Bless Your Mechanical Heart Read online

  “‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free.

  “‘Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.

  “And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

  “We will turn, turn, ‘til we come round right.”

  Meran knew the song, and the robot had missed a few lines.

  It swung a three-sixty as it hissed and popped and repeated the final line, “We will turn, turn, ‘til we come round right. I also know ‘I Ain’t Gonna Grieve No More My Lord’ and—”

  “That’s fine I was just wondering—”

  “More than half of the men and women stationed here do not attend church or synagogue or mosque. Only twenty-three of those are declared atheists, the remaining one hundred choose not to worship formally. And the Satanists worship elsewhere, of course.”

  “Of course. So that accounts for two hundred and forty-six souls,” Meran mused. He’d been running the numbers in his head as the robot had recited them.

  “Not including the individuals who arrived on your shuttle. I have yet to be downloaded with their records.” A bubble of oil rose from one of the wire connections and ran down the barrel front.

  “There were thirty on my shuttle,” Meran said. “I’m sure you’ll get the data in due course. There will be sixty coming in on the next. It’s due in a cycle.”

  “To step up curdidum production.”

  “Yes, Father, and to replace the miners who’ve died.”

  “Ashes to ashes, Chief Constable Meran. ‘By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’ I presided over those ceremonies. Two Jews, thirteen—”

  “I’m sure you were suitably reverent. Father…”

  “Yes, my son?”

  My son. “Of those two hundred and forty-six souls who worship here from time to time, who confess to you and unload their troubles—”

  “Yes, my son?”

  My son. “Do any of them seem especially troubled? Any of them appear angry?”

  “Yes, my son.”

  “Have you witnessed any fights? Seen anyone raise a hand to—”

  “My son, as a Catholic you must appreciate and respect the sanctity of the confessional. Vidui, confession for those of the Jewish faith, is likewise in my programming protected. Buddhist meditation and—”

  “Outside of the confessional or outside of vidui or meditation or whatever the hell you want to call it, Father, have you witnessed problems with some of your parishioners?”

  “Yes, my son.”

  My son. Meran really, really didn’t like that coming from a fucking out-of-date robot. “Then I’d like a list of names so that I can—”

  “So sorry, Chief Constable Meran. Even if someone admitted to me carrying out heinous acts, unspeakable things, it would be a violation of my programming to—”

  “Oh for the love. Goddammit, Father—”

  “You should say an additional four Hail Marys, Chief Constable Meran. And please memorize the third chapter of James. It will help you with your ‘restless evil, full of deadly poison’ tongue. Good day.” He rolled toward the front of the chapel.

  “Fine. Fine. Fine,” Meran muttered. “I need to check in with the manager.” He suspected she wasn’t bound by any sanctity of the confessional and would freely talk about her charges.

  Meran had left his duffle just inside the chapel doors. He walked quietly to it, listening to the prone men chanting and the robot whistling “Simple Gifts.” “Christ on a pogo stick,” he muttered as he shouldered his worldly possessions, pushed open the doors, and stepped out into a downpour.

  Gruner 4 was a ball of mud—the land part. It rained at least half the hours in a day, and because of the moon’s rotation, a “day” was the earth equivalent of forty-eight hours. It patted angrily at him as he slogged toward the manager’s office, like he was walking through BBs fired straight from a million toy guns poised overhead. He’d read in the outpost welcome packet that there was no wind to speak of. Ever. Just rain and blessed periods of not rain when the heat that beat down rivaled Arizona’s desert and dried the mud just enough to keep the lone continent from sluicing off into the sea. He pulled in a deep breath and smelled mud and water and his own desperation.

  What an amazing place Earth’s scientists had discovered in their pursuit for energy resources. Curdidum was like moldy oldie Star Trek’s dilated crystals, or whatever the hell they were called; it was the closest comparison Meran could come up with. Curdidum was so fragile, human miners had to extract it with tools that looked to be taken from a dentist’s office. Mechanicals were used to cut the tunnels, and to work general maintenance around the outpost, and to apparently lead all prayer services. Most everything else at the outpost was left to the hands of highly paid men and women.

  But some of those men and women were being very bad to each other… to the tune of forty-nine deaths, all of which the previous chief constable had labeled suspicious. According to the reports Meran had practically memorized, the constable was getting close to solving at least some of them. She’d been a top-notch investigator who like himself had crossed the wrong souls and ended up here. Had been. She was killed a few weeks ago in an “accident,” and Meran had been put on the next shuttle to replace her. She’d probably gotten too damn close to the apparent serial killer, or maybe there was a small cadre of them, some death-cult.

  Forty-nine men and women dead in the past thirteen months. When the twentieth body had been reported, the corporation was forced to double the pay of the miners to get them to stick it out, and then triple it when the count passed thirty. Meran knew the miners were getting an ungodly sum, more than pro football players, and just for gingerly chiseling little bits of purple crystals out of rock walls. The money was worth the risk apparently—and the months’ long posting to this mudball. Hell, he wasn’t getting paid close to that. Maybe he should be mining instead of keeping the law.

  He knocked on the door. The manager’s office was a corrugated thermoset shed the size of a long double-car garage. With all the goddamn racket the rain made, his pounding probably didn’t carry. He twisted the latch and pushed the door open, seeing a small office upfront, living quarters behind it, and running down one side, a strip of elevated beds containing a vegetable garden complete with grow-lights. It smelled humid in here, like a greenhouse.

  He guessed the woman at the desk was about his age, dyed blond hair severely cut—he could tell it was colored, the roots looked brown-gray. Her face was round and the features soft, the eyes large and blue, pretty despite having no cosmetic embellishments. Dressed in drab green coveralls, he couldn’t tell if she had any appealing shape to her, but she wasn’t fat.

  “You must be Constable Meran.”

  “Chief Constable Cillian Meran.”

  “Named for the Irish saint?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “And you’re—”

  “In charge here.” She came around from behind the desk and extended her hand. Meran took it, noting a reasonably firm grip. “Laurice Stanover. In my fourth rotation.”

  “You must like it here.” Or just like the money.

  She gave him a smile that reached her eyes.

  Meran liked them younger, and married, but Manager Laurice Stanover might do in a pinch. Other than that smile, she had the mien of all-business, which meant she probably wasn’t getting any pleasure. Maybe worth pursuing, he thought. She might be easy.

  “You say tomato and I say toe-mah-toe.” A mechanical he hadn’t noticed because he thought it was a coat rack rolled from the back of the building. “You say potato and I say poe-tah-toe.”

  It really did look like a coat rack, or maybe a metallic praying mantis that moved upright. The only thing that wasn’t sticklike about it was the base, the dimensions of a boot box, where the mechanisms must rest. Its “head” was grapefruit-sized, and from Meran’s vantage he couldn’t tell if it had “eyes.�
� It had arms though, four of them, all skinny and all moving almost deftly, as its tiny pincers nipped off dead leaves from the beds of plants.

  “You say tomato and I say poe-tah-toe,” it continued as it worked. “You say toe-mah-toe and I say potato.”

  Stanover apparently caught him staring. “My assistant,” she said. “M-gr0-86.”

  Meran let out a low whistle. “Goddamn, but that’s another fucking antique.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Your mechanical. It’s old.”

  “All the mechanicals here are old,” she returned. Her voice had a brittle edge to it that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He’d obviously irritated her. Maybe the language. Evil poisonous tongue, he thought.

  “But then some of our miners are old, too.” She returned to her desk and sat, traced her finger across a touchscreen. He couldn’t tell what she was reading.

  “Sorry, Ms. Stanover. I just noticed that the priest here—”

  “You mean Rabbi E9-Nibr0ss—”

  “Fine. Rabbi. Yeah. He’s a little outdated.”

  “I’m a little outdated too, Chief Constable.”

  “Meran’s good.”

  “Fine. Meran.” Stanover sat back and crossed her arms.

  “You say tomato I say toe-mah-toe,” the gardener continued. “Tomato poe-tah-toe.”

  “Ms. Stanover, if you’ll direct me to my office I’d like to start work.” He’d maybe try to smooth her edges tomorrow.

  “All the deaths. Forty-nine.” She touched the screen and a 3D display appeared above her desk. It looked like a blueprint and he recognized the landing platform, the chapel next to it, and her building. “As valuable as the curdidum was, you’d think they’d send a team to ferret out what’s going on. Instead, they send more miners… and you.” She pointed to a rectangle at the far side of the compound.

  “That one belong to me?”

  “All yours, Chief Constable.” Her voice still had the brittleness. Maybe tomorrow would be too soon to smooth any edges. “And please do get to the bottom of our death rate. Your predecessor thought she was onto something, was convinced not one of them were real accidents. And I worry that the ‘something’ got her first.”

  Meran went back out into the downpour and slogged to his new digs, discovering it a near-copy of Stanover’s, minus the vegetable garden. It was a tad more feminine, the interior thermoset walls painted a rosy color, and the spread on the bed at the back was a floral print that almost matched the shower curtain. A framed picture on the nightstand showed his predecessor holding two fluffy white Persians. There was an empty carton with a note that he should crate up the former chief constable’s personal effects so they could be shipped back to her family.

  “Christ on a pogo stick,” Meran muttered. “That shouldn’t be my goddamn job.” He cocked his head, listening. The rain thumping against his building, that sound was becoming almost white noise. But there was something else. “Oh, hell.” The roof had a leak and water drizzled down next to the bed. A rivulet coursed across the floor to a drain in the center. The floor was formed like a saucer, the dip shallow but effective. Probably all the buildings were engineered this way in the event of leaks. “What an amazing hellhole I’ve ended up in.”

  “Hellhole? H-e-l-l-h-o-l-e. Hellhole.”

  “Lovely. I’ve got my own fucking antique.” Meran watched a coat rack-shaped robot pull away from a spot next to a free standing closet. Similar to one in Stanover’s office, this was probably older as it looked clunky and had spots of rust along its base; he could smell the corroded metal. Forty-nine deaths and they send him to figure it out because he screwed the wrong married woman. Forty-nine deaths and they throw more miners at the problem.

  And goddamn antique robots to help.

  “Hellhole. H-e-l-l-h-o-l-e. Hellhole,” the robot repeated. Its “voice” was not as pleasant as the toe-mah-toe mechanical. As it came closer, Meran shuddered. He saw that it wore a pink suede-and-bell-embellished collar, complete with tag. No doubt a reminder of the former chief constable’s favorite cat. “Hellhole.”

  “Can you say anything else?”

  “Certainly.” It rolled forward until it stopped about a foot away. “What do you want me to say—”

  “Chief Constable Meran.” Meran thought he should introduce himself.

  “Chief Constable Meran,” the robot repeated. “Chief Constable Meran.”

  “Christ on a pogo stick.”

  “Christ on a—”

  “That’s enough.” Meran stepped away and dropped his duffle in front of the closet, opened the door to find a long mirror on the inside with cat photographs affixed to the top. A couple of drab green coveralls hung next to slacks and sweaters, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of boots at the bottom. Not a single dress. He’d pack it all up later, put his stuff in its place.

  He was tired, but he wanted to get to work first, he’d been thinking about the forty-nine deaths.

  “Hellhole.” The robot followed him. “Chief Constable Meran.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. And as for hellhole, that would be this outpost.”

  “Direct me how to assist you, Chief Constable Meran,” the robot said.

  Meran sat at the desk, the center of which was a computer screen coated with a film of dirt. The thermoset chair had a thick cushion he judged comfortable. “Fine. Assist me by rounding up my constables, all eight of them. No, seven, one of them went missing, right? Make that fifty deaths most likely. Whether they’re sleeping, eating, whatever they’re doing. Round ‘em up and bring ‘em here.” He could contact them by radio. He’d been in contact with them during the trip here, told them he’d hold a meeting after he was settled in. But if he sent old…

  “What’s your name? Got one?” Meran looked at the bucket of bolts.

  “K1tty. My previous designation was—”

  “Fine, we’ll go with K1tty. Christ.” Meran ran a hand through his short hair, imagined that it was turning gray with each passing moment. “Round ‘em up.”

  The robot made a whirring sound and it wheeled around to the front of the desk. Its pole body was segmented, and it bent over the desk so its globe-like head—the size and rough color of a grapefruit—was even with his. “Chief Constable Meran, I do not go outside when it is raining like this. My seams are weak and I am already rusting. You would doom me. My programming will falter. Robots stay indoors when it is raining.”

  “Fine. Stay in then.” He breathed on the computer screen to moisten it and rubbed his sleeve across it, smearing the dirt. “Goddamn hellhole.”

  “You do not want to be here.”

  “That obvious, eh?”

  “What did you do?”

  “To get here? I hit the sack with—”

  “Before here?”

  Meran raised an eyebrow. “I was a cop. I’ve always been a cop. And you?”

  “I taught first grade.”

  “Christ.”

  “Parents objected to my lessons. They did not want their children spelling certain words.”

  The other eyebrow rose. “Really?”

  “They said their children should not spell bitch and bastard and forn—”

  “And so you were crated up and shipped here. Ah, K1tty, you and me will get along just fine.”

  The robot made a whirring-purring noise. “Direct me how else to assist you,” it persisted.

  Meran put his elbows on the desk, steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. “All right, K1tty, you can tell me what my predecessor was up to, what she was closing in on regarding all the dead miners.”

  “It would be in there.” K1tty pointed one of its four spindly arms at the computer screen.

  Meran grumbled and thumbed the computer on. It was soundless, unlike K1tty who softly whirred. Purred? Goddamn, it even sounded like a cat.

  “Though I retain some of that information as well,” K1tty continued. The robot tapped the end of a spindly arm to its grapefruit sized head. “Chief Constable Erin
Watts said the deaths started by the numbers.”

  Meran found that interesting. “You don’t say.”

  “Chief Constable Meran, I just did say that the deaths were ‘by the numbers.’”

  “So …” he waggled his fingers, noting that K1tty’s “eyes” were the size of penlights. He let out an exasperated sigh. “So… explain. Tell me what Chief Constable Erin Watts likely meant by that. What numbers?”

  “Thirty-two. Twenty-three. She said that a lot. She ticked her fingers on the desk and on the counter and on the sink and on the—”

  “Thirty-two. Twenty-three.”

  “Yes, Chief Constable Meran. She said those numbers often.” The robot straightened itself. “Other numbers as well. Many of the death scenes had numbers hidden. Chief Constable Erin Watts noted all of them. She was attempting to follow the numbers to the source.”

  “Did she say anything about three Satanists?” Meran decided he needed to meet them. By their very label he’d made them suspects.

  “She cleared them, Chief Constable Meran.”

  “All three?”

  “Yes, Chief Constable Meran. She said they did not fit with the numbers.”

  “Thirty-two and twenty-three.”

  “Yes, Chief Constable Meran. And the other numbers as well.”

  “Which are…” Meran prompted. Talking to fucking antiques was ­onerous.

  “Twenty-three. Nineteen.”

  “Shit.” Meran scratched at his face. “Serial numbers? ID numbers? What sort of numbers?”

  “Numbers,” K1tty said.

  Meran waved a hand. “Go do something.”

  “Do what, Chief Constable Meran?”