Keith Suarez emerged from a long, dark tunnel and scuttled across the cardboard-brown regolith of 21 Lutetia toward the sun. His eight tiny feet dug into the grit as he moved at a steady clip over crumbly mounds and deep craters. Keith wasn\u2019t alone on his journey; this was, after all, the vacation season. There were hundreds\u2014thousands\u2014of others pouring out of hidey-holes, crawling away from the cold murk of 21 Lutetia and hunkering down on the surface, their matte black chassis glistening in the radiance as they absorbed all the energy they would need for the rest of the year. If you were to see the mass-migration of artificial crustaceans from above, it would look like a potato infested with mites.<\/p>\n
On his way to his little plot of land in the sun, Keith waved an amicable claw at work-mates in the throng and flashed a quick laser \u201chello\u201d at passing acquaintances, but he never stopped\u2014in part because the animal algorithms that controlled this trek urged him on, but also because he really didn\u2019t have any friends here. This was all simply the Kafkian nightmare that paid the bills; or was it Cronenbergian? Never mind that he spent most of the time as a bug eating dirt and defecating nickel, iron, gold and platinum. This was not a life.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, something caught his infrared attention and he turned his eyestalk to get a better view. Someone wasn\u2019t headed for the sunside. They weren\u2019t moving at all. Grudgingly, he overrode the impulse to migrate and made his way against the current of pushy crabs toward the fallen person. In another life, some twenty years ago, Keith had been a pretty decent software engineer (before that career morphed into something incomprehensible and he was forced to retire), so the management of 21 Lutetia had promoted him to maintenances, although his main duty remained to gorge himself on flavorless rocks and shit out precious metals.<\/p>\n
He approached the crab sprawled in the shallow frost of a crater and shone a cautious \u201cDo you need help?\u201d light.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d replied the crab in the cosmic ditch.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure?\u201d He could tell that six of her long, segmented legs were broken.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, I\u2019m fine. Please, don\u2019t let me stop you from your migration. I\u2019m sure you\u2019re eager to get on with your holiday,\u201d she said, with a faint Slavic tinge to the beam of her voice.<\/p>\n
Keith tried to imagine her as a gorgeous blonde with blue almond-shaped eyes, but the reality, rendered in the stark contrast of the intense light of the sun and the utter darkness of the pit, was much too sharp for fantasizing. She looked like every other crab on this rock. He did notice her smooth carapace lacked the pockmarks and scuffs that, over time, gave them their distinctive exteriors. She was recently fabricated and new to all of this.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere.\u201d He crawled the few inches into the hole and the temperature dropped to minus one hundred degrees Celsius. \u201cLet me help you.\u201d He examined each of her shattered appendages and repaired what he could on the spot. \u201cHow\u2019d this happen, anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI fell into this hole,\u201d she said, annoyed.<\/p>\n
Keith knew that, between the robustness of the exoskeleton\u2019s design and the microgravity of the asteroid, the fall shouldn\u2019t have caused any damage at all. Deciding not to press the issue, he simply said, \u201cIf you spend your holiday down here your batteries will run out and then you\u2019ll be in real trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t protest as he awkwardly hefted her broad, flat frame onto his back. He became aware that, aside from registering her weight, he couldn\u2019t feel<\/em> her on top of him and for the first time in a long time the absence of tactility bothered him.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you been here long?\u201d She asked as he climbed over the lip of the crater and joined the others on their long march. \u201cYour shell is very rough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAbout five, six years, I\u2019ve lost track of time.\u201d He turned an eye backward to see her bobbing up and down on his wide armor. \u201cWhere are you from? You have a nice accent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKiev, Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was going to guess Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re American?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, my body is resting somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia.\u201d There was a heavy silence for a moment and he instantly regretted drawing attention to their existential predicament. He let the surge of the others and the ancient biometric subroutines guide him over the dull terrain. There was something reassuring and primal in this parade. This was what life had always been about, since the Paleozoic; horseshoe crabs striving for the shore by the light of the moon. \u201cSuarez. Keith Suarez, but please call me Keith.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Stasja Volk.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNice to meet you. No, I don\u2019t have any family waiting for me, just a rude and incompetent orderly that nearly tore my pecker off changing my catheter last time.\u201d<\/p>\n Her mouthparts did something that Keith had never seen before. The titanium grinders opened wide and the diamond drills retracted entirely. A part of him knew that she was smiling and it made him glad. \u201cWhy are you so eager to wake up then?\u201d she asked, still smiling.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause these four month vacations serve a lot of useful functions: Psychologically, we need human contact in order to not go insane out here. AstroCore uses the down time to perform maintenance and upgrades on us. Your legs will be as good as new when we return.\u201d Habit? Routine? Loneliness?<\/em> He found that he didn\u2019t have a good reason. \u201cDon\u2019t you want to go back?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. My grandchildren are vicious little monsters who plot and fight for chunks of me. I\u2019d rather spend my life among these mechanical beasts\u2014as a mechanical beast, than with them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have grandchildren?\u201d The hazy image of the Eastern European beauty was replaced by a shriveled old hag sleeping in a tank somewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd great grandchildren, but they\u2019re yet too young to pick at my bones.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did you do for a living, Stasja?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAh, I was an excellent chef and later a decent food critic. I started with a small restaurant in Kiev and ended with a chain all across Europe. Food was my passion. I lived to eat. Now,\u201d she snorted in disgust, \u201cI eat to live. I eat dirt. What did you do, Keith?\u201d She pronounced his name Keet.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI had a third-rate gaming startup that eventually got bought by a larger adult fantasy immersive gaming company and I worked with them for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAdult fantasy as in porno or as in sword and sorcery?\u201d Her motorized maw did that delightful yawning thing again.<\/p>\n \u201cThe former.\u201d He tried to say it straight, but the heat radiators on his back tingled and he feared he was blushing\u2014and that she could tell. Was he getting self-conscious in his old age?<\/em><\/p>\n She laughed. \u201cDon\u2019t be ashamed. I played those games a few times myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Dammit, she could tell!<\/em> \u201cWell, it was a living.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes living is just not enough. I miss the taste of hot chocolate. Isn\u2019t that funny? Of all the magnificent food I had the pleasure of enjoying in my life, I miss hot chocolate. My first husband\u2014I was married three times, but my first husband was the love of my life\u2014made the best hot chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did you guys split up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe died of cancer, back when people died of cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a naive question, but it had been awhile since he\u2019d carried on a conversation with anyone\u2026 or carried anyone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d she quickly added. \u201cIt was a long time ago and I held him in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t know why, but her presence focused his attention. He couldn\u2019t just relax and zone out. He started to see things that he\u2019d never noticed before. They were in fact alloy arthropods toiling on a hunk of left over material from the formation of the solar system, but they were also human beings. The evidence was everywhere: two crabs in the distance held manipulators as they ambulated on, some were clustered into small family units; others were absorbed in fast, intimate laser conversations. This wasn\u2019t just a bizarre retirement community\u2026 it was a community.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about you? Have you been married?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, a while ago. I was married for three years before she found Jesus and was born again. All of a sudden my job offended her and she divorced me, never married again after that.\u201d He laughed to himself. \u201cHer cooking was horrible anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, you\u2019re in luck. I\u2019m an excellent cook.\u201d There was a hint of sadness and flirtation in her tone and it warmed Keith.<\/p>\n They reached the delineated terminator, an alien shore, where photons and cosmic rays crashed onto an asteroidal beach. Thousands of flat, rounded forms dotted the powdery landscape like black pebbles in the sand. The tracks of many spindly legs wove and swirled around them creating intricate designs of fractal splendor.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful,\u201d she said, \u201clike a Japanese rock garden.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it is pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n They added their own tracks to the pattern. All the best perches were already taken, but he carefully placed her on a gentle hill that would receive ample light as 21 Lutetia tumbled in the night.<\/p>\n He turned to search for his own spot, but she clasped his claw and pulled him close. \u201cStay with me, Keith. I enjoy your company.\u201d<\/p>\n He trained both eyestalks on her polished obsidian face and studied her in the entire spectrum, from ultraviolet to inferred, then settled down next to Stasja Volk and went to sleep.<\/p>\n Keith Suarez awoke in a recently drained tank at the center of a colorless room surrounded by diagnostic and \u201cquantum entangling\u201d telepresence machines. He was damp and cold and the scent of pine disinfectant stung his nose. An approximation of a human form loomed large over him.<\/p>\n \u201cWho the hell are you? What are you?\u201d Keith\u2019s organic eyeballs failed to focus.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Fred, your attendant and physical therapist.\u201d It was a robot. It was white and round with big expressive eyes and Keith thought it looked like an enlarged child\u2019s toy. It was probably called \u201cFred\u201d because it sounded like \u201cfriend\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s Carlos?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been dismissed,\u201d the robot said cheerfully.<\/p>\n \u201cListen, if it\u2019s because of the small altercation we had\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot at all, to improve service, all of the personnel that work with our clients have been replaced by healthcare robots such as me.\u201d<\/p>\n His heart began to pound in his boney chest. Keith wanted to send the stupid-faced robot a hot laser reply, but instead hissed in his hoarse, old man\u2019s voice, \u201cBut we need human interaction!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you getting upset, Mr. Suarez? My records show that you assaulted Carlos Fontaine during your last vacation. I thought you would be glad to be rid of him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I just spent eight months as a robot, working with robots and strangulation is human contact. Where\u2019s Carlos!\u201d He erupted into cough attack.<\/p>\n Fred adjusted his tank\u2019s cocktail and Keith instantly felt unreasonably calmer. A part of him realized that he preferred the robot to Carlos. He could better relate to its cool plastic exterior, which only frightened him more.<\/p>\n The days and weeks went by much as they had on other vacations. They poked and prodded, kneaded and wrung him. He was always in pain and achingly lonely. The only difference this time around, aside from Fred\u2019s vacant optimism, was that he found himself thinking of Stasja often. He imagined them lying next to each other on a dusty hill basking in the sun. Their claws still locked together. He worried about how her family was treating her and he hoped someone had brought her a hot chocolate, but doubted it. He wanted to do something nice for her. He wanted to make her happy. Keith tried contacting her once, but Fred explained that her records had been made private by her caregivers. <\/p>\n One day, Keith saw himself in the mirror and didn\u2019t recognize the skeletal figure with loose, spotted skin staring back at him. That\u2019s when 21 Lutetia became more real than this Earthly life. Something clicked in his mind: this was just an old and molted carapace ready to be sloughed off. He knew it was crazy, but the thought reassured him.<\/p>\n If only their existence on the asteroid were richer. Given his programming knowledge and limited clearance, he could enhance the overall experience of crabs. He was, after all, a software engineer and he knew AstroCore Ltd. used tried and true technology to minimize problems. Technology he understood.<\/p>\n A month into his vacation, he called Fred. \u201cCan\u2019t you bring me a work slate?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you need a slate for?\u201d<\/p>\n He thought of an excuse. \u201cI want to get in touch with my ex-wife. I\u2019m feeling nostalgic and I want to patch things up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019m sorry. That wouldn\u2019t be appropriate.\u201d The robot turned and slid away.<\/p>\n Over the course of the second month Keith continued to be dehumanized. He was shunted from white room to white room, given tests and physicals, and the whole while he worked on Fred. He concocted reasons to get a slate, like wanting to catch up on current events and brushing up on crab design to improve his success rate in fixing them. One day, he simply broke down and cried. He failed at every turn. Fred would smile gently, deny him the slate and continue his therapies or spoon feeding him the bland, nutritionally-balanced compote he\u2019d grown to detest.<\/p>\n Then, in casual conservation, Keith realized that Fred, via the diagnostic equipment around and within him, knew when he was lying. Maybe it was his heart rate or the MRIs, but it was the robot\u2019s one advantage over human creativity. He thought about it for a few days and concluded that he had<\/em> to be honest or the Fred would suspect an ulterior motive and continue rejecting his requests, but he couldn\u2019t very well tell it he was going to vandalize the whole set up\u2026<\/p>\n On the next visit, and without any real planning, Keith blurted out, \u201cLook, Fred, I\u2019m going to use the slate to check up on a friend of mine over on 21 Lutetia. Six of her legs were broken pretty badly and I want to make sure the repairs are going fine. If not, I need to put in a more detailed work order,\u201d and as he said it, he knew that he wasn\u2019t lying. He would check up on Stasja. It would<\/em> be the first thing he did.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a good sign, Mr. Suarez. I\u2019ll bring one over at once.\u201d<\/p>\n Air hissed out of Keith and he realized he\u2019d been holding his breath. He lay back in his tank and waited, thinking that Fred may be affable enough, but it wouldn\u2019t be able to pass the Turning Test to save its synthetic life. The bedside robot returned, handed him the work slate and left.<\/p>\n Keith quickly checked the status of Stasja Volk\u2019s crab and was content to find it mending properly. Then he accessed the source code that dictated the information flow between the receptors on the crab and the atrophied old bodies on Earth. Security was minimal. Nobody suspected the elderly clients of AstroCore Ltd. to hack the system. Keith got to work.<\/p>\n The crabs were simple machines, nothing more than ore processing plants with legs. All control and computation\u2014all thinking\u2014was done remotely by human brains. The way it was set up, ninety-nine percent of the sensory data poured into the visual and auditory cortexes of the brain. Because of his familiarity with immersive sexual gaming, he knew it was a simple matter to make small changes to the script and redirect some of that input into other regions of the brain. For example, taste. He played with taste and assigned unique flavors to different substances: nickel became sweet and iron tangy. He made gold savory and silicates salty. Stone was sour. The rare organics embedded in the rock had an exotic spice to them. Clay was slightly bitter and ice was creamy. And, he smiled to himself; the right combination would yield something very similar to a hot chocolate.<\/p>\n He paid attention to smell as well and by sending an electrical impulse to the piriform cortex the stream of charged particles blowing in the solar wind had the fresh, invigorating fragrance of a spring breeze. Touch was the easiest for him. By stimulating the somatosensory cortex the feel of another\u2019s carapace sensor pads became comforting, and depending on the degree, could be quite painful or would send you shuddering in ecstasy. For better or worse, being a crab would become a fully sensual experience.<\/p>\n He uploaded the changes to the unit encasing his tank and prayed (When was the last time he\u2019d prayed?)<\/em> that no one would discover the minute changes before the system rebooted. The last month crept by like a damaged crab over the dunes of 21 Lutetia. On the last day of his tortuous vacation, the tank enclosed around him and slowly filled with warm amniotic fluid. The vast network of human brains was rebooting and he was infinitely relieved that he\u2019d gotten away with it. He was going home. As he lulled off to sleep, he contemplated waking up, holding Stasja\u2019s claw. Darkness engulfed him.<\/p>\n Suddenly, a red digital warning sign flashed in his mind\u2019s eye and he was jolted awake. The maternal liquid that cradled his frail body flushed out and the tank was wrenched open.<\/p>\n Keith sat up painfully and saw a man\u2014a human man\u2014standing in the white room. His unnaturally young face was incongruent with the tweed jacket and pale blue dress shirt, an old man\u2019s sense of business casual.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d He asked, his voice divulging his mounting anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s going on, Mr. Keith Leandro Suarez, is that we\u2019ve detected subtle, but significant tampering with the feedback programming of the mining drones. Those changes originated from right here,\u201d he waved a hand around accusingly, \u201cfrom your unit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Jason Leung, the CIO of AstroCore Ltd., and you\u2019ve created a huge problem for us both.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid the changes go live?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, they went live alright, about ten days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTen days?\u201d Deep confusion mingled with his anxiety.<\/p>\n \u201cYep, we kept you sedated in your tank until I could come down here personally. I wanted to gauge your motives, make sure this wasn\u2019t a corporate espionage\/sabotage situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Keith wasn\u2019t listening. <\/em>Ten days?<\/em> All the other crabs had most likely scurried away and begun their feeding frenzy. Stasja, finding him inactive and unresponsive, had probably left him lying there on the surface.<\/p>\n Leung continued, \u201cand let me tell you, when our clients logged-on over there, they were assaulted by so much sensory overload we had chaos on our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n My God, what had he done?<\/em> He imagined Stasja scared and in pain. He had introduced pain to 21 Lutetia! But the changes were miniscule compared to what the human nervous system could handle, a pale imitation! But after the numbness of being a crab, had it been too much? No, he knew<\/em> it wasn\u2019t. \u201cUm, I\u2019m sure the initial sensations were disorienting, but after a few moments of adjustment they would welcome the added stimulation.\u201d<\/p>\n Leung gave Keith a look of barely restrained impatience. The look young people, even artificially maintained young people, gave the naturally geriatric. \u201cWell, that wasn\u2019t your decision to make, Mr. Suarez. You\u2019ve violated our contract and so we\u2019re removing you from AstroCore\u2019s custody.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous!\u201d Terror gripped Keith. He\u2019d never stopped to consider the consequences. All that was left for the old were these corporate work-for-care programs. \u201cWhat am I supposed to do? I can\u2019t afford private insurance and I\u2019ve worked for you as a goddamned miner for years!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou should have thought of that before you disrupted the whole operation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t disrupt anything! You have no idea what it\u2019s like to be a fucking crab, scrounging around on a barren rock in the depths of space! It\u2019s isolating and anesthetizing. All I did was give our lives a bit more flavor.\u201d He was shaking and sobbing now. These biological eyes were too damned leaky. \u201cIt\u2019s like living in a sensory deprivation suit with only a camera and radio for contact.\u201d<\/p>\n Leung leaned on Keith\u2019s tank with both hands, like someone comfortable with exercising power. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mr. Suarez, but your trifling not only affected thousands of lives, it impacted operations. We now have to wait eight months to undue your hasty changes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cImpacted operations?\u201d Keith repeated. That\u2019s all that really mattered to these people. He looked at Jason Leung\u2019s unlined, unscuffed face and he couldn\u2019t read it. It lacked the story, the personality of a well-worn carapace. AstroCore Ltd. didn\u2019t see them as patients, or even clients, they saw them only as hardware: aging organic servers in constant need of attention. All they cared about was how many tons of precious metal were stripped from the asteroid and rocketed back to Earth.<\/p>\n He was never going to see Stasja Volk again, or 21 Lutetia. He was probably going to wither and die in a government-run hospice somewhere and he wasn\u2019t entirely sure that was a bad thing.<\/p>\n \u201cFor what it\u2019s worth, Mr. Suarez, I don\u2019t think this was a criminal matter and we won\u2019t press any charges, but the bedside robot will be in shortly to disconnect you from the equipment. Is there any family you would like us to contact?\u201d<\/p>\n No, there\u2019s no family.<\/em> Keith\u2019s mind churned. He\u2019d dealt with people like this before, when they devoured his little company. They weren\u2019t overly concerned with one vulnerable old man. Leung turned to leave.<\/p>\n \u201cWait!\u201d Keith croaked in desperation.<\/p>\n \u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou said the crabs have been running with my changes for almost two weeks, right? Please, do me a favor\u2014one last request\u2014and check the production stats. Compare them to last year\u2019s figures.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease! What do you have to lose, five minutes? I have everything to lose!\u201d<\/p>\n AstroCore\u2019s CIO got a distant, glazed-over look and Keith feared that he\u2019d already written him off, but the daze went on a bit too long and Keith understood that he was consulting some kind of invisible data, maybe an augmented reality display.<\/p>\n \u201cThe numbers have more than doubled,\u201d he said coolly, still staring at nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course they have! Think about it, if you\u2019ve spent years eating rocks and metal, utterly starved of substance, and suddenly they taste and smell incredibly appetizing, you\u2019d relish every last grain of dirt, wouldn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n Leung never recovered from his numbers trance. \u201cI\u2019ve shared this with the CEO and we agree that you may be on to something.\u201d<\/p>\n Keith gave Leung a minute more of imperceptible conference, then asked, \u201cAm I still in trouble?\u201d<\/p>\n The pause stretched a few minutes longer, and then he said, \u201cI\u2019ve added a note to your record and your access will be severely limited in the future, but your client status will not be revoked. Since there\u2019s nothing we can really do for the next year, we\u2019re willing to further research this. If this level of performance is maintained, we\u2019ll make your changes permanent and maybe even build on them.\u201d<\/p>\n Keith slumped back into his tank, exhausted.<\/p>\n The first thing he noticed when his consciousness loaded into the crab-form was the crisp scent of ions spraying in from space. Then he became aware that his body was rocking side-to-side to the rhythm of eight heaving legs. His eyestalks swiveled around but failed to spot other crabs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re awake?\u201d It was Stasja\u2019s luminous voice.<\/p>\n He panned down and saw that he was clumsily riding upon her carapace. \u201cMy God, I\u2019m back\u2026\u201d A shattering kind of joy spread inside him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat happened to you? The laser chatter among the other residents, when we all came back online, was that you had been expelled.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor a while there, I was.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDoes it have anything to do with this new awareness, these new sensations we\u2019ve been feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n It was great to be with her again. She hadn\u2019t abandoned him.<\/em> \u201cYeah, I hacked into our operating system and customized the data inputs, ran into trouble with the higher-ups about it, but we sorted it all out.\u201d He tried to sound nonchalant, but didn\u2019t quite pull it off.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did you stay up here on the surface with me for two weeks instead of following your prescribed feeding impulse?\u201d<\/p>\n She stopped crawling and the swaying of her body ceased. She didn\u2019t say anything. She didn\u2019t have to. He knew that she had felt an even stronger impulse.<\/p>\n \u201cHere, I can walk now.\u201d He slid off her, leaving an ugly scrape on her otherwise flawless shell. \u201cOh, I\u2019m sorry, I spoiled your finish.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was bound to happen out here and now I can tell people I got that one carrying an injured friend back home.\u201d<\/p>\n He ran a manipulator along the scratch and gently lingered over her sensor pad. Her heat radiators flared in the infrared. \u201cHave you been down to the mines?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, after seven days, I began trying to drag you down there with me. I haven\u2019t made it to the nearest hole yet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, I\u2019ve got a surprise for you.\u201d They hurried over the unforgiving ground, like two lovers running in the rain. Keith pulled her into the first mine shaft he spotted and instantly an aromatic banquet overwhelmed their inadequate analyzers.<\/p>\n \u201cKeith, what is that?\u201d<\/p>\n The smell of food\u2014actual mouth-watering food\u2014made the blast furnace in his belly rumble. \u201cJust rocks and dirt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Without warning, he was hit with a barrage of lasers from the dark; greetings, questions, praise. Everyone wanted to know if he was responsible for this gastronomic awakening or if he was the ol\u2019pervert that reintroduced the orgasm to the retirement crabs? He didn\u2019t respond. He was too taken aback by the fundamental change in the atmosphere of 21 Lutetia, no longer were the crabs engrossed in mindless consumption. They were feasting. He led Stasja over the adulating, inquiring bodies of other diners, to a patch of bare asteroidal wall and motioned for her to take a bite.<\/p>\n Without hesitation, she plunged her mechanical mouth into the stone, pulverizing it with her mineral mills and deposit rakes. She used her articulate maxillae to stuff different combinations of substances into her mouth, playing with flavors. Despite his burning hunger, Keith hung back and watched Stasja lose herself in her passion.<\/p>\n After a long while of culinary exploration, she pulled herself off the well-eaten wall and faced him. \u201cYou did this for me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNah, I did this for me. You said you were a good cook.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI love it.\u201d Stasja Volk beamed at him. She gently patted a sensory pad on his face and fed him a clump of ore. It was, without exaggeration, the most delicious thing he\u2019d eaten in years.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, this wasn\u2019t really the surprise.\u201d He turned and picked carefully at the wall; taking a bit of nickel from one particular vein and ice from the ground. He combined them with a hint of clay and sprinkled some trace organic volatiles on top. \u201cTaste this and tell me what you think,\u201d he said, nervously passing the metallic, dirty snowball to Stasja.<\/p>\n Sensing it was something special, she nibbled tentatively. She didn\u2019t react at first. Long moments passed; he waited patiently. Her frame slowly began to tremble and her new legs buckled. Keith caught her and held her, rubbing her carapace reassuringly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt tastes like hot chocolate,\u201d she whispered, the faint light of her laser barely visible. \u201cIs this real?\u201d<\/p>\n They were two shadows embracing in a cave. \u201cIt feels real, Stasja, and that\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n Alex Hernandez is a Cuban-American science fiction writer from Miami, FL who has recently sold stories to Baen books.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Keith Suarez emerged from a long, dark tunnel and scuttled across the cardboard-brown regolith of 21 Lutetia toward the sun. His eight tiny feet dug into the grit as he moved at a steady clip over crumbly mounds and deep craters. Keith wasn\u2019t alone on his journey; this was, after all, the vacation season. There …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,23],"tags":[1341,24],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction","category-tcl-3-spring-2012","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-colored-lens-3-spring-2012","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139716,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/139716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u201cDo you have family waiting for you, Mr…\u201d she asked abruptly, interrupting his daydream.<\/p>\n
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