Audit's Abacus
by Robert Bagnall
After Audit had integrated itself with the systems on board Saikat Bhosle's ship, its artificial eyes dilating and constricting, its head tilting as though listening intently, it asked flatly, "Would you like me to assess the risk of this ship taking off?"
"Are you being funny?" Saikat Bhosle snapped, wondering what to do with the dead systems-master that he had been forced to strip out mid-flight, now little more than a black box and an octopus of wires. He had promised himself that he would upgrade to an android--it seemed to be expected nowadays--just at a time of his choosing.
"Humor is a higher level of programming than I have been endowed with. My deep specialism is risk management."
"I know, I know.... But I can teach you. I can teach you humor."
"Engine and structure nearing end of life," Audit stated, "Communications system patched beyond recommended levels. Integrity of life support cannot be assessed."
"Enough," Saikat Bhosle ordered. "Please do not attempt humor on your own, especially irony. Right now, we have cargo to move. And we are behind schedule."
It was a heavy landing, made more so by Saikat Bhosle's refusal to jettison his cargo until the last moment. They plowed into silvery water, the cockpit a delirium of red emergency lighting and shrill alarms, before slamming hard into rock.
Saikat unstrapped himself and instantly regretted it as he rolled out of his seat. He grimaced, suspecting broken ribs.
"Where are we?"
"46578MNU. It is regarded as a class four asteroid belt object."
This did not sound good. Not a planet. Barely a planetoid.
"Oxygen?"
"Limited."
"Gravity?"
"Limited."
"Water."
"Limited."
A moment's confusion. "I thought we put down into water."
"Mercury."
This was worse. They'd put down onto a poisoned rock. And coms was gone. They couldn't even send a mayday.
"What state are we in?"
"Repairable. But we will be severely limited in power. We will be limited to one take-off only."
"If we can get to a planet where we can be repaired...."
"We will be limited to one take-off only."
With a sense of horror Saikat Bhosle understood. One take-off was all the engines could take, burning them out. After that they would drift. All he could do was laugh.
"Do you wish to continue discussions on humor?" Audit deadpanned, misunderstanding.
"No. Can you carry out the repairs?"
Saikat's hand had come away bloody from under his flight jacket. He was more seriously injured than he realized.
"I have the capability."
The first crumb of comfort. If he had simply fitted a new passive systems-master he would have been the one outside in the mercury fumes with the arc welder.
"Get it repaired. And then plot a course that gets us anywhere."
"Please clarify."
A shudder of irritation-- only he seemed to have any sense of the magnitude of the hole they were in.
"Anywhere with life. Anywhere that can help us. Plot a course that takes us into the gravitational pull of an inhabited planet. Or a floating trading post. Plot a course that collides with a passing freighter. Plot a course that makes us drift into a militarized zone. Anything. Nothing else matters. You understand?"
The hatch opened with a sigh, an airlock's worth of breathable oxygen lost, and Audit descended to the planetoid's surface.
They had hit a thin lake of mercury, planing like a skimmed stone, then beaching on dry land against a low rocky outcrop. It was pure bad luck. From one arcing horizon to the other a plateau stretched; the only visible features of any note were the mercury lake and the shapeless basalt lump against which Saikat Bhosle's craft crazily slumped. Otherwise, as far as the eye could see, the steppe was covered in grey spherical boulders.
Impervious to the mercury fumes, Audit carried out the repairs diligently. The damage to the superstructure was drastic and yet irrelevant. Drastic because an entire landing leg had been torn away as they skated up on to the beach. Irrelevant, as the chance of it being required again for a normal landing was minimal. If anything, take-off would be helped by the missing weight.
Audit quickly calculated the risks of removing the remaining landing legs, using the recovered metal to repair hull breaches. The time required was considerable, but the percentage chance of survival was increased by... Audit's eyes flickered, and it had a figure.
As it worked Audit assessed their options, which narrowed to one: the artificial trading post, Pointer S67, a floating fueling point. The ship's charts provided all the astronomical data required for Audit to set a course, incorporating the gravitational effects of the planetoid and the various other bodies that they would have to slingshot around.
Audit stopped.
Its eyes pulsated, its head cocked. It felt itself come up a mental wall, a blackness, a void. The calculation was beyond the number of digits it could hold.
How could this be?
