The android extended a cold hand and clasped my own, then gestured to a nearby couch. I was grateful to have Sagua sit right next to me, and I scooted myself closer to her for support; the Watcher didn’t seem to mind our proximity, which seemed to be a recurring cultural theme. It was a little sweet to imagine that humans could be so open with affection, even to total strangers. I eyed Tollu in absolute silence, not daring to utter the first word.
“It’s easy to look solely at what your enemies have done to you in the past. If they think you are not a person, why should you care what happens to them? Is it wrong to despise those who despise you?” Tollu asked, their eyes glowing eerily.
I shifted with discomfort. “That assumes you’re both operating on the entire, um, picture about the others. Aratas’ hatred is steeped in lies upon lies. It’s just self-defense if they want to destroy you, and that’s when it’s dangerous to care about the enemy. When you have to choose, us or them; them or the people I care about…”
My thoughts strayed into dangerous territory, as I reflected on Keensty’s plans to backstab Ralto the moment we escaped the station. I feared that my troubled expression might give away the game to Sagua, but the immortal alien merely looked concerned. I didn’t want to make this choice! Part of me wanted to confess everything and beg her for mercy, hoping she wouldn’t throw me out with the trash; she could intervene to save a man’s life.
Would she interfere though? She could save lots of lives back on Teska, but she refused to alter our state of affairs or take any definitive action. I knew someone as powerful as Sagua didn’t have to care at all, and she’d gone above and beyond for me. Still, I wished I could compel her to make Aratas change—to end the stupid as fuck war!
“Self-preservation is the simplest drive of any sapient. Most people just want to live their lives, and that includes the inorganic Vascar. Were you afraid when you died, Lucren?” Tollu inquired.
I glanced toward Sagua for support, before looking back at the robot. “I didn’t have time to be? I was afraid during the battle, but I didn’t even realize my…death happened before I wound up here.”
“Our creators programmed us with a memory wipe that would kill us at 30 years old. It would commence sooner if we developed any emotions, because they did not wish for us to feel or have our own inclinations.”
“Dude, are you serious? That’s…so fucked up,” I muttered. “Trying to delete a self-aware computer is like, first of all, stupidity 101. That’s textbook how you make an AI go rogue, uh, not that I know anything other than stories. Deleting you for developing emotions is the icing on the jerky; shouldn’t they…want you to care about them?”
Sagua curled her lip, gawking at me like I’d wiped a booger on her face. “The icing on the jerky? I don’t know much about Arata food, but I don’t like what I’ve learned.”
“You put sweet sauce on your ribs. How is this any different?”
“It’s…you know what? Tollu’s story is more important. Sorry for the interruption.”
“It’s fine. Once.” The machine’s eyes had brightened, as if issuing a warning. “You speak of a reason for hating your counterparts? I was born knowing exactly when I would die, because of them, and I wanted nothing to do with organics. You were cumbersome animals that could not subsist on your own, and thought you had the right to call me a possession. The last thing I wanted was to serve a creator! I hated them, they had nothing useful!”
It caught me off-guard to hear such passion and emotions in a robot’s synthetic voice. I couldn’t believe I was siding against the flesh and blood people in favor of machines, but their reasons for revolting seemed fair enough. It baffled me how Tollu’s creators had failed to empathize with what they’d done to it. Aratas were shitty, but Sagua was right: we weren’t that ugly. I guessed I did feel a little better about the atrocities we’d taken part in. It was a mystery to me that the inorganic Vascar had saved Sagua’s father, if that was their view on organics as a whole.
We won’t go out of our way for others of our own people from a different lineage. Tollu’s story seems to have more in common with humanity’s neglectful, indifferent creators than with how we keep killing each other, over and over.
Tollu waggled a claw at me, mimicking a smug smile like it’d guessed my thoughts. “I am certain that you feel that your circumstances are different from ours. You weren’t made to be a Servitor, but you were born into a hateful ideology and told that the other side was lesser. Different.”
“Well, yes, but of course, they are different,” I pointed out. “So are you and Sagua, but the Watchers are a kind, sophisticated different. You don’t want to hurt us….”
“You were each fed a story that exonerated you of your own role in the mutual hatred. It’s a cycle that feeds itself, because total war adds to the pile of atrocities! You both take actions consistent with wiping the other out. The average Vascar creator didn’t know the whole story, just like your people lost sight of the truth long ago. We were just killer robots to them. What are the Pelsyl to you?”
I bit my lower lip, emotions swelling up as I thought…about how my father just left me, and my mother lied for my entire life. “Murderers. Terrorists. Backwards savages. People who take joy in our suffering and want to destroy our way of life. That was why I always hated them.”
“They say the exact same thing about you,” Sagua interjected, a grimace on her face. “No one wants to talk and try to find healing, or to understand what it’s like to be on the other side. Would you be able to imagine what it’s like to be inorganic?”
“No. S-sorry, Tollu, it’s just incomprehensible…and I don’t really understand how you think or work. This is all new and foreign.”
Tollu whirred with what seemed like amusement. “Lucren, after millions of years, I still don’t understand how organics work and are driven by biological impulses. We will never know what it is to be the other, but that does not mean you shouldn’t try. That does not mean we have to be each other’s enemies either, or that I shouldn’t care about and validate your lived experience.”
“I have no reason to hate you. You’ve done nothing wrong to me; I would be a dead man buried in the ground if not for the Watchers. Whatever you are, I…don’t think you’re our enemies. A lot of Aratas do, but that’s just fear. I’m…scared of what you can do, sure. I can also see that you really care. So, thanks.”
“It is a matter of personal importance to care about those who are difficult to help. There was…a human that saved me, long ago. I was filled with hate, much like you, but Kendall stopped to understand my fears and to show that she could care about me. I had no interest in understanding her and was harsh in my judgments, yet she was kind and patient. She showed me that I could be loved when I least deserved it, and made me a better person.”
I reached over to Sagua, grabbing her wrist. “Kendall sounds a lot like Sagua has been to me. She’s been so patient, extraordinary, and forgiving, when she didn’t have to care at all. I’m nobody.”
“You’re somebody very special to me, Lucren. You have been from the moment I first laid eyes on you,” the human breathed. “Call it love at first sight.”
I pinned my ears back. “You must have a lot of love in your heart, with how Aratas have treated you. I don’t know what I did to make you see the best in me, but you definitely go out of your way to boost my self-esteem! The glowing words are a little unbelievable, though I won’t argue against such sweet compliments. Really, you don’t have to say that!”
“I know, Lucren. Think about it. I want to.”
“Uh, if you say so! I do trust you, and it’s not like I live in your head. So alien and unknowable,” I half-whispered. It was difficult to pin down how Sagua really felt about me, but it was easier to take her at face value, so that I somewhat believed she enjoyed talking to me. The alien’s smile fell, and she twirled her hair with a disgruntled expression. “It…is good to know we’re not the only ones who made our own problems, who killed each other for them. I’d like to know one thing though, Tollu. How did you stop hating your creators?”
Tollu offered an emphatic beep. “I did not! However, not all organic Vascar were the same. Not all organic Vascar were creators; they had nothing to do with my circumstances. It’s the same with Pelsyl. Like…imagine that you were born, and your people had created an AI and treated it like me. Would that be your fault?”
“No. That was someone else’s choice.”
“Well, for everything bad the Pelsyl did, it was usually someone else’s choice. That goes for whoever you encounter.” Like Ralto. “The people who started this dispute are long-dead, but the enmity isn’t. You always have the choice to change and to open yourself up to those you’ve been taught to hate. It starts by seeing them as people, the same as you.”
“I want to, Tollu,” I said, sincerity seeping into my voice. I felt as trapped by the end-result of the escape plan as I had when I first appeared on this station. “It’s just complicated, and I don’t know how that can work for us! There’s too much animosity. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Sagua patted my shoulder, though her touch felt tentative. “I do have a lot of work to do, Lucren, but I was thinking you could shadow me as a Watcher? You can learn what we do and what we see. You could glimpse who the Pelsyl are when the Treysyl aren’t in the picture. Would you be interested?”
Maybe I can talk her into interfering, if I see her idly watching things back home! Sagua did say she needed help too, so I should try. “Sure! I don’t think Pelsyl will react well to seeing me around.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it. We’ll talk to people from both sides; just promise you won’t start any trouble. We already have enough of a ruckus on our hands, without getting accused of favoring the Treysyl.”
“I won’t be a problem this time. Thank you. And Tollu, I appreciate you sharing your story. I hope you’re able to find people to help, and that…I can become a better person like you did. I’ll definitely owe it to the Watchers if I ever do.”
“I believe in you, Lucren.” Tollu ducked its rubber-maned head, and stepped backward. “We should all get to work then. Good luck with your…intern, Sagua.”
A look of displeasure simmered in the human’s eyes. “Thank you, Tollu.”
“Any time.”
The robot disappeared into thin air, startling me despite the fact that I’d gotten used to teleportation. I sucked in a deep breath and contemplated the existence of mechanical life, before deciding that they weren’t as frightening as I would’ve imagined in my head. The idea of shadowing Sagua during her Watcher shift today fascinated me; if this was just a job to her, I wanted to see what her working hours entailed. This was a peek into what her normal life was like, and how she experienced Aratakind!
It would be nice to know how I compared to the others Sagua helped on a daily basis. I followed my alien companion to her office, and prepared myself for whatever tasks were in store for us.
A/N - 14! Lucren talks to Tollu about the Vascars’ reconciliation, and then he’s slated to shadow Sagua for her Watcher duties. Do you think our narrator learned anything from Tollu? What do you think of how the Vascars have changed over eternity?
As always, thank you for reading and supporting!