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I liked keeping my clients breathing, and safe, even as annoying as that could be at times. It was basically my whole thing, and for the most part, at least since I had started living on Preservation, it wasn’t that hard (except for sometimes when it was but those were special situations and wouldn’t be counted for the purposes of this example.)
So I was pretty good at keeping living creatures alive, as long as those living things were humans.
“Plants do not count as clients,” I said for the third time since we had disembarked from Preservation.
ART seemed amused, which was infuriating.
For contractual reasons, you are wrong.
I rolled my eyes in the direction of the nearest camera, and watched as ART’s drones zipped around, making sure all the diodes and meters and horticultural doodads were properly calibrated, as it likely ran diagnostics on whatever the fuck all these gauges were for. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.
I supposed, as far as missions went, hitching a ride back to the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland, a thing I already needed to do, while being paid to assist in the care of the three (large, largest modules I’ve ever seen ART take on (I haven’t actually seen that many) (they were bigger than a lot of cargo modules I had seen or been in, is what I’m saying)) greenhouse modules that the Preservation Alliance was sending to the Pansystem wasn’t actually the worst job I had ever had.
ART had already said I didn’t really need to do anything, because it could automate a lot of the necessary systems, so there wasn’t really a lot for me to do. But for legal reasons, I did occasionally have to lay eyes on the seemingly endless racks of flora to make sure they were all still there and, I don’t know, growing?
There were three modules. Two had useful plants of edible and medicinal varieties, and one module was ornamental flora that didn’t serve much of a purpose other than to be looked at by humans. It was part of a larger project that FirstLanding and the Pansystem University were participating in to exchange culture between Preservation, Mihira, and New Tideland, to mark the start of their alliance. Mihira and New Tideland had already sent their six total greenhouse modules to Preservation, and Ratthi had not stopped talking about them for over fifty-four Preservation cycles, so I was basically sick to shutdown over plants at this point.
(The reason ART got roped into carrying the Preservation modules still made no sense to me. Apparently sending one of the University’s super-intelligent ships on an unmanned non-corporate non-spying mission wasn’t typically done without good reason, because of the amount of resources it took, so ART had said it had had to volunteer for the job in order to have an additional reason to come to Preservation. It said it’s first reason was to pick me up, but that also made no sense. I could have just gotten a ride on a normal transport.)
“Have I fulfilled my contractual obligation to my clients for this cycle, then?” I asked. I wanted to get back to my episode of Morry the Parrot (it was a show some of the younger Mensah's loved, and they expected me to be caught up before I returned to Preservation) but I was technically actively engaging in my obligations right now, and I was trying a new thing lately where I didn't totally half-ass my job.
Yes , ART said at the same time I received a message from a different feed address that said, Nope.
Right. It wasn't just ART and I on this trip. Technically we had a passenger that wasn't a bunch of cargo containers full of flora.
ART immediately became part of this connection, What else could SecUnit possibly do?
Perennial, the ag-bot Preservation had sent instead of a, I don't know, manual (they had also technically sent a manual. Perennial had the file and it took a full cycle for ART to convince it to send it over) seemed unbothered by ART's sudden intrusion in our feed connection.
Touch the plants.
Ew, I wasn't doing that.
No, I said.
Yah gotta. The ship can't do it like you can, what with yer organics.
Double ew. Also, before Perennial, I wasn't aware bots could have accents. I wasn't sure if Perennial's was intentionally inflected, but it sounded like some of the humans who lived a majority of their time in certain locations of Preservation's prime planet. (The minimal data ART had on Perennial's origins stated it had been located in one of those regions for some time before volunteering for this exchange.)
I pulled up the section of my contract that outlined my duties and shoved it at Perennial. Not my job.
Well, it ought ta’ be. It does those greens1 a real disservice. (The footnote attached to a long list of color codes, and I realized it was every color and shade present on the flora in the module.)
ART interejected again, And what could SecUnit’s organics do that my equipment couldn't?
You wouldn't get it.
And you would?
On account'a my experience, yeah.
I left the connection. Perennial and ART's interactions had all rapidly devolved in this way, and we were hardly six cycles into this. ART had tried to make a good first impression, considering it was from the Pansystem, and Perennial was supposedly a well-regarded ag-bot from Preservation, but that had quickly gone by the wayside when it had refused to give up its manual, insisting that it should be able to care for the modules the way it was originally promised before the itinerary was changed when ART traded duties with the previous ship last minute.
But Perennial was an ag-bot, and massive when in an active state, so it was currently in a different transport module in a physically dormant state (it certainly wasn't dormant in the feed.)
It didn't help Perennial kept inviting me to do “feed activies” with it, whatever the fuck that was. (When I asked it, it just said it was something Preservation bots did with each other. ART had suggested it might be some kind of feed game that bots played, but I had literally never heard of one of those before, so I wasn't sure, and also I wasn't a Preservation bot.)
I looked around the greenhouse module. This one was one of the useful plant ones. It smelled green, but that was to be expected. The organic parts of my neck were sweating, just from the sheer humidity, and if I stayed any longer I'd sweat out of my clothes.
I left the modules, and returned to my big chair to continue watching Morry the Parrot.
-
Cycles later, I was once again in the modules, doing my contractually obligated tasks. They were still green and wet, but on the far side something caught my eye, and before I could do anything about it, I was moving across the module. Wet flora brushed me, making my clothes and skin damp, but I stopped in front of a plant. It was small, like most everything else in the module, but several leaves had unfurled, and a flower was starting to form.
I looked at its feed enabled tag, but before I could read it, Perennial said, Dendrobium cerulium. One a’ Preservation's greatest botanical achievements.
How's it an achievement? It's just a flower. I found myself asking before I could stop myself.
It's a blue orchid. Blue orchids don't occur naturally, and prior to this little fellow, they weren't possible to breed, an’ even harder to keep alive. It took years to find the right combination of genes to make it possible, it said, and then added, pride leaking into its feed voice, my guardian an’ I were some of the first to keep them successfully alive, and improve their hardiness. Orchids are real finicky like that.
That seemed like a colossal waste of time, to spend years of your life just to make a flower that wasn't useful. But I chose not to say anything.
You've been standing there for 186 seconds, ART said in our private connection.
I checked my time stamps. Huh. Guess I had.
Touch it, Perennial said, half amused, half watchful.
Fuck off. I shut my feed connection with Perennial, (and then ART for good measure, not that it would do anything) and left the module.
-
I was in my chair, watching Morry the Parrot with ART.
The theme is becoming grating, ART said, halfway through the episode.
“They change it for season two."
I can't wait to get sick of that one, as well, ART did the feed equivalent of grumbling.
When I didn't respond, its focus shifted on me.
What are you reading? Which was a dumb question, considering I had had to access this document from its own archives.
“So, blue flora isn't…normal?”
Yes. Naturally occuring blue flora on most known life-bearing planets is in lower quantity than other colors. That number further diminishes when you get to food-bearing plants.
That's exactly what the paper I read had said, but I didn't comment on that.
“But why work so hard to make a blue flower?”
For the sense of accomplishment.
I looked at the nearest camera. “You don't get it, either.”
ART turned the volume up on the show in response, and I closed the document.
Who would want a finicky plant just because it's blue, anyway?
-
I was once again in the modules (slowly becoming greener(and other colors)), and patrolling. Technically I didn't have to patrol, but I was.
I stopped in front of a rack of medicinal plants that I hadn't seen before, because the racks were usually close together.
I know this one, I said to Perennial before it could speak up. It was always watching me with the cameras that were in the modules.
Do ya?
Sanitatem hilares. Some of my humans use it. It had different names when they used it, but I knew from previous research into their medications that it was all the same base ingredients.
In the Pansystem of Mihira and New Tideland, this plant is illegal, and banned as a hallucinogen, ART didn't seem urgent, but I knew it better, It will likely be confiscated and burned.
I didn't even make it through the “ART” in my “ART shut the fuck up” before Perennial boomed in the feed (not as powerfully as ART could, but I still flinched at the anger ), THEY BETTER THA’ FUCK NOT.
It may not be our decision.
WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHIN’ EARLIER.
I didn't know. The name translates differently in Mihiran standard. It wasn't until SecUnit said the name, that I could translate it correctly. Was ART actually apologetic? That was new.
FUCK SHIT. FUCK YA’ AND YER UNIVERSITY. FUCK YER-
I left the feed connection.
Does it have to be burned? I asked ART.
That's the protocol.
My face moved, and ART added, It's one plant.
It's a useful plant. I sent ART the data I had on its uses from my humans. Pin-Lee steeped leaves into tea that she used to treat her chronic migraines and insomnia, among other things. Ratthi took it in a condensed pill form to help him sleep, otherwise he stayed awake consumed by anxiety, and it was only after he had tried several other medications and non-medicinal treatments that he found this medication, and he could fall asleep easily and stay asleep. Neither of them used it often. I knew it was also used for non-practical reasons, but I didn’t know much about that since none of my humans used it that way.
I understand, but it's illegal. There's not a lot we can do about that. And I need you to process more of the names for me, in case there's anything else I have to report. It shouldn't have ever made it on board, but the mistranslation caused it to be missed.
I think the face movement I had felt was frowning, but I began processing the inventory through my language module.
-
The rest of the plants were perfectly legal in the Pansystem, but I didn't think Perennial would consider that particularly good news.
According to ART, Perennial yelled at it for the rest of the cycle, and had taught it new words.
It should have been funny, but it wasn't.
-
Perennial withdrew somewhat after that, and didn’t bother me during my duties anymore. It should have been a relief.
So it was a surprise when it sent me an urgent request for assistance, at the same time ART sent me a location marker and a non-urgent request for assistance.
I pinged Perennial, and made my way towards the marker.
Status?
THIS FAILED USE OF GREEN CIRCUITS HAS FUCKIN' ROTTED MY-
I closed the channel for a moment (I probably shouldn't just keep closing my channel with one of my clients, but that was one of the pros of being able to make my own decisions), pinged ART, and made my way towards the location marked.
What did you fuck up?
I resent your implication that I am immediately at fault.
Do you want me to get this information from Perennial?
I could tell ART was agitated, and trying not to let onto that when it sent me a specific view from a drone in the decorative flora module, and I immediately saw the problem.
The plant the drone was stationed in front of was partly black, and looked mushy. I knew enough about plants to know this probably wasn't good.
At the same time I discovered why I had received an urgent assistance request from Perennial.
It was in the corridor that led to the modules, with the module doors in sight but a distance away.
It was also completely jammed in the hallway.
Technically Perennial didn't have a front or back, but I had come from the direction it had, and ART's walls, floor, and ceiling were scraped to shit. All the way from the module Perennial had been in, to where it was now, had long streaks of missing white paint, revealing the silver underneath. Some of the embedded lights hadn't been spared, either, and broken glass crunched under my boots. Perennial had a layer of white paint peels stuck all over and in its many appendages and joints.
It swiveled one of its visual apparatuses at me as soon as I was within range.
IT ROTTED MY AMARILLO1 ! ROTTED IT! ROTTED IT ROTTED IT ROTTED-
“Stop yelling at me,” I snapped harder than I meant to; I was already as agitated as ART. To my surprise, Perennial's feed presence became more subdued, and it stopped literally shaking, and my threat assessment went down a percent in response (it was at 78% and I was trying really hard to ignore it.) I pulled the footnote for whatever an Amarillo was, and found a detailed care sheet of the plant that was rotting. It was some kind of yellow flower. I did a search of the rot, and skimmed enough to know the plant wasn't actually dead yet. I indicated this to Perennial and ART.
This is what I was attempting to advise Perennial. I will fix it.
Ya can't! Ya ain't got the equipment for tha’ job! That's why it's in a bad way in the first place!
Well I'm what you have. And you tearing apart my walls isn't going to fix a fucking thing.
Perennial started to thrash towards the modules again, and I had to jump back as one of its long ag-bot appendages whipped by me as a consequence, and put yet another scratch into ART's walls. Threat assessment shot up to 90%, and I had to forcefully remove the Target marker from Perennial as my performance reliability dipped to 86%. I really didn’t want to be here right now, but handling this situation did actually fall under my contractual duties. (That information didn't stop me from taking more steps backwards than fully necessary.)
As if sensing my desire to flee, ART came down on both of us in the feed. It was heavy enough I almost wanted to sit down, and it queued up an episode of Sanctuary Moon. It didn't play it, just left it there, which seemed silly and unnecessary, but my threat assessment did stop steadily climbing and the Target tag stayed off of Perennial.
Perennial stilled and looked at me, and I looked at the wall.
‘Pologies2 , it said. (The footnote linked to the same information sheet I still had pulled in my feed, but highlighted a section about the yellow flower signifying something in a floral-based language I didn't care to parse right now, but I think it was apologizing.)
I waved it off.
Why couldn't ART fix the flower?
Like I said, it ain't got the right equipment.
I didn't have the patience or energy to ask follow up questions, and just made a motion to prompt it to continue.
I told ya’, ya’ need organics. Humans have a symbiotic relationship with flora, an’ they're built best for the job. There ain't no humans here, but you got the necessary organics, even if you ain't calibrated for it.
I pulled a face, and didn't respond.
There was silence, and ART was watching us both, waiting for me to make a decision. I kept looking at the wall (analysis of the area I could see said Perennial had taken off nearly 40% of the paint of this section, which was impressive and terrible. ART would probably have to strip them entirely to fix it.)
Will you return to your module and stay there if I fix the plant?
Perennial wiggled it's visual apparatuses, which wasn't nearly as bad as moving its legs. Probably because it had two totally different cameras that were janky enough it failed to inspire any anxiety.
Yes, I will.
“Then I’ll fix it.”
Perennial wiggled more, and genuinely seemed happy with my response.
Awright! An’ don't worry, I'll help you through it.
ART finally chimed in, perhaps we should get you out of my hall, first.
Yeah, I suppose that's smart. (I hadn't known until that moment bashful was an emotion bots could have.)
I accessed all of ART's cameras in the area, and even sent a drone under Perennial. It was really, really stuck.
ART was in our private feed, I can do this, if you'd like to step away.
Ugh. I hated when people got all weird around my feelings.
No, I can do it. I sent it a scan I had done. There was a segment of Perennial that was partially jammed into a supply closet in this corridor, and the door had caved in and pinched the segment. The closet was also meant to act as a bunker in case this corridor suffered catastrophic depressurization, so it was a heavy door.
Some of ART's maintenance drones were approaching, and I marked points on my scan for ART to send them. Two began laser cutting the door that was pinching Perennial, but I could tell that was going to take hours. I could get on top of Perennial and press the door with my back for leverage, and then the drones could cut the hinges instead of going through the bulk of the door, which could halve the time it took to free Perennial.
ART wasn't saying anything, but it was watching me. In the group feed it said, So should I bill you, your guardian, or your employer for the damages?
Y'all use money? That's funny. Well on account'a my new employer bein’ the Pansystem University Department of Agriculture, and my guardian bein’ dead, I suppose you ‘ought to bill me. I'd hate to make a bad first impression with my new boss.
I finally turned away from the wall.
“Your guardian is dead?”
Died three months ago. Don't look so upset, now; he was 101 when he croaked, and climbed the fruit trees1 up until the day he kicked it. (The footnote led to a list of every fruit tree Perennial's guardian had ever climbed that Perennial knew of; there were a lot.)
I will get back to you with that invoice, ART said, probably shelving the bill there was no way it didn't already have prepped. (I checked my face in the nearest camera. Eugh.)
Ok. I could do this. Perennial was an ag-bot, sure, and I'd had some somewhat recently bad experiences with ag-bots, sure. That's probably what this was, and why I was just standing here like an idiot. But Perennial was from Preservation, and looked nothing like the Adamantine ag-bots, or really any ag-bot I had ever seen before, barring the few functional similarities all ag-bots had (like the many creepy legs).
I sent Perennial the scan of the door with what I needed to do, and, once it provided me with an affirmative, I climbed on top of it.
It took nearly an hour to get it completely free and back into its module, where is settled down without much fuss.
Thank you, kindly. I'm sorry I made such a mess.
I shrugged. “ART is usually looking for an excuse to make its interior prettier, so I wouldn't worry about it.”
I resent that statement.
“Sure.” Once Perennial was situated, with multiple of ART's drones cleaning the paint flakes off of it, I returned to the decorative flora module.
It was so humid my neck began to sweat immediately and I took my jacket off.
Perennial, while very intelligent, could not process my feedback the way ART could, so we created a very strange link of translation. My inorganics could interpret the sensational data my organics gathered into a form that was technically legible to full bots, but didn't exactly make it comprehensible to someone with Perennials level of processing. So ART took that data, and using it's own translation modules that it had been building since the first time we met, tweaked the data in a way that would help a bot who didn't have prior experience reading the particular feedback constructs produced, and sent it to Perennial, who would then advise me based on that information.
It had some delay, but worked relatively well.
Well I don't even need a fancy translator to know it's too damn wet in there, Perennial said.
ART managed to not sound as offended as I'm sure it was when it responded, The gauges, which you calibrated, are reading within the optimal range that's listed in your manual.
Yeah, an’ sometimes that's wrong, because of a buncha’ things. The algorithms I've tried to write to understand it never work as well as a symbiotic 3 just walkin’ into the room, sweating, and turnin' the humidifer down. (The attached note indicated “symbiotic” meant organic beings, which had recently been edited to include constructs.)
ART didn't respond, but it sent a changelog line to indicate it had turned the humidifiers down.
ART had moved the yellow flower (it was a rose; I should probably refer to it that way since I was about to touch it's muck) to a workbench, along with the necessary chemicals and equipment to treat it. It had removed the rose from its growth medium, as well.
Now, jus’ follow the initial procedure and spray the whole thing real good with the hydrogen peroxide. Yer gonna do this several times.
So I did, and once it was done I had to cut all the rot away, which was a lot of the plant.
Can it survive without its leaves?
Yeah, it'll be just fine as long as it has enough roots to take in nutrients, and the right soil.
That made enough sense I guess. I began cutting. At first the rot was obvious; get rid of all the black parts. But then the black was inside the stem, and I had to cut it until there wasn't any black, which was almost the entire stem. (This was more distressing than I cared to admit; especially when I thought I had gotten everything, and Perennial advised I needed to squeeze the stem gently, and there was more mush I hadn't noticed just from a visual examination.)
Alright, ya’ did good. Now ya’ need to work on the roots. If all of them are rotted, then there ain't much we can do. But if there's enough healthy ones, then it'll be just fine.
It didn't look like there were a lot of healthy ones. The roots were thick, but flexible with some elasticity. I turned the rose on its side, and noticed which ones didn't spring back up, and only fell down. I cut those out first, since they seemed the most obvious.
Now start squishin’ ‘em real gentle, like you did the stem. Yer lookin’ for more mush.
There was a lot of hidden mush. Some roots were cut down to almost nothing, some needed most of it cut away, some just a little, and some were perfectly fine. I ended up going over each one multiple times, and tried not to become intensely paranoid about cutting away too much, or not enough.
Alright, doesn't seem like there's anymore rot. Spray it again with the peroxide, wash yer hands, the surface, an’ yer tools. The rot's bacterial, and can spread.
Great, more to be paranoid about.
I let ART sanitize the work surface and the tools. When I came back from washing my hands, there was a bin of what I assumed was the correct growth medium, and a clean container.
Seeing it again, the rose was only a fourth of the size it had been at the start, and all that remained was a lot of chopped up roots.
In my and ART's private feed, I said, It really doesn't seem like enough.
It sent an affirmative. I don't have enough experience in this to be confident in it's recovery.
I think that was a close as ART was going to get to admitting it might have fucked up, so I moved on.
Once the rose was securely in an appropriate amount of growth medium (something that also required my organic feedback to know what the “right” amount was), watered with a nutrient mix (which seemed counterproductive, since too much moisture was what had gotten it into this mess, but I guess it did still technically need water to grow), and hung back on the racks, I was done.
I was…satisfied. The process had taken nearly thirty minutes, but I had a feeling I would be better at it next time. If it happened again.
Good job! If you were my trainee, I'd let you do the next coupla’ repots as a reward.
That seemed like a strange reward, but I didn’t say anything. (Except when I remembered seeing the rose laid out on the table after being removed from the growth medium, and had cleaned the dirt from it as I went to get a better look at its roots. Maybe the reward was getting to see the entire plant, including all the parts that were always there, but not normally visible.)
I already checked, nothing else seems to need immediate tending to the extent this did. That was ART, just to me, as I stared at the rows and rows of flora. A lot of them had a lot more leaves than when the modules had first been loaded.
Perennial seemed amused by something.
Ya know, there's some seedlings that need to be moved into larger containers soon. I woulda’ just waited ‘til we got to the Pansystem to start them, but they wouldn't have gotten big enough for Mihira's growing season. You could go ahead and do those. Since yer already there, and whatnot.
ART indicated where the seedlings were, and I went to the shelves of trays that had clear domes to lock in even more humidity. The small plants inside them were beginning to reach the top of the domes.
Sure. I pulled the first tray down, and I saw ART's drones zip off to collect the correct materials.
Perennial was eager. Alright! Let's go then!
I returned to the work bench, and began.
-
After we finished Morry the Parrot (it had so many seasons, and for no good reason), ART alerted us that we would be arriving at the Pansystem in just over a cycle.
Perennial had expressed excitement, citing its desire to receive its new assignment.
I was less eager because of what waited for us when we got there.
I pulled a document out of my personal workspace, and pushed it into a new workspace with ART.
“Can you help me with this?”
A second document appeared next to mine, from ART. I skimmed it, and had an emotion.
Yes, I can.
We got to work.
-
The rose put out its first new leaves before we arrived.
-
The main station that housed many of the central University structures was pretty big, almost as big as a corporate station. Even with that, much of the agricultural department was, understandably, split between Mihira and New Tideland. But there was an office here, and some teaching facilities within a botanical garden. That was where Perennial would be going, along with a selection of the flora from the modules, before the rest were transported to one of the planets (I wasn't sure which, it wasn't my job.)
Perennial unfolded from its inactive state as soon as there was enough room to do so, and spun in circles.
Oh yeah, that's the stuff. Not as good as planetary air, but pretty alright. Not meaning any offense, Perihelion.
ART did the feed equivalent of rolling its eyes. None taken.
Perennial approached me, and lowered itself so it wasn't towering over me as severely.
This is where you an’ I part ways.
“Yeah, that was the goal.”
True. But it won't be the last time we meet, ya know?
I shrugged. I couldn't exactly predict the future, and I sure as hell never planned to go to any of the Pansystem planets if I could help it.
Sure we will. Cuz I gotta know how y'all're doin’ with these. A cavity opened in its chest (it was illuminated with grow lights), and it pulled out two pots with plants in them and handed them to me.
The orchid’s1 for you, an’ the cactus2 is for Perihelion. I pulled the attached notes that were information and care documents for the plants. I was relieved to see this variety of orchid wasn't nearly as difficult to care for as the blue orchid I had seen first, thank fuck.
I see I've been trusted with a plant that requires little attention, ART commented.
An’ very little humidity. I'm sure you'll manage.
Thank you, I guess.
Yer welcome. I'll expect reports next we meet.
I sent an affirmative. My orchid didn't have flowers yet, but it was supposed to be bright yellow when it bloomed, not unlike the Amarillo rose.
Before I could have too many feelings about that, a human and an ag-bot came around the corner, and the human appeared extremely eager to see us.
“Hello, hello! You must be Perennial!” The human's feed ID noted them as Professor Au, head of the University's agriculture department.
The ag-bot pinged me, and ART, but said nothing. Great.
Prof. Au looked like they wanted to shake my hand, but I was saved by having a pot in each one, and they aborted the movement at the last minute. “And you're the Perihelion’s contracted SecUnit! It's very nice to meet you. I'm Professor Au; I'm in charge of the botanical aspect of Preservation and the Pansystems cultural exchange, and we are very excited about the cargo you've brought with you today. Right, Phyto?”
The ag-bot pinged an affirmative. Right. Guess that was Phyto.
There was some feed activity happening between Phyto and Perennial, but we were on the station's feed at this point, so I couldn't get more than the gist of what was happening.
It's real nice to meet you, Prof. Au. I look forward to working with you and the rest of the department.
Something happened in the exchange between Phyto and Perennial, and Prof. Au got a distracted look on their face that humans sometimes had when they were trying to read something in the feed.
“Ah, yes- yes Phyto, Perennial is the Preservation ag-bot who's going to be in charge of this aspect of the program- what?”
I pinged ART. What the fuck is happening?
Phyto has realized Perennial is its new boss, along with Prof. Au. I just read the program document; there are two University ag-bots, including Phyto, who are already employed by the agricultural center. It's a tenure fight, basically.
They didn't know?
They did know. It's because they didn't expect the ag-bot who they were told had nearly three times the length of tenure, and leagues more experience than them to look like Perennial. It's actually intensely petty, and I don't think Phyto has a developed enough sense of professionalism to realize what its doing right now is really fucking stupid.
I looked at Perennial, who was discussing something with Phyto and Prof. Au at the same time. Phyto, and likely also the other University ag-bot, looked like it had a pretty new shell. It was larger than Perennial, and had some pretty impressive hardware that was probably top of the line.
Perennial, meanwhile, was a Preservation bot, and looked like one. It had clearly received a number of hardware updates over however long it had lived on Preservation, but much of it was patchwork, and the base of it was an old, old model. It functioned perfectly fine, though, so it made no fucking sense that Phyto was giving it a hard time.
Before I could get angry about that, though, Prof. Au got a concerned look on their face.
“Contraband? Phyto, what?”
Shit, here it came. This was really not my job, anymore, and I only needed to be here to make sure the cargo modules were transferred to the new transport smoothly (which ART really did not need me for, honestly), and the flora that would be off loaded onto the station was done successfully, but that was pretty much done.
But I was security, and this felt like it fell into my job, I guess.
“Prof. Au, there is a plant in one of the modules that is illegal in the Pansystem. This was missed due to a translation error from Preservation Standard to Mihiran. The plant was included because of its medicinal value,” I said, and offered them the information sheet about the plant.
Prof. Au looked it over, and frowned, and then sighed. “I- I understand. I will have to report this to the port authority, but I can see where the error occurred, which I will make sure is taken into consideration.”
ART nudged me with the thing we had been working on, since Prof. Au wasn't authorized to know about its existence (ART was some level beyond even Phyto, and Perennial, so only a small part of the University and the Pansystem as a whole knew everything about it and the program it was from.)
I sent the second document to Prof. Au.
“Actually, Professor, we have obtained special dispensation for the agricultural department to have the plant, as long as it's under Perennial's direct care, so that it can be studied.”
Perennial was immediately on me in our shared feed connection.
What the hell did ya’ do?
ART wrote a paper explaining all the medicinal benefits of the plant, and since we came into range of the station 12 hours ago, it's been petitioning to have it considered for research into its medicinal value. I gave the research paper to Perennial. (ART's petition was really only called that as a courtesy; it was more a blatant hacking to force the “petition” up the review chain as fast as possible; normally it would take weeks to have a case like ours decisioned, but by then the plant would have been burned.)
The metadata on this shows you wrote it, as well. Why aren’t ya’ listed as an author?
I shrugged. No point in it. All I did was provide the stories about how it helps my humans. ART isn't even listed; it had to use one of its pseudonyms.
(Actually, ART and I had started writing our own separate documents at the same time. ART had fused them, and done all the final editing.)
Well, shit, SecUnit, I'm not sure what to say.
I looked away; it was far too much.
ART added, Consider us even, since I nearly killed your rose.
Aw. Aren't y'all sweet. Also about that, here.
A huge sum of credits moved from Perennial to ART, enough that it took me aback for a moment.
Y’all never did send me that invoice, but I figure this ought to cover it and then some, for the inconvenience an’ all that. An’ with what's leftover, you should get yerself somethin’ nice. Maybe somethin' pretty to gussy up that interior some more.
ART sighed. Thank you, Perennial.
I forced my face not to move.
Right about then Prof. Au finished reading the special dispensation, and a skim of the first page of the research paper. A big smile hit their face. “Well, if this is true, then I am immensely looking forward to working with you on this project. Shall we head to the garden? We have a lot of work to do.”
Sounds about right to me, Prof. Au. C'mon Phyto, stop pussyfootin’ and let's get goin’.
Phyto still didn't say anything to me or ART, but fell in behind Perennial and Prof. Au, who did say goodbye as they left.
And then they were gone.
I boarded ART, and headed towards the flora modules, to monitor the last steps of the unloading process.
“Is it enough to fix your interior?”
More than enough, by a great deal.
I looked at the nearest camera I passed by.
“And are you going to ‘get yourself something nice’ with the rest?”
ART glared at me, and I made a rude hand gesture in response (which was hard since I was carrying the two plants, but I managed), before it settled down. It wasn’t my fault Perennial was the way that it was.
It did say I should get something for my interior. Perhaps I will look into a permanent greenhouse space. It could be beneficial for crew missions, and teaching.
I slowed my walking.
“That would be…nice. It would give me somewhere to put this orchid that isn't just my quarters.”
Yes. And you can help Iris with her black thumb. She has killed every plant she has ever tried to keep aboard.
My face did something.
“Yeah. Sound's nice, ART.”
Then that's what I'll do.
I pinged an affirmative, not sure what to say, and continued on towards the modules, my complicated feelings about their departure reducing by the step.
I looked at my orchid, and ART's cactus.
The soil smelled good.