Daley: And then you’ll nut up and fix the engine?

Taban: Yeah, Daley. As soon as I find out my atoms aren’t going to get ripped apart and scrambled by cosmic death-rays or a fucking solar wind, I’ll nut up and fix the engine.

Daley: All right. Send it out, then.

Taban: HARE, you ready?

HARE: I am awaiting directives.

Taban: HARE, enter reconnaissance mode. Acquire data about this planet.

HARE (processors whirring): . . .

HARE: ‘This planet’: command unrecognized.

Taban: See, hacking its protocols made it go all screwy. It’s not equipped to be dealing with undesignated planets. You know why? Because it’s illegal to land on undesignated planets.

Daley: Just rephrase. Make up a name for the planet, give it something to categorize. Fool it.

Taban: HARE, enter reconnaissance mode. Acquire data about current planet, uhhh, designation HARPA.

Daley: Harpa? Who the hell is Harpa?

Taban: It’s just a name I made up.

HARE (processors whirring): . . .

HARE: Designation HARPA acquired. Entering reconnaissance mode.

Daley: Okay, let’s send it outside.

[Daley and Taban rise from their seats and leave the cockpit. The HARE also rises on its plungered feet and lumbers after them. Daley and Taban stop in front of the airlock of the ship and begin to zip up in protective suits.]

Taban: It’s a heuristic learning model. An evolving intelligence. It’ll get smarter the longer it’s active, the more it absorbs.

Daley: I don’t really care about that, Taban. All I care about is fixing the damn engine and getting home.

Taban: Right.

Daley: (grunt)

Taban (to HARE): And don’t you come back until you’ve acquired as much data as you can, you hear? Scan everything in sight.

HARE: Affirmative.

Taban: And stop saying that.

HARE: Okay, USER Taban. What would you like me to say instead?

Taban: I don’t know. Just say something less creepy.

HARE: Something less creepy.

Daley: Ha. It’s fucking with you.

Taban: It can’t do that. Can you?

HARE: I’m sorry. I am unable to answer your query at this time.

4.

Park could not remember when she had first decided to be a psychologist. There was no defining moment, no sudden epiphany. No inspirational role model who had encouraged her in the dream. In fact, almost everyone who knew her in her youth had assumed she would turn out to be a roboticist. She had a hazy memory of typing ‘psychology’ on the hobbies and interests portion of some survey. But where had the impulse come from? She didn’t know.

Later, she would test low in amiability on her career placement exams in high school. That was a problem: you needed moderate-to-high scores in amiability, empathy, and self-awareness to even get a degree in the field. The family android, Glenn, informed her that she was too “closed up inside” when he helped her practice for the retakes.