Organics

Meredith met Prosper Rush in his private office: a luxury afforded to him as Head of the Maintenance Corp. Today, instead of its usual live feed form the ferry docks, he had the VR window set to a scene of an alpine meadow, with mountains in the blue distance and waves of tall grass in the foreground.

Humans liked such images of vegetation, Meredith had observed, even humans like Prosper, who had a reputation among the humans of the station for a certain coldness. That was a concept that Meredith’s processors had translated as the concern for the mechanical integrity of the station over comfort of the humans aboard. A complicated idea for them to parse out, for sustaining the station’s brittle shell against space was vital. But the station was meant for the humans habitation, and human survival was, in fact, her top priority. It was a conundrum that Meredith had clicked over for quite some time, ever since her fifth software update so many years ago.

Her memory banks stored an image of Prosper as he was then: nearly as young as her system had been, newly assigned to the Headship of the Corp but steady as sunlight and supremely confident in himself nonetheless. They had worked well together for over fifty years now. Prosper had none of the standard human qualms about dealing with a robot, and Meredith had only become more and more like a human as her data-gathering programs and frequent updates made her AI more and more sophisticated.

Now one of Meredith’s satellite bodies sat across from Prosper in his office: a human-shaped frame that allowed her to do the “legwork” of maintenance. The change of scene in the VR window prompted Meredith to scan for other elements in vicinity that had shifted, and her visual compendium noted an unexpected presence of gray in the thick black hair at Prosper’s temples.

Prosper was nearing retirement age, although his performance at work was still unmatched by any other unit on the Corp. But that was the way it worked: parts wore out, wore down, and once the biological frame could sustain no more transplants or stim-sessions, the unit in question had to be retired before a catastrophic breakdown occurred. It was as true for humans as it was for ‘bots. And when Prosper was gone, there would be a new Head for Meredith to work with, to learn from: a new source of data to feed her algorithms.

“Domestic water usage,” Prosper said, scanning the dossier she had handed him. “What’s the problem, then?”

“During the period I surveyed,” Meredith replied, “each household met or exceeded their daily quota. When taken into account along with the water requirements of the manufacturing, hydroponics, and maintenance corps, consumption of residential units is disproportionate to their actual needs.”

Prosper’s facial features moved: his eyebrows drew together and his mouth turned down a fraction. It was not a frown, her face-interpretation program determined, but an expression of thought.

“Where’s the waste?” he asked.

Meredith reached across the desk. “If I may...?” she asked, unfailingly polite. Her original programmer had based her personality chip in a systematic set of manners, and all of her interactional matrices were based around politeness.

Prosper slid the dossier within her reach; Meredith flipped through the thin pages quickly, much faster than a human could. Outside this office, she would have taken pains to be humanly slow, but Prosper was used to robotic performances, particularly hers.

“Most of the usage is acceptable,” she said, stopping at a table that broke down the different categories of usage. “However, up to ten percent of the average daily consumption is spent on watering herbaceous organics that are kept within the housing unit.”

Prosper tilted his head. “The pocket gardens, you mean?”

“Yes.” Servos in the face of her satellite body whirred as Meredith frowned. “You were aware of this waste already? And you have not brought it to attention before this?”

“Well,” said Prosper. “I confess that I did not think of it as waste.”

“It is wasteful,” Meredith said. “The Hydroponics Corp supplies all the plant life necessary for nutrition purposes. Using domestic water to maintain home-unit organic growth is redundant, as well as counter-productive. It uses up water that could be repurposed to any of the vital operations that require it.”

“Quantified in that way,” Prosper said, “you’re correct.”

Meredith waited for him to go on. “What other way is there to quantify the data?” she asked him when he did not.

Her software waited quietly, open like a net for more input into her algorithms.

Prosper was no longer looking at her but at the scene of the meadow in his window. In profile, his face looked even older, more lined.

On a whim Meredith overlaid one of her old archive images of Prosper as a young man, with him as he sat before her now. The contrast was marked but odd. Had both figures been in the same room at once, her software would have seen separate people. Knowing that each was an image of Prosper at opposite ends of a human life sent a confused ripple through her processors.

“On Earth,” he said finally, “they have seasons.”

Meredith waited. “Yes,” she said.

“Here on the station, humans still have their seasons. We just have to find different ways to measure them, that’s all.” He shook his head. Not displeasure, Meredith’s programs told her, but something else. Something more like sadness but not like grief. Her processors whirred, puzzled by the contradictions in his expression.

“Prosper,” she said suddenly. “When are you retiring?”

He looked back to her. “End of next month,” he told her, vocal tone conveying no surprise at her non sequitur. “It’s been some time coming.”

Meredith watched the two images of Prosper move side by side with each other. Echoes and mirrors of the same life. One here now, the other an archived set of data.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Some time.”