The Caregiver Excerpt

This is an excerpt of a short story I wrote last year. It was selected as a finalist in ScreenCraft's Cinematic Short Story Competition. I'm currently re-working several ideas to turn it into a novella or full novel, with plans to make it a trilogy. One of the things that appeals to me most about this is that, while it certainly involves tragedy, it's a story with an overall optimistic look at the future. I'm sure those who've seen 'I Am Mother' on Netflix will see some similarities, but I'm weary of the dystopian settings in most modern sci-fi. I like to think that there's hope for all of us and the future will be brighter. 

Father dies first. Mother is too weak to bury him. The drugs don’t suppress the allergen anymore. Her lungs are calcifying. Every day her breath gets a little shorter. If she takes the gulp of air her body screams for, her chest cavity will crack like burnt paper. She would welcome the release from the slow panic of asphyxia. But she has to hold on for the baby’s sake. So that’s what she does.

They were the first couple to get pregnant. The others were months behind and the allergen finished the women before they came to full term. Mother and father assumed the baby wouldn’t last. They braced for the cruelty of just barely outliving their child. But two months went by, then three. Then they faced a worse cruelty. This atmosphere is not alien to the child. Instead of suffocating, she will starve. 

Unless, father had said. There’s a chance. The colony’s artificial intelligence. All but the most essential med lab equipment. Everything was committed to the effort. Father validated motor functions and logic pathways the day before he died. Only mother remains to teach a robot how to be a parent. She hasn’t nearly enough time. How do you upload instinct? What is the command prompt for motherhood? 

Just love her. Her voice is barely more than sand racing across the outer habitat wall in the windy season.

The robot cannot feel love. Please specify directives.

Mother closes her eyes. Her lung will break open if she sobs. Emulate human behaviors and acts associated with love. 

Define parameters.

Keep her safe from physical harm. Don’t let her out of your sight unless it’s essential. Promote her emotional well-being. Don’t lie to her. 

There is so much more to say, but she is exhausted. She needs rest before she can continue. 

She dies in her sleep, the baby in her arms. Cambria would have been the fourth colony beyond Earth. It collapses in just 27 months. People across the universe watch the tragedy unfold from the isolation of their worlds. Adrift on their little lifeboat orbs, all they can send now are thoughts and prayers. Anything of substance is constrained by physics and economics. Tian has yet to reach industrial maturity. Columbia is closer by a few lightyears. Earth has the most robust fleet. No matter how or where from, it will be 12 years before the child feels another human’s touch.

The baby cries. Her caregiver cradles her for the first time. A synthetic surrogate, it is the new Pieta for the interstellar age. The baby falls back asleep. The robot buries the mother and childproofs the habitat. 

The baby frequently cries through the night, though it wants for nothing. For six months the robot keeps uninterrupted vigil. Its arms hold her small body without feeling bone-deep weariness. It sterilizes bottles and washes diapers without desperate bouts of insecurity or loneliness. It listens to hours of wailing without the unspeakable secret regret that creeps into every mother’s mind. It cradles and feeds and hums lullabies without any sense of joy or affection.

The baby rejects another bottle. The formula is precious and must be preserved. The robot returns it to the warmer. The bottle will not fit. The robot twists it one way and another. The baby cries more frantically. The robot focuses on the task even as the child begins to writhe in its arm. Finally, the bottle seats in the warmer. The robot wipes a tear. The baby grabs the finger and sucks on it. The robot turns on a hot plate, changes arms, puts its other hand on the hot surface. The baby no longer cries. For the next six months, the robot continues to hold the baby this way, alternating arms and warming its hands to feel more human-like. The baby stops crying. The scent of heated alloys becomes soothing to her. She eats and sleeps better. 

The baby has its first birthday. 

The robot maintains the vigil through teething, earaches, and colds. It downloads and implements all the best practices to teach motor functions and early cognition. The child exceeds all developmental standards at the eighteen-month milestone. The robot receives a message from Earth. A rescue ship has departed. Because the planetary environment is lethal to humans, special precautions will be emplaced during retrieval. The robot is given new directives and parameters. Priority one: Care for the child. Priority two: research and, if possible, resolve the allergen pathology. All data relevant to priorities one and two must be secured.

Baba. The girl says her first word. It is the name she gives the robot. The robot deduces it comes from the child’s favorite book, about an elephant. A month later the child says her own name for the first time. Amari. 

Amari turns two. Baba bakes a small cake. The robot reserved enough chocolate from the colony’s supplies to ice and decorate ten cakes like this one. It has thought of almost everything in advance.  

Amari learns new words. No. I don’t want to. Baba do it. I don’t want peas! I want cookies! Baba meets each protest with uncompromising politeness, counters each tantrum with merciless serenity. 

Take your vitamin, Amari.

No! I want a cookie!

The vitamin is important to bone growth and liver function. Please eat it.

I want a cookie!

If I give you a cookie, will you eat the vitamin?

Yes!

Baba gives Amari a cookie. Amari does not eat the vitamin. Baba comprehends that Amari has lied.

Amari, did you make this mess?

No.

Amari, are you climbing out of your bed?

No.

Amari, do you need a new diaper?

No.

It takes Baba six months to develop subroutines and compile enough data to discern a lie from the truth. It takes another three months to make Amari understand that lying is bad, and another three to convince her she will be caught and punished. Robot and child learn together through a process of error and trial. 

Amari turns three. She can read on her own. Her new favorite book is The Little Prince. She watches Baba tend the fields and asks if there are bad trees that will break their planet. 

No, Amari. Our planet is too big for the plants to hurt it.

But there are bad plants.

The plants are not bad. The plants make dust that causes people to get sick. We just need to figure out how to make the people better.

Amari frowns. How?

I must study the pollen.

I want to help!

You help by not getting sick, Amari. In time I will understand why everyone else got sick and you didn’t.  

And then we can get my mommy back?

No, Amari. We cannot get her back. 

Baba play with me. 

The game is hide-and-seek. Baba hides where it can keep sight of Amari. It cannot break its directive to protect the child. Ha! You’re a bad hider! Find me now! Count!  

Baba counts. It cannot block its optical sensors. It walks to where Amari is hiding behind a rock. No! Don’t look at me! Count again!

Baba starts to count again. No! Stop looking! 

Baba cannot stop. Baba has to watch. Mommy said Baba must always watch. 

Mommy said? When? 

Three years ago. 

Where is she now?

Mommy is dead. 

Amari cries. The game is over. 

Baba realizes a conflict in directives. Tell the truth. Protect the child’s emotional well-being. Baba must learn to tell the truth less, or say it more gently. In the meantime, cookies make Amari feel better and board games offer a safe way to play. Baba determines that adjusting difficulty levels is an acceptable means of adapting within the constraints of honesty. 

Amari turns four. She can almost beat Baba at Memory. Baba can almost tie Amari at I-Doubt-It. They split games of Uno.  

Amari exits her room one day with her mother’s dress wrapped around her.

Baba! Today the people come! Get dressed! 

Baba does not understand. No, Amari. No one is coming for many years. 

No, no! Pretend!

Baba can simulate the permutations of more than eight quintillion simultaneous genetic combinations in a second. It cannot pretend. It follows the child and does her bidding. Amari drapes clothes over the robot and throws all the tools out of a trunk.

This is the spaceship. Get in, Baba! Let’s go to Earth!

I cannot fit in the rescue ship. 

Amari looks over her shoulder at the box, then to Baba. 

I can’t go without you! Let’s make the ship bigger. 

Baba pauses for a second to consider the permutations of Amari’s statement and its directives. Its processor hums from the effort. Amari hears the sound and notices the lights within its chest glow a little brighter for a moment. She interprets this as love.

The robot takes a compass from the scattered equipment. You do not need to take all of me. This is my memory. It is all the things I know about you. So long as you have my memory, I will always go with you. Keep it safe.