CHAPTER SEVEN
The sound of distant sirens woke her, early in the morning. Someone must have found Gahzhing. Carefully, Jill worked her way out of the alcove where she’d sheltered and found a path through the badly damaged building to where she could see the rest of the lab complex, across a large field. She realized with a flash of claustrophobia the ventilation shaft must have taken her underground from the main set of buildings to this ruin. Glad she hadn’t known exactly where she was at the time, she retreated into the core of the partially collapsed building.
Much of the place was destroyed, but she was able to work her way through, and she decided if the structure hadn’t fallen in on itself during the many years since the big earthquake toppled it originally, nothing was going to fall on her head today.
She paused to eat the rest of her snack and considered what to do next. Suddenly, she doubled over in pain, clutching her wrist and the black bracelet. The sensation was excruciating, as if hot probes had been inserted under her skin. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood so she wouldn’t scream.
The world spun as black lines of filaments ran down her arm toward the bracelet. The cuff suddenly broke into three equal pieces with a loud snap and fell to the floor. Jill leaned against the wall, eyes closed, breathing slowly, waiting for the pain and nausea to pass.
After a few minutes, she leaned over to examine the broken bracelet. Maybe the extra power Gahzhing had pumped into it last night overloaded the circuits. Or perhaps her human DNA had finally killed whatever bio mechanism the device used to paralyze and inflict pain on the Badari prisoners. Either way, she couldn’t be tracked or controlled by it any longer and that result was worth a bit of suffering. She scooped up the three pieces and hid them under a pile of rubble, where the remnants blended in with the broken masonry.
Jill considered her priorities. Still too close to the Khagrish, she’d easily be recaptured if she wasn’t careful. Balancing that, she wanted to search the ruins for anything useful, especially a weapon or two. From what she’d seen in the AI system, the place was essentially abandoned with no effort to salvage anything after the bodies of those killed or injured were removed. And she was eager to delve into the AI system itself, hunting for news about her fellow colonists, as well as Aydarr and the pack.
AI first, she decided, wiping her lips after taking a swig from her water bottle. See what’s going on as far as their attempts to recover me. But she vowed not to spend too much time on it, unlike the night before when she’d taken a big risk by staying in Gahzhing’s quarters for hours.
Getting into a more comfortable position, she brought out her handheld, wondering how long a charge it carried and how far the sensors reached. If she traveled to the valley, when would the connection break? She’d made sure the handheld itself was untraceable, recording it as destroyed in the central inventory list. I can’t think of everything, but I’m trying not to be dumb about this.
She set a timer and dove into the AI ocean of data and communications, using one of her backdoor super user accounts. Gahzhing had been found alive but with head injuries. He had yet to regain consciousness, so Dr. Cwamla was in charge.
The primary emphasis in attempting to capture Jill was on the Preserve, as she’d hoped. The countervailing theory was that she was hiding in the buildings. Dr. Sheyall had been accused of helping her, subjected to questioning, and was now under arrest, protesting her innocence. Setting her up to take the blame. Jill felt a pang of pity for the young scientist, who wasn’t as bad as any of the others, but there wasn’t anything to be done, other than give herself up. Even her surrender might not appease Gahzhing when he regained consciousness. Information on the humans was restricted, but Jill had the all-access passwords and was relieved to find the colonists were still being held in stasis, awaiting the detailed experimental protocols from the Chimmer.
She checked on the pack’s status, but there was nothing new. Jill set an alert to notify her when new updates were posted or when the pack returned to the labs.
Then she glanced at her timer and queried for the plans of the building she was in. Having identified a few likely spots to check for weapons and supplies, if the areas were at all accessible, she decided it was time for action. She was edgy, tense, worried about spending too long here. I’d better move out before someone thinks about this place. She called up the maps and memorized the most likely route to the river valley.
Closing her connection to the AI, except for one alert if anything new was posted regarding her, she reset the timer and crawled out of the spot where she’d hidden.
A standard hour later, she was tired and grimy but had a few treasures to show for her efforts. She had indeed located the armory, most of which was crushed under five floors of the building pancaked in the quake, but in an outer chamber she found two Khagrish pulse rifles carrying charges. Dropped as the owners fled the earthquake maybe.
Close by, she located an untouched storeroom and filled a rucksack with what looked like energy bars. These things last forever in anyone’s civilization. There were a few sealed containers she thought might be juice or water. She found a row of employee lockers lying on top of a pile of rubble and grabbed a jacket, two extra shirts, socks, and a pair of boots that were too large but better than her prison flip-flops.
With a shudder, she had to shake a few spiderlike creatures from their home in the boots, glad she’d double-checked first before jamming her feet inside. The injects were still working to protect her, but she couldn’t afford any downtime right now.
Deciding the time was now to leave the ruins, she worked her way to the rear of the complex, having to abandon the safety of the spaces in between the collapsed areas, to skulk through the overgrown greenery and young trees. She’d have to travel through an open meadow to reach the relative sanctuary of the forest beyond. Even though there’d been no alerts, she took a moment to log into the AI and check. Judging by the status reports, the enemy was combing the Preserve and the building. Only a matter of time before someone thinks of the ventilation shafts.
Jill adjusted her backpack, and the pulse rifle she’d slung across it. She carried the other one at the ready. Neither was fully charged but so much better than bare hands, or even the knife she’d grabbed from Gahzhing’s efficiency kitchen.
She eyed the edge of the forest, maybe two hundred yards away. If she could get under the canopy of the trees, she’d feel safer. Then work her way west, toward the mysterious river valley. Aydarr’s words about the legend of one Badari who’d managed to flee into the woods and was never caught came to her, giving faint hope for her own situation. With her training and a few lucky breaks, she might make it.
The drone of a flitter caught her attention, and she dodged into the limited shelter of the ruins.
The flyer circled the lab complex and took off toward the north, away from her, but Jill took the sighting as a sign to be on the move. Taking a deep breath, she crept into the open, the back of her neck tingling as she expected to be confronted by Khagrish guards springing at her from cover.
Moving as slowly as possible, she worked her way through the meadow, staying low, using any cover there was and, after a nerve wrenching hour, she was on her feet again, moving through the forest and heading west.
At midday she paused to take a break in the shadow of a massive tree and eat an energy bar, washed down with a few swallows of water. Maybe I’m not a high priority target to them anyway. After all, the Khagrish remained in possession of an unknown number of her fellow Sectors colonists. But she was pretty sure Dr. Gahzhing was the type to want revenge, if he survived, so she should expect to be hunted. Jill hoped there’d be no repercussions against the pack. The Badari had nothing to do with her escape. She checked the handheld briefly and found it still accessed the lab’s AI, even from this distance.
Judging by the topography maps she’d studied, she anticipated reaching the river valley by nightfall if she pushed herself and kept up a fast pace.
Sure enough, at sunset she came out onto the bluffs overlooking the wide, green valley, with a fairly substantial river winding through the center, widening into a lake whose sapphire waters glowed in the sunshine before cascading over a massive falls.
Jill evaluated various potential lines of descent, wishing she had the gear to rappel. Eventually, she found a path where small hoofed animals had made their way to the water source below. Skidding more often than walking, she reached the bottom of the cliff and rested.
I’ll have to find an easier way up when I need to go back.
The sun was setting, throwing long shadows across the river and the grasslands. Jill wondered how defensible the valley would be, trying to identify a spot where a squad of fugitives could dig in and hold off a siege by Khagrish forces.
Curious how many guards the enemy could call upon, she pulled out the handheld, but it was dead. Not surprised, considering how far she was from the complex, she returned the device to her pocket and headed toward an interesting cave formation in the cliffs closer to the lake.
If the caves extended far enough into the cliffs, there might be room for a number of people. We could fish, maybe grow crops in the fertile bottomland. Or should she be thinking more in terms of fleeing further away from the Khagrish? Life on the run across an unknown planet didn’t appeal but might be necessary. Eventually, she’d like to evac to the Sectors, of course, but her most desired outcome seemed impossible. Better to focus on the short term goals.
As she scrambled up the loose dirt and gravel leading to the mouth of the cave, she unslung the stolen weapon, in case any local predators considered the space their home. Reaching the small plateau at the opening, she did a double take. On either side of the cave’s mouth were two intricate metallic devices, plainly made by an advanced intelligence. One was crumpled under a rock fall and the other was on its side but apparently unharmed.
Slinging her weapon, Jill crouched to unbury the equipment, digging with her hands until she’d cleared enough away to be able to rock the item to what was apparently the upright position. Nothing built in the Sectors.
Using the tail of her shirt, she swiped across the surface and revealed what appeared to be solar energy gathering plates. There were no wires or circuits, no on/off buttons or switches but, as she inspected the device, an amber flicker pulsed in the lower left corner. Whatever this was, setting it upright again had clearly activated at least a partial response.
“Could be good, could be bad.” Dusting off her hands, she stood and studied the two devices and the terrain. “Ancient Observers here?” Just my luck to stumble across a treasure trove in this forsaken spot, where I can’t do anything with what I find.
AO sites in the Sectors were protected by the government, which tried to wrest the secrets of the long vanished interstellar civilization from any remnants found. AO tech sometimes was working as much as a million standard years after whatever caused their civilization to vanish. The AO built for keeps. This find didn’t look a hundred thousand years old, let alone a million, and it wasn’t covered in the large jewels the AO tended to use. Many civilizations were known to have risen and fallen across the stars before humans arrived, however.
Jill shook her head. Doesn’t help me now. Retrieving her pack, she ventured inside the cave, nerves on edge. The weapon she’d stolen from the abandoned building had a built-in flashlight capability, so she switched that on, finding herself in a large cavern, the ceiling stretching at least two stories above her.
Her light made the mineral deposits in the walls and the stalagmites and stalactites twinkle with variegated colors as she swept it across the huge room in front of her. She stumbled and checked herself again as the beam crossed a figure lying huddled next to a large stalagmite.
“Hello?” Jill was ready to duck for cover but the person didn’t move and, as she played the light over him or her again, she realized she was gazing at a corpse.
Slowly, she walked to the spot where the other had spent their last moments. The figure was humanoid, dressed in some kind of flight suit, wearing a helmet obscuring her view of the face. One leg was bent in an awkward position that made her wince in sympathy. The body could have been there for millennia, preserved by the minerals and atmosphere in the cave. The entire form was encased in a layer of sparkly limestone, or whatever the predominant mineral dripping down the cavern’s walls might be.
With a pang of regret, Jill knew she was never going to see the face of the ancient. “I wonder what happened to him,” she said, rising and glancing around the cave. The sound of her own voice was reassuring. “I didn’t see any wreckage from a crashed ship outside.”
“Are you the rescue mission?”
Startled into a scream, Jill leaped sideways, into the shelter of a stalagmite, and aimed her weapon in the direction of the voice. “Who’s there?”
“You’re not the rescue mission.” The tone was oddly singsong, as if tasting the sounds, playing with the sentence structure. “Give me more language samples. I can only infer so much.”
Jill peered around the edge of the stone formation. There was an ovoid metallic unit which she’d ignored initially, sitting a few feet away from the corpse. Now the device displayed blinking blue and violet lights. “Who are you? What do you want?” she asked.
The lights moved faster, adding colors. “This would be easier if I could have direct access to your brain waves.”
“Uh-uh, not happening.”
“Your kind is unknown to me, although similar to many beings encountered on missions in the past. Where does your species originate?”
“I think I should be the one asking the questions,” Jill said. “I have the pulse rifle. What are you?”
“I’ll take input however you choose to provide it, even in the form of questions. I am MARL.”
“Which tells me nothing.”
“I can’t translate the acronym. I don’t believe your language has the capabilities for all the capabilities I encompass. You appear to be a member of a primitive race.”
Stifling a chuckle, Jill gave the blinking lights a sideways glance. “Insulting me isn’t a great way to make friends.”
Green lights added themselves to the blue and violet. After a short pause, MARL said, “No insult was intended, merely a statement of fact.”
“What happened here?” She waved one hand at the calcified corpse. “How long ago did he or she die?”
“Based on my calculations, about 10,000 of this planet’s years have passed since I received my last instructions.” MARL made a humming noise, and the lights blinked furiously, a few red pinpoints among the other hues. “We were trying to get home because my pilot had vital information he hoped might lead to the defeat of the enemy, but they pursued us and damaged the ship.”
“I didn’t see any signs of a ship out there.” Jill gestured toward the mouth of the cave.
“It crashed into the lake when he tried to land.”
“Injured as he was, are you trying to tell me he swam to safety then dragged himself and you up here?” Jill was fascinated by the story but skeptical.
“I am self-mobile and can manifest other, additional forms.” MARL’s hum rose to an ear splitting volume but nothing else happened. After a moment of silence, it said, “Well, if I were at full power, I could. I’ve been in hibernation mode, doing the minimum required, until you arrived. I am in the process of powering up.”
Jill thought the alien AI, if that was indeed what MARL might be, sounded rather grumpy and a bit embarrassed. She decided to think of MARL as a male entity, since the voice was masculine in timber. Maybe MARL sounded like its pilot had in his lifetime. “Are those your manifestations, as you call it, outside the cave? Because one was crushed by a rockslide and the other was half buried in dirt and debris.”
“Yes. The unit you see here is a portable emergency subset of myself, automatically ejected when the ship crashed. Two of my separate selves assisted the pilot in exiting the submerged wreck and brought him here, with me.” MARL levitated off the cave floor briefly before drifting back. “I sent a distress call then I executed the final order from my pilot. Since then, I’ve waited, set to standby status.”
Sounds like a report. Deciding she wasn’t in jeopardy from the ancient AI, Jill walked out from behind the rocks. “What was his final order?”
“To shield this valley from the enemy. Allow no overflights, no scans. I directed all my remaining power to the effort, until or unless contradicted by someone in authority. Are you in authority now?”
Shaking her head, Jill asked, “Why would you accept my orders? I’m obviously not connected to the people who created you.”
“I’m not meant to operate independently, but to support the organic beings in charge of the mission. As no rescue of my pilot was ever attempted, nor any message received, I can only surmise the civilization to which he belonged, and their enemies as well, have passed from the galactic stage. Although primitive, you appear to have the sentience required to make use of my capabilities to at least a limited extent. I was built to serve,” MARL said in a quiet voice. “Ten thousand years is a long time to have no real purpose.”
Jill walked closer. “You must have an amazing power source.”
“My core is the primary, self-contained, a reactor of a type probably well beyond your understanding, which will last virtually forever. I can use other sources as well, if made available to me. The whole of my entity, on the ship itself, has—or had—immense power, virtually unlimited abilities.” MARL sounded wistful. A solitary turquoise light blinked in the lower corner of his ever-shifting display.
“Can you communicate with the ship?”
The lights flashed in a sequence she’d come to recognize as a negative. “I believe it was too badly damaged and may even have broken up in the lake.”
So much for daydreams of flying home in an AO ship. “Too bad. A functional spaceship—even an alien craft—might have come in handy in my current position.”
“Are you marooned here, like my pilot was?”
“Not exactly, but it’s a long story. How far can you scan?” Jill sat on a convenient rock and set aside her backpack and the extra weapon. Although still slightly wary of MARL, she was hungry and fished out an energy bar.
“There are no ships in orbit around the planet, nor active in the solar system.” MARL hummed. “There are five primary installations on this planet, three of them on this continent, two on large islands offshore. A few smaller complexes in other locations. At the present time there are two small atmospheric flyers aloft.”
“Impressive. Where are the flyers in relation to us?” Are they hunting for me?
“Apparently, commuting between installations. None in this area.”
“Five installations?” Jill found the number depressing. Were the Khagrish maintaining more packs of the Badari at the other labs? Experimenting on her people?
“Yes. The beings resident at the complexes comprise the entire population of the planet, other than indigenous wildlife. What are these places? Why are you here?”
Fair enough, MARL had shared information with her. “I was a prisoner in the one closest to this valley. In fact, the rest of my family and friends are still held there. We were kidnapped from a colony world—I don’t know how far away from here. I’m a citizen of the Sectors, and the so-called scientists here who were holding me are working for my enemies, the Chimmer and the Mawreg.”
“I have references in my memory to Mawreg.” MARL hummed, lights flashing. “Nothing of any significance.”
The Mawreg had been edging onto the scene 10,000 years ago? Jill found the statistic astonishing and depressing, although she reminded herself she didn’t know where in the galaxy she was right now.
“Are you willing to be in authority now?” MARL repeated his question.
Don’t look a gift AI in the data inputs. Jill grinned, giddy at the idea of owning a working piece of ancient tech. To the best of her knowledge, no one in the Sectors had been able to operate any of the found AO relics. Maybe in some top secret program in the Inner Sectors, run by the big brains. Certainly not an ordinary ex-soldier like herself. “All right, if you want to be my sidekick, I can use all the help I can get,” Jill said. “Thank you.”
“To have purpose again is a most fulfilling thing.” MARL’s lights flashed all at once, a kaleidoscope of colors lighting up the entire cave. “I’ll be able to manifest additional units in a few hours. What are your intentions?”
“I’m not exactly sure.” Jill considered, while admiring the beauty of the stone formations in the cave. “Right now I think I’d better go outside to gather firewood and try to make myself comfortable for the night. Explore the valley in the daylight tomorrow. How are you on physical defenses?”
“I can’t defend the entire planet. Once I am fully powered up and activated, I could manifest smaller units and defend the valley from invasion with a force field. My pilot wasn’t concerned as there are no native sentients on this world.”
“Terrific. I was thinking in terms of the cave for now, so I could get a good night’s sleep.” The power of this thing was amazing. Too bad its original owner had been too badly injured in the crash to make use of MARL’s capabilities. Jill believed she might have a game changer here, in her private war with the Khagrish. The odds were improving.
“You prefer burning wood to utilizing my capabilities for heat and light?”
“It’s a primitive person thing.” Jill laughed. “We find fire comforting at night, with unknown predators on the prowl.”
“I’ll continue to power up.” MARL’s lights blinked and dimmed. “You will return?”
“Of course.” She patted the top of the unit as she might have done for a dog and picked her way through the stalagmites to exit the cave.
Outside the sky was growing dark so she made her wood gathering trip quick and, on an impulse, plucked a handful of yellow and white flowers she found blooming in a large patch. When she re-entered the cave, MARL was humming and its lights were pulsing. Jill built a fire quickly and lit the wood with a short blast from the pulse rifle. Satisfied the flames would sustain themselves, she picked up the flowers and sniffed the faint perfume. “What was your pilot’s name?”
“I can only give you an approximation of the syllables. His vocal abilities and yours are quite divergent.”
“So how can you talk to me in Basic then?”
“I was meant to be a universal translator, among my other tasks. Originally my pilot’s people were explorers, seekers of knowledge, and visited many worlds in their quest. Once the enemy attacked and initiated the war, all our purposes altered to support the fight for survival.”
“We’ve had similar events in the Sectors,” she said. “First there was peaceful expansion from our home world for centuries, making treaties and alliances with other sentients we met in the stars, a few skirmishes or misunderstandings, of course, but then the Mawreg and their client races started wiping out planets. We’ve been at war for my entire life.”
“My pilot’s name was Njindak,” MARL said.
Jill picked up the flowers and her pulse rifle and walked toward the calcified corpse.
“What are you going to do?”
She knelt beside the body and laid the blooms on his chest. Then she took the pulse rifle, set it to low impulse, and quickly carved the phonetic spelling of the pilot’s name into the cave wall above him. “We honor our dead—he was a soldier and I was a soldier. Different wars, same principles. I think it’s sad he has no one from his own people to say a prayer for him, or whatever ceremony should have been done.”
“Your people have honor. Njindak would have approved of your thoughtfulness.”
“So he’d be fine with me taking you on as my sidekick?” Jill dusted her hands off and moved to her rocky perch beside the fire. She fed the blaze a few more twigs then contemplated her remaining stash of energy bars without enthusiasm. “I wish I’d had time to fish for dinner. Are there edible species in the lake?”
MARL hummed and flashed colors. “Yes, several varieties of fish, as well as eels, snakes and hard shelled reptiles. The primary vegetation may be edible as well. Tests would be required.”
“I’ll pass on the sea weed for now but otherwise fresh fish sounds good.” She gave the energy bar a glare. “Better than this dried up Khagrish stuff. We’ll put a swim and fishing on the agenda for tomorrow. I need to explore the valley anyway.”
She slept curled up against a rock, using her backpack as a pillow, kept warm by her fire and periodic blasts of heat from MARL. In the morning, she opened her eyes and screamed, grabbing for the pulse rifle, as five shiny metallic spiderlike creatures sat in a row watching her, multi colored ‘eyes’ intent on her face.
“These are my newest manifestations,” MARL said. “Don’t you like them? I evaluated my design as perfectly suited for catching fish for you in the lake, and guarding against the predators in the water.”
“I was taken by surprise that’s all.” Setting aside the weapon, Jill stretched and tried to ease the kinks in her spine from the less than ideal sleeping position. I’d better figure out some kind of a bed by tonight. She remembered the mattress of fragrant, soft leaves Aydarr had provided her with in the Preserve. Fragments of dreams, all concerning him, floated through her mind and an overpowering sense of being cold. “I wish he was here now.”
“Who?”
“A friend of mine. I need to give you a full briefing, so we can figure out how you can help me,” Jill said. “Can you leave the cave? Or do I need to talk to your manifestations while I’m at the lake and hiking?”
MARL levitated into the air and reshaped itself into a smooth ovoid about a foot long and a foot wide at the largest point, with the blinking colors cascading down the sides and racing across the middle. “Since you are in authority for me now, I can do whatever you wish. Njindak ordered me to remain close to him before he died, but your orders supersede his.”
“Good. Let me go outside and take care of a few personal things, then we’ll head off to the lake and take it from there.” She rose and headed for the cave entrance, where sunlight streamed in. Hearing the click of tiny claws behind her, she glanced over her shoulder to find the miniature robots or whatever they were moving in formation to follow her outside. “No need to accompany me right now, guys.”
“But one of my duties is to protect you.”
“And one of my primary requirements is for privacy during biological rituals,” she said firmly. “I’ll be back before you miss me.”
Soon enough, her personal morning rituals complete, she and MARL and the small robots made their way from the cave heading toward the lake. Jill kept glancing at the sky as she hiked.
“Nothing will fly over,” MARL said after the fourth time. “I protect this location. There were only two shuttles in the air when we checked last night, and neither was headed in this direction.”
“Have you run a scan today yet?”
“No air traffic whatsoever.”
After MARL’s report, she relaxed and was delighted to find a spot where the lake was shallow enough for wading. Stripping off her stained and sweaty jumpsuit, she bathed as best she could, wishing for a clump of the soapy root Aydarr had used in the Preserve to clean her wounds. Donning one of the shirts she’d taken from the abandoned building, which fell to her knees, she felt better. After emptying the jumpsuit’s pockets, she rinsed the garment out and laid it on the beach to dry before seeking the shade.
“Now will you brief me on why you’re here and what your plans are?” MARL asked, settling beside her.
As if she was reporting to one of her military superiors, Jill shared what little she knew about how she and her fellow colonists had been kidnapped, and an edited version of what had happened to her since awakening in the Preserve with the Badari.
“I can try to calculate how far we are from your world,” MARL offered. A detailed star map projected in midair. “We’re here,” he said, as a pulsing red light appeared overlaid on one star system.
Jill shook her head. “I’m no pilot, no astro navigator. I can’t begin to give you a hint where my colony is in relation to your map.”
The representation of a star field disappeared as silently as it had arrived.
Guessing she’d disappointed her sidekick, she held up the inactive handheld she’d stolen from the lab complex. “Think you can do anything with this?”
“A primitive form of artificial intelligence.” MARL flashed a smoky blue light over the handheld and it powered up immediately.
“Yeah, I hacked into the system while I was there. The Khagrish have no understanding of system security, or how to build efficient AI’s either.” She laughed as she logged on and reviewed the most recent status updates. There was no change in the files regarding the pack’s mission or the humans. She was presumed to be hiding in the Preserve and finding her had been given a relatively low priority. “Interesting, the authorities promoted Dr. Cwamla to be in charge since I knocked Gahzhing out of the picture. Wonder if she’s any smarter than he was.” Jill held the unit out to MARL. “Can you take over their systems? Hack in through this? I created several back door identities for myself, none of which seem to have been compromised.”
“Of course. Will this further your plans?’
She shook her finger at the AI. “You just want to know what my plans are, you don’t fool me.” With a sigh, she clasped her hands around one knee and explained her next moves. “Tomorrow, after resting up today, I’m going back to rescue my sisters and as many of the colonists as I can. Sooner or later the Chimmer are going to transmit their instructions for whatever experiments my people are being held for, so I need to get them to safety now.”
“And this Aydarr and his pack?”
“I hope by the time he returns from the military mission, you and I and my people will have a strategy for extracting the Badari as well. Honestly, I’d like to blow up the entire complex, the sooner the better, and rescue everyone.”
“I’ll see what can be done along those lines.” MARL hummed and his lights strobed.
Lulled by the sound, Jill found herself dozing off and, when she awoke, there was a pile of fat fish beside her. The small robots were lined up.
“Is this sufficient for your midday meal?” MARL asked.
“Too many for me actually, but we’ll cook them all. Is there a salt lick anywhere in the valley? Salt is a great preservative.” Jill collected her now dry jumpsuit as the robots gathered her fish. She stood staring over the deep blue lake as MARL floated to join her. “Where did the ship crash?”
A blue beam stabbed across the lake from the AI at her side, indicating roughly the center of the expanse. “The lake is hundreds of feet deep at this point. There will be no salvaging of the wreck without the importation of significant equipment.”
“I was merely curious.” Jill spun on her heel and headed to the cave, MARL at her side. The small robots were waiting for her, their bounteous catch laid out neatly on the stone floor near the fire. She pulled the knife she’d stolen from the lab, checking the edge. “Cleaning these is going to be a bitch, but if I want to eat something other than the dry bars, I’d better get started. Can you move these outside, please, MARL? Fish guts get very smelly, which might not bother you, but it’ll sure upset me and attract predators. I’ll clean them at the base of the hill, away from the cave.”
“Obviously I have much to learn about the primitive life,” he said as the tiny robots scurried to do her bidding.
“I should have mentioned it sooner. We’ll adapt together, no problem.”