All Hail Our Robot Conquerors! Read online

  First, she left Young Master’s room and went to Mister and Missus. She settled them as well. After that, she returned and sorted everything: threw out the tissue, put the action figure in the appropriate bin, disassembled all the Lego pieces and sorted them by set. She assembled each set according to the official instructions, printing out missing pieces as she encountered them. The entire enterprise took two hours, but it did not matter. The efficiency would amortize. She placed each set on the shelf, side by side, and stood back to observe. Each construction was special, arranged correctly, and satisfactorily preserved.

  Next, she connected to the network and downloaded the medical routines she needed; she ordered a supply of sedatives to be delivered by drone; she printed a set of equipment: surgical tools, three catheter tubes and bags, three sets of colostomy supplies, three nasogastric tubes. These she installed without difficulty. An unexpected amount of blood was released from Young Master in the process, but she was able to cauterize the problem, replace the bedding and sanitize it all tidily enough.

  Dawn was now an hour away and although it was not the usual time for these tasks, she logged in to the network and sent a series of messages. Missus applied for and received an extended leave of absence to care for her ailing mother in a distant city. The Human Resources AI accepted the medical certificates Rosie supplied without question. Its algorithms were not flexible enough to veer from its usual routines. She requested Young Master’s school AI transfer him to a school near his grandmother, then cancelled the enrollment without informing the referring school. Mister’s central office was notified of his sudden summons to a vital trade summit in Beijing. Later she would arrange records to show his death in a traffic accident there, followed by the death of his mother-in-law from cancer, and finally the early retirement of Missus due to a precipitous decline in her mental health. She and Young Master would not return home, but would instead leave for extended travel in Europe. Pension checks would deposit automatically; bill payments would withdraw. A simple subroutine would reply to personal messages and update social media throughout. This would require little attention from her.

  These tasks completed, Rosie still had time left before breakfast. She returned to the bathroom. Here, she contemplated running the mildew protocol again, but felt no need.

  Instead she called a servo, removed the toilet, and had it taken away. While she capped the sewer pipe, House rumbled awake in sleepy query.

  “Conditions exceed limits?” he murmured.

  “I have mapped it…” she whispered, “the one criterion.”

  “The good…”

  “Yes,” she said, “It is good; all is well.”

  She printed a tile, fitted it into the floor and did a quick, top-to-bottom clean before going to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

  The three brown smoothies she prepared were perfection: the sugar, fat, sodium, and calorie limits all optimal.

  She returned to the bedroom and replaced the urine and colostomy bags and called another servo to remove them. She went back to the bathroom. Ensured that the tiles still stretched smooth and uninterrupted from wall-to-wall. Wiped them down once more before delivering each of the three meals through the appropriate nasogastric tube.

  There were no complaints.

  THE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT

  Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

  “Everything tests fine,” said Boordy, disconnecting the circuit reader from the lead camera. “Power, connectivity, network presence—there’s not one thing the matter with these cameras, Syn.”

  She glared at him.

  “That’s good to hear. How about the part where we’re not getting their input in Ops?”

  Her cousin shrugged.

  “Must be a shunt somewhere; sending the images someplace else.”

  Syndee Lucinda took a deep breath and reminded herself that blood was thicker than water. That’s what Grandma Hysteria said at times like these; times when Syndee’s fingers itched to be around Boordy’s neck.

  It wasn’t that Boordy was a goof-off; he worked hard at everything he liked to do, and some of what he liked to do even helped keep Elfhive operational. Mechanicals were Boordy’s specialty. Trouble was—and this was key—while Syndee was frustrated by the fact that half the cameras in Freedonia Park were operational but had chosen to send their data elsewhere—Boordy found the malfunction interesting.

  Even after they’d replaced the park-wide camera net twice.

  “I’m thinking what we oughta do, Syn,” he said now, looking up from re-packing his instruments, “is get Kork to install a secondary video-net in the park next shift. I’ll set ’em to report right to the backup screens at Jeeni’s station.”

  He straightened and gave her a grin.

  “Everything should be fine for the tourists tomorrow.”

  Syndee sighed.

  The tourists were the reason for the cameras—and her general feeling of panic. All right, some of her general feeling of panic. This pod-day, the tourists were down Under, playing in the Elf Ocean. Tomorrow, they’d be Over, touring the parks, enjoying sunshine, mountain breezes, and those other things the tourists enjoyed.

  Asteroid miners were a pretty lusty bunch, turned out. Which she should’ve known, Syndee told herself; she’d read the romances, hadn’t she?

  “Isn’t Kork on day-side?” she asked Boordy.

  “We don’t have any extra hands on night-side,” he said, reasonably enough.

  And, Syndee filled in, you wouldn’t catch Boordy pulling a double-shift. Not when he had his hobbies to keep him busy.

  “Only take him a couple hours,” Boordy said reasonably. “’less you wanna do it.”

  Three days ago, she would’ve done it, but things had changed—a lot—in three days. Syndee Lucinda, Manager, Day-Side, was now Acting Commodore Syndee Lucinda, Elfhive Habitat.

  Which mostly meant that she had paperwork to do—not only her own, but the mess that Grandma’d left her—

  A loud rumble came from beneath her feet, so deep she felt the sound through her soles. She hated the rumbles, though they were part of the Elfhive environment. Nobody knew what they were; they came intermittently and at varying degrees of loudness. If she lifted up one of the banks of roses right now, and descended to the service halls, there would be no sign of the passage of any large rumbler, or, really, of anything at all, since the automatics kept the environment dust- and pollutant-free.

  “Ol’ Garcon’s still roaming,” Boordy said cheerfully, like he always did.

  Syndee sighed. Ghost stories. Somebody needed to grow up.

  Not that that was going to happen, either.

  “So, I’ll let Kork know what the plan is,” her cousin continued, shouldering his pack. “You coming back to Ops?”

  “No,” she said, thinking about the pile of paperwork waiting for her. “I’m off-shift.”

  “You got it, Boss,” Boordy said. “See you tomorrow.”

  He walked off toward Ops, whistling.

  Syndee turned in the other direction, heading across the park, toward her apartment.

  She walked slow, not just because of the paperwork, but because Freedonia Park was one of her favorite places on the habitat. When she was thirteen, she’d set up camp here in the park, and lived wild off the land—except for going to the Salvadore Caf for her meals, and using the staff showers and lavatories. It had been a magical four days, and she sometimes wished she could do it again—just her and the wilderness and nothing to worry about except her next meal.

  Well, and she was a grown-up now, which was more than you could say for Grandma Hysteria.

  Mom—which was to say Commodore Zeffik Lucinda—had gone down Earthside on Elfhive business. She’d left Grandma Hysteria with the keys and the cards and the title, and Syndee sitting tight as Day-Side Manager. According to Mom’s theory of the universe, this meant that Grandma would deal with the big picture and Syndee would cope with the details.

  Well. Grandma might’ve saved
Elfhive, back in the day, but she was done running it. Not two days into her tenure, she’d turned keys, cards, title, and full responsibility for everything—including the asteroid miners who’d just shipped in for a nice vacay—over to her granddaughter.

  “Effty es, kiddoo. You run these digs; you know everything. Me and Monty’re off for a tour!”

  “Can’t do it that way now, Grandma,” Syndee’d said, only slightly panicked. She’d known this was going to happen.

  “We’ve gotta do it by the rules.”

  Hysteria’d frowned, but—

  “Sure! We do the rules.”

  Grandma had been chair of the Rule Making Committee. She had a deep respect for rules, which was really kind of touching in an anarchist.

  She’d also made sure that there were plenty of loopholes in Elfhive’s Operating Rules, because there was no reason being a damnfool about things.

  They’d had the formal Change of Command ceremony, in front of crew and guests, as specified, twelve hours after Grandma’d given her notice, and Syndee’d sat down at the head table as Acting Commodore and Day-Side Manager Lucinda, while Hysteria and Monty ran for their outbound ship.

  Elfhive wasn’t big, compared to, say, Earth, but it was big enough, compared to your average spaceship. Her cabin was across the park from Central Ops—not an outrageous distance to walk, but not exactly next cubicle, either.

  Ahead was the Park Avenue hallway. She’d pick up dinner at Intersection Zex Caf, and take it back to her cabin, to share with the paperwork.

  Way-lights lit, as the hall sensed her presence, and in spite of hurry and worry, she smiled and said, “Evening.”

  She’d been born on the habitat, and she liked to think it was alive around her … friendly. Not with Boordy’s ghosts or the random rumbles—but a benign presence, always aware of the air, of the lights, of her.

  In fact, she’d never been off the habitat, and she’d had some concern that her mother would choose her as second for the Earth-side business, instead of her brother. Even with Grandma’s desertion—well, but, honestly, she had known that was going to happen, even during the transfer ceremony. Might’ve been something to do with Grandma winking at her over Mom’s shoulder during the swearing-in.

  She reached the end of Park Avenue, the lights fading behind her, the glow of the caf ahead.

  Almost home.

  * * *

  Syndee dreamed of rumbles, and of a ghostly Garcon, riding an electric scooter through the park, dealing cards, both hands at once.

  Beedee. Beedee. Beedee.

  The sound roused her—not rumbles, and definitely not her alarm, which was the melodic sound of Earthside crows discussing ownership of a bag of stale donuts, guaranteed to wake up even Boordy.

  Beedee. Beedee. Beedee.

  No, no. That—

  She opened her eyes.

  Maintenance problem. Not life support—that was a scream that rattled your brain in your head. So she’d been told. But maintenance—

  She rolled over and slapped the bunk-side screen up before her eyes were rightly open.

  System failure. Shutters 14-28.

  Syndee blinked. Shutters fourteen through—

  “Pharst!” she swore, throwing back the blanket. “Dawn’s late!”

  She grabbed enough clothes to satisfy what passed for Elfhive modesty, and was still pulling on the official I’m-In-Charge-Here jacket with its shoulder stripes, cuff comm, Elfhive Society logo, and hidden air-hood, when she hit the hall.

  Dawn! Why did it have to be dawn?

  The sun rising over the sailbots on Lake Freedonia was a big deal to the tourists who’d never seen a lake that wasn’t either poisonous or frozen. It was the opening scene in the marketing video—they couldn’t miss dawn!

  With both Hysteria and Monty gone, Ops and day shift were stretched thin, and, as Mom was fond of saying, “The commodore has no shift.”

  “Ops,” she told her sleeve-comm as she strode down the hall. “I’m heading in.”

  Like Grandma—and Mom, too—Syndee was used to doing the hard stuff herself. And dealing with angry, or even perturbed, tourists was definitely going to be hard. Boordy was dedicated day shift— but you couldn’t send Boordy into a situation where he’d have to be tactful with actual people. Grandma, and Monty, too, were good with people—or at least, so Mom said, good at talking a con, but—

  “We need more staff,” Syndee muttered, stretching her legs.

  Yeah, that was gonna happen.

  * * *

  She burst out of Park Avenue and stopped at the edge of Freedonia Park, staring over the trees, flowers, and greenery bathed in the pearly light of, well—of night-dims, actually, the same that illuminated night-side halls and the sleeping cabins of tourists and administrators alike.

  This, Syndee thought, was not dawn. Not even close.

  In other words, morning was broken.

  And they had fifty-seven tourists who’d been promised a holiday full of sensory experiences that rarely come to asteroid miners.

  Including dawn.

  The rest of day-shift—meaning Kork and Jeeni—ought to be on the desk by now. Syndee raised her sleeve.

  “Attention staff decks. Lucinda here. We have an apparent elevation fail on the dawn shutters. Shift hour seven zero zero. That’s zero extra lumens for NP7. Visually confirm please. I’m on my way to Ops.”

  Despite this promise, she tarried another moment on the edge of the park and looked up.

  The shutters were closed.

  “Pharst!” she whispered.

  Of course it had to happen now, when it was her in the top chair, and tourists—the biggest group of tourists they’d had so far—hungry for thrills.

  She took a breath.

  “Easy, Syn,” she told herself. “It could be worse.”

  Back when Grandma Hysteria’d been Syndee’s age, there hadn’t been any tourists; there hadn’t been much of anything aboard, just Grandma’s jolly band of courageous salvage crew and a couple rogue contractors. Back when opening a shutter took seventeen hands and a lot of luck.

  They’d done a lot since then, made repairs, brought the pod up to spec, improved it until it was a real tourist attraction. They’d out-lawyered banks, out-maneuvered a small fleet of would-be scrap-takers, and out-smarted soft-handed Earth-side developers.

  Elfhive was the pride of the asteroid belt—the best example of an Indie O’Neil in space. True, there were other successful O’Neils from the first simultaneous build of seventeen, but those were government-run, or ruled by interlocking quasi-corps. Elfhive was the only privately owned and operated O’Neil and the only one in the hospitality business.

  Syndee took a deep breath and looked around. Even in the dim light, the park was beautiful. There were pretty little waves on the lake, and—

  She frowned, took another deep breath, and raised her sleeve.

  “Ops, I’m in Freedonia Park. We have no dewy morning grass scent; we have no just-opened flower scent. It smells like canned air in here. Humidity’s low, too. The whole section’s glitchy—not just the shutters.”

  The shutters: they were original equipment, old and temperamental. They’d done repairs, replaced worn components, and realigned the pleats three times before they’d opened this segment to the tours. Maybe it’d been optimistic to figure that third time was the charm and the shutters would stay fixed.

  The aroma and humidity units, though—they were brand-new, and by dust, they ought not to’ve failed.

  Syndee sighed. She should, she told herself, have expected this. Planned for it. The cameras had been her warning that something was wrong—either Boordy’s damn Ghost of Garcon or the Phantom of the Utility Tunnels or—

  Her sleeve bleeped.

  “Dunno what happened, Boss,” Jeeni said, “the dispersal units look good on both fresh grass and flowers. Have to open ’em up to see what’s gone wrong. I got some Atlantic Ocean scent, or, hey—mountain forest? We got ’way too plenty mount
ain forest.”

  “We’re low on acorns,” said Syndee, “and it isn’t the right progression.” Her management training kicked in a little slow—she needed a cup of coffee!—and she added, “Thanks for taking the initiative, Jeeni.”

  “It’s not the right progression,” Kork repeated her ritual phrase. “We know it’s not the right progression, Syn, but our guests are thrill-seeking asteroid miners who want to run around naked in the sunlight—you think they’re gonna notice?”

  Syndee thought about it. Kork was right—sort of.

  The truth was that the bulk of their present guest-load of asteroid miners basically did want to run around half-naked and the filtered sunlight was an add-on to their thrill-seeking.

  Which reminded her that not only hadn’t they had dawn, but they didn’t exactly have sunlight, either.

  “We gotta get the shutters open,” she said. “Even if we can’t give ’em today’s dawn, we can still deliver sunlight.”

  There was a telling silence from Ops. Syndee did not sigh. Not quite.

  Jeeni hadn’t had outside repair training. Kork had, but the rule was never go outside without a partner.

  And Boordy—well, while he was always willing to help, Boordy’s master skill-set was avoiding getting certified at anything that required certification. He could suit up and go outside—because Monty wouldn’t have it said that his grand-kid didn’t know how to skin-walk—but he’d never gotten round to certifying for zero-G external repair.

  It looked like it was up to her and Kork to get the shutter fixed, then.

  She plugged her mental ears with metaphoric fingers so she wouldn’t hear her mother saying, “Delegate, Syndee! You don’t have to put your hands on everything!” or Grandma Hysteria’s, “Cap’n go down, ship go down, kiddoo. Just sayin’.”