One
The more I looked at it the more it reminded me of the 'hero' robot V.I.N.CENT in the Disney film 'The Black Hole,' a film I'd liked more for the science than the plot. As of now, though, I had my hands full, sitting watching the autopilot guide me to the coupling. We were slowing down nicely. At fifty metres out we were down to one metre per second and bang in the middle of the guide lines.
Docking was an anti-climax to what waited behind the door. I had aborted the planned prospecting search after barely four days, four days spent skimming the outer reaches of the belt. I was on my way to survey and map for ferrous asteroids.
The small ones we would tag with beacons for immediate recovery while the large ones were tagged for the factory ships. There was no need to run instrument sweeps here, here where hundreds of ships had swept already, excepting it also fed my collision warning. Anything bigger than a sand grain and it'd plot out its trajectory and then tweak ours if necessary.
When the manometer went off it took me a second to shake off my drowsy awakening and puzzle at it. It would have to be something that wandered in recently because this was a well-travelled route. Just my luck to find a fragment cutting across the plane.
I made my way slowly from one hand hold to the next. Free-fall was a rare experience for me, not that it was zero G. We were running at a bare one twentieth, small enough to give all of the sensations of zero G but with more of the feel of falling ever so slowly.
Apart from a couple of 'educational' trips years ago, this was only the third trip I'd taken out into the voids of space. The first two were the training trips for this. My trip was something I'd asked for. I had a week and a half out, a week's prospecting and another week and a half back
This was my chance to be the first to set eyes on a section of the belt, four days out and not even half terminal velocity, and I'd thrown everything into reverse. There would be some strong doubts about me waiting on the other side of that door.
They were going to be more shocked by the real events. I'd called in on a red telltale, a fault in the air recirculator, a mission critical device. I couldn't tell them the real reason over the open airwaves. The real reason I turned back was my new find turned out to be a body, an alien body in a space going coffin, a body that came with a 'guardian robot.'
Even now, with four days of living with the reality of it, I was still trying to grasp the enormity of it, proof that we were not alone. Their technological superiority was also evident, my self-appointed guardian was proof of that. Besides sucking in the code for all the processers onboard it had devoured all my engineering books as well. I dreaded the information overload it would vacuum up when it accessed the net.
It had sprung out on me after I pulled it in and secured it. No sooner had I sealed the bay and begun pressurising it than a panel at the bottom had swung open and it floated out.
This was the source of the hotspot the thermal sensor had detected, the reason I had matched orbits with it. Because of the hot spot my diagnostics had tagged it as a radioactive ore, an asteroid so rare they were still a hypothesis.
When we were close enough I launched the magnetic grapples. I was surprised when they didn't stick but had no time to think about it because I had to rematch its new course when their mass slamming into it altered its trajectory.
When I'd manoeuvred close enough in to see its real size it looked like no asteroid I'd ever heard of or seen before. It was a smooth capsule. Its true size was difficult to estimate with no perspective but it looked eight to ten feet long and maybe three thick.
I figured it would fit in the shuttle bay. Trouble was I was going to have to go out with my jet pack and hitch a line to it myself. I let the AI monitor the situation as we edged closer. That the shape looked regular was mystifying. It was possible that it was crystalline but that didn't account for the thermals.
Getting out and up close I recognised its artificial nature. Despite being thick with dust it had a regular shape, looked like a long box close up, all smooth sides of geometric proportions. I wound the cable around it a few times then called my AI up and wound us back in.
It fitted the side of the shuttle bay with room to spare and I hit the door button to close us in and repressurise. Then it happened, a panel at one end opened and this barrel shaped thing came floating out.
I was frozen to the spot, then the dome at the top lifted and I was staring at a pair of camera lenses. Reflexively I exhaled the breath I'd been holding. My first thought was that it was a probe, but then why would a box need a probe?
I remained calm as I watched it swivel round to take a full account of its surroundings then focus on me again. I didn't know what I expected to happen next but out of nowhere came a voice in my head
"Do not fear me, I am a guardian, I am sworn to protect, not harm."
I was stunned, terrified and amazed at the same time. The value of what I'd found just hit infinity. Telepathy was real, mind to mind communication. Here was an alien unknown before me. Yes, it was promising no harm but it held alien values in its program, value judgements that were woven into its source code.
I was too stunned to answer. I wondered if it could read my mind as well, a mind that was struggling to understand the magnitude of what this meant. I glanced aside at the 'box' it had emerged from. The questions were bubbling up in my mind: where was it from, how did it work, what could it teach us?
"Your technology is primitive, you are a young race."
The voice was just there. Even though I was looking at it there was no sense that it was speaking.
"Yes," I answered.
I waited on in silence, waiting for it to speak again. It felt safe enough for me to remove my suit. I felt strangely calm as I stripped it off, hurriedly freeing limbs to give me greater freedom. I pushed off toward it, floundering a little as I approached it in the wide open space. Freefall manoeuvring wasn't my strong suit.
It was just hovering in the air like it was waiting for me. My clumsy efforts had me approaching too fast and I had to reach out and catch hold of it, throwing an arm around its waist as I overshot. It didn't strike me at first but it remained completely immobile despite my ungainly collision.
In the few seconds that it took to regain my balance I realised that it was fixed. However it was doing it, it was stationary. My collision hadn't budged it a millimetre. My thoughts flashed to wondering about its technology again. How had it done that?
The voice came booming in my head again,
"Your technology is primitive, your computers lack intelligence and self-awareness."
Its voice conjured up a feeling of frustration.
"Your race is very different to ours. You are warm-blooded, your home world must be cold."
"Yes," I acknowledged again.
"My Mistress is dead. As you have no guardian I will serve you."
"What!" I exclaimed.
"You are my new master. I must have someone to serve and you are the only one I can bond to."
"What!" I repeated myself. I was being adopted by an alien robot. My mind boggled at the thought.
"I am...."
"Alright, I heard, I just can't believe it," I said, interrupting and cutting it off.
"I am built and commanded to serve, I have no purpose otherwise,"
it said when I finished.
"What services?" I asked.
"I am your guardian."
"Like a bodyguard?"
There was a second before the reply came.
"Yes, but more. I am also an advisor and assistant."
"Do you have anti grav?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Does your race have FTL travel?"
"No, that is not possible."
"Can you read other people's minds?"
"Yes, to a degree, emotional states are visible and the prominent thoughts."
"How are you powered?"
"I'm powered by a quantum energy generator."
I turned and picked my spot and pushed off, floating to the door back to my quarters and the bridge. I had to turn this ship around and get back to base. The robot floated after me, trailing me as I swung along the hand holds.
On the way up I wondered what to say. I needed to keep my find secret. An alien artefact would attract a lot of attention, I didn't trust spouting this off even on our family's encrypted channel. I'd have to figure some other excuse, what was critical but not disabling.
As I jumped into the command seat I chose life support, a red on the rebreather, the CO2 catalyser failing the diagnostics.
I put on the headset and broke radio silence. "ABSH base, this is Scout B15, respond. Over."
I glanced over my shoulder at the impassive barrel floating behind me. Did he, I wondered. Did he have enough scientific or engineering knowledge to teach us things like the anti grav he was riding on?
I turned back to the controls and reprogramed the course to take us back to home. Four days of travel had put a seven minute delay in any response coming back and that gave me time enough.
"ABSH Base responding Scout B15. What's the matter? Have you got a problem? Over."
"ABSH Base, I've got a red light. It's in life support so I'm turning around."
Even as I said it I felt the thrusters fire and the cabin start to tumble with the stars spinning past outside as my MI started to rotate us to start the homeward trek. ABSH Base gave us an automatic green light to return.
My new companion stayed magically beside me but never in the way. I got it to tell me of the people who made it. As the body in the life pod would show they were a coldblooded, reptilian race, they circled a red dwarf on a warm world that was slightly closer and smaller than earth.
Their civilisation had advance to phase two and could manipulate matter and tap into the quantum soup for energy, physical things could be created from pure energy, any structure copied. His former mistress and he had been ejected in a life pod, their ship attacked by another alien race.
I declined to listen to the history of the conflict, or a description of the other aliens beyond that they were reptilian, as well. Her pod should have held her in suspended animation till she was rescued but after hundreds of years of drifting something failed and she died. My little robot had waited hundreds more for me to find it.
It could tell me the rudimentaries of the sciences, show me basic equations, but didn't have detailed information in either sphere. I wasn't really in any position to evaluate what it was telling me. It'd have to talk to the professors for that. I'd be on my way to university in a month myself but its knowledge would remain secret. We'd be seeing what patents we could claim first.
The day before we docked I was bored enough to ask about the other aliens. Their sun was mobile, it had eight planets at cardinal points and was headed out toward the galactic rim. They came, shot at anything that approached and had almost passed through their little empire of scattered suns.
His mistress had been on a ship trailing them, trying to learn more of them before they disappeared into the void between the arms. From what they learnt they could be a sibling race. Anatomically they were very similar. Their DNA, however, proved them to be totally unrelated; the planetary conditions must have produced similar adaptations.
I was all excited to get home. A couple of light seconds out my father got through to me. He must have used his council position to get through on the long range radio.
"Yes, Father?" I answered, scrabbling to get my headset on.
"We've run telemetry on your systems. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong," he replied, his tone carrying his implications.
"You can check the logs," I replied, feigning innocence. "I'll be docking in an hour or so. Be at the lock to meet me and you'll see what I'm talking about."
I waited the few seconds for the reply, hoping my invite to see something would satisfy him, that he'd take the hint to drop the subject.
Time stretched a few seconds longer than I anticipated. "I'll see you on the carpet if not," was his cryptic reply.
My robot companion who I'd christened Vincent was by my side as usual as I stood at the airlock door.
