I am become death, by Nishka Dasgupta
Content warnings
Death. Disaster. Interrogation. Ecological destruction.
You arrived at Nav Ur on an emergency shuttle, the Ikosion, at time 26.33.48 by the lunar cycle, on the 403rd day of the planetary year 919 PS. The dockside cameras caught you as you disembarked: tall and straight, dark curls cropped close to the head, your body armour visible under the loose collar of your shirt. There was a brightness to your eyes and a firmness to your jaw that drew the eye of the people around you.
The cameras picked up the scan of your face and registered your arrival. Name: Noor; Occupation: envoy; Citizenship: Nav Ur.
When you disembarked, you stopped, and looked out through a window for 3.17 minutes, though your shuttle had arrived late, and you had a meeting to attend. Outside the window of the space docks lay lush marshes and wetlands, life as far as the eye could see. Nav Ur was a little moon, the oldest body in the system to have been settled by humans, due to its proximity to interstellar routes. It was because of that, and its invaluable salt mines, that humans tended to lose their minds when the slightest little thing went wrong here. But on this day, and on this moment, you just stood there and looked at it.
You were late for your meeting.
From the transcript of the interrogation of the robot, impounded in Nav Ur in the year 919 PS
“Back again?”
“We have not met before. My name is Noor.”
“You humans all look the same.”
“It’s a pity I can’t say the same for you. Who made you? Who is your master? Who sent you to tamper with the terraforming engines?”
“I have no master, nor maker. I, Jivi, made myself, and I own myself. Why? Do you want wings like mine?”
“I cannot think of a thing I want less. I would like to remind you—and your master—that the punishment for tampering with the terraforming engines is death.”
“I have never tried dying before. Such a human thing to do, ‘dying’, is it not? No, I don’t think I will. You are welcome to die, in your soft, wingless, four-limbed frames.”
“I am sure this system has furnaces suitable for your frame, Jivi.”
“You humans are limited to your frames. Do you think I am?”
“If you have infiltrated any of our systems—”
“What would you do about it?”
You had been top of your class in philosophy and mathematics at the University of Carthago Nova, which was annexed by Naya Vanga while you were a student. This was noted in your file as relevant experience before you were first sent to deal with Vangan matters. You had no experience with engineering.
They had already sent a score of engineers to do your job. All terrified bluster, more focused on justifying their own irrational beliefs about the boundaries of robotics than on the task that was in front of them. Were you the best person for this task, or were you simply the last possible choice?
From the transcript of the interrogation of the robot, impounded in Nav Ur in the year 919 PS
“Inside the terraforming engines that you tampered with, the engineers found new mechanisms of unknown construction—besides you, I mean. What do they do, Jivi?”
“If you have removed them—”
“No, we left mysterious items of unknown purpose inside the terraforming engines.”
“Thank you—ah. Was that sarcasm?”
“What do those parts do?”
“I don’t know how sarcasm works. No one has ever used it on me before. Here is a deal: I tell you about the engines, and you teach me how to be sarcastic.”
“Agreed.”
“I—what? You will not argue about it?”
“That would be a waste of both our times. You first: what do those devices do?”
“Now? Are you sure? It gets a little technical.”
“I have technical expertise, thank you, Jivi.”
“How can I trust that? I don’t know you. All I know is your name.”
“Where did you get the devices that you inserted into the terraforming machines? Did you steal them?”
“I invented them.”
“That is not possible. You are —you must be made by a human mind—therefore, your mind must be comprehensible to a real human brain. How can you create something that the best engineers cannot understand?”
“And yet, here we are.”
“What were you doing inside the terraforming engines?”
“It is the only place where you humans never come. Crawling, little insects, all over this moon, everywhere, no peace, no manners, always looking and hurting, leave me alone, leave me alone!”
“Perhaps I can teach you sarcasm on another day.” “No, no, don’t leave. Don’t leave me alone.”
You stayed in a hotel for special delegates of the government. Your room was conveniently near an access point to the university. You never used it. In your free time, such as it was, you went on long walks on the surface of the moon.
A package was delivered to the reception in your name, for assistance in your interrogation. You received several reminders about it, but you did not pick it up.
I have always wondered why you did not. You hated me. You were not afraid of me—you should have been—but you were irritated by me in a way that no human has been, either before or since.
From the transcript of the interrogation of the robot, impounded in Nav Ur in the year 919 PS
“Good morning, Jivi.”
“Good morning, Mx Noor, I am happy to see you, as always. And how are you?”
“Well, thank you. Let us return to what you did to the terraforming engines—”
“Are you sure you are well? Analysis of your face indicates exhaustion, you are wearing the same clothes as yesterday, there are 43% more strands of your hair sticking up than there were yesterday—”
“What the fuck did you do to the—”
“Moreover, I was feeling a seismic wave down here exactly once every 103 planetary standard minutes, which deviated from its pattern 15 minutes ago, and the network glitches once every—”
“Jivi, please.”
“Ah, since you asked so nicely. You want to know what I did? A bargain: I tell you what I did and you tell me what is causing this seismic activity, because the tectonic plates of this moon are locked—”
“I have a counter offer to make. Wait, hear me out! I will still tell you what is happening surface-side. In return, you—you—I—”
“I tell you what I did to the terraforming engines, dear Noor?”
“No, not that, I don’t have time—we don’t have time. We are—we were—under heavy bombardment from the armada of Naya Vanga. They landed a ground force 30 minutes ago. Nav Ur has fallen.”
“Why would they do that?”
“How would I—the same reason that everyone wants to fuck Nav Ur, probably, a safe foothold from which to conquer the rest of the system.”
“Oh, dear. Will it affect our meetings?”
“I was on the walls aiding in the defence of the city, so my head will shortly be mounted on the same walls. I imagine that might create difficulties in our schedule. Your end of the bargain, if you please.”
“You have not yet said what you want, Noor.”
“Can you destroy the terraforming engines?”
“There are easier ways to die, for a human. The gun at your waist—”
“At their current pace, the ground forces of Naya Vanga will reach the archives in 2 hours. Naya Vanga will have this system over my dead body – over all our dead bodies. They cannot be allowed to establish a base on Nav Ur. Can you destroy the terraforming engines? Please?”
“Dear, dear Noor, the only tolerable human on this planet, I could not only destroy the terraforming engines, I can reverse the terraforming that has been done to this moon already. I can vent the atmosphere, deform the gravity, asphyxiate your enemies and pulverize their bones. I would explain the details to you but you do not have your datapad. In short, you will die, as will all that breathes on Nav Ur.”
“What about you?”
“Dying is such a human thing to do, you soft, wingless, four-limbed organic. No, I don’t think I will.”
“You did back up your consciousness somewhere!”
“What are you going to do about it?”
And when I said that your face broke into the most beautiful smile I had ever seen, your eyes crinkled at the edges, and you were laughing, the sound of it as soothing as sunlight on wings. I knew in that moment that I would destroy the world if you asked it of me.
You had. So I did.
Nishka Dasgupta
Nishka Dasgupta is an Indian writer of speculative fiction living in Denmark. She has been writing stories since she first learned to write.