Roboteer by Alex Lamb

ship’s robotic population in order. Sometimes they sat together and ate meals while he slept or toiled. Will felt even more like an outsider than he had on the Phoenix .
    Rachel was the only person he’d really got to talk to so far, and that was only because they’d been working together. Though their conversations were limited to topics like accelerator coils and magnetic sluice-gates, he’d rapidly come to appreciate why Doug had held her in such high regard. She was patient and smart in a no-nonsense kind of way. She’d taken plenty of time to familiarise him with the quirks of the Ariel ’s architecture and listened attentively to his every stupid question. He felt more grateful to her than he cared to express.
    With the avatar, his time with Rachel became more than just a dialogue through a camera window. It was as if she was actually in the metaphor space with him. And, admittedly, she was also pleasing to look at.
    ‘I’m impressed,’ she said. Her eyes darted from side to side as she checked the schematics in her visor, breaking the illusion of her presence for a moment.
    She couldn’t see Will’s display board any more than she could see him sitting in the chair next to her. It gave her the disturbing appearance of someone partially blind, but Will didn’t care.
    ‘Have you dry-run them yet?’ she asked.
    ‘Didn’t need to. I made tight-scans as I was going along.’
    Rachel looked uncomfortable at that. ‘I think we’d better, just to be certain, don’t you?’
    Will sighed. ‘Sure.’
    He sounded more snappish than he’d intended, but the mere thought of conducting another round of tests was draining. He slouched forwards in his chair and started mustering the presence of mind he’d need to reconfigure the test-suite again.
    ‘It’s okay,’ said Rachel quietly. ‘I can tell you’re wiped. Why don’t I do it?’
    Will glanced up at her avatar. It wasn’t her job, plus she lacked the mods to do the work directly. It would take her three times as long as it would him. Not to mention the fact that she had plenty of her own work to do overseeing the refuelling. On the other hand, it meant rest. Who was he to stop her if she wanted to volunteer?
    ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
    Rachel nodded. ‘Of course. Why don’t you unplug for a while and take a nap.’ She sounded obscurely guilty. ‘I should think you probably need one.’
    It wasn’t procedure, but it was appallingly tempting.
    ‘Ira’s still in conference with the Andrewsian defence minister,’ she reminded him. ‘He won’t be out of the privacy room till it’s time to go.’
    She was right. Though the people of St Andrews were very minor allies, they managed to take up a lot of time with diplomatic chatter.
    ‘Thanks,’ he said at last with a sheepish smile. ‘I really appreciate it.’
    He turned his attention back to the real world and gasped with relief as he yanked the fat-contact from his neck. He stretched against his bunk and stared blissfully up at the blue sky of the ceiling. His body relaxed properly for the first time in days. Within seconds, he was asleep.

    He was woken after what felt like minutes by a deafening alarm splitting the cabin air. He jerked into motion, reflexively grabbing the slide-bar on the muscle-tank.
    ‘What’s that?’ he blurted. ‘What happened?’
    His sentiments were echoed a split second later by Ira barrelling through the hatch from the privacy chamber like a human torpedo.
    ‘What the hell is going on?’ he boomed.
    The sound of the alarm died.
    ‘It’s okay!’ Rachel said quickly. ‘Everything’s under control. Will, could I get you back in here for a second, please?’
    ‘Why is he out ?’ Ira demanded. The captain yanked himself over to float beside Rachel’s bunk, his face flushed with anger. ‘What’re you doing? What subsystem are you on?’
    Will hastily reconnected his fat-contact. The moment he hit the repair-survey node, he could guess what the problem was