Mission: Tomorrow by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Author:Bryan Thomas Schmidt [Schmidt, Bryan Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781476780948
Amazon: 1476780943
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2015-11-03T05:00:00+00:00

We were all silent as we walked back.

How should I handle a robot who had killed in a circumstance where I might have done the same, if for different reasons?

Carefully.

The silent walk gave me time to think. If I abandoned Audrey here, I would have nightmares about a beautiful, lonely robot trapped on an asteroid with her charges dead around her. I would imagine her hugging the dead, frozen child from time to time. Or I might make up stories in my head about someone who landed here and needed Audrey to lie. After all, she was an expensive sex-bot as far as I could tell. Another man might be foolish enough to ask her to lie for him.

I couldn’t leave her here to trap an unsuspecting and lonely miner. But I couldn’t allow a robot capable of murder in my ship, either.

When we got back to the kitchen and stripped down, Harry rubbed my tight shoulders. “Audrey said something about being able to transfer the claim,” I said quietly.

He spoke formally, carefully. “We can. That’s what I went back to the ship for. The process will take a week.”

“What about SpaceComSec and the mayday beacon?”

“I have videos of both of the dead. They will release you from your mayday obligations.”

“Thank you.” I sat still and silent, smelling the slightly oily tang of him, memorizing the feel of his hands, the stroke of his fingers on the long, tight muscles that connected shoulder to neck. “You can fly the Belle Amis, can’t you?” I asked him.

His hands both stopped. I wriggled under them. “Keep going.”

“Yes, I can fly her.” He squeezed a little harder, and then returned to his perfect, familiar touches. After a long time, he said, “Thank you.”

A tear rolled down my cheek. A million ways to die out here, but for me it wouldn’t be guilt at stranding Audrey or death at her hands. It might be loneliness. “I’ll miss you.”

He didn’t say he would miss me. He said, “You will be fine. You’re stronger than Audrey.”

I let so much time pass that his touch began to abrade my skin. “You will have to take the bodies. I don’t want to live with their ghosts.”

“We will release them.”

More tears came. Harry stayed with me, wiping them away one by one.

They left the next day. I stood out on the regolith holding onto a line and staring up at the Belle Amis as it flew out of sight. That night, I put on some jazz music and danced in the biggest empty room, and from time to time tears fell onto my fingers like glittering stars.

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