“Define it? Yes. But understand it?… No.”

I leaned my head back again. How did one explain mortality to a robot? “You miss your memories, right? The data banks that were destroyed in your crash? So you understand loss.”

“I do. But I cannot miss my own existence—by definition. So why would I fear it?”

“Because… someday you’ll stop being here. You’ll cease to exist. Get destroyed.”

“I am powered down repeatedly. I was powered down for a hundred and seventy-two years. How is it different if I’m never powered on again?”

I fidgeted, playing with the control sphere’s buttons. I still had six more days of leave. Of simply… sitting around? Supposedly recovering? But really just prodding at that hole inside me, like a child constantly picking at a scab?

“Spensa?” M-Bot said, pulling me back. “Should I fear death?”

“A good Defiant doesn’t,” I said. “So maybe you were programmed this way on purpose. And it’s not really my own death that I fear. Actually, I don’t fear anything. I’m not a coward.”

“Of course.”

“But losing the others has me… wavering. I should be strong enough to withstand this. I knew what it would cost to become a pilot. I’ve trained, and prepared, and listened to Gran-Gran’s stories, and…” I took a deep breath.

“I miss my pilot,” M-Bot said. “I ‘miss’ him because of the loss of knowledge. Without proper information, I cannot judge my future actions. My ability to interface with the world, and to be efficient, is lessened.” He hesitated. “I am broken, and do not know how to fulfill my purpose. Is this how you feel?”

“Maybe.” I made a fist, forcing myself to stop fidgeting. “But I’m going to beat it, M-Bot.”

“It must be nice to have free will.”

“You have free will too. We’ve talked about this.”

“I simulate it in order to seem more palatable to humans,” he said. “But I do not have it. Free will is the ability to ignore your programming. Humans can ignore theirs, but I—at a fundamental level—cannot.”

“Humans don’t have programming.”

“Yes you do. You have too much of it. Conflicting programs, none of it interfacing properly, all calling different functions at the same time—or the same function for contradictory reasons. Yet you ignore it sometimes. That is not a flaw. It is what makes you you.”

I mulled that over, but I was so anxious that I had trouble sitting still. Finally, I pushed open the canopy and climbed down, then fetched my radio and my pack.

Rig was absorbed by his work, humming to himself a tune I didn’t know as he stripped the broken pieces of fuselage from the booster.

I stepped over. “You need any help?” I asked him.

“Not at the moment. I might need you in a day or two, if I have to replace wires again.” He got another section off, then poked into the hole with a screwdriver. “Good thing I got the shield igniter back together. I’m going to have my hands full with this for a while.”