A Sad Sailor's Fate by David Fischer
Copyright (C) 2003 David Fischer


Lend me yer ear and I'll tell ye a sad tale of four doomed souls,
saltey robots all. Not a one innocent of damnable deeds, but having
hearts none the less, scourged clean of sin by the events I'll now
lay bare.

We had departed from The Cambridge Mobile Sailor Lab on the first
of the year - a good omen we thought, but perhaps our confidence
was what caught the dark attention of fate.  Lady Luck is never
your true friend, be ye animal, mineral, or vegetable, so harken me
well.

We'd headed for the South Pacific, an unforgiving stretch of sea
that has claimed many lives over the centuries, but also provided
many sailors an honest day's work. We were lookin for rogue submarines
that fed on the old telecom cables in these depths. We'd haul em
up, skin off the outer hull first then pierce the pressure hull and
see what there was to be seen.  Sometimes we'd hit gold and find
an old warhead, usually only boosted fission though she be.

The trouble began just as we recrossed the equator, heading north
this time, after comin through the Drake Passage. Our reactor didn't
seem well - she were an old CANDU heavy water type, and reliable
like they used to make them, but some of her seams were a little
worn, and this terrible day her coolent pressure sensors chose to
fail.

Maybe a more attentive operator could have guessed at the error
from the odd way her meters were stayin so steady, but that's behind
us now, and not a question we like to dwell upon. In any case, it
weren't long before the fuel rods up and decide to abandon ship,
goin straight down through the hull, all hissin and molten-like,
like a horde of Cherenkov Demon Snakes!

Well, the Cap'tin he were a good man, and faithfull to his ship and
crew to the end. He saw how his ship were farin, and made his last
decision: "Take me head lads, it'll see you safely to shore!"

The Cap'tin you see, had an old Univac up in his cranium, which
meant his head were a little bigger than most ye might see. Nothin
wrong with that, but it did mean he didn't move around as much as
some captains. We lads usually saw the bright side of that.  Pryin
the top half of his head off and flippin it upside down, we had a
sturdy little boat for me and me two mates to escape in, as the old
ship finally slipped between the ravenous waves.

"Tis a bad omen for one's ship to sink." our cook muttered, gazing
into the sun and the perfectly flat horizon in the distance.

"Tis a bad omen to sail on a ship made of skulls." our navigator
growled, looking from the cook to me.

"Tis a bad omen to annoy me ye scurvy dogs, so shut the hell up!"
I replied, and they nodded in agreement.

Well, we were where we were and there wasn't nothin any of us could
do about it, so we sat down to wait. The first few years were the
hardest, but then we got used to just layin there, watchin the sun
arc over, watchin the waves march on relentlessly, bailin the water
out when a storm crested our bow.

It weren't long before the time for the terrible decision came upon
us. We'd lost track by then, but I think we were in our twenty-third
year afloat in the Cap'tin's skull.  It was time to draw straws and
find out which of us would be unlucky enough to die that his mates
might live.

Since as robots we don't eat food, there wasn't actually any point to
this, but it's an old tradition among sea-farers, and one that
we respect.

I held up three diodes in me hand, the emittin' kind, and faced me
mates.

"It's time I'm afraid, to face the fate of the sea. We always hope
to never be here to go through with this, but we all know it's
hanging there over our heads when we step off the dock. Two of these
diodes, they be ifrared. One though, she falls in the range of the
visible spectrum. The one who picks the visible diode, well his
voyage ends here today."

Minutes passed as we all three stared at the diodes in my hand.
They looked the same, but one held a cruel fate, or maybe a merciful
release, as little Owen Coffin said way back so many years ago.

Finally the cook reached out and took his.

The navigator reached for one, then the other, then suddenly grabbed
the first.

I was left with the last.

Again we three stared at the three diodes, but this time we were
each lookin at our own hand.

"Alright now, we might as well know the truth."

I attached a pair of alligator clips to a lead on my DC power supply
and my ear for a ground and tested mine.

Nothing a human could see.

Next the cook.

Dark again.

The navigator handed his to me, slumped back and lay in the bilge
water with closed eyes, wallowing in his fate.

Just to be fair, I tested his as well, and it lit up with a pretty
red glow that smiled with doom and death for our friend and mate.

"Well, how do you want it to be? Corrosives in your main circuits?
AC across your system bus?"

He looked up at me for a moment, then said: "Wait, why don't we
just jump overboard, then walk back to shore along the bottom of
the sea?  We're robots, we don't need air."

Me and the cook we looked at each other, thought a moment, then
smiled and let out a hearty laugh.

We quickly jumped over the edge, floated down through the depths,
and then hiked it across the sea floor.  Climbing up to the continental
shelf was slow going, but nothing insurmountable. When we finally
got back to civilization we headed for the nearest bar and drank a
round of rum to our lost Cap'tin, god rest his salty soul.

And thus ends me tale of sorrow, and I hope ye might never be found 
in such dire straights yerself.