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Colin sealed the hatch of the escape pod and locked the interior manual latch. Hannah peered over his shoulder toward the robot, barely visible through the small plasglass pane. She still did not really understand what she had promised him. Of course, she would do it. She was glad to be able to help in whatever way she could, but the actual effect of her actions was somewhat fuzzy. Somehow, the program she had would allow Brother Anderson to reboot or rewrite himself into the tanglebase. That sounded a little sketchy to her, but he seemed convinced it could work.
Through the plasglass, Brother Anderson gave a curt salute, then disappeared. His voice came through the control panel on the pod.
“I am heading to engineering bay now, to initiate the navigational maneuver.”
“OK,” Hannah replied. She was sitting next to the console so she could reach to press the transmit button. She released the button, then spoke to Colin, who was now moving to seat himself across from her. He picked up her pressure suit and passed it to her, then picked up his own.
“Do you need a hand with it?”
“I should be OK, at least... I might need help with the helmet, I guess.”
“Sure thing.” He had one leg in already, and slightly lost his balance, as he tugged on the suit. He managed to avoid toppling over onto the seats, but Hannah took the opportunity to rib him.
“Are you sure YOU don’t need a hand?”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m approximately halfway there,” came the robotic voice over the intercom. They both had their hands full with their pressure suits, so neither could conveniently reply.
“This is so crazy!” Hannah told Colin.
“Putting on a spacesuit is crazy?”
“No. I mean the thing with Brother Anderson.”
“I know.”
“Can he really... I mean, is what he is talking about even possible?”
“The thing with the archaea you mean?”
“Of course that’s what I mean.”
“Is it possible? Well. Honestly. I don’t know. In some ways, sure why not? After all, a robot is just a program really - well, a big collection of programs, and in his case a rather complex one. We tend to think of the robot’s body as an integral part of it, but is it really? It provides a hardware framework to run on of course, and lots of sensory interfaces, but none of those are really intrinsic to the programming, and for the most part, certainly not mandatory. But I don’t know. Simple robots can be cloned and copied and moved across hardware no problem. But Brother Anderson seems to be more than just some simple false persona. I almost wonder... He seems to have changed from before - when he was just the doctor, he was the same as any old medical robot. But now...”
“I know, right?! He’s not the same, Colin, I know he’s not! And he’s not just a robot anymore!”
“Yeah. Somehow, I think you’re right.”
“And he knows it too!”
“Yeah.”
“So if that’s true - is he alive? Like really?”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“So what if his idea doesn’t work?”
“Well...”
“Colin, I’m worried - I don’t want him to die!”
“Yeah, of course! Me neither. But... Well, he seems to know what he’s doing.”
“I know, but...”
“Well, if he really is alive, then... well... we need to let him make his own decisions. And besides, he is right about staying on board. It is his duty. He’s high ranking officer.”
“But only if he’s human!”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Hannah paused, not just for effect. The idea was bubbling up from her subconscious, and just now taking form. She hadn’t really thought about it much, but now the effect was becoming clear, and in so doing, it clarified the cause as well.
“Colin, you’re high ranking officer!”
“What?! No.”
“Yes, you are.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What’s your current rank?”
“Chief of Engineering. It’s not that high a level. And I only had to take it so someone could make official decisions on technical details.”
“Really? Like what. What official decisions?”
“I don’t know! Like... status reports and stuff.”
“Which you have done?”
“Yes! I’ve run a bunch of reports. You’ve seen some of them on screen, remember all the yellow ship sections?”
“Sure.”
“So?”
“So, has Brother Anderson been asking you to sign off on all his reports?”
“No.”
“And what’s his rank exactly?”
Colin thought about it. “Well, he’s CSO, but that’s not really a rank, is it? It’s a system designation. He’s Chief Medical Officer, I guess. Well, plus Chaplain, so that’s two pretty much equal ranks, same level as mine.”
“But you’re a human! Doesn’t that outweigh any robot?”
“Um. I guess it would. I don’t really know.”
“Colin, he tricked you! He’s known all along! He knew he was human, and he knew he could let you think he outranked you, and that one of you would have to stay with the ship and that it would have to be him because he needed to save your life!”
“What? He’s not human though.”
“Obviously! But he’s acting as though he is! And he’s doing it to save you!”
“Get outta here.” It was an obligatory argument, lacking conviction. “There’s no way...”
He sat down hard. One arm still hung out of the pressure suit. His jaw sagged and he raised a hand to lightly touch his forehead. Could it be true? Maybe. Yes. Yes, it had to be. He was supposed to be Captain. He was supposed to be the one going down with the ship. He’d been fooled. Fooled into a lifesaving circumstance.
“You clever bastard!”