could surface and they might even harm
one another.
~*~
Two weeks later, MO-126 lay on a table in
the maintenance bay of Hub Terminal Eleven undergoing a routine
checkup. Lights blinked green, yellow, red, and blue on panels
nearby, and musical pings and beeps sounded as the table ran
diagnostics on his various subsystems. So far, he seemed in
reasonably good shape, but then he was only a little over three
thousand years old. With proper care, and a bit of luck, he could
go ten times that without requiring any major repair.
A signal not associated with the maintenance
scans notified him of a message from Field Ops. He opened the file
to find an update on the surveillance he requested. Utrek had left
the village.
MO-126 jumped from the maintenance table and
contacted Field Operations to get additional details. Utrek and
another primitive left the village the day before with improvised
camping gear and failed to return by nightfall. A surveillance
drone in the form of a large owl followed and continued to track
them. The mitigation team being organized would be deployed
shortly. The android dog sent a request to join it. This type of
duty never interested him before, but this time felt different. He
felt personally involved, and he wanted to see how the situation
played out.
Three hours later, their team assembled near
a wooded area about thirty kilometers southeast of the village. The
lusterless black flitter that brought them here lifted silently
into the night from its landing site in an open field of grass
partially obscured by trees and a low hill. They would be walking
back.
Their team leader, a trade interface android
who, for this mission, went by the designation ‘Indigo One,’ got
the primitives’ position from the surveillance drone. MO-126
carried the label ‘Indigo Eight.’ The renaming resulted from some
obscure tradition dating back to a time when the predecessors of
the civilizations comprising the Galactic Federation physically
fought one another over resources and ideology. It was a simpler
time then. Now, Federation members achieved their ends and resolved
their conflicts through financial finagling, legal manipulation,
political influence, and, in rare instances, even rational
discussion. They couldn’t just beat their opponents over the head
with a heavy object and take what they wanted. They must get them
to provide it voluntarily. Some hard-line conservative members of
especially aggressive species regarded this as less efficient
because one often needed to give something in return. In the long
run, it proved less costly than building weapons and war machines,
not to mention rebuilding afterward—if they still possessed the
ability, so the practice caught on with only a few carryovers from
the old days, such as stylishly tailored jackets with epaulets and
adopting silly names for mitigation teams.
Most of the team consisted of canine mobile
observer androids like MO-126. They would do most of the actual
mitigating, with Indigo One coordinating their actions.
“ Mitigation Team Indigo, ” the team
leader broadcast, “ the wayward primitives are camped by the
stream about three hundred meters south of us. Indigo Four through
Seven, circle around south of them. Indigo Eight through Eleven,
block them from the east. Stop one hundred meters from the target.
Indigo Two and Three are with me. ” The latter were the other
humanoid team members. “Notify me when you are in
position. ”
MO-126 scanned the area in infrared but did
not see any humans. He requested a position update from the drone,
which quickly responded with relative coordinates. It could do
little else. Unlike the androids, the simulated owl possessed much
less intelligence than the animal it resembled.
The four artificial dogs comprising MO-126’s
unit quietly made their way to where Indigo One said they should
stop. The reason the android dog did not see the primitives before
was because they were lying in a shallow
one another.
~*~
Two weeks later, MO-126 lay on a table in
the maintenance bay of Hub Terminal Eleven undergoing a routine
checkup. Lights blinked green, yellow, red, and blue on panels
nearby, and musical pings and beeps sounded as the table ran
diagnostics on his various subsystems. So far, he seemed in
reasonably good shape, but then he was only a little over three
thousand years old. With proper care, and a bit of luck, he could
go ten times that without requiring any major repair.
A signal not associated with the maintenance
scans notified him of a message from Field Ops. He opened the file
to find an update on the surveillance he requested. Utrek had left
the village.
MO-126 jumped from the maintenance table and
contacted Field Operations to get additional details. Utrek and
another primitive left the village the day before with improvised
camping gear and failed to return by nightfall. A surveillance
drone in the form of a large owl followed and continued to track
them. The mitigation team being organized would be deployed
shortly. The android dog sent a request to join it. This type of
duty never interested him before, but this time felt different. He
felt personally involved, and he wanted to see how the situation
played out.
Three hours later, their team assembled near
a wooded area about thirty kilometers southeast of the village. The
lusterless black flitter that brought them here lifted silently
into the night from its landing site in an open field of grass
partially obscured by trees and a low hill. They would be walking
back.
Their team leader, a trade interface android
who, for this mission, went by the designation ‘Indigo One,’ got
the primitives’ position from the surveillance drone. MO-126
carried the label ‘Indigo Eight.’ The renaming resulted from some
obscure tradition dating back to a time when the predecessors of
the civilizations comprising the Galactic Federation physically
fought one another over resources and ideology. It was a simpler
time then. Now, Federation members achieved their ends and resolved
their conflicts through financial finagling, legal manipulation,
political influence, and, in rare instances, even rational
discussion. They couldn’t just beat their opponents over the head
with a heavy object and take what they wanted. They must get them
to provide it voluntarily. Some hard-line conservative members of
especially aggressive species regarded this as less efficient
because one often needed to give something in return. In the long
run, it proved less costly than building weapons and war machines,
not to mention rebuilding afterward—if they still possessed the
ability, so the practice caught on with only a few carryovers from
the old days, such as stylishly tailored jackets with epaulets and
adopting silly names for mitigation teams.
Most of the team consisted of canine mobile
observer androids like MO-126. They would do most of the actual
mitigating, with Indigo One coordinating their actions.
“ Mitigation Team Indigo, ” the team
leader broadcast, “ the wayward primitives are camped by the
stream about three hundred meters south of us. Indigo Four through
Seven, circle around south of them. Indigo Eight through Eleven,
block them from the east. Stop one hundred meters from the target.
Indigo Two and Three are with me. ” The latter were the other
humanoid team members. “Notify me when you are in
position. ”
MO-126 scanned the area in infrared but did
not see any humans. He requested a position update from the drone,
which quickly responded with relative coordinates. It could do
little else. Unlike the androids, the simulated owl possessed much
less intelligence than the animal it resembled.
The four artificial dogs comprising MO-126’s
unit quietly made their way to where Indigo One said they should
stop. The reason the android dog did not see the primitives before
was because they were lying in a shallow
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