The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [89]
"Some things don't change, then. It's just another war with lines of division among the allies."
"At least we have some artilects on our side. But you see now why we can't afford to wake more than the absolute minimum of people. Every waking mind increases the burden on the Realm. If we push it too far, the artilects won't be able to mount a defence. The true enemy will snuff out our reality in an eyeblink."
"Then all of this could end," Gaunt said. "At any moment. Every waking thought could be our last."
"At least we get waking thoughts," Nero said. "At least we're not asleep." Then she jabbed her cigarette at a sleek black shape cresting the waves a couple of hundred metres from the rig. "Hey, dolphins. You like dolphins, Gaunt?" "Who doesn't," he said.
The work, as he had anticipated, was not greatly taxing in its details. He wasn't expected to diagnose faults just yet, so he had only to follow a schedule of repairs drawn up by Nero: go to this robot, perform this action. It was all simple stuff, nothing that required the robot to be powered down or brought back to the shops for a major strip-down. Usually all he had to do was remove a panel, unclip a few connections and swap out a part. The hardest part was often getting the panel off in the first place, struggling with corroded fixtures and tools that weren't quite right for the job. The heavy gloves protected his fingers from sharp metal and cold wind, but they were too clumsy for most of the tasks, so he mainly ended up not using them. By the end of his nine-hour duty shift his fingers were chafed and sore, and his hands were trembling so much he could barely grip the railings as he worked his way back down into the warmth of the interior.
His back ached from the contortions he'd put himself through while undoing panels or dislodging awkward, heavy components. His knees complained from the toll of going up and down ladders and stairwells. There had been many robots to check out, and at any one time there always seemed to be a tool or part needed that he had not brought with him, and for which it was necessary to return to stores, sift through greasy boxes of parts, fill out paperwork.
By the time he clocked off on his first day, he had not caught up with the expected number of repairs, so he had even more to do on the second. By the end of his first week, he was at least a day behind, and so tired at the end of his shift that it was all he could do to stumble to the canteen and shovel seaweed-derived food into his mouth.
He expected Nero to be disappointed that he hadn't been able to keep ahead, but when she checked on his progress she didn't bawl him out.
"It's tough to begin with," she said. "But you'll get there eventually. Comes a day when it all just clicks into place and you know the set-up so well you always have the right tools and parts with you, without even thinking."
"How long?"
"Weeks, months, depends on the individual. Then, of course, we start loading more work onto you. Diagnostics. Rewinding motors. Circuit repair. You ever used a soldering iron, Gaunt?"
"I don't think so."
"For a man who made his fortune out of wires and metal, you didn't believe in getting your hands too dirty, did you?"
He showed her the ruined fingernails, the cuts and bruises and lavishly ingrained muck. He barely recognized his own hands. Already there were unfamiliar aches in his forearms, knots of toughness from hauling himself up and down the ladders. "I'm getting there."
"You'll make it, Gaunt. If you want to."
"I had better want to. It's too late to change my mind now, isn't it?"
"'Fraid so. But why would you want to? I thought we went over this. Anything's better than going back into the boxes."
The first week passed, and then the second, and things started to change for Gaunt. It was in small increments, nothing dramatic. Once, he took his tray to an empty table and was minding his own business when two other workers sat down on the same table. They didn't say anything to him but at least they hadn't