Redemption Ark

The corvette hovered close to the frothy black surface of the comet, arresting its drift with stuttering spikes of violet-flamed thrust before firing anchoring grapples. They slammed into the ground, piercing the nearly invisible epoxy skein that had been thrown around the comet for structural reinforcement.

You’ve been busy little beavers. How many people have you got here, Skade, doing whatever it is they do?

[No one. Only a handful of us have ever visited here, and no one ever stays permanently. All activities have been totally automated. Periodically a Closed Council operative arrives to check on things, but for the most part the servitors have worked unsupervised.]

Servitors aren’t that clever.

[Ours are.]

Clavain, Remontoire and Skade donned helmets and left the corvette via its surface lock, jumping across several metres of space until they collided with the reinforcement membrane. It caught them like flies on glue paper, springing back and forth until their impact energy was damped away. When the membrane had ceased its oscillations Clavain gently ripped his arm away from the adhesive surface and then levered himself into a standing position. The adhesive was sophisticated enough to yield to normal motions, but it would remain sticky against any action sufficiently violent to send someone away from the comet at escape velocity. Similarly, the membrane was rigid under normal forces, but would deform elastically if something impacted it at more than a few metres per second. Walking was possible provided it was done reasonably slowly, but anything more vigorous would result in the subject becoming embroiled and immobilised until they relaxed.

Skade, whose crested helmet made her difficult to mistake, led the way, following what must have been a suit homing trace. After five minutes of progress they arrived at a modest depression in the comet’s surface. Clavain discerned a black entrance hole at the depression’s lowest point, almost lost against the sooty blackness of the comet’s surface. There was a circular gap in the membrane, protected by a ring-shaped collar.

Skade knelt by the blackness, the adhesive gripping her knees via oozing capillary flow. She knocked the rim of the collar twice and then waited. After perhaps a minute a servitor bustled from the darkness, unfolding a plethora of jointed legs and appendages as it cleared the tight restriction of the collar. The machine resembled a belligerent iron grasshopper. Clavain recognised it as a general construction model — there were thousands like it back at the Mother Nest — but there was something unnervingly confident and cocky about the way it moved.

[Clavain, Remontoire… let me introduce you to the Master of Works.]

The servitor?

[The Master’s more than just a servitor, I assure you.]

Skade shifted to spoken language. ‘Master… we wish to see the interior. Please let us through.’

In reply Clavain heard the buzzing, wasplike voice of the Master. ‘I am not familiar with these two individuals.’

‘Clavain and Remontoire both have Closed Council clearance. Here, read my mind. You’ll see I am not being coerced.’

There was a pause while the machine stepped closer to Skade, easing the full mass of its body from the collar. It had many legs and limbs, some tipped with picklike feet, others ending in specialised grippers, tools or sensors. On either side of its wedge-shaped head were major sensor clusters, packed together like faceted compound eyes. Skade stood her ground while the servitor advanced, until it was towering over her. The machine lowered its head and swept it from side to side, and then jerked backwards.

I will want to read their minds as well.‘

‘Be my guest.’

The servitor moved to Remontoire, angled its head and swept him. It took a little longer with him than it had spent on Skade. Then, seemingly satisified, it proceeded to Clavain. He felt it rummaging through his mind, its scrutiny fierce and systematic. As the machine trawled him, a torrent of remembered smells, sounds and visual images burst into his consciousness, and then each image vanished to be replaced by another. Now and then the machine would pause, back up and retrieve an earlier image, lingering over it suspiciously. Others it skipped over with desultory disinterest. The process was mercifully quick, but it still felt like he was being ransacked.

Then the scanning stopped, the torrent ceased and Clavain’s mind was his own again.

‘This one is conflicted. He appears to have had doubts. I have doubts about him. I cannot retrieve deep neural structures. Perhaps I should scan him at higher resolution. A modest surgical procedure would permit…’

Skade interrupted the servitor. ‘That’s not necessary, Master. He’s entitled to his doubts. Let us through, will you?’