The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [85]
They were working robot repair, as he had been promised. All over the rig, inside and out, various forms of robot toiled in endless menial upkeep. Most, if not all, were very simple machines, tailored to one specif c function. This made them easy to understand and fix, even with basic tools, but it also meant there was almost always a robot breaking down somewhere, or on the point of failure. The toolkit didn't just contain tools, it also contained spare parts such as optical arrays, proximity sensors, mechanical bearings and servomotors. There was, Gaunt understood, a finite supply of some of these parts. But there was also a whole section of the operations rig dedicated to refurbishing basic components, and given care and resourcefulness, there was no reason why the caretakers couldn't continue their work for another couple of centuries.
"No one expects it to take that long, though," Nero said, as she finished demonstrating a circuit-board swap. "They'll either win or lose by then, and we'll only know one way. But in the meantime we have to make do and mend."
"Who's they?"
But she was already on the move, shinning up another ladder with him trailing behind.
"Clausen doesn't like me much," Gaunt said, when they had reached the next level and he had caught his breath again. "At least, that's my impression."
They were out on one of the gang-wayed platforms, with the grey sky above, the grey swelling sea below. Everything smelled oppressively oceanic, a constant shifting melange of oil and ozone and seaweed, as if the ocean was never going to let anyone forget that they were on a spindly metal and concrete structure hopelessly far from dry land. He had wondered about the seaweed until he saw them hauling in green-scummed rafts of it, the seaweed - or something essentially similar - cultured on buoyant sub-surface grids that were periodically retrieved for harvesting. Everything consumed on the rigs, from the food to the drink to the basic medicines, had first to be grown or caught at sea.
"Val has her reasons," Nero said. "Don't worry about it too much; it isn't personal."
It was the first time he'd heard anyone refer to the other woman by anything other than her surname.
"That's not how it comes across."
"It hasn't been easy for her. She lost someone not too long ago." Nero seemed to hesitate. "There was an accident. They're pretty common out here, with the kind of work we do. But when Paolo died we didn't even have a body to put back in the box. He fell into the sea, last we ever saw of him."
"I'm sorry about that."
"But you're wondering, what does it have to do with me?"
"I suppose so."
"If Paolo hadn't died, then we wouldn't have had to pull Gimenez out of storage. And if Gimenez hadn't died ... well, you get the picture. You can't help it, but you're filling the space Paolo used to occupy. And you're not Paolo."
"Was she any easier on Gimenez than me?"
"To begin with, I think she was too numbed-out to feel anything at all where Gimenez was concerned. But now she's had time for it to sink in, I guess. We're a small community, and if you lose someone, it's not like there are hundreds of other single people out there to choose from. And you - well, no disrespect, Gaunt - but you're just not Val's type."
"Maybe she'll find someone else."
"Yeah - but that probably means someone else has to die first, so that someone else has to end up widowed. And you can imagine how thinking like that can quickly turn you sour on the inside."
"There's more to it than that, though. You say it's not personal, but she told me I started this war."
"Well, you did, kind of. But if you hadn't played your part, someone else would have taken up the slack, no question about it." Nero tugged down