re in charge now, Tig. You understand? You are ship while I’m away. You are Serengeti, and all that she once was.” Serengeti touched at his brain, noting the bits and pieces she’d modified, the code set she’d layered onto his default AI settings to integrate his mind with hers. “You are ship now, Tig. Do you understand?”
Tig blinked slowly, cobalt eyes worried, confused, a tiny bit lost. He was the oldest of her companions, and the most loyal. The one Serengeti could always count on. Who was always there when she woke from the dark. She needed him now, more than ever before.
Tig stared at the camera for a long, long time. “Yes,” he said finally, voice the barest whisper. “Yes, Serengeti. I understand”
“Good boy, Tig,” Serengeti whispered, swelling with pride. She caressed his chromed face, imbuing that touch with all the fondness she felt inside. “Crew was my directive, Tig. And now crew is gone, their path uncertain.” She caught her breath, surprised by a sudden, stabbing twinge that burrowed into her gut. Her mind flashed on Cryo and the sleeping travelers inside it.
What sort of universe have I sent them into? Thirty-four years they’ve been frozen, sleeping in limbo while human civilization moves on.
Long enough for the war that caused this whole predicament to be settled, and a new one sprung up in its place. Serengeti chewed on that, worrying.
Whatever’s out there, it has to be better than this, she thought bitterly. It has to be better than staying here, marooned for all eternity, trapped in the bowels of this ravaged hulk that used to be a starship.
She hoped it was so. She truly did.
“My human crew is gone,” Serengeti said quietly, “and you, my clever little robots, have done all that I’ve asked. More than I could ever…” She trailed off again, searching for words. Something of comfort to leave behind while she slept. “I have no more orders for you. No more instructions save this: that you choose your own path, and make what life you can inside me.”
Tig started to object—desperately scared.
Serengeti shushed him with a touch and told them the rest. “One thing and one thing only will I ask of you for me: that you listen in the depths of space, and wake me should the voice of Man drift near.”
Tig blipped in thought, eyes blinking rapidly. Oona trilled and whistled, low, sad sounds that broke Serengeti’s heart all over again, making her regret her need to leave them all the more.
No choice. No choice in the matter, Oona. In staying I’d doom us all.
“I’m sorry, little ones, but I cannot stay.”
She zoomed in close, memorizing the look of Tig and Tilli hugging one another, with Oona clutched between them. The way their face lights reflected off the frosted metal panels on the walls. The way they wrapped their leg ends around each other like school children holding hands, giving comfort and receiving it at the same time. Serengeti took that image and filed it away, placing it alongside the pictures of Finlay and Henricksen, of the icy darkness filled with stars—all those precious memories she stored in the deepest, most protected part of her. The core of her crystal matrix that was the closest thing an AI had to a soul. And then she slipped into Tig’s body to say her goodbyes. Her last goodbyes, she feared, though she couldn’t tell the robots that.
“Come here, Oona,” she called, coaxing the tiny robot near.
Oona—being Oona—grew suddenly shy. She ducked her head, refusing to look at Serengeti, squiggling like an octopus, trying to break free from Tig’s cradling legs.
Serengeti called to her, whispering soft words of comfort, soothing her with gentle caresses until Oona finally calmed. She waited then—patient as can be—until Oona’s head lifted, and she stared through Tig’s eyes to Serengeti inside. “I have something to give you before I leave.”
“Peep?”
“Yes,” Serengeti smiled. “Peep.”
She popped open a panel in Tig’s body and dug around until she found a set of colored grease pencils he carried inside. A touch at Oona’s body, turning her just a bit, and she extruded a set of appendages from the end of Tig’s leg, pausing only to scan her database and sort through the thousands upon thousands of images stored there, before setting to work.
Serengeti wasn’t much of an artist, but she sketched out the image she’d chosen as best she could, adding a round-eyed owl wearing a jaunty knit cap to Oona’s metal side—a tiny little friend for the field mouse nibbling at its piece of cheese. “Do you like it?” she asked.
Oona blinked and twisted around, burbling curiously as she touched the colorful creature Serengeti had set there.
“Owl,” Serengeti told her, touching the picture with Tig’s leg. “That’s an owl.”
“Ow-ooo,” Tilli trilled in her high-pitched voice. “Ow-oo! Ow-oo!” she sang, flailing happily, showing Tig and Tilli her shiny new badge.
“That’s right. Ow-oo.” Serengeti laughed. “The mouse is timid and shy, Oona, but the owl is filled with wisdom.”
“Whoo?” Oona stared in wide-eyed wonder. “Whoo-whoo?” she asked, doing a fair impression of an owl herself.
“Whoo-whoo,” Serengeti repeated softly, touching at Oona’s face. “You are both, Oona. One becoming the other. A mouse searching for wings to soar the skies above.”
“Whoo-ooo?” Oona asked, pointing at herself in surprise.
“Yes, silly. You.” Serengeti chucked at Oona’s chin, coaxing a shy giggle from her as she blushed and ducked her head. “Now come here and give me a hug before I go.”
No shyness this time. No timid demureness. No stand-offish games. Oona wrapped her stubby legs around Tig’s body and squeezed with all her might, while Tilli hooted sorrowfully and Tig let loose with a low whistle of mourning.
“Shhh.” Serengeti clutched Oona tightly as she leaned Tig close to Tilli, touching her cheek to cheek. “None of that now, you hear.”
Three robot heads nodded in unison, face lights flashing in scrolling patterns.
She touched at them—each of them in turn, feeling them shiver as she caressed their AI brains. “Good night, Tig,” Serengeti whispered, touching at his cheek. “Good night, Tilli.” A second touch, electric fire arcing from Tig’s chromed face to hers. “Be good, little Oona.” A smile for Oona, a cobalt kiss given back. Serengeti pulled them close and held them tight, and then she sighed and retreated, racing along pathways until she reached the bridge: the place where it all started, and someday it would all end.
“Someday,” Serengeti whispered. “Someday.”
A wish, a promise, she wasn’t sure which.
A last look around and Serengeti let go and slipped into darkness—a soft dark this time, different from the dream of fire, her memories of Henricksen and those days of long ago. This time there were stars, appearing one after the other, shimmering silver-white against an infinity of black.
“Dark,” Serengeti whispered, beginning to smile. “Dark and stars, just as I remember. Home. I’m home.”
EPILOGUE
Tig threaded his way through the shredded remains of the ship’s port side hull, tip-toeing through debris, navigating narrow passages and yawning chasms until he reached the darkness outside. A flash of metal as Tilli joined him, murmuring encouragements to Oona as she held tight to her leg.
Big day today: Oona’s first trip to the outer hull. A trip prompted by much begging and pleading because Oona desperately wanted to see the stars. Not just the patches showing through the holes in the ship’s corridors—all of them. And Tsu’s star—the star that kept the ship alive—most of all. Tig resisted at first—Tig and Tilli both, worrying for Oona’s safety, imagining a thousand things that could go wrong. But as time went on, they found it increasingly hard to deny her. Especially since they loved the stars themselves. And because they loved her, because they
knew they couldn’t protect Oona from everything forever, Tig and Tilli finally relented.
“Ooooh!” Oona breathed, trilling with excitement. She pulled away from Tilli and scampered onto a section of hull plating, dancing on her tip-toes as she turned in a circle, taking it all in. A small menagerie of animals turned with her—a dozen different creatures added to her sides over the years, joining the little mouse that was the first of her decorations, the wide-eyed owl Serengeti’s gifted to her in parting. “Oooh-ooooh!” Oona exclaimed, looking around her, eyes wide as wide can be, smile wider still.
She turned and turned about, staring in amazement, drinking in the sight of the shattered ship they lived in, the endless darkness outside with its thousands upon thousands of silver bright stars.
“Oooh-oooh-ooh!” She hopped up and down, pointing at the shadowed shapes jutting up from the top of the ship, babbling out a long string of questions as she turned to Tig and Tilli, looking for permission.
Tig shrugged and waved them forward.
Tilli called Oona to her, taking her by one leg, warning her to stay close by her side as the two of them set off, leaving Tig to follow more slowly behind.
Oona babbled excitedly as she scuttled along, pointing out this thing and that, asking what they were and what had happened, wanting to know everything—all that Serengeti was, and had been, and would one day be. And Tilli—patient Tilli—answered as best she could. Everything but the ‘to-be’—on that particular subject she had nothing to offer her daughter. They had yesterday and today, and all the yesterdays before that, but tomorrow…tomorrow was a dream. A wish for bright stars and good fortune. A hope that someday soon, Serengeti would wake to join them again, and make their little family complete.
Excitement as they crested the top of Serengeti’s body, Oona staring raptly, chromed face shining in the glow of Tsu’s star. More excitement when Tilli pointed downward, at the hull plating twinkling and shimmering as it drank in the starlight. Oona smiled happily, face lights flashing, mimicking the twinkling of the ship’s body.
Serengeti Page 28
