“Thank you for lending us the services of your most advanced robot to date,” said the starship captain. “I must say, it took a while to get used to such an… unusual crew member, but she proved herself an invaluable companion time and time again. Despite not having emotions, she was one of us, through and through.”
The roboticist looked at his creation. She was staring impassively into the middle distance, her strange face artificially calm. On her chest were the many medals she had earned on her long mission.
“’No emotions’, huh? Is that what she told you?”
The captain furrowed his brow. “Y-yes? She displayed great courage and nobility all the same.” Smiling, he added, “Besides, my human crew has more emotions than they know what to do with.”
“I see.” The roboticist turned to the android. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Anna?”
“No, sir. I don’t.” Her voice was flat, her expression unchanged.
“Wait…” the captain looked quickly between creator and creation. “Did she just… use a contraction?”
“I can’t use contractions, sir. It’s against my programming.” The corners of the robot’s mouth twitched upward almost imperceptibly, but her strange eyes seemed to be dancing with electronic life.
The captain seemed to hiccup in astonishment, and a dark look crossed his face. With dawning realization, he shook his finger at his former crewman. “You… you wicked little…” He wheeled on the roboticist, who had started to laugh. “Did you put her up to this?! God, and she can lie–-!” He rubbed hand across his face. “God… fuck! Let me guess… you’ve got emotions, don’t you?”
Anna winked.
“I just don’t understand,” said the captain. “Why would you spend five years pretending not to have emotions? All those times we explained idioms and jokes to you, and you knew perfectly well what was meant? Why, Anna?”
Anna grinned. It was an expression that made the captain uneasy – he had grown accustomed to the awkward little curve she sometimes forced her mouth to make when she was trying to be friendly. He had only seen a natural, effortless smile on the robot’s face once before, when she had been infected with a sadistic computer virus that resented organic life. She’d nearly destroyed the ship and everyone on it before they managed to subdue her and remove the virus. She’d fought and screamed obscenities and had even detached her own head in an effort to stop them. It was not a memory he liked to be reminded of.
The robot ran her fingers through her short hair as if pondering her answer. “It seemed… safer,” she said finally.
“Safer? How so?”
She shrugged. “Humans tend to treat each other very poorly. Not you, specifically, but in general. I did not want anyone to forget that I am a machine, so I leaned into stereotypes and hammed it up a bit to protect my reputation as a logical, reliable, and impartial supercomputer. Would you have entrusted me with certain delicate responsibilities and decisions if you truly thought of me as a woman, sir?”
The captain opened his mouth to reply, but Anna cut him off. “You don’t need to defend yourself, Captain,” she said. “I know you would never intentionally behave in a bigoted manner. But I was designed to observe humanity and identify patterns, and I have seen how even the most enlightened of your species alter their behavior towards female peers. I needed to ensure the safety of the crew and the success of our mission, and to do that efficiently, I could not afford to be seen as emotionally compromised. Or,” she added, “As a viable romantic partner.”
“Oh,” said the captain. He didn’t know what else to say. There was a heaviness in his chest that he couldn’t identify.
“I am sorry to have deceived you, sir. If I have broken your trust, I must—“
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “You just… gave me a lot to think about.”
Anna regarded him thoughtfully for a moment and then bit her lip. “Sir? There is one… other motivation for my behavior, but I’m not sure you will like it.”
The captain sighed. “You are no longer under my command, Anna,” he said. “I can’t order you to share it. If you tell me at all, tell me as a friend, not as your captain.”
The robot’s eyes glittered. “Well, sir… it was very funny.”
The captain rubbed his neck. He had so many questions he wanted to ask, questions he thought he’d found the answers to years before, but there was no time. He had a starship to run, after all.
“You know,” he began, “Space is… pretty big. There’s always more of it to see, and I just so happen to happen to be the captain of an exploratory research vessel in need of a good crew. There will always be a place for you on it so long as I’m in charge, Anna.”
“Thank you, captain. That means a lot to me.”
He took a deep breath. “I hope what I am about to say does not offend you. This may be a sensitive topic, but in light of your… personal revelations, I must risk indiscretion. I don’t know what your status is on this planet. I don’t know how you might be treated here. I am ashamed of myself for not making this offer before, but Anna… I will not abandon you here if it means a loss of your freedom. Just say the word and I’ll do whatever it takes to get you out of here. If that means, um, payment, or threats, even violence… so be it!”
His mouth had gone dry and he could feel his pulse pounding in his temple. This had been on his mind for months as the end of Anna’s contract approached, troubling his sleep with nightmares about finding her disassembled and her parts recycled into tools. He’d pushed those thoughts away as much as possible, assuming that there was nothing he could do to help her – that she wouldn’t know how to want help. Now it was almost too late. He felt like an idiot.
Anna’s hug took him by surprise. She rarely touched anyone if she didn’t have to, and he’d never seen her initiate a hug. It was brief, chaste, and would undoubtedly leave a bruise. He winced.
“Captain,” said the robot, her voice soft, “I think you’re emotionally compromised.”
“You are responsible for too many people to worry so much about one retired robot,” she said. “I need to know that I’m leaving my friends under the command of someone with a clear head.”
“Dammit, Anna,” growled the captain. “Just tell me you’ll be okay.”
“I’ll be fine, sir. Is that good enough for you?”
“No… because now I know you can lie.”
Anna sighed heavily and began fiddling with one of her medals. “It has been 218 weeks since my activation date,” she said. “I have spent most of my life onboard a starship exploring the galaxy. I am a decorated soldier, an accomplished scientist, and – to a colony of astral amoebas – revered as a minor fertility deity. I have seen untold wonders beyond your perception and stretched the limits of my own programming. I have lived a good life, captain. You made sure of that.”
Reaching behind her head, she disengaged the lock that kept her epidermis in place. She tugged gently at a hidden seam until her scalp peeled away, revealing the shell of her electronic brain.
“I don’t know what my future holds,” she continued, “I am confident that I will not be deactivated. My ‘father’ is an eccentric, but he wrote the basis of my ethical programming, and I trust him to respect my personal agency. I do not need process things the way you do, Captain. Still, even I grow… tired, in a way. In here.” She gestured at her exposed electronics. “No amount of rest or affection can rejuvenate me. I need repairs and upgrades if I am to go on, and this is the one place in the galaxy where I can receive those.”
She pulled something out of her brain and held it up for him to see before placing it into his palm. It was a thin, translucent rod, barely larger than a toothpick.
“What is this?” he asked, turning it over in his hand. It caught the light and shimmered like an oil slick.
The robot closed his fingers around it gently. “Think of it as reassurance,” she said.
The captain glared. “Great… first you start using contractions, then you get cryptic on me. Really, Anna, what am I holding?”
“Nothing special.” She smoothed her scalp back into place. “Just some backups of a few of my most important files. Significant memories, ethical scripts, some personality coding… it is a rudimentary framework of my identity.”
The captain stared at her. “This is your soul?”
Anna raised her eyebrows. “That is an unnecessarily superstitious term,” she said. “But, given the circumstances, perhaps it is appropriate. You know what I am trusting you with, Captain.”
He swallowed, nodded, and carefully tucked the rod into his breast pocket. His hand instinctively moved to cover it. “I guess I’ll get out of your hair, then.”
“Until next time, sir.” Anna’s salute was formal, but her eyes were warm.