The Year's Top Robot and AI Stories: First Annual Collection by Allan Kaster

Author:Allan Kaster [Kaster, Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AudioText
Published: 2019-06-07T05:00:00+00:00

My first impression was of size: This was maybe the biggest woman I’d ever seen, in real life or in story. She was easily two meters tall—the top of my head came to her chin. A flowing dress fell in dark indigo folds from shoulder to deck, covering her; only her head, hands, and the toes of her right foot showed. A riot of dark hair frizzed around her face. Still disheveled after the powerwash, she returned our welcoming smiles with a scowl.

Then she closed her eyes tight, as if that might make us go away.

Then she moaned.

“What?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Just look at you.” Orisa seemed to be in pain.

I thought maybe she’d spotted something, so I glanced over to see if Qory was all right. Same as always: a waif with a ponytail and big teeth. The body she was wearing was compact and asexual, ideal for close quarters of a starship. She had on hardsocks, green monkey pants, and a jiffy.

“What’s wrong with the way we look?” Qory said.

Orisa shook her head in disbelief, picked up a satchel made of woven cloth, and marched out of the airlock, through reception, and into the habitat. Astonished, we followed.

“Wait,” Qory said. “Are you okay?”

“No!” Orisa called over her shoulder. “I’m stuck on a dingy surveyor with a bot and a boy.” She waved her arm as she walked; the drape of her sleeve looked like a wing. “Not another coming-of-age story!”

“I’m not a boy.” Indignant, I caught up to her. “I’m nineteen years old. And this is our starship, Grace. Don’t you be hurting her feelings.”

“Oh, great.” She whirled and glared down at me, so close that I could feel the heat coming from the flush of her cheeks. “A bot has feelings, kid,” she said. “A starship has empathy mirror routines. It’s an intelligence, not a person. Didn’t they teach you anything on this bucket?”

I’d always been a little cloudy on the difference between the two, but I wasn’t going to admit that to her. “When you hurt our feelings, Grace captures our distress.”

“Distress.” She went up on tiptoes. “You want to talk about distress?” I had to take a step back.

“You’re saying we’re not good enough for you?” I channeled Darko Fleener and put steel in my voice. “You’re too good for our crew, too important for a mere survey ship?”

I thought she might stuff me down the recycler, but instead she backed off and sighed. “So, what do you do on this ship, Mr. Not-a-Boy?”

“Do?” Now I knew how Dad felt. “Do?” I’d wandered into a story where I had no idea of my next line. “I’m crew, so I stand watch and make repairs. I work out.” She seemed to expect more. “I do stories.”

“No.” Orisa turned to Qory. “Get me Mercy,” she said. “This isn’t fair.”

“Sorry.” My sister shrugged. “No help here.”

Grace broke into our conversation. “You were the logical choice. The only choice.”

“What about Plomo?” said Orisa. “The Radomirs? I’ve already done Survey service.

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