planetary

[dark_light]

Over the next week, Isabella gets the alethiometer to tell her that the planets they looked at don't contain microorganisms that know what to do with a human body (although the one with the giant bugs has some multicellular parasites that might be able to make do with the foreign macro-scale features of a human body if they got the chance). "The present", it includes in one of its answer phrasings, which is kind of worrying. But Adarin makes enough progress with his scry in little enough time that it's worth the double-check.

Isabella also hires ticket-takers, gives them little pots of ink to verify the authenticity of the passes she handed out, and opens the Los Angeles - New York route for the employees of her three companies of choice and anyone who shells out a cool fifteen thousand dollars per round trip (ten K for a one-way). This is steep, but it's within an order of magnitude of what people sometimes pay for short-notice first-class cross-country flights - with less novelty and more hassle. Albeit she doesn't supply inflight meals. She expects to have to raise the price when more people hear about it in response to volume and then be able to drop it again.

By the time the thing has been open for a few days she's fired and replaced one ticket-taker and the others have settled into a routine that she's willing to try out leaving unsupervised for awhile.

If Adarin's up for some up close and personal planet shopping and his results suggest it'll go well, anyway.

Comments

[prodigal_miser]

The entire way, Adarin is paranoid and on alert for any obvious robots, or less obvious maybe-robots. If it looks even vaguely threatening, he'd like to know about it.

When they come across the one they met before, Adarin gives it a bit of a cold glare.

"Should we try talking to this one?"

[dark_light]

"It talked before," Isabella says. She coughs and switches to the tongue-twister language: "Will you t-" She switches words for easier pronunciation; it's really a wretched language to force out of a human throat. "Will you converse with us?"

"REPEAT QUESTION FOR VOICE RECOGNITION"

"Will - you - converse - with - us?"

"THIS UNIT IS EQUIPPED FOR VERBAL COMMUNICATION - THIS UNIT IS NOT OCCUPIED"

"Does that mean yes?"

"YES"

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin nods, then switches to the language, enunciating carefully. "Why - is - everyone - gone?"

First priority; why is everyone on the planet dead. If it's cosmic rays that kill people every other hour he thinks it's very, very important to know that now.

[dark_light]

"THIS REGION HAS BEEN EVACUATED AS A QUARANTINE BUFFER"

"When was that?" asks Isabella.

"FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN AND THREE QUARTERS YEARS AND SEVEN DAYS"

"Adarin," says Isabella, and she switches back to English, "can you tell how long the years on this planet are without using up too much mana or should we save it for when we go home?"

[prodigal_miser]

"I can, it's not a big spell," he says, more at ease now that the robot isn't acting like it's going to point weaponry at them. He's still on edge, but less so now. So, he checks.

"One-hundred and forty-seven days," pronounces Adarin. "But they're days from here, and those're - ugh, about twice as long as days on Earth. That's annoying."

[dark_light]

"Well, two is a reasonably convenient fraction for math, even if it'll give people sleep cycle oddness." Back to Terrible Alien Language. "What are your orders?" she asks the robot.

"PREVENT C'THKBRRI INVADER SCUM FROM TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE QUARANTINE EVACUATION TO OBTAIN NOBLE NNSARXPH TERRITORY"

"Over what time scale?"

"UNTIL OUR ORDERS ARE RESCINDED FROM THE CAPITAL COMMAND CENTER"

Isabella decides to push her luck. "Where's the capital?"

"TBLRRSAM" answers the robot.

English: "You want to see if we can find their capital and reprogram these things, maybe find other data on the invasion and get an idea if there are more robot factions?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Hmm. Yeah, that seems like the best idea. I would like to know if there are robot factions and if I need to break any of them."

"Can you give directions to the capital?" asks Adarin in the robot's language, carefully pronouncing the awkward words.

[dark_light]

"TBLRRSAM IS ON THE ISLAND OF NNSARXPHAGLURVVRTW"

"...We don't have any units in common with the alien robot, do we," says Isabella in English. "Distances, speeds..."

[prodigal_miser]

"And I doubt they have a version of Wikipedia," sights Adarin. "That's a bit annoying."

[dark_light]

"How far," Isabella asks the robot, "am I from you right now?"

"TWELVE MRR"

"How many mrr is it from here to the nearest shore of - the island with Tublurrsam on it?"

"ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-NINE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN - AT HIGHEST TIDE"

[prodigal_miser]

"Which direction is it? Please point," says Adarin.

[dark_light]

The robot extends a pokey sharp thing and points it in a direction.

[prodigal_miser]

In English: "Well, that works. Do you want to ask it more questions, or should we try going there?"

[dark_light]

"I have a few more questions..." Horrible tongue-twisting language. "How many robots belonging to the Nnsarxeph are there?"

"NINE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT CONTINUE TO REPORT THAT THEY ARE OPERATIONAL"

"The others are - broken down?"

"OTHER UNITS HAVE BEEN DECOMMISSIONED - CANNIBALIZED TO ENABLE PROLONGATION OF THE SERVICE OF CONTINUING UNITS - DAMAGED BEYOND FIELD REPAIR - DESTROYED - OR LOST"

"How many robots have had one of those things happen to them in the last - four hundred years?"

"TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN"

"All nine hundred and eighty-eight of the operational robots are working at full capacity?"

"YES"

"How many are in this city right now?"

"ONE HUNDRED AND THREE"

[prodigal_miser]

"How many of them are in the capital?"

There are quite a lot of robots. It was probably a smart idea to not break the robot, if that many would have attacked him and Isabella.

(That doesn't mean he regrets wanting to.)

[dark_light]

"TWO HUNDRED AND NINE"

"And all these robots acknowledge that we are not enemies, and they will not harm us, and they will talk to us if we talk to them?"

"YES - ALL UNITS HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED"

"Do all the robots know the same things?"

"YES - INTERUNIT COMMUNICATIONS ARE FULLY OPERATIONAL"

"What authorization is required to alter robot orders from the capital command center?"

"THE AUTHORIZATION OF THE HIGHEST OFFICIAL OF THE NOBLE NNSARXPH MILITARY"

"...Who is that right now?"

"OUR DATABASE HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE THE DEATH OF SENIOR EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE SPECIALIST VVIRT"

Isabella hesitates, then says: "What would happen if I told you I field-promoted myself to senior equipment maintenance specialist?"

"THE SYSTEMS OF PROMOTION CURRENTLY IMPLEMENTED DUE TO PERSONNEL CRISIS ALLOW ANYONE OTHER THAN THE VILE C'THKBRRI INVADERS TO SELF-ENLIST AND TAKE POSITIONS BELOW THE RANK OF GRAND HONORABLE CXCXPHG"

"So you'd acknowledge me as a senior equipment maintenance specialist if I told you to."

"YES"

[prodigal_miser]

"... Hm. Okay, that's really, really tempting, and I love you so much for thinking of it," declares Adarin. "We should check that it won't get other robots to try and kill us, though. Especially if we declare ourselves part of the group they're invading."

"Do the vile Cithkbrri invaders have -" he searches for the right word "- have robots, too?"

[dark_light]

"CURRENT STATUS OF C'THKBRRI INVADER SCUM ROBOTIC ARSENAL UNKNOWN"

"Did they, four hundred years ago?" asks Isabella.

"C'THKBRRI HAVE USED ROBOTIC FORCES IN QUANTITIES NOT EXCEEDING TWENTY-FIVE UNIT PROTOTYPE BATCHES OF AT LEAST FIVE DIFFERENT CHASSIS"

"So there's probably never been more than about a hundred fifty, two hundred fifty, Sthikbrri robots," interprets Isabella, "and if the loss rates are similar to these guys, they've lost more than two-thirds - and I bet it's worse because if they're different kinds they won't be able to cannibalize each other for parts."

[prodigal_miser]

"That helps, a bit. Do you want to be the senior equipment maintenance specialist, or should I declare it? We could maybe pull something where we both have authority, but I'm worried any leftovers of the other type of robot would figure it out and we'd have to blow them up rather than trying to recruit them, too."

[dark_light]

"There's no guarantee that the invader scum left security holes so big you could drive a truck through them," Isabella points out.

[prodigal_miser]

"True. But I can dream," says Adarin wryly.

[dark_light]

"How good were the - rather, how much of a threat were the invaders' robots the last time you got intel on them?" Isabella asks their robot.

"INVADER SCUM ROBOTICS IS MUCH INFERIOR TO THAT OF NOBLE NNSARXPH. ONE UNIT OF THIS TYPE WILL DEFEAT A SINGLE ONE OF THE VILE C'THKBRRI ROBOTS ONE HUNDRED TIMES OUT OF ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE. OUTNUMBERED INVADER SCUM ROBOTS HAVE INVARIABLY LOST CONFLICTS WITH UNITS OF THIS TYPE."

[prodigal_miser]

"Hm. Okay, that helps. Guess we can drive the metaphorical truck through the huge holes in security without much trouble, then. Do you want an army of robots, or do I get it?"

[dark_light]

"I totally want an army of robots. I think I'll wait to promote myself till we're on that capital island, though, in case we learn something else or think of a better idea. Hey," she says to the robot, switching again, "how are you at learning new languages?"

"NEW LANGUAGE PROGRAMS MAY BE ADDED AT THE CAPITAL COMMAND CENTER"

"Pity. Okay... oh - besides the invader scum and your own noble people - what factions were there on this planet as of four hundred years ago?"

"OUR VALUED ALLIES THE BBNNSKT - OUR VALUED ALLIES THE AMNRLK - THE ALLIES OF THE INVADER SCUM, THE NYSTBLI - THE ALLIES OF THE INVADER SCUM, THE ENSZZGRTE - OUR WORTHY NEUTRAL ARBITER THE RRRWEN"

[prodigal_miser]

"And how many robots to each of those factions have, as of four hundred years ago?" asks Adarin. Hey, if they can both get an army of robots, even better. He might need them.