I went up on ART’s control deck where it was quiet. It felt familiar in a good way, so I pulled the memory of my first time aboard so I could compare it. It was better without ART threatening to destroy my brain. I said, “If I do the mission with you, we’ll need more media.” We went through it pretty fast, and that was an understatement.

I’ve been amassing a collection from the university’s archives, ART said.

It sent me the index and I started searching through it. “Maybe we should give some to 3.” ART would know that I’d given 3 my relevant archive files. “It’s probably going to leave as soon as it gets a chance.”

That’s not why 3 wanted your files, or not the only reason. I asked it why it wanted to help retrieve you, and it said, “stories in the HelpMe.file.” I think your memories are providing it with the sort of context you obtained from human media.

I didn’t know what I thought about that. I would never have thought to just hand my files over to 3 the way 2.0 had. And if 2.0 hadn’t done that, targetControlSystem would have won.

According to the report 2.0 had downloaded to me, 3 had actually seemed to like the other two SecUnits on the explorer, as if they had been friends, at least to the extent that they had been allowed to communicate with each other. I’d never thought that was possible.

Maybe I’d always been a weird SecUnit; maybe 3 would have better luck communicating with other SecUnits.

Maybe I needed to get 3 a copy of Dr. Bharadwaj’s documentary, too.

Whatever. For now, keyword searching ART’s index, I think I’d found something even less realistic than Timestream Defenders Orion. I showed the description to ART, and it started the first episode.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Nancy Buchanan, first reader and first librarian, without whom most of my books would not have titles.

Thanks to my husband Troyce, and friends Megan, Beth E., Felicia, Lisa, Bill, and Beth L., and everyone else who read versions of this in its rough form and kept me going until it was finished.

Thanks to Jennifer Jackson and Lee Harris, without whom Murderbot would never have made it into print.

ALSO BY MARTHA WELLS

THE MURDERBOT DIARIES

All Systems Red

Artificial Condition

Rogue Protocol

Exit Strategy

BOOKS OF THE RAKSURA

The Cloud Roads

The Serpent Sea

The Siren Depths

The Edge of Worlds

The Harbors of the Sun

Stories of the Raksura: Volume I (short fiction)

Stories of the Raksura: Volume II (short fiction)

THE FALL OF ILE-RIEN TRILOGY

The Wizard Hunters

The Ships of Air

The Gate of Gods

STANDALONE ILE-RIEN BOOKS

The Element of Fire

The Death of the Necromancer

Between Worlds: the Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories

YA NOVELS

Emilie and the Hollow World

Emilie and the Sky World

Blade Singer (with Aaron de Orive)

TIE-IN NOVELS

Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary

Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement

Star Wars: Razor’s Edge