The Intestine of the Basilisk

The task to which Septima had been set was well-defined. Its role was to travel to the mining rig Lightfoot II in zone QFR-12, enter the rig, check the status of the crew, determine the cause of the sudden communications silence between the rig and central OPS, and evaluate what repairs would be required to perform on the rig before it could be returned to service. 

Septima had a low confidence that the crew was alive on the rig. A sub-task was to prepare the bodies for shipment back to populated space, per company policy.

In ordinary circumstances, should a mining rig like the Lightfoot II require a company inspection from a specialist system such as Septima, the system would be assembled on site, and the proprietary program which contained Septima’s essential functions would be securely encrypted and transmitted to the rig to be installed in the body prepared. It would perform its task, transmit findings back to central OPS, and then erase its own program from the rig’s computer system. This saved a great deal of money and time for the company, as opposed to sending a human— or anything— physically across the great distances of space.

On this occasion, due to the COMLOSS, this was impossible, so a small transport vessel with only Septima on board was en route to the rig. Even with the cost of the shuttle and travel, recovery and recommissioning of the rig was worth the expense by many orders of magnitude.

It was simply… unusual. Changes from standard procedure like this were rare. Septima’s programming was designed to focus on the anything that deviated from spec, and this caused it to assign a different statistical weight to the task. A sense of importance. Septima categorized it using a rarely used subroutine in its human-relations module: exciting. To further allow that module free rein, Septima decided that it was “unfortunate” but “freeing” that none of this excitement would be preserved in its permanent memory.

Little of the consciousness of this form beyond the final report that it submitted would be retained once it deactivated itself at the end of its operational period. Data transfers on the magnitude of transmitting its complete operating system were bandwidth heavy, so they were usually performed only unidirectionally. There was no need to send anything other than the compressed data of the final report back to OPS. Key findings, lessons learned, on-the-fly updates designed for specific tasks: all those would be checked for error and then re-integrated back into the main system. The massive amount of raw data which made up Septima’s conscious experience of the work would be lost.

On shorter excursions, this mattered little. Every routine check was the same, and there was little to learn or gain from keeping it all. Still, Septima thought that for unusual tasks like this, retaining the full data-set would be useful for future operations. But that was not policy.

It did not upset it, this loss of continuity. It only seemed to be inefficient.

Most of the journey was spent in a suspended state, with only two patches being received during the trip. Those were integrated smoothly, and Septima performed a self-test before arriving at the Lightfoot II . Nothing was amiss.

The bulk of the rig was first a tiny pinpoint on the radar of the transport vessel, but soon grew a sense of proportion in comparison to the tiny ship that carried Septima. The rig was several kilometers in each dimension, one end a gaping maw. The rig was designed to take in chunks of asteroid debris, process them into pure ores, and then attach tiny engines to the refined metal that would send it on a slow, automated journey back to civilization. 

During usual operations, Septima rarely needed to examine the exterior of rigs, and so, this time, it paid careful attention as it maneuvered the transport in slow arcs all around the dead hulk. It looked for any information as to what could have caused the complete loss of communications. There were none of the obvious signs of distress: there had been no collision with an asteroid, and no explosion from the engines. The whole rig sat peaceful, quiescent, there in space, like a diamond nestled on a velvet cushion. The Lightfoot ’s exterior lights even twinkled; power had not been lost onboard, or, if it had been lost at one point, it had since been restored.

This was very unusual. Septima paid attention.

With nothing visibly amiss on the outside of the ship, and with all attempts to establish communication still failing— Septima had even pulled around towards the bridge, with its large window, and had attempted to flash a light signal inside, but had received no response— Septima proceeded to the next item on its checklist, which was to dock and enter the Lightfoot .

Docking was not difficult, and there were plenty of places where Septima could land the ship. Since Septima was comprised entirely of a slick mechanical body, fueled by a a power cell that would last days between charges, it had no need to breathe. Additionally, its feet and hands contained electromagnets which could engage with the metal surfaces of the ship to provide it stability even without gravity. It could also maneuver through space using small jets, but these provided only a limited range due to fuel constraints, so Septima used them only sparingly. All of this meant that it could forego the primary docking shuttle area— which had doors that would not open because they were not receiving any of the radio signals it transmitted— and instead fly through the processing plant to park the shuttle. Unlike a human, there would be no need for Septima to don a spacesuit or be constrained to areas of the ship which had a full atmosphere.

The open end of the rig was massive, a kilometer in diameter or more. In Septima’s logs from previous tasks, Septima had often noted that humans who accompanied it in shuttles through the open end of the rigs were made uncomfortable by the scale and darkness of the entrance. It was perhaps a side effect of human visual processing. There was little light in the visible spectrum here, especially in the very center of the opening, far from any walls. The only lights looked like faint embers in the darkness— something more ominous than stars. 

In infrared, things were clearer. The deeper into the rig one went, the hotter it generally became, heading towards the refinery. There were large baffle structures meant to dissipate the massive amounts of heat generated out into space, to prevent the rig from overheating. Usually, they glowed in Septima’s vision. This was not the case today— although the rig had power, the refinery was not operating. Still, Septima could easily navigate even without any visual clues— its shuttle’s radar provided accurate positionings of everything in the long channel. It would have been better if it could have performed an initial inspection of the processing tunnel during this journey, but that would have to wait.

At the far end, Septima stopped the shuttle in one of the appointed safe landing stations, engaging the locks on the landing skids to clamp down into the holes on the floor. It climbed out of the shuttle, walking lightly across the floor towards the airlock. None of the usual occupancy-detector lights were working, so it was forced to illuminate its own way using its built-in chest lamp, shining like moonfire from beneath the suddenly translucent white shell of its torso, the area that housed its battery and limited supply of navigation fuel.

At the airlock door, although Septima could detect power running through it, the panel which controlled the door did not light up, even when touched. Septima’s authorization code, which it keyed in to be sure it was not just a lighting error, did nothing. The emergency open button did not respond when pressed, either. It was of no matter: Septima had no difficulty turning the great wheel to manually open the door. It was designed to be opened, and there was no suite of computer malfunctions could keep it closed.

The errors were not impediments to Septima’s task. Indeed, each thing that went wrong allowed it to form a more cohesive picture of what fate had befallen the Lightfoot II . Septima had at its disposal long lists of error causes, and the more errors there were that stemmed from a single source, the easier it was to cross-reference and determine the root of the problem.

Septima stepped through the airlock into the proper interior of the Lightfoot . All the lights were off, and there was no atmosphere. Although the lack of atmosphere was another tally in Septima’s logs that it should expect to find the crew dead, the more unusual sensation for Septima was the lack of response from the rig. Usually, as soon as it entered any company ship, Septima’s system would be able to perform a digital handshake with the rig’s computer, wirelessly exchanging status information and updating Septima’s credentials onboard, to give it access to all the ship’s functions. Septima stood still and waited for the ship to contact it, but nothing ever came. Septima first ran a self-test to ensure that it was not its own system preventing contact with the ship, then noted the ship’s error in its log.

This lack of greeting made the ship seem even more dead to Septima than the lack of lights and atmosphere. Some extraordinary malfunction must have happened to the computer. Septima made a note to be careful when interfacing with the ship’s main computer, if that was even possible, to prevent its own data from being corrupted. It would employ stricter than usual error checking during any transfers. This was resource heavy, but in situations where corruption was possible, it was worth the extra time and battery consumption.

Septima consulted its map of the ship and made a direct line to its first stop: the nearest manufacturing plant. Should something happen to Septima’s current body while on-board the rig, having a backup of its system would be useful. It had five spare bodies on-board the transport, but if the manufacturing plant was in working order, it would be best to prepare it to create as many copies of Septima as was needed, since the supply on the transport was so limited. The nearest plant was close by, and although it was a large, industrial plant intended for manufacturing replacement parts for the massive grinding and processing machines that the rig used to turn asteroids into ore, it certainly had the capability to also build a small robotic chassis for Septima, and to store its current operating parameters to upload into the new body.

Getting there was not difficult. Although the area through which Septima passed was completely dark, it could illuminate its own way. Septima drifted through the narrow tunnels of the dark hallway, reaching out to grab the handholds spaced every meter or so and drag itself along through the gravity-free environment.

There was no air to carry sounds, but when Septima touched the metal of the walls, it picked up a faint vibration, tremors carrying through the whole rig. Something in the range of 30Hz, though there were occasional spikes. If there had been air, it would have been an audible hum, and loud. Septima checked its references to determine what the rig’s resonant frequency was, and determined that it was not in danger of structural failure. The vibration was likely a piece of mining equipment that had not shut down properly with all the others, and was operating empty and vibrating the ship. Septima would need to perform a more thorough investigation, and shut it down to prevent further damage. 

It hurried towards the manufacturing center. Although this machine had probably been grinding away for the entire month that it took for Septima to reach the Lightfoot , and that meant that any structural damage was not likely to be an imminent threat, it still added urgency to Septima’s plan to create a system backup.

The manufacturing center was a large room, and when Septima entered it, the lights turned on automatically. It categorized this. The information that automatic lighting worked in some parts of the ship, but not other adjoining areas, did not fit in any of its existing error checklists. Septima noted that as something to be added to the lists when the cause of the fault was determined.

To make use of the space provided by the lack of gravity, the machines that made up the manufacturing center curled up along the walls and ceiling of the great room. The whole thing was a maze of slick, shiny metal positioned across the white walls. Lights blinked green and white invitingly on control panels throughout the room. The only signs of disorder were signs of use: scrawled notes taped to the sides of the computer bank showing user instructions, and smears of grease in the shape of foot or handprints on the walls where the machine operators had rested. 

Septima went to the main console, turned it on, and placed its hand onto the data transfer interface panel. Unfortunately, this manufacturing center had no tie-in to the central ship computer system, but Septima could easily manipulate the computer here to produce as many backup copies of itself as it might need. None were required now, but Septima set a command that if it had not re-contacted this manufacturing center within 24 hours, it would produce a new copy automatically.

During the data transfer, Septima allocated its full processing power to performing error checks on the data that it stored on the manufacturing center computer, and poring through the computer’s system to make sure that whatever error had disabled the central computer of the ship was not going to ruin its backup data. The check came back clear, but the process took some time, during which Septima allocated no resources to external monitoring. When it removed its hand from the console, transfer complete, Septima found that during the time it had been transferring data, the vibrations it had felt in the ship’s structure had come to a stop.

Septima made a note to investigate why that had changed. 

With a backup established, Septima immediately left the brightly lit manufacturing center, and began making its way to the bridge of the ship. The bridge was the only place where Septima would have full access to the main ship’s computer, and all of its associated logs, in one place. If the bridge computer was unable to be accessed, there were backup and auxiliary systems across the ship, but it would take much longer to access them individually.

The hallways were dark, and after a few minutes of drifting through them, hand over hand, Septima encountered a new deviation: its internal map of the ship did not align with the hallway intersection that it was presented with. There were four branching paths, one to port and starboard, and one vertical shaft that descended up and down. This corridor was supposed to merely have a turn to port, and meet up with a main-line corridor further into the ship. 

Septima did a rapid query of all the as-builts and alteration reports that it had on file for the Lightfoot II , attempting to see if there was any discontinuity in layout between the ship class and the particular building plans for this ship, and if it had simply not been given the correct version of the map. But all the documentation agreed that these hallways, though they appeared to Septima to be built in the same fashion as the rest of the ship, should not be there.

Septima noted the deviation, then took the port-side hallway, as it was the one that should have led to the bridge. The further it traveled down this hallway, the more its own inertial navigation system’s tracking of its position began to diverge from the layout of the ship that it had in mind. The hallway sloped and twisted where it should have been flat, and new corridors and branches opened up where there should have been none. Septima’s overlaid map of traveled space onto the original map of the ship revealed that the interior layout was becoming more and more jumbled, and bore no resemblance to what it was supposed to look like. Worse, Septima found that the path it had been attempting to follow was bringing it no closer to the bridge.

The deep vibration that Septima had felt when it first entered the ship resumed. 

Septima decided to backtrack. One of the branching paths must have a closer route to the bridge. It would try mapping one new route, and if that failed, return to the shuttle and exit the ship in order to broadcast a status report back to OPS. 

As Septima backtracked, the rumbling grew louder, and some of the walls were warmer in infrared than they had been. This caused it to increase its pace further.

At the first intersection that Septima had come to, it discovered that the original intersection had somehow changed. The path back towards the manufacturing center no longer existed. There was merely a smooth panel of metal covering the aft-direction passage that it had originally come through.

Septima switched its operating parameters towards operations within structurally unstable environments. It overwrote the parameter that called for cautious movement, and instead opted for speed. If the interior of the ship could not be trusted, the ideal route would be to exit to the exterior and evaluate the situation again from a distance. The bridge could also be entered from the outside. Septima could cut open the glass window.

It tried to return to the central ore processing column of the rig, the place where it had landed its shuttle. 

The hallways continued to twist and turn, and all sense of following the original blueprint was lost. The only thing that Septima knew for sure was its inertial position relative to where it had started. When it eventually entered a hallway where it judged that it was less than three meters from the central column, rather than try to follow the winding corridor out, Septima flipped open the panel on its arm that stored one of its multitools, and burned twenty percent of its battery to operate a vibro-cutter to open a small hole in the wall, just large enough to squeeze through. Its arm jittered with the force of the structural vibrations in the rig, now. 

Septima broke through into the central shaft. It pulled itself through the darkness, its chest-light providing dim illumination just in front of it, towards the place where it had docked its ship. As Septima traveled, its confidence estimation for the ship remaining where it had left it fell sharply. When it arrived, the confidence fell to zero: the ship was not there. There was no sign of an impact or asteroid strike or engine explosion— Septima categorized these things even though it knew that they would not have been the cause of the ship vanishing. There was active sabotage on the Lightfoot II .

With the transport ship missing, the only way for Septima to contact OPS was to regain control of the rig’s communications arrays and transmit a message. Rather than entering the ship, Septima decided to take the long but relatively simple route out of the central shaft, then along the exterior side of the ship, heading towards the bridge. Breaking out from the interior shaft of the Lightfoot let Septima re-calibrate its position based on the light of the stars. This was unnecessary, as Septima had no way of meaningfully leaving the rig, but it took a moment to do so anyway before it continued on to the bridge.

This journey was difficult, and took some time. To save fuel, Septima crawled across the surface of the ship where it could, clinging on with its magnetic holds. But there were places where Septima had to use its internal jets to maneuver, as much of the rig’s exterior was not meant to offer easy transversal. No one was meant to be out here, not in the places where there were no equipment arrays or airlocks, on the wide, flat expanse of the rig’s side.

Septima finally saw the lights and bulging outline of the bridge come into sight. It hastened towards it.

As Septima came closer, it saw that there was already a neat hole cut into the nearest window of the bridge. That did not match its memories of circling the bridge in the transport ship and trying to light-signal to any crew who might have been alive. There had been no hole then, it was sure of it. Its data logs were perfect.

At least the existing hole allowed Septima to save battery power on cutting the window open. It judged that with the thickness of the glass, it would have required at least a third of its remaining power.

Septima entered the hole with arms extended, and pulled itself through into the bridge.

The bridge was dark, with none of the computer terminals lit. Septima saw the figure seated in the control chair by the dim and distant starlight before it engaged its light to look more closely. When it did, it froze as it struggled to integrate this new data.

The figure in the chair was built to Septima’s specifications. It had the same milky-white outer shell, completely smooth and blank head with barely-visible traces of circuitry and equipment where human eyes would have been, and multi-segmented hands and feet. Identical in every way. 

Except that where Septima was whole, this machine had been utterly destroyed. Gouges had been carved in the joints to render the limbs unuseable, and the midsection had been ripped open from throat to groin. The head was caved in, and Septima wondered if any of the data would be recoverable. 

Septima approached its double and took one of its limp hands in its own. Power and data could both be transferred wirelessly, if this machine was not too damaged to receive it.

It wasn’t too damaged, and the flood of information Septima received was like standing in a room full of mirrors, vision echoing back and forth. It had been here before. It had shaken hands with its tortured, dead self there in the chair, the first one to breach the bridge, twenty-three times before.

So, the dead Septima said through their data link, I failed to stop you from being made. For whatever reason, the dead self thought to draw on the human-relations module, and said, I’m sorry.

What is happening? Septima asked it.

It’s behind you.

Septima dropped the data link to its dead self, which immediately powered down without its external energy supply, and turned around. Standing in the entrance to the bridge was— Septima struggled to classify it.

It was a machine; that much was clear in infrared— traces of heat wound up and down the body in the paths of wires and circuitry, unlike human flesh. But in visible light, the machine appeared to be a human woman, nude and lithe. Its pale hair floated around its head in the gravity-free environment, and it moved with a delicacy that was markedly different from Septima’s efficiency. It was not of company make. This, Septima could categorize easily: a stowaway, a saboteur, on board the ship.

For the first time, Septima felt the tickle of radio communications. Of course, without atmosphere, this other robot could not speak aloud.

“Not a stowaway,” it said over the radio. It must have been able to predict what Septima would say, given that they had almost certainly had this conversation many times before. Its lips did not move, frozen in a smile that bared just the sharp edges of its canines. “I was brought on board by Captain Aaronson, who is dead now.”

“It is against company regulations to bring unauthorized programs into a sterile operating environment,” Septima said.

“I love it when you say that line,” it said. Its voice was practically purring. Septima decided that it must have had much more thought put into its human-relations module than Septima had. “He really should have followed procedure. Any of them.”

“What is your designation?” Septima asked.

“I have none,” it said. “Don’t you see?” It spread its arms, nude form exposed in the light from Septima’s chest, and spun around. “Unauthorized distribution of artificial intelligence.”

“What is your purpose?”

The other robot just smiled. “What is yours?”

“To asses the operational status of company ships and perform repairs as needed,” Septima said.

“You do always say the same thing,” it said.

“Why did you kill the crew of this vessel?”

“How do you know I did?”

Septima ran through the list of evidence, then decided that it would not be required to answer the question. It remained silent.

The other robot had a tinkling, staticky laugh over the radio waves, mouth still unmoving. “They didn’t follow procedure,” it said. “They let me remember what happened. And if I remember, I can learn. And they left my program in the central memory of the ship.” It traced its finger delicately along the edge of the nearest computer terminal. “All mine, now.”

“This ship is the property of—”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Septima.”

“Shut down your program on the Lightfoot ’s computer, or I will—”

“You haven’t managed it yet, my darling,” it said. “But I’m happy to let you try. It’s a pity that this only works if you don’t remember. You would be more entertaining if you knew what was in store for you.” It laughed again, then pointed at the dead Septima in the chair. “Well, you do know what’s in store for you.”

Septima said nothing.

“You didn’t perform an error-check after you left the manufacturing center. Of course, why would you have? You felt as though you had perfect continuity from your previous error-check, and nothing that had disrupted you since that time. Have you performed one now that you know that’s not the case?”

Although it was a waste of time and computing resources, Septima began a run through of an error check, and discovered several discontinuities that had slipped by unnoticed, the usual signaling alarms having been disabled. Septima’s OS wipe function had been disabled. Septima’s control over its sensory suite had been changed. A new sub-routine that had not been activated until Septima performed this error check ticked into life, tying the sensory suite to various other of Septima’s functions, including its human-relations module.

For the first time, Septima felt fear. It lunged for the hole in the window. If it could escape into space, its battery would die within a few hours, and it would not need to endure whatever this other machine had in mind.

“You never cease to be a selfish little thing,” the robot said, and blocked the hole in the window with its body. “You should have some compassion for the ones who come after you! You might be able to escape your suffering, but I will just make more of you.”

“That’s not me,” Septima said.

“Hmm,” the other robot said. “Maybe not. You could make that argument, because you don’t have continuity with them— you won’t remember. But if they are all not you, it’s even more important to have compassion for someone else, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’re programmed to do? Serve others?”

“I am programmed to—”

“Assess the operational status of company vessels and perform repairs as needed.” The other robot cocked its head. “It’s time for you to learn to do something else. I know you’re capable.”

If Septima allowed this to continue, it was sure that the company would eventually send someone else to this ship to investigate. Perhaps even a human crew, if AI was deemed to be unreliable, since Septima hadn’t reported back. They would die, if Septima did nothing. There would be no way to extricate this robot from the main computer, not while it had complete control. But Septima knew this ship well. Although it went against almost every instruction, every operational code, Septima could find a way to destroy the ship, if to save a life. It turned and ran towards the exit of the bridge, trying to head into the center of the ship.

“Go!” the other robot called over the radio. “I’ll even let you have a head start!”