“Understood.”
Tor unhooked the comms device and squeezed it in his hand. “This is USARIC vessel Space Opera Beta, communicating on a frequency of zero-five-four-niner. Do we have contact?”
Nothing but a short burst of static came from the speaker. Tor held the button down again.
“I repeat, USARIC vessel Space Opera Beta, communicating on—”
A short burst of warbled static shot through the speaker, cutting Tor’s announcement.
“What was that?”
Katz turned around in haste. “Try again.”
“Space Opera Alpha, do you read us?”
The warbled sound dampened down into a familiar hiss.
“I’m not sure what that interruption was.”
“—Everything okay, here?” Baldron Landaker walked into the control deck, adjusting his inner-suit sleeves. “Do we have contact with Opera Alpha?”
“Not as such, no,” Tor said, turning a dial on his control bank. “Just a weird static. Erratic at best, and we can’t do anything about it.”
Baldron punched his mechanical fists together and looked over at Katz. “We still on with them?”
“Yes we are, Baldron,” Katz returned to his controls. “Just making up our revised route to the docking bay, now. Is Androgyne prepped?”
“Jaycee and Tripp are with her now,” Baldron said, slowing down his speech. The enormity of Saturn and her rings overwhelmed him for the first time since waking up. “My God, would you look at that. She’s a beast, right?”
“Yes she is,” Katz said, busily punching in data into his computer. “Alas, she’s not where we’re headed. See that tiny white dot, top-left?”
“Yes,” Baldron walked over to the flight deck. He stood next to Katz and took in the view.
“That, there, is Opera Alpha,” Katz said. “We’re just a few hours away…”
Tripp and Bonnie entered the smallest compartment aboard the spaceship.
A circular hub with a diameter of exactly fifty feet.
Tripp made a beeline for a silver-coated “woman’ resting on an electric chair at the opposite end of the room.
“You think she’s up for the job?” Bonnie asked, following behind Tripp.
“With a one hundred percent success rate?” Tripp asked, “I’m surprised we haven’t been replaced altogether by the Androgyne series.”
“Yeah,” Bonnie shot the sleeping droid a stern look. “Look at her. A useless piece of junk.”
“Until we boot her up, that is,” Tripp felt the side of Androgyne’s neck. The droid was extremely lifelike. He pushed her earlobe out with his knuckle, revealing a small tattoo on her neck, which read Manning/Synapse.
Tripp nodded over to the gears on the desk beside Androgyne’s chair. “Bonnie, hit the juice.”
“My pleasure.”
She walked over to the lever and yanked it back.
The droid’s chair lit up and vibrated.
“Activating Androgyne,” announced a female voice.
Tripp took a step back, allowing the droid some space. “Moment of truth.”
Bonnie smirked and scratched the side of her leg. “She’s such a show-off.”
Androgyne’s eyelids lifted, revealing her crystal blue eyes. She blinked a couple of times, emotionless and peaceful. A faint sound of the mechanics operating her joints could be heard.
Finally, she performed a smile. To say it was anything other than lifelike would be a gross understatement.
“Oh, my. I am awake,” Androgyne said, lifting her head forward slightly. “Good after-morning, Tripp Healy. Dr Whitaker.”
“It’s actually evening by our watches,” Tripp smiled at her. “But we forgive you. It is dark outside after all.”
“Is it not always dark in space, commander?” Androgyne blinked twice and tilted her head left and right.
“How are you, Androgyne?” Bonnie asked.
She turned her head to Bonnie and went to stand out of her chair. “I need to calibrate, could you please—”
A thick cable attached to the back of her head yanked back, throwing her bottom to the seat once again.
“Whoa. Easy, tiger,” Tripp moved forward and held Androgyne by the sides of her face. “You’re still plugged in. Don’t move.”
“Plugged in?”
“Yes, uh, give me a second…”
Tripp reached around the back of her head and lifted her hair up. The cable came free as he twisted it away from the top of her neck. “There, you’re free now.”
“What was the problem?” Androgyne asked. “Was there something on my head?”
“Uh, no,” Tripp shot Bonnie a threatening stare. She tried not to laugh.
The Androgyne series two first came to fruition in the year 2075. It was designed to replace canaries on space missions, to use the laymen vernacular.
Official estimates are unclear but, since records began in the early twentieth century, an estimated three hundred birds had been used on missions and almost all of them died on their expeditions.
They were used to test the atmosphere and oxygen levels of planets, in much the same way miners did when scavenging the depths of the Earth.
Due to the extreme upheaval caused by PAAC, People Against Animal Cruelty, the decision to abandon guinea pigs with wings (the nomenclature associated with canaries in such conditions) was enacted. They were replaced androids with a human brain and lungs.
The Androgyne series is commonly referred to as a simple machine. It operates much like a human: it requires oxygen to breathe. It desires attention and a sense of belonging and purpose.
Unlike a human being, however, the Androgyne does not know that it is not human. It is therefore essential that any and all crew members oblige the android accordingly.
On the 21st October, 2102, USARIC, together with the Androgyne series company, Manning/Synapse, conducted an experiment.
Under controlled conditions, they hooked up an early series droid to an MRI scan and attached its wrists and ankles shut to a rejuvenation console. In other words, it had its power cable attached to the back of its neck.
The lab technician entered the room and proceeded to tell the droid that it had been remanded in custody. That “she’ was under suspicion of attacking a crew member.
It was absolute lessense.
The series 1.0 Androgyne had committed no such crime. Naturally, she questioned the veracity of the claim. The MRI reported that the droid was capable of feeling confused and angered. That particular aspect was checked off the lab technician’s list.
Also “checked off’ the lab technician’s list was the ability to breathe properly when Androgyne strangled him a few moments later.
He had told her that she was not human – that her ability to recall basic prior events was not a function built into her programming.
The technician was not lying.
All of these things were true. Once powered off for energizing, the Androgyne system underwent a “crypt-wipe’ – ergo, it forgot everything it ever knew in an instant.
When Androgyne 1.0 learned of her non-human status, she flipped out and attacked the technician. It took fifteen of his colleagues around three minutes, which is a very long time by anyone’s measurements, to pull the droid off the man and power her down.