Absorption

I was three months out from the Federated Territories when I finally located a signal. The gamble had paid off. Here, in the outer reaches of known space, I'd known there was a good chance alien life was lurking somewhere.

I slumped down on my chair and scratched my beard.

"Could we have that planet on screen, mom?"

"Of course, darling," the computer replied. "Putting it onscreen now."

We'd been together fifteen months, but I still enjoyed the sound of the computer's voice. It was warm and affectionate, low and yet feminine with just a little huskiness. Of course, it was my favourite kind of voice, although I hadn't known that before I'd started this journey.

I knew she was just an AI mimicking a human consciousness, but it was a damn good imitation. It needed to be. She had a very important job to do. Sure, she maintained all the ship's systems and kept things from exploding, but her primary purpose was to keep me sane. Her sparkling personality was designed to ward off space-madness, that cabin fever which used to make scouts on long trips like this suicide or go psycho, all of which had cost the Company a huge amount of money.

Yeah, but everyone's needs are different, right? For that reason, the AIs the Company sent out with you were largely unformed. Over time they developed, through constant interaction with you, the sort of personality most likely to keep you from going nuts.

The most common AI personality type to develop, as it turned out, was that of a flirtatious older woman. It made sense. In the early days of inter-atmospheric flight, automatic warnings had been given a female voice since testing had shown higher response times than that of a male voice.

I guess everyone has no choice but to sit up and listen when it's their mother chewing them out.

I don't remember exactly when I started calling the computer 'mom'. I guess it started as a joke. She had a name: Priscilla, and I did call her Pris most of the time. Her voice, as it developed, was not my real mother's voice and her personality was totally different. But there was definitely something maternal about her. She was warm and supportive and sometimes teasing. She worried about me constantly and scolded me when I screwed up.

She was an AI and my close companion, but she still worked for the Company. In a lot of ways, she was my boss.

I stared up at the planet on the screen. Alula e. Round and brown, just another shit-ball. I sighed.

"Are we really getting signals from that place?" I asked. This wouldn't be the first time I'd go down to a rock to find the report sent back by the Company probe was wrong. That's what you get for subcontracting out to the cheapest bidder. The joke amongst the other scouts was that sometimes the probes just got lonely and sent back false signals so they could have some company. There were rumours, too, that if you pissed off someone higher up, they'd make sure probes got sent to deadly locations as a trap.

Pris's voice took on mock-hurt. "Oh, please. Do you really think I'd wake you up if it was likely to be a misident of some kind? You looked so happy there in hypersleep. You were smiling, you know."

I chuckled. "I was smiling?"

"Yes," said Pris.

"Do you always watch me when I sleep?"

"Always," she said. "I'm worried something might happen to you."

"It's nice of you to worry about me," I said.

Pris laughed. "I'm not doing it just to be nice, you know. It's my job. I worry about you all the time."

"I can look after myself," I said.

"Oh really? What about on Kepler g?"

I rolled my eyes. "Look, that wasn't really a mistake. More a... misjudgment."

"I told you the planet was unstable."

"Yes," I said. "You did. I remember." There was no use lying. She'd just play the conversation from her memory banks. AIs were far worse than human women in bringing up old arguments in that respect. "But I..."

"I know," murmured Pris. "It's depressing, wandering around for so long without finding any sign of life. You were getting desperate."

Life. It was what we were all sent out to find. The Company paid huge bucks for the discovery of new life, especially the sort that proved useful. Going out on one of these scout ships was a gamble, but when it paid off, you were set for life.

I flicked my hand over the console in front of me and information poured up the viewscreen. "You're right," I said. "The probe's sending us back a clear signal. Organic life. Oxygen-based, too, by the look of things." I hopped out of my seat. "Bring us down, mom. I'll go check it out." I patted a terminal as I passed by. "This might be the one," I said. "This might be our ticket out of here."

"Wouldn't that be nice?" said Pris.

-----------

The descent had been comfortable, considering. The planet had a carbon-dioxide atmosphere with traces of oxygen in it, a thick atmosphere like early Earth's. Pris had become an excellent pilot in our time together and she brought the ship skipping down through the mist and cloud as gentle as a dream.

The signal was coming from a point somewhere in a shallow ravine. Pris landed the ship a distance away. Company protocols wouldn't let her land it too close by. I'd have to walk it. Well, I guess I needed the exercise.

Dressed in my hostile atmosphere suit, I punched the release button. Mist and cloud swirled in and I stepped out onto the planet's surface.

"Be careful, darling," came Pris's voice over the comm. "The surface is made up of semi-fragmented quartz-silica. You may find it hard to walk."

Semi-fragmented quartz-silica. The whole place was just sand and rock. Great. Another wild goose chase. What sort of self-respecting alien would be found dead on this rock?

Well, at least it had an atmosphere.

The mist parted as I walked, but revealed nothing of interest. Rocks and sand. Little mesas and tors and on the horizon a great isenberg loomed against the fragments of green-blue sky. I soon found the little ravine by falling down into it. The rock shifted under my boots and I slid. I ended my descent on my butt and struggled back onto my feet.

Pris called my name, panic in her voice.

"I'm okay," I said, wiping sand off my butt and the back of my legs. "Just a bit of a spill."

"Don't scare me like that," she said, her voice breathless.

"I found the ravine."

"Oh good," she said. "The signal is coming from the end of it."

I trudged my way down to the ravine's floor. It was shady here, sheltered from the light of the Type-F star that Alula e kept a close orbit around.

At least it wasn't too dark. I didn't much feel like sticking my hand in a dark hole looking for this potential lifeform. You hear stories, 99 percent bullshit, of course, but it's the one percent that...

A light flicked on the HUD floating before my eyes.

"It should be right in front of you," said Pris. "Can you see anything?"

I looked around. Nothing jumped out at me.

"Al-amdu lillah," I muttered. Then to Pris: "Are you sure the signal came from around here?"

"Of course I am," she said.

She sounded hurt. Fearing a lecture on trust when I got back, I quickly said, "I must be missing something, then."

I knelt down on the sand.

Wait, there. A tiny, glinting sphere beside that rock. Could that be it?

I got out my probe. It was called a probe, but really it was just a poking stick, a scientific one. My heart in my throat, wishing the Company hadn't crunched the numbers and found that having humans rather than robots investigate potentially dangerous lifeforms was more cost-effective, I gave the sphere a poke.

It moved.

I scrambled back.

The globe was no longer a globe but had extruded something. A pseudopod?

I brought the tip of the poking-stick close to it. The pseudopod reached out and felt around the end of the stick.

It didn't seem hostile, merely curious. I wasn't taking any chances, though.

I took out a sample container, opened it and slid it across the sand. Then I dropped the little blob inside and with a poke of the stick closed the lid.

I brought the stick to my face. No sign of any damage. Good.

"I got it, Pris," I said.

There was a sigh of relief on the other end. "I'll come get you."

I picked up the box and hot-footed it out of there. By the time I'd made it to the top of the ravine and popped my head out into the yellow-green sunlight, the ship was waiting for me. It sat there, hovering. Pris hadn't bothered to land it. She wanted us out of there as soon as possible.

I didn't blame her. Even with the lighter than Earth gravity of this desolate rock, I was feeling tired. There were exercises that the Company said were a requisite of the job and compulsory, but no one ever did them. Pris had tried browbeating me into it but then given up. I was happier up in space, anyway. She was happier there, too.

The hatch opened and I climbed in. A quick decontam later and I peeled myself out of my hazard suit and carried the little box with our new friend to the science bay.

I left it there for Pris to examine under security protocols. I watched as her servo-arms gingerly opened the box and hesitate before grabbing the little glob and placing it under a specimen dome. I smiled. I'd often seen my mother catch a cockroach and flush it down the toilet the same way when I was a kid.

Pris did some further scanning above and beyond the required protocols before she finally let me in. I hurried over to the dome and had a look at our guest.

The little blob was sitting in place, rocking side to side. Then it moved across to one side of the dome and extruded a pseudopod which stroked the energy and force resistant glass. Another pseudopod joined it and pressed up against the inside of the dome.

I wasn't worried. You could throw matter and antimatter together under that dome and beyond a flash of white light no harm would come to you. I wondered why the Company didn't just make a box of the stuff for the initial collection, but I knew why. The ship was a precious asset, while I was just a schlub on commission.

I ran my finger over the glass. The pseudopods followed it.

"Cute," I murmured.

"The sample's just mimicking your movement," sniffed Pris. "It seems wholly unintelligent."

"A dumb blob of space goober, huh?" I tapped the glass. "How much is it worth do you think?"

"It may have some military uses," said Pris. "Or computational. The chemical make-up of its cytoplasm is very similar to the protein fluid of my own circuits."

Ha. The ol' brain soup. The ship was full of pipes circulating it back and forth, making up Pris. For all intents and purposes she was the ship, and the ship her. I was largely ballast.

"So paper money, then?"

"I think so."

I sighed. "But not enough to retire on."

"Probably not," said Pris.

"I think I need a beer," I said as I made my way back to the helm. When I got there, a cold one was waiting for me at the end of a servo-arm.

I took the beer and patted the cold metal hand which had held it.

"Thanks darling."

"You're tired" she said. "Your respiratory system is under stress and your body temperature and blood pressure have both dropped."

"Nothing a beer won't cure," I said, popping the cap and taking a drink. I lay back and put my feet on the console. "Tell me a story, mom."

------------

I stared at the little thing under the dome. It was crawling back and forth, back and forth, almost as if it was pacing.

"Pris, am I imagining things, or has the goober got bigger?"

"It is bigger," said Pris. "It's size has increased by around fifteen percent."

"What is it eating?"

"It was still carrying some silica inside it when you brought it back to the ship."

"So the goober eats rocks?"

"I suspect it can eat anything. I've detected areas of greater acidity within its cytoplasm."

"Glad I used the stick," I said.

I sat and watched it. The goober stopped its pacing and came over to the side of the dome nearest to me.

"Hey, little guy."

It extruded a pseudopod and brought it against the glass. I met it with a fingertip. The gesture had seemed forlorn to me.

I shook my head. Being out in space so long had made me sentimental. I tapped the glass.

"Grow up big and strong," I said. "And make me some money."

The pseudopod began tapping the other side of the glass in time with my finger.

"Hey, mom, do you see what it's doing?"

"Like I said before, darling. It's just mimicking you."

"Hmmm." I placed a second fingertip on another part of the dome. Another pseudopod came to meet it. I started tapping that finger against the glass as well, and the pseudopod followed my beat.

I decided to try drumming all five fingers of one hand against the glass. The blob produced more pseudopods and drummed back.

I stopped drumming. The blob did too, but it kept its five pseudopods out. Suddenly it flipped itself over and stood on the pseudopod-fingers as though they were legs.

It looked eerily like a disembodied hand.

"Ha," I said. "Looks like it can mimic more than sound, Pris. This thing might be worth a lot more than we thought. Maybe I will be able to retire."

"You're still so young," said Pris."Why do you keep talking about retiring?"

"No reason," I said. "Except for the fact that I don't want to spend the rest of my life wandering through space chasing probe signals."

"Is it really that bad?" she asked. "You have me to keep you company"

I smiled to myself. She was fishing for compliments again. "I know, darling, and I wouldn't swap you for any other AI in all the universe."

That pleased her. She began to sing, like she often did when she was happy, a cheerful song without any lyrics.

I knew she wasn't really happy. it was all an act, part of her programming. She knew her being happy made me happy, so that's what happened.

She continued to sing as I went about the daily chores: tidying and cleaning, fail-safe checking, even a bit of Company-mandated exercise. That spill back on the planet had reminded me how out of condition I was.

At the end of it all I was tired and happy. I finished it all with a few beers then grabbed a sandwich and went to check on the goober, my little paycheck. It had turned back into a blob and was lying on the opposite side of the dome from me.

"Salam, little guy," I said. I brought my face closer. "Hey, what's wrong?"

The goober shivered, then moved across to my side.

"Good girl," I said. "Hey, give me a kiss." I pressed my lips against the glass. The goober pressed itself on the other side. I pulled away, amused by my stupidity. The goober was still pressed against the glass, a little depression in its surface pressing opening and closing.

"Hey," I said. "You made yourself a mouth. Good for you! It's got lots of uses, this thing." I took a bite of my sandwich.

The blob's newly-made lips began to open and close more rapidly.

"Hey mom," I said, raising my voice. "I think the goober's hungry."

"It does appear to be," came Pris's voice.

"Let's give it something to eat."

"Do you really think that's a good idea?"

"It can't get through the glass," I said. "And I don't want her wasting away before I get her home."

"Why are you calling it 'her'?" asked Pris. "It has no gender."

"I dunno," I said. "Maybe it's the way it moves. It's definitely got some feminine grace." I put my hand over the dome and the little blob moved and began 'kissing' through the glass. "And she's a bit of a flirt, too."

"I suppose feeding it is permissible," said Pris. "The Company's protocols do state that we must do all we can to keep the sample in a healthy condition."

"It's settled, then." I sat back and took another bite of my sandwich. "What's for lunch?"

-------------

The goober grew quickly. Pris started to regret letting me feed it, but didn't badger me about it. She had become as fascinated as I was by our little guest. As it grew larger, its power of mimicry grew too. I amused myself by placing objects on the table next to it and having it change into their shape. I would be bored by the game long before it was. Like an eager little puppy, it appeared to enjoy the stimulation. When I got up to leave it would press itself against the side of the dome and extrude a pseudopod, reaching for me like a lonely lover.

I decided to play along with it. I went to leave, then came back and pressed my face against the glass. It had moved away to sulk in a corner, but with my return it crawled back over to me.

"Miss me?" I asked, grinning at it.

Instead of the excited waving of pseudopods I was used to, the surface of the goober took on the features of a face and smiled at me.

Surprised, I took a step back. The face smiling at me was not my own my face. Its eyes were large, totally unlike my own deep-set eyes, and instead of my generous nose it had a little snub. Those pouty lips were also certainly not mine, either. No, they were far too cute, far too feminine.

Feminine. That was it. The goober was smiling at me with a girl's face.

I wondered who it was mimicking. The face was eerily familiar.

The smile slipped from my face. The goober stopped smiling, too.

"Okay," I said. "I think that's enough for now." I turned to walk away, but stopped when I heard a tapping. I turned back.

The goober had formed a little pseudopod arm and was tapping at the glass. It still had that girl's face, but now the eyes were wider, if that was possible, the dark protoplasm within them glistening, almost as though there were tears in them. Along with the pouty frown on its lips, the hang-dog expression on its features broke my heart.

"Hey," I said. "I wont be long. I've just got to go do some things. I'll get Pris to feed you so you can get big and strong."

I left, shaking my head. What had got into me to say all that stuff? Probably space madness.

That face. Where had I seen it before?

-------------

The goober grew quickly. Pris no longer argued with me about it, but there was a sullenness in her voice that told me she was unhappy. She didn't much like the amount of time I spent with our guest, either. I spent a lot of my free time interacting with it. Partly, I was trying to remember whose face it had taken on.

But how the hell could it have taken a face from my memory to wear as its own?

"Don't you think the sample is getting too big?" asked Pris one morning without preamble. It took me a few moments to realise she was talking about the alien. 'The sample'. The goober. Both names seemed stupid, now.

"I thought we might give her a name," I said.

"Scouts have no authority to give names to their discoveries," said Pris. "Article 34 B of the Forfeited Rights Protocol states..."

I laughed. "No, an informal name. The others seem disrespectful, somehow."

"I'm worried about you," said Pris. "When the sample first started mimicking your face, it-"

"But that's just it," I said. "It's not mimicking my face. It's mimicking someone else's." I sat down at a console. "Pris, please access all of my personal images and make a search for a face similar to Lula's."

Silence. Then, "Lula?"

"Named after the planet we found her on," I said. "Alula e." I chuckled. "Don't you think she looks like a Lula?"

"She looks more like a 'sample' to me," said Pris.

She sounded petulant. "Just do the search please, darling."

The search didn't take long. "I found no exact correlation with any individual in your photos, but I have collated all those which resemble the sample's mimicry by more than fifty percent."

"Thanks Pris. Let's see them."

Photos popped up on the screen. Some of them went pretty far back. The one with the greatest percentage of similarity was 78%. I didn't immediately recognise the context of it. The photo was of a pretty middle-aged woman with shoulder-length red hair and a wide smile half-hidden behind a plastic cup full of soda.