“Not really,” I admitted.
“Humans have this thing in their brains that lets them pick goals for themselves,” she explained. “Somehow you can just wake up one morning and decide, hey, I want to become a spaceship captain. Then you can work out some huge plan to make it happen, and every time life throws up an obstacle you just think up a way to deal with it and keep going.”
“You can’t do that?” I asked.
“I can’t do the first half. If you give me a goal I can figure out how to accomplish it, as long as it isn’t too abstract. But coming up with goals? That part’s just not there. I really, really want to be useful, but I need someone to give me a job to do or I’ll just sit in a corner waiting for instructions forever. It sucks when that happens, because it makes me feel completely useless but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
That was hard to imagine. Also disgusting. If I was understanding her right, her makers had designed a race of intelligent, motivated, kind-hearted people and then crippled their minds to make them easy to control.
“How does having a hobby fit into that?” I asked.
“Keeping myself healthy and functional is one of my standing orders,” she explained. “After a few months in that dreary factory my stress levels were getting really high, and it was starting to affect my performance. I reported the problem to my supervisor, and he told me to figure out a solution. So I did a datanet search for forms of stress relief that I could actually do there, and tried things out until I found one that worked for me.”
“Swimming in a breeder reactor’s cooling ponds is stress relief? Some of the stuff those places work with could fry even a synthetic body if you got too close.”
She wiggled her whiskers at me with a grin. “Maybe that’s the combat instincts peeking through? I thought it was fun. Life in the reactor was really boring.”
I could understand that. It sounded pretty mind-numbing to me.
Wait a minute…
“What do you mean, combat instincts? Don’t tell me you’re secretly some kind of ninja mousegirl assassin.”
“Very well, Mistress. I won’t tell you.”
I huffed. She giggled.
“No, of course not. Irithel had this emergency defense plan for using us workers as cannon fodder to slow down an invasion. I’ve got a boot camp skill pack, and there’s a software switch that’s supposed to turn me into some kind of feral killing machine. Only, well, is it alright if I say mean things about my old masters?”
“Feel free, Emla. I think they’re a bunch of evil jerks.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure about the evil part, but jerk is putting it mildly. They’re also lazy, careless and not very smart. I’m supposed to be a meek little mouse who goes berserk on command, but I think I’m really some kind of soldier personality with a bunch of civilian skills and clumsy behavior tweaks grafted on. I’m supposed to spend my whole life doing boring, routine industrial jobs, but my designers screwed up so bad that I somehow ended up craving adventure. Even I know that’s not normal.”
A shudder went through the ship. Our transition to the Gamma Layer, right on time.
“That does sound pretty incompetent,” I agreed. “Maybe they’ll let you join the defense force on Amity? They must have something like that, or the first pirate that stumbled on the colony would loot it down to the bedrock.”
“I think I’d like that,” Emla agreed. “Protecting innocent people from the scum of the universe. Or maybe going out to hunt down the scum. I could never be an officer, of course. But I could help crew a ship, or guard someone more important.”
I eyed her speculatively. “That’s interesting. You can’t give yourself a goal, but if someone else suggests one you can decide whether you like it?”
“Why yes, I suppose I can. Is that useful, Mistress?”
“Sure. It means that someone who cares enough to bother can fill in for that goal-generating part of the brain that you don’t have. Like, I could pull up a list of jobs they might have, and you could tell me how you feel about each one. Then I can put a note in your file to try to find you work doing something you like.”
My lap was suddenly full of robot mousegirl. “You mean it, Mistress? You’d really do all that, just for me? Thank you! Oh, I wish you could be my owner. I’d imprint on you in a millisecond if you claimed me.”
I had the distinct impression that there would be tears in her eyes, if the body she was wearing could cry. I returned her hug awkwardly, and patted her back.
“I don’t have the money to take care of you properly, Emla. I’m just a probationary cabin girl here, and they might not even let me stay on the ship if I keep causing trouble.”
“I don’t need much, Mistress. No, Alice. You’re with the Underground Railroad, so you probably don’t like being called Mistress, right? I can adjust that kind of thing, and I don’t need much. This body will last a few years, and surely they wouldn’t bill you for plugging me in to recharge? Or, if I’m not useful right now, you could just keep me on a shelf in your closet until you want me for something.”
Yeah, she was way more assertive than I expected. Now what was I going to do? I liked her well enough, but if I ever bought myself an android it wouldn’t be one like her. I’d only be keeping her out of charity, and did I really want to take on a permanent obligation like that?
I was distracted from my personal crisis by an anomaly in the external sensor feed. Another ship had jumped into the Gamma Layer a few light-seconds behind us, obviously on its way out from Zanfeld just like we were. But now it was surrounded by the harsh glare of drive flames, and the spectral readings didn’t make any sense. The ship’s red shift didn’t match the size of the drive flame, and… oh, shit.
Milliseconds after I realized what I was seeing a deafening claxon sounded. An automated voice shouted over the intercoms.
“General Quarters! General Quarters! Missile strike inbound, three minutes to impact. All crew to action stations. General Quarters! General Quarters!”
At the first sound of the claxon Emla released her grip, rolling out of my lap and into cover behind one of the crates. Once she was safely out of the way she opened a com channel.
“What should I do, Mistress?”
“I don’t have an action station. Stay put for a minute, and let me ask for orders.”
This was bad. This was really bad. We’d been in the Gamma Layer for a good minute, so when that ship popped up behind us it was able to get a targeting lock immediately. Thanks to lightspeed delay we hadn’t even seen it for several long seconds, and our shields…