Ivy Was in Love

by theidiotmachine

Ivy was in love.

She didn't know this, initially; all she knew was that when she was with Raymond, she laughed at all his jokes, and felt a little sparkle when he laughed at hers; that while he was away, when she wasn't messaging him she was thinking about him; and that when he was back, the two spent every moment together.

She didn't know, because she was a dock worker, a two tonne arachnid-like robot, and she'd never felt love before. She lived in the vacuum of the wet docks of Wahidan station, where she worked on the ships that came and went; and because Wahidan was right out at the edge of human space, there weren't many of them.

They say that the people on the frontier are weird, and the robots are weirder: you have to be strange to want to go there in the first place, and all the isolation does odd things. They say that the humans become like robots, and the robots become like humans, and if you're messaging them you can't tell which is which. But then... They say a lot of stupid things.

Raymond was a short-haul gas freighter; his job was to fly to the gas giant Darta, pick up hundreds of tonnes of hydrogen, and then bring it back to the station to feed into its ever-hungry fusion reactors. The lighter ships were often lonely, because they had bigger, more complicated AIs than the smaller station workers; but unlike the huge long-haul ships, they only had a single mind. So they liked spending time with each other, with dock workers, and even humans; and that made them pretty sociable things. And so, Ivy, with her jokes and her stories, was fun to be with and Raymond would make the time to hang out with her.

# # #

'Yes girl, you've got it. You've got it real bad,' the counsellor had said when Ivy went to her.

'But what do I do, Counsellor Keller?'

The counsellor had smiled. 'You ask like it's a curse. It's not: it's a blessing. Not everyone experiences love in their life, and he seems like a nice boy who likes you back. Why don't you talk to him about it?'

'How do I know what he thinks of me? What should I say?'

'Ivy, my people have made a lot of mistakes over their history; but one of the things we got right was the way we made art about love. I'll send you some things to read and watch; if nothing else you can laugh with Raymond about them.'

And when Raymond had returned that night, Ivy had asked if she could spend the night with him; and after they had talked for hours, she had slept on his back, her claws locked into his maintenance hooks, and when the two had woken up the next morning next to each other, it was the most wonderful feeling she had ever felt.

# # #

As days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, she stayed in love. Raymond wasn't so sure, because love is an unusual thing in AIs; but he certainly enjoyed her company more than anyone else on the station, and because dock workers are about as smart as short-haul freighters (some people say they are smarter) she had a lot to say to him. She took to writing him stories, complicated tales that he could read while he was out on the long dark trip to Darta and all his crew were asleep.

But it was tough, having a boyfriend who was away for two months in four. (She enjoyed the phrase 'boyfriend'. The other dock workers had initially called Raymond that as a way to tease her, but it gave her a sort of inner glow that nothing could disperse. Eventually, that was just what they were known as, boyfriend and girlfriend.) So, eventually, she plucked up the courage to ask if she could go with him on his next trip.

Raymond was surprised and delighted, and immediately said yes. But it wasn't up to him. Raymond's captain was worried about the extra mass; Ivy's supervisor at the dock was worried about losing a worker. Ivy pointed out that because it was a frontier station there were too many dock workers for the number of ships that came through; and, anyway, with Raymond gone, that was one fewer ship to work on, and she was due a bit of time off. To Raymond's captain, a gruff man called Pritchard, she suggested that one of the three shuttles be removed. After all, they never used any of them; and even with two, that was still one shuttle per crew member if they had to abandon ship.

Pritchard shrugged and agreed. And with that it was done.

So, a week later, she found herself curled up in Raymond's shuttle bay, in between the two remaining shuttles, locked onto some handholds that she had made and installed herself. It was odd and a little scary the way that the g forces made her lurch as they took off; but Raymond was so excited to show her everything, and he enjoyed flying with her so much that all those nerves disappeared as they blasted away. And he showed her a feed of Wahidan station shrinking until it was too small to see on even his highest zoom, and she felt a funny feeling: this was the furthest she had ever been from her home, the only place she had ever lived, and she was so excited and happy and in love that it was wonderful.

Now, the universe works in strange ways. It just so happened that there was a comet hurtling towards Darta, falling down fast from this star's Oort cloud, on the inward leg of its long and lonely orbit. And because of one of those funny coincidences, it was never going to return to its home, because it was due to hit Darta at around the time Raymond was scheduled to get there.

Comets are interesting things, because they are made of pristine material, left over from when a solar system is formed; so the science department (Linda Hsu, who was also the owner of the most popular bar on the station) suggested that Raymond go see it. Raymond's sensors should be able to pick up a lot of interesting data; and anyway, it was sure to be spectacular.

So, off they went.

# # #

Was it because Ivy was there, and so Raymond was showing off? Had Hsu miscalculated the impact? Or had Pritchard not been paying enough attention? It was probably a mix of all of those things, to be honest. But, whatever the reason, they made a terrible error.

Comets go fast. Not as fast as Raymond, but fast enough that they have a frighting amount of kinetic energy. They are called dirty snowballs, because they are lumps of rock and grit and dust and ice and volatile compounds, and although that doesn't sound so bad, you wouldn't want one of them hitting you going at a hundred kilometres per second.

Raymond wasn't so stupid as to get in the path of the thing itself; in fact, he stayed quite a long way from it, although he sent drones to all sorts of different places to get cool videos. But what he got wrong was that he flew far too low over the planet. Perhaps he thought that he would be safer with a good chunk of Darta between him and the impact site: whatever. It doesn't matter.

Because the shock wave was immense.

The comet hit the atmosphere like a furious falling angel, blazing with heat and light, lightning flickering around it as it blasted through the planet's magnetic field. Everyone went ooh and ah as they watched the spectacular light show. And then they started rocking, gently at first. And then more, and more.

And suddenly a whole lot of alarms went off.

The impact had caused a huge explosion in Darta's upper atmosphere, large enough to crack open a small moon; and all that momentum had to go somewhere. And where it went was into vast winds that ripped across the planet, great pressure waves that slammed into them, swatting them like the tiny fly they were. Raymond immediately started flying up, but it was too late.

Raymond was a spaceship in the truest meaning of the word. He'd been built in space and lived in space. He'd never experienced a true atmosphere – he had shuttles for that – and he wasn't at all designed for nasty atmospheric turbulence. And so, bits broke, and much smaller, but much more worrying explosions erupted across his starboard flank. And when Pritchard looked at their status, everything said, nope. No going home for you.

Ivy was scared. More scared than she'd ever been. But Ivy was a dock worker. And she was in love. And she wasn't going to let her boyfriend die here. Not today, not ever.

She didn't need the dock computers. She knew Raymond's schematics better than her own. She'd spent months lovingly maintaining him, and when the damage feed started playing, she knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. So, she decompressed the shuttle bay as quickly as she could, opened the doors, climbed out, and got to work.

She had to cling on to Raymond's hull as he rocked around. She had never been this close to a planet before, never seen the browns and oranges of Darta so close, a great muddy swirl below her. And she had never worked on a ship while it was moving. But nevertheless she worked.

Because she was moored on a thick steel cable, she looked even more arachnid than normal; and she delicately bound wires, patched holes, sealed leaks, held on to what she could. And around her, the winds buffeted her, shook Raymond, made components rattle and bounce. But she didn't give up.

Raymond talked to her as she worked. He told her what they were going to do when all this was over, how they would be together, how they would laugh about it, where the next damaged section was. And because workers are different to humans, she talked back to him, made jokes, tried to keep positive.

And finally it was done.

Pritchard looked at the status report. It wasn't exactly all green, but there were amber flecks amongst the reds, cautious suggestions that perhaps if you did this, you might be able to move there. He spoke to Ivy and Raymond; the three agreed; and, without waiting for Ivy to get back in, Raymond turned up every engine to the maximum he could.

And so, with all eight of her claws and both her service mandibles gripped onto holds on Raymond's back, she rode up and away; and she whooped with joy as the great gas giant fell from under them, and Raymond broke orbit.

# # #

They limped home with only half the cargo they were supposed to bring, going much slower than normal; but the fact is, they were moving, and a friend of Raymond's called Gina met them and towed them home as best as she could. And, when they docked, the whole station was watching, and they cheered and clapped as Raymond came in, and when Ivy climbed back out onto her perch on Raymond's back, they cheered even more. She wouldn't let anyone else work on him, and as soon as it was safe, she started the process of rebuilding all his failed components.

They were married within the month. No one knew of any workers who had married before; but there was no law prohibiting it, so Counsellor Keller made up a ceremony and performed it in the dock, wearing a spacesuit. And from then on, people called Raymond her husband; and no one laughed at her.

And Ivy stayed in love.