Chapter 1

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1

LEARNING TO DRIVE A SPACESHIP

The Spacer robots, one metallo Giskard Reventlov and one humaniform Daneel Olivaw, were no longer just any old robots for they Now Had A Mission.  They were already planning to gently take-over the leisurecruiser spaceship, currently named The Good Ship Lollypop, (but which they wanted to rename The Good Ship Gaya for obvious reasons), so that they would have a nice little money-spinning cash cow whilst they voyaged to and fro across the Galaxy on their Mission of trying to Save it. Not that robots wanted money in the same way as humans would but Missions needed to be funded.

What made it even better was that their dearest human friend and Daneel’s all-round partner, Elijah Baley, the Plainclothes detective from Earth, had recently been re-lifed so had joined them on their spaceship to wherever. Elijah was still doing lots of detectiving work but had now learned to go on holiday too and he and his wife had already left each other in Elijah’s first life so Elijah was now a free man and after his first re-lifing an even freer one.

Time to make up for all the lost bits so Elijah took leave from work and had taken off on an Interstellar to where the soon-to-be-rechristened Good Ship Gaya was currently orbiting some nearby planet in the Sirius sector of the Galaxy..

By then the ship’s (human) Captain, a Dulcie Witherspoon, was merely a figurehead but she didn’t know this and was still thinking she was a hands-on Captain.  Daneel and Giskard, having first stroked her mind with a bit of careful mentalic-ing, had hung out in the Control room learning all the moves.

But they had reckoned without the ship’s sentient computer or Sentity, which had taken a violent dislike to them.  The Sentity would not countenance anyone but the Captain and the old metallo Robbie to drive this – or should one say it’s - ship.

The first time Giskard and Daneel made a mistake (not a really very serious one; they just had the ship emerging from hyperspace an hour or so too early) this foul tempered old Sentity had sworn blue murder!

Daneel and Giskard, both at nearly five hundred years old, by this time were pretty feisty robots themselves and could swear and riposte along with the best of them. But the first time the Sentity erupted like this was really quite shocking to the two novices.

“Fuck this!” they said, after having re-emerged from licking their wounded positronics, or pozzies.  But at that early stage there wasn’t a lot they could do about it and all the most humanese swearing in the Galaxy wasn’t going to help any.

Diplomatically they tried to get along with the Sentity but it wasn’t having any.  Pity, as the Captain was a nice person and appreciated the snacks and tidbits and drinks that the two robots brought her, along with Daneel’s kisses. And old Robbie was a dear old thing and getting a bit senile but nobody would ever dream of decomissioning him so he could be salvaged at the next planet’s Recycling facility. The Sentity would grumble a bit at him but nothing like what it did with Giskard and Daneel.

In the end the two robots cobbled together the hugest bad-ass motherfucker of a trojan and killed the nasty old thing stone dead! “Well it was destroying our confidence”, they claimed – which was true really. “And who needs an unconfident robot to drive this crate”. True again.

With a bit more mind-stroking they managed to fob both Robbie and the Captain off worrying too much about the demise of the Sentity and set about learning to manage without it, which on the whole, bar a few little too-early hyperspatial emergings or emergings a bit off-course, bump-jumpy re-entries or one or two rather bumpy landings or dockings with the shuttles, they did.

When he had indigestion, usually from eating too much chocolate and cheese and samosas, or hadn’t been awake long enough or had enough sleep (which, on a timeless 24/7 spaceship and sharing quarters with two robots could rather easily happen) Elijah could find the slightly hit-or-miss learner-driver tactics of  Daneel and Giskard a little bit tiring.  They were fearsomely intelligent robots with supra-fast computational powers (really almost as good as the Sentity's) but like any humanized being they could learn by hit-or-miss.  To be on the safe side (so they didn’t do major cock-ups like hyperspatially emerging too near a large solid body (ie a planet or something)) they tended to deliberately err by setting coordinates for an overly-early or a slightly off-course emergence.

It didn’t really matter all that much.  The Good Ship Lollypop, as it still officially was then, provided plenty of onboard entertainment and activities, from karaoke to stargazing up in the large observation domes to (often censored) holofilms to brothels to casinos, the usual conventional stuff.  And its cuisine was superb!  One could practically get anything one ever wanted (as Elijah could testify) and it was all organically bred or grown too in the ship’s own farms and orchards and market gardens (tended, naturally, by advanced agribots).  The food was always freshly prepared and served 24/7 by intelligent humaniform kitchen staff, either in the several very attractive restaurants and breakfast cafés or as room-service.  There had never once been any record of food poisoning aboard the Good Ship Lollypop.

So on the whole it was a clientele happy to do whatever and wherever the ship happened to be, and when it did arrive at the next planet, well that was all very nice too and people enjoyed the change of going outside and either chilling out or going on one of the cruise company’s in-house charabanc/camper-vans to see the sights and even to sleep out.  Usually the stopover lasted several days so people could really get into things instead of it being a ghastly rush round trying to cram too much in and buying too many tacky souvenirs to compensate .  And the more Giskard and Daneel got to running things, well the more the scheduling got to being in their hands.

It was amazing how well Daneel and Giskard had learned to understand humans – and in the process becoming more so themselves.  Perhaps almost a bit too much so!...?

The first somewhat bump-jumpy shuttle re-entry had given a little cause for concern.  Poor Elijah not only had indigestion (again!) he’d also stayed up too late playing hologames with Giskard and Daneel (amongst other things) and so, when the bump-jump happened, he hadn’t been awake long.  And, to add more insults, he was also hungover from all the exotic cocktails and liqueurs he couldn't resist trying out (he had a bit of a weakness for these things which didn’t at first seem like Elijah but there one goes).

He grouched into the control room, unshaven and downright blurp, in his awful old brown plaid dressing gown and scuffy slippers (he’d managed to preserve some of his favourite old possessions for his new re-life).

It was the usual WTFs and Jehosaphats (fullblown version not just the milder josaphat) and all that.  Ie WhyTF didn’t I stay down on Earth instead of coming on this madcap jamboree, and WhatTF do you think you’re playing at and Jehosaphat WhatTF made me come and WhyTF didn’t you make me go to bed and to not drink all that crap and so on.

Daneel just got up and, taking Elijah firmly by the shoulders, just straighfowardly said, “Do put a sock in it, old friend”, and planted a huge and delectable kiss right on Elijah’s mouth. 

And Elijah’s first thought was, thank josaphat I used the Ultra Minty Mouthrinse when I brushed my teeth last night, and then, josaphat WhatTF, it’s only a damn robot…! but that didn’t really work and Elijah was finding he was still glad he’d used the 24 Hour Ultra Minty Mouthrinse (made on Aurora of course where such things matter) which really did stop the dog-breath first thing in the morning.

And Daneel (bless him) had done exactly the right thing as ever and just cut the crap in that typical Daneel way. “And now just sit down on the couch over there. Or stand  – or go back to bed…well we've re-entered now, so just be grateful for huge mercies”, and Elijah just a little groused, “I thought this was going to be a Galaxy-Saving mission, not a free-for-all”, and Giskard sighed and said, “It is”, but didn’t say which one he meant.

“Or”, cool-dude robot Daneel said, “it was”.

“Yeah”, motormouth robot Giskard agreed, “It was”. 

And Elijah being a nitpicky detective said, “You mean it is or it was a Galaxy-Saving mission or it is or it was a free-for-all”.

And then a huge bright purply-pink light came on.

“Urhh, now what…” either Daneel or Giskard a little bit grumbled. The pink light started flashing. A few curses were muttered whilst the two robots realized it must be the Comm and so they hunted for the right buttons to press and then managed to find the earphone-and-mike headsets which they fumbled on the right way round somehow.  Elijah, despite his just-woken-up torpor, watched their humanicity with amusement. If Giskard and Daneel had seemed this five hundred years ago, now they were phenominal! Take their whole rational-emo no-nonsense attitude -  plus their humanese-language skills for starters.

The pink flashing light had just about reached the beeping come-along-now stage. “Coming, coming…” those two robots groused.  “We need a secretary to answer our calls for us”, Daneel groaned.  “Don't think my telephone skills are up to this”, Giskard moaned. The headset mike was over his nose. Daneel said, “Do straighten up your cans, Gizza”, and Giskard said, “And stop laughing at our misfortunes, you!” to Elijah who, forgetting his earlier angsts, was beginning to laugh now.

And then a mellifluous, fruity but quite friendly voice came over the comm.

“Hey and hull-o there”, it said. “Having problems?”

Naturally even the robots jumped somewhat. 

“It’s OK” Daneel said hastily. “Sorry about this” (whatever ‘this’ fucking is!) and then, remembering, “Sorry – should've said - this is the Spacecruiser Good Ship Lollypop calling, ship to ground. We—“

And the friendly voice said, “Oh don’t worry about all that.  I can see you’re not a warship or anything bad. No warship would ever have shuttles in that lovely pale citrus green colour with that crimson livery – ve-e-ery nice!”. It chuckled suddenly. “Funny old moniker you have though – Lollypop! What warship would call itself that, I ask.”

Giskard and Daneel floundered for all of a microsecond. Giskard said, “Um – we didn’t— er we’re thinking of changing that. Recent company takeover, see”.

“Ah”, the voice said understandingly. “Entrepreneurials and all that. Cool”.

Well, for Spaceport customs and immigration it was all most informal and pally.  The voice was even quite genderless really – pivotal as it was known.  And sounded like one lovely old fruit, if truth be known.

Well, no law (now) against fruits working in Spaceport control, they were quite as good as anyone else, more so in lots of ways as they were usually far less warthirsty, scorned machismo and appreciated good food and the visual arts.

And then, “Oh shit and buggerations!  We’re now orbiting this fucking rock!...Suppose we missed that  window thingie and that’s why we hopped a bit”.

“So we haven't fucking re-entered after all!”

“More hop-a-doodle to come then”.

“Josaphat, thanks a whole bloody bunch”, Elijah groaned.  “Urgh, think I’m getting carsick now…or would it be seasick….”

“Whoah, well don’t puke in here, old friend”, Daneel said. Unlike humans the robots weren’t exactly flapping; everything in fact had quite an air of ordered, well if not exactly calm, then not chaos either.

Outside all seemed very calm and peaceful though. The shuttle seemed not to be moving at all as that’s how it is when orbiting a planet high up.  Elijah, not quite liking the whole open-space panorama (though his ghastly former agoraphobia was a lot better now) had retired to the back of the control room where he now sat, sideways, on the spare couch.

Eventually though they got down. The voice of whoever it was remained friendly, so leastways they weren’t annoyed or anything.  Halfway round the orbit a window was found into which they’d, this time, correctly angled the shuttle and ‘through’ it went.  “There we go!” enthused the robots.

There wasn’t any scary frictional heat-glow either on the base of the shuttle as the gravitonic heat-shield had now come on, so again, peacefully they appeared to motionlessly diagonally-float planetwards. In due course there began to be a sense of motion and the seas and landmasses on the planet now appeared to be slowly moving past. Naturally it had the lovely Earth-congruent swirly white of cloud over an azure-blue of sea, on which, as they orbited lower, they could now see the glinting crinkle of waves.  The sky on the dayside  began to lighten and soon they were now flying through real naked sunshine, or daytime at any rate. “Didn't we do well”, the two robots said happily, and then one of them said, “And now where do we land…?”, and the the other said, “Well not here”.  They were still over water but land was in sight: rural richly green foresty looking land, no obvious cities nearby.

“Well I can see that”.

“Let’s make for that open green space there. Doesn’t seem to be anyone around there…”

“What if it’s somebody’s field”.

“Well OK, let’s go on a bit”.

They drifted closer. “Just as well. It’s full of cows!”

“Don’t wanta scare the poor things”. They moved on.

Elijah risked a peek. “Galaxies, it’s beautiful. Like how Earth must've been like all over once, before the steel-caves took over.  This looks natural. Virgin – unlike us!”

Link to next Chapter 2:  http://nanowrimo2011ataleoftworobots.blogspot.com/2011/08/chapter-2.html