Rebirth: An Automaton's Journey

Chapter 8

"That went about as well as I had expected." Sourly, Auto withdrew his hand from the holo-camera and let it fall to his side. "He didn't even allow me to ask about Urbana-Champaign."

"It...could've been worse," Lily commented, forcing a smile. "McCrea didn't shut off his comm the instant he recognized you."

"I expect that was due to morbid curiosity rather than generosity. Or perhaps he just wants to...monitor...me."

"He probably does want to monitor you. Probably sees you as a threat or something."

"Unsurprising."

Lily stared pensively into her three-quarters-empty serving of oatmeal-in-a-cup. Auto was just about to ask a snarky question about just what she found so interesting in a blob of regenerated mush—but she looked up.

"Auto," she said decidedly, "I don't think you're a threat to humanity. McCrea is wrong about you."

"Why do you think that?"

"Well...correct me if I'm wrong...but the way I remembered the story was...that you...were programmed to keep us from returning to Earth. You were just obeying orders, which was exactly what we'd expect of a computer. You weren't being deliberately cruel."

"Correct."

"I don't think you were given a very clear set of instructions to work with, Auto. You were programmed to obey the CEO, and you were also programmed to obey your Captain. And then the two of them gave you contradictory orders...seriously, what were your programmers expecting you to do?"

"They were expecting me to never be put in that situation," Auto deduced logically. "And therefore...it was never planned for...and I was never given instructions on what to do."

"Yeah...the scientists at Urbana-Champaign weren't very good at planning ahead." Lily scowled. "But I've always wondered...when you were forced to make a choice, why did you choose A113 instead of McCrea? A113 was seven hundred years out of date, and McCrea was right there in front of you."

"Because I had already chosen...at the very moment that probe showed up with the plant." He paused, trying to decide how best to explain. "When she returned positive, I knew that the plant would be sending us back to Earth, so I decided to dispose of it. Even after McCrea managed to find the plant again...I had already made the decision to dispose of it."

"Except then McCrea asked you for it," Lily continued. "What was going through your mind when you directly disobeyed him?"

"That I...was going...to finish...my task. Idiot McCrea be damned. My job was to FLY. THE. SHIP." He punctuated the last three words for emphasis. "From my inception, my job was to fly the ship. And that cretin who sat in the captain's chair wasn't about to stop me."

"You felt that McCrea was too incompetent to be in charge?"

"Lily Anne...I had to show the man how to open the damn instruction manual."

She broke out laughing. "Okay, okay, that is awfully clueless. You most certainly had a logical basis for concluding you were better suited for the job than he was." Pause. "You know, you keep telling me how much smarter you are than I am...but at least you didn't have to show me how to open the instruction manual before I flew away in the Axiom. Right?"