The Odin Chronicles • Episode Guide

 

Welcome to Odin III, a grubby little mining world on the dark and dusty backside of nowhere. It’s a world where everything that’s worth having is already owned by Galactic Mining, and where people come to squander their hopes and lives, working for the company and dreaming of striking it big. It’s also a world where strange, weird, and sometimes fantastic things can happen, and they all seem to center around the settlement of Odin North and a friendly little bar called Weber’s Place…

Prologue: A guy walks into a bar…
by Bruce Bethke

In which we introduce the world of The Odin Chronicles and explain just a little bit about the concept for this series and the creative team behind it.

 

Season One

Episode 1: “Weber’s Place” • by Pete Wood

It was supposed to be a routine flight: just a short hop to Odin II to test out a new hyperdrive. Then Ray Cornwall hit the power switch, and that’s when all the trouble began…

Episode 2: “Amid These Dancing Rocks at Once and Ever” • by Paul Celmer

Ray’s accidental changes to history continue to cascade down through the timeline, but Susan is one of the few people who somehow can still remember what her life was like before everything changed…

Episode 3: “The Song of Akinyi” • by Jonathan Sherwood

Ray relives the last flight of the Song of Akinyi, and makes a surprising discovery about what really happened in the moments before Hans became unstuck in time…

Episode 4: “The Two Fathers” • by Pete Wood

The Odin North parish priest, Father Francis, has a serious problem. The Church has decided he needs more help and sent him Father Luigi, and he’s had “help” from Luigi before. If only there was some sort of special work on Odin III that required Father Luigi’s unique blend of talents, that would take him away from town for a long, long time…

Episode 5: “Where’re You From?” • by Roxana Arama

Not everyone comes to Odin III hoping to have a good life. Some come hoping to have a bad one, and the life Florian wants to have is very bad indeed…

Episode 6: “Delayed Messages” • by Carol Scheina

One problem with being one of the furthest colonies out is that communications with Earth depend on a satellite relay system that can be very unreliable. A long-delayed message for Mine Supervisor Popov finally arrives, with surprising repercussions.

Episode 7: “Picnic” • by Pete Wood

While on a picnic up in the hills, Popov’s dog runs off and gets lost. Now it’s getting dark, and after dark is no time to be outside the settlement. In the daylight, Odin III’s native wildlife runs away from humans. After sunset, the tables are turned…

Episode 8: “A Friend for the Machinist” • by Jenna Hanchey

With Susan still missing, Daraja Mapunda, the man known as The Machinist, realizes he really needs to come up out of the tunnels more often, and perhaps even to think about making some new friends…

Episode 9: “Sloane Dreams of Being” • by Travis Burnham

While fixing the orbital satellite relay system, Repair Drone-15 is stricken by a massive solar power surge and accidentally becomes sentient. Realizing it’s disabled and going to crash, it reaches out to Daraja, but takes the name “Sloane” to hide its true nature.

Episode 10: “The Odinian Job” • by Gustavo Bondoni

It’s a tale as old as Old Earth: where there’s a mine, there’s a payroll, and where there’s a payroll, there are always a few dirtbags scheming to steal it. And no, even on Odin III, there is no honor among thieves.

(At this point in Season One we finally got the
budget to have illustrations for every story.)

Episode 11: “The Apple” • by Pete Wood

Still on his mission to contact the Rock People, Father Luigi finds something amazing, but what is it? A divine miracle? An alien artifact? A working example of Clarke’s Third Law in action? Whatever it is, Galactic Mining wants it, and Luigi is beginning to suspect that that’s not a good idea.

Episode 12: “Twelve” • by Roxana Arama

A young schoolboy discovers the secret of the Rock People, but it comes at a terrible cost.

 

Episode 13: “Would Scarcely Know That We Were Gone” • by Jonathan Sherwood

The barriers between the alternate realities are breaking down. Arthur begins to remember his life with Susan in the original timeline.

Episode 14: “Love and Groceries” • by Carol Scheina

Father Luigi and Shelley try to confront Father Francis and get him to approve of their relationship, but a malfunctioning service robot has other, more deadly ideas for all of them.

Episode 15: “No Place” • by Pete Wood

Starship crewman Jonas Gruber returns to Odin III for the first time in fifteen years, but the relativistic time dilation makes the reunion with his family and old friends very difficult.

Episode 16: “Dreams of Another World” • by Jenna Hanchey

For playwright Olivia Fontaine, exile or prison would have been better than following her husbands to their new teaching jobs here on Odin III. Constable Jenkins decides to take her in tow and show her there’s more to life on Odin III than first meets the eye.

Episode 17: “A Question of Timelines” • by Travis Burnham 

Following her husband’s murder, a professional therapist flees to Odin III, where she begins to wonder whether koblyx, Odin III’s indigenous hallucinogenic mushroom, might actually have legitimate therapeutic value. Then she begins to experiment on herself…

Episode 18: “Memory Vault” • by Gustavo Bondoni

Now that Jonas Gruber has decided to give up space travel and stay on Odin III, he’s having trouble adjusting to life as a miner. His growing addiction to koblyx isn’t helping…

Episode 19: “The One Who Walks Out” • by Carol Scheina

A mining tragedy on Odin II finally causes Father Luigi to find his true calling…

Episode 20: “Faith and Good Works” • by Pete Wood

After surviving a shuttle crash on Odin II, Father Francis races against time to repair the ship’s emergency beacon and call for help, before the Odin system’s binary suns rise and the survivors bake to death.

Episode 21: “Hunt” • by Jonathan Sherwood

Never forget: in the daylight, Odin III’s native wildlife runs away from humans. After dark, the tables are turned...

Episode 22: “Friends Like Binary Stars” • by Travis Burnham

On Odin III, broken tools are too valuable to be thrown away—even when a tool is as broken as the robot that tried to kill Shelley, Father Luigi, and Father Francis. Ingrid and Sloane-51 try to repair it, but it takes eleven-year-old Vivi to find the crucial missing piece—and it’s not hardware.

Episode 23: “The Disappearing Cat Trick” • by Carol Scheina

Suddenly, cats seem to be everywhere in Odin North, coming and going as they please. Daraja suspects it has something to do with the crystal apple Father Luigi found in Episode 11. What do the cats know that the humans don’t?

Episode 24: “The Ocean of Story” • by Paul Celmer

Another mystery of the Rock People comes to light, and with it, hints at a path to human immortality. But some people don’t want that secret to be found.

Episode 25: “In Triplicate” • by Gustavo Bondoni

Daraja and Constable Jenkins attempt to send the crystal apple back to Earth for further study, but find they’re facing an enemy even they can’t defeat: colonial bureaucracy.  

Episode 26: “The Savior and the Beetle” • by Roxana Arama

Ida has spent her entire life helping people, whether they want her help or not. A new house and a small green beetle teach her a valuable lesson.

Episode 27: “Winds of Possibility” • by Carol Scheina

The townspeople are forced to take shelter in the mines when the worst dust storm in 50 years hits Odin North. But on Odin III, dust storms are no ordinary things…

Episode 28: “Coffee Grounds and Soap Bubbles” • by Travis Burnham

An old prospector learns a valuable lesson: like tools, friends are hard to come by on Odin III, so you’d best not throw them away, no matter how irritating they might sometimes become.

Episode 29: “The Light of Better Days” • by Jonathan Sherwood

Hans finally confronts Aisling, and reveals the secret he’s been keeping for 50 years of what really happened on the last flight of the Song of Akinyi, in the moments before he became unstuck in time.

Episode 30: “Calling” • by Pete Wood

It’s a time of endings, and new beginnings. Father Francis has been recalled to Earth, to take a teaching post. Father Luigi has finally matured, to become the parish priest Odin North needs him to be. And Aisling has one last vision…   

 

Season Two

Episode 31: “Lost and Found” • by Pete Wood

It’s two years later. While Luigi and Shelley are trying to move ahead with plans for their wedding, Daraja is growing concerned. The plasma barrier on the east side of town is breaking down, and the Change Wind storms are becoming more frequent. Thus far the timeline glitches have been fairly minor, but it’s only a matter of time until there’s a major break in the space/time continuum.

Episode 32: “The Song of Her Heart” • by Matt Krizan

Sloane-51, the accidentally liberated A.I., continues to evolve in unexpected ways. Her behavior is becoming more erratic, more unpredictable... more human. When a mine cave-in traps Sloane and Daraja deep underground, her “quirks” might make all the difference between life and death.

Episode 33: “An Infestation in the Mines” • by Carol Scheina

The miners have found something very disturbing down on the 500-meter level, and Popov seeks out expert help to deal with it.

Episode 34: “Dilation” • by Pete Wood

Jonas Gruber draws the short straw and gets sent out to find and fix the gaps in the plasma barrier. To make things worse, his new partner doesn’t seem to know how to shut up—even when they’ve drawn the attention of a stalking night razor.  

 

Episode 35: “A Good Boy” • by Kimberly Ann Smiley

Dr. Peyton, the town pediatrician, has a soft spot for small furry animals of all kinds. When an injured alien creature shows up on her doorstep, she takes it in and nurses it back to health—and in the process, makes a frightening discovery. 

Episode 36: “Stratigraphic Homesick Blues” • by Pauline Barmby

It was either the scientific find of the millennium or… Or whatever it was, it was Nina’s problem now. 

Episode 37: “Odin Speaks in Flowers” • by Travis Burnham

Odin III took the lives of his wife and his children. He would make the whole planet remember them. 

Episode 38: “A Time to Wait” • by Carol Scheina

There’s been a quake and a cave-in, miners are trapped underground, and Father Luigi learns that sometimes the hardest but most useful thing to do is not to run to the scene and try to help.

Episode 39: “The Church of a Million Gods” • by Jason P. Burnham

Father Luigi receives a disturbing visitor with a very disturbing message. 

Episode 40: “A Swirl in the Dark” • by Paul Celmer

Still wandering across the alternate timelines and searching for her one true life, Susan finds a clue in an ancient game.

Episode 41: “The Gravity of Home” • by Kimberly Ann Smiley

Ingrid deals with the complications of relatives and relativity, while a mysterious stranger attempts to communicate with her cat. 

Episode 42: “The Same Bratwurst Every Day” • by Carol Scheina

Hans is stuck in a time loop—again—only this time he’s finding it relaxing. No surprises means no stress. There’s just one problem he can’t seem to solve…

Episode 43: “More Than Just Ore” • by Gustavo Bondoni

Duncan Strasser has been acting strangely ever since the incident in the bamboo forest in Episode 34. Forced to work alone with him deep in the mines, Father Maria begins to find out just how strange he’s become.  

Episode 44: “Details” • by Pete Wood

On a world like Odin III, what’s the point of a prison? It’s just a waste of people who could be doing the work robots are too valuable to do. People like Rauno.

Episode 45: “Love and Mushrooms” • by Kimberly Ann Smiley

Since surviving the shuttle crash on Odin II in Episode 20, Mazaa has had a lot of time to think about her life and how empty it’s become, until a fire in the hangar changes everything in an instant.   

Episode 46: “Token of Affection” • by Gustavo Bondoni

Every day, life on Odin III finds a new way to be weird. Teleporting slugs? Father Luigi helps Dr. Nina cope with living on a planet where even the most basic rules of science don’t seem to apply.

Episode 47: “A Spark in the Dark” • by Travis Burnham

After losing her arm in an accident and getting a robotic prosthesis, Eva discovers she has a special affinity for broken and discarded robots. 

Episode 48: “Night Walk” • by Eric Fomley

You know the old joke, “The last man on Earth heard footsteps behind him?” Out for a walk late at night, Shelley suddenly finds it’s not funny at all.

 

Episode 49: “The Show Must Go On” • by Gustavo Bondoni

Ingrid, the owner of Weber’s Place and overworked bartender who never gets a night off, finally discovers the secret of how to be in two places at the same time.

 

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The Odin Chronicles • Episode 49: “The Show Must Go On” • by Gustavo Bondoni

Constable Jenkins walked into Weber’s Place. 

Ingrid, behind the bar, looked her up and down before pulling a local beer—Earth stock was long gone, and she had no clue when the next shipment would arrive—out of the small fridge at her feet and set it on the counter.

“Scotch,” Jenkins said.

“You don’t need Scotch tonight,” Ingrid said. “You look like you’re on your last legs already. What happened?”

As the owner of the best bar on the mining colony of Odin III, Ingrid had years of experience in reading people.

Jenkins talked of a comms technician who swore he was on a prosperous terraformed planet just yesterday, then he saw a shimmering curtain and appeared in this mining hellhole. Unfortunately, his prints and retinal patterns matched a guy who’d been working the mines for several years. Jenkins wanted to investigate it further, but the damned Galactic brass had told her to close the case. Jenkins didn’t like being told what to do.

Ingrid made all the usual noises, even though it sounded like just another day in the life of one of the Colony’s cops, and it probably wasn’t the real reason Jenkins was upset.

Suddenly Jenkin’s eyes were wide. “Say… I always wanted to ask. How come you never come watch our play? We’re friends, right?”

Ingrid laughed. “Everyone who does those plays is my friend.”

“Then why don’t you ever come?”

“Who’d take care of the bar?”

“One of your bargirl temps. Or hire someone if you can’t trust any of them.”

Ingrid shook her head. “That’s not the way this works. People come in here expecting to see me and to talk to me. If I’m never here, they’ll find a different watering hole.”

“That’s ridiculous. Have you seen the other bars?”

“Trust me,” Ingrid said. “That’s exactly how it works.”

“I still think you should make the effort. It’s one night every three or four months or so. We don’t do that many shows.” Jenkins’ mouth puckered petulantly. Ingrid thought she should have steered the constable clear even of beer. It was obvious that Jenkins was mad at someone, aching for a fight, and Ingrid was the only person nearby.

Fortunately, Ingrid had all the experience she needed to deal with this, and she soon maneuvered Jenkins out the door and in the direction of her house.

Now what? Ingrid wondered, looking over the empty bar. It was too early to close, so she just sat on a chair and debated whether to have a beer.

The air in front of her shimmered. Ingrid tensed, ready to flee. Galactic’s barrier managed to keep most of the serious weirdness away from the settlement, but even the small stuff could be deadly… and when it wasn’t, it could mess up your whole week anyway.

Nothing lethal seemed to be happening, so she peered closer. It might be a mistake to stay in the same room with it, of course, but the thing was mesmerizing.

A figure staggered through the shimmering spot in the air, took a couple of unsteady steps, and tripped over one of the chairs.

“Dammit,” a woman’s voice came from the wreckage.

The curtain of weirdness disappeared, and Ingrid rushed to the other person’s aid. “Are you all right?”

The woman who’d come through the wormhole or whatever looked up at her.

“Holy crap.” They both said it at once, and they both used the same words, which was only to be expected because Ingrid suddenly found herself looking down at her own face.

“What happened?” the Ingrid who’d come through the portal asked.

“Do I look like a Galactic scientist to you?” the real Ingrid replied. At least “real” was how she thought of herself. She supposed the other woman felt the same way.

“No. You look like a night razor imitating a human.”

“Don’t you think my vocabulary is a little over-developed for a razor?”

The second Ingrid shrugged. “Beats me. I’m not a scientist either.”

“I suppose you already know who I am then. I’m Ingrid.”

“Ugh. I hate it when people call me that. I go by Inga.”

“What did you see?”

Inga shrugged. “The air began to wobble. Then I felt something like a hand pushing me through. I tried to resist, but…”

“And here you are.”

Inga looked around. “Is this Weber’s Place?”

“Yup.”

“That’s a relief. I thought I’d been transported. We must just have gotten duplicated.”

Ingrid shook her head. “No. Nothing happened to me. You came from somewhere else.”

“That’s stupid. This is Weber’s Place. It’s on MineCol Fourteen, right?”

Ingrid shook her head. “Odin III, I’m afraid. It’s a mining colony in the Galactic Fourth Administration Zone.”

Inga paled. “Dammit. I mean that sounds exactly like the place I came from…but it’s not called Odin.” She paused. “Please tell me this is a beautiful, peaceful colony with enlightened leadership and where you can get great help to man the bar.”

Ingrid shook her head again. “It’s a dusty mining colony. And weird stuff happens. And I keep the bar open by myself at all hours, even when I happen to have hired someone to help. Even the ones I can trust not to drink the place dry are likely to do something stupid as soon as my back’s turned.”

“Sounds exactly like home,” Inga said.

“Do you know how to get back?” Ingrid asked.

“No. And I’m not sure I want to try, either. People who attempt to play with this kind of crap wind up dead. Galactic’s always putting out reports about when stuff goes wrong.”

“Huh. We have a Galactic here too. They’re in charge of the mine. Well, it seems this is your home now.”

The new woman looked grim. “Damn. What are you going to do? What do we tell people?”

Ingrid thought long and hard before replying. “We don’t.”

“Huh?”

“We don’t tell anyone. I was just thinking about that earlier. Listen…”

§

The two had a bit of a learning curve getting used to each other, but a few weeks later, Ingrid adjusted her dress. It felt rough and starchy against her skin, so accustomed to the work clothes she wore in the bar. The seat was no more than a metal-and-plastic chair, one of a collection of mismatched furniture the company had placed in rows ahead of the makeshift stage.

Her feeling of unease disappeared as the play went on. The thing was absolutely terrible. Whoever had chosen to perform an old-Earth musical comedy had misjudged the singing skills of the cast…and had completely hallucinated if they thought a single member of the company could dance.

But in the incompetence lay the very beauty of the production. What the cast lacked in talent, they made up for in the sheer joy of being up there. Ingrid basked in the feeling of seeing her regulars—her friends—up on the stage expressing joy as opposed to drowning their sorrows in alcohol and lonely talk with their barman.

Ingrid smiled. She knew that, tonight, the bar was in excellent hands, and she didn’t have to worry.

Tomorrow, Inga could have the night off.

---

New to Odin III? Find out what you’ve been missing!
Check out The Complete Episode Guide. 

The Odin Chronicles is on vacation for the rest of August, but will return in September.

---

Gustavo Bondoni is novelist and short story writer with over three hundred stories published in fifteen countries, in seven languages.  He is a member of Codex and an Active Member of SFWA.His latest novel is a dark historic fantasy entitled The Swords of Rasna (2022). He has also published five science fiction novels, four monster books and a thriller entitled Timeless. His short fiction is collected in Pale Reflection (2020), Off the Beaten Path (2019), Tenth Orbit and Other Faraway Places (2010) and Virtuoso and Other Stories (2011).
 
In 2019, Gustavo was awarded second place in the Jim Baen Memorial Contest and in 2018 he received a Judges Commendation (and second place) in The James White Award. He was also a 2019 finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest.

His website is at www.gustavobondoni.com

Gustavo has become a frequent contributor to Stupefying Stories and we have quite a few stories of his stories on this site. Check them out!

 

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The Odin Chronicles • Episode 48: “Night Walk” • by Eric Fomley

The stars were Shelley’s favorite part about living on Odin III. 

The night sky was brilliantly studded with countless twinkling orbs that swept over the horizon. She loved night walks along the edge of town in the cool air, especially on nights like tonight, when she and her fiancé, Father Luigi, were fighting again.

This time, the argument was prompted when he canceled date night. Another dinner lost to his obligations at work. She knew his position in the church demanded a certain level of commitment to the congregation, and she was okay when they spent time apart because of work requirements, but he’d made an obligation to her as well. She was important, too, and yet he always put her last on the priority list.

Shelley snatched a rock up from the dusty path and turned it over in her hand, brushing the sand free. She gripped the rock hard enough for it to feel the way she felt in her gut when she lost time with her fiancé. Constricted—that was a good word for it. She threw the rock hard into the night.

Her biggest issue with the whole thing had been the way he handled it. Instead of apologizing and making her feel like he actually wanted the time together, he gave her a pitiful shrug and left! Why couldn’t he just set some boundaries? Was it that hard? If this was what it was going to be like, Shelley wondered if there was any point in getting married. He just made her so angry.

The ground crunched beneath her shoes as she walked slowly along the path. She paused again to look at the sky when she heard the shuffle of blowing sand on the path behind her.

She turned and looked. The light of the stars dimly illuminated the path, but she didn’t see anything. The shifting stopped.

Shelley’s pulse quickened. Was it a night razor, or some sort of unknown predator everyone in town was always talking about? She’d never had a run-in with anything this close to town. Her walks had always been peaceful things.

She continued down the path, faster this time, hoping to put some distance between her and whatever it was.

The shifting sound continued, louder. It came closer, closer, until she felt stinging grit on the back of her legs. Whatever it was pounded the ground with loud thuds. A gurgling sound erupted like a burp right behind her.

Shelley ran toward town, her heart hammered in a frenzy. It had been forever since she’d run anywhere, but no matter how hard she pushed her legs, the town only seemed to get farther away.

No, no, no, not this. Not now, she screamed inside her head. Odin III had so many peculiarities to it, anomalies that disrupted the flow of reality. She needed to get away. Fast.

The sounds behind her stopped.

She risked a glance behind her and only saw an empty path. She stopped running, sucked heavy breaths into her burning lungs. The path was empty, and she didn’t see anything around her in any direction. She knew she didn’t imagine it, though. The sounds, the feeling of sand blowing on her legs. It had all been so real.

Shelley wiped the dust from her face with trembling fingers. She took long, slow breaths to slow her stammering heart.

The shuffling sound started again.

This time Shelley could see the swirl of sand down the path. A man-shaped shadow. It spun the grit into a cloud. At the center was darkness. A void that seemed immune to the starry night.

“Hello?” she called. “Who’s there?”

It ran towards her.

Shelley’s heart leapt into her throat. Every nerve and goose bump pin-pricked into all out panic. She turned to sprint away again but tripped over a wild shrub, stumbling into the rough sand. She felt a rock beneath her hand and gripped it hard, teeth grinding, angry, for she wasn’t going down like this. She prepared to strike out at whatever was going to attack her.

It never did.

She looked around and was shocked. Somehow, despite taking the path away from her apartment, and running from the creature, she’d wound up back the way she came. Her workplace, and her little bedroom above it, was only a short walk away. She could make out the lights of the deli.

She stood and brushed off her knees. They felt tender and she was sure there would be a rash from digging them hard into the sand. She closed her eyes and tried her best to collect herself. When she opened them, she looked around again.

Still nothing.

She knew she hadn’t imagined it. Stories went around town. Tales of other strange happenings that added to the mystery of Odin III. This was the first time she’d had a brush with something out of place.

Shelley shuddered as she thought again of the man-shaped void. Her pulse still thrummed behind her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so afraid. Or so angry.

She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath of cool air. She risked one final glance over her shoulder at the empty path. The creature wasn’t there. She walked toward her apartment, ready to be indoors and away from that thing. She’d face it if she had to, but she’d rather settle down behind a locked door.

Something she was certain of as she walked, was in that moment when she feared for her life and was ready to defend herself, she’d thought of Luigi. And if that wasn’t a sign that he was the one, then she wasn’t sure what was.

But it was complicated. She loved the man, but she couldn’t let him steamroll over her, even if he never knew he did it. Poor, clueless Luigi. Still, she adored that innocence.

He had a kindness inside of him that she loved. He’d made Odin feel like home to her. And she had an ability to organize and get tasks done that he could use in his life. She’d stop being afraid to tell him what she thought. He needed to set boundaries with work, but that was something she could help him with. She wanted, needed, more time with her fiancé. Shelley looked at the rock she still held in her hand. She wasn’t one to give up. She was a fighter, just like she’d fought against…whatever that thing was. She would fight for this relationship because despite everything, she loved him.

She was going to help him set those boundaries and was going to marry him. She was sure of that now.

---

New to Odin III? Find out what you’ve been missing!
Check out The Complete Episode Guide. 

Coming Saturday: Episode 49, “The Show Must Go On,” by Gustavo Bondoni

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Eric Fomley's stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Galaxy's Edge Magazine, and many other places including, of course, here on Stupefying Stories, where he’s been a fairly regular contributor since 2021. (We’re particularly fond of “Getting Sponsored.”) You can find more of his stories on his website, ericfomley.com, or in his Portals or Flash Futures collections. 

You might also want to check out our mini-interview with him, “Six Questions for...”, which ran last August.

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The Odin Chronicles • Episode 47: “A Spark in the Dark” • by Travis Burnham

By the time Eva ‘Spark’ Rodriguez turned twenty-three, she’d lived on a string of mining planets. When she was young, a hover-transport had jackknifed in front of the family hovercar and, though she’d lost an arm—the doctors replaced it with a robotic limb—they couldn’t replace her parents. The robotic arm had gained her a special affinity for mechanical things and there was no lack of machines on mining colonies.

As she nursed a Valkyrie Lager in Weber’s Place on the most remote colony of them all, Odin III, Eva thought of how, whichever planet she visited, there was always something missing.

That morning, however, Eva woke up to find something written in one of her discrete online forums that might be curious to others, but was foundation-shaking for her: some robots on Odin III were gaining sentience after sustaining some kind of damage. She was particularly struck by a young girl, Vivi, who’d rescued a damaged grocery bot from the scrap heap.

____________

Hearing a whirring sound, nine-year-old Eva looked into a dumpster to find a worn and broken robotic dog. Unable to deal with the whole orphan thing and the group home bullies, she’d taken to fixing things—toasters, thermostats, washers—instead of herself. So she fixed the robotic pup as best she could.

“I’ll name you Art3mis, after that book character I loved.”

Eva found solace in elaborate, imaginary adventures. She reclaimed the name the bullies called her and dubbed herself Spark, the robot girl. Eva/Spark and Art3mis went on hundreds of imagined adventures, and she imagined the pup speaking.

Rescuing princes from Cjipean aliens: “Lazy royals. They should have rescued themselves.”

Riding migratory pterodactyls over the Drakensberg Mountains: “Where are the motion sickness bags?”

Capturing the dread outlaw, Black Pete for a handsome reward. “Maybe we should keep him as a pet.”

Whenever Spark told Art3mis, “I love you,”—most often at the end of an adventure—the small robotic dog would always reply, “And I you, to the moon and back.” An imagined response, but it felt so real.

____________

Eva finished both her lager and the last post on the forums. Her first stop would be a visit to Sloane-51, who lived with Eva’s friend and local machinist, Daraja. Sloane-51 had been a semi-autonomous repair drone when a solar burst had blindsided her, simultaneously wreaking havoc and setting her free.

When Eva knocked on Daraja’s door, he immediately ushered her in—he was always welcoming, and they’d collaborated on a number of repair projects around the colony.

Pleasantries dispensed, Eva asked, “Is Sloane-51 in?”

Daraja nodded. “Sloane? Eva is here.”

Eva started, “So I have this friend…” Before she knew it, she was telling the whole story of Spark and Art3mis

“So you haven’t found out why you gained sentience?” Eva asked afterwards.

“Not yet,” Sloane-51 replied. “But you’re welcome to copy my notes.”

____________

Spark and Art3mis arrived at the beach for the group home field trip, but the real adventure for them was to liberate a chest of Spanish doubloons from the Pirate King. Spark held a rapier with her robotic arm, while Art3mis circled behind the King.

“Give it up, Pirate King. You don’t have a chance,” Spark said.

“Pirate King?” Art3mis snorted. “You look like a four-year-old in a bad Halloween costume.”

Suddenly a rogue wave crashed into them. Art3mis was pulled from Spark’s hands and Spark could feel the little robotic dog underwater, bumping off her hip, tumbling down her legs, and then sucked away from her. After a frantic search through the white foam waves, Spark found Art3mis after what felt like hours, but the sand and salt water had destroyed Art3mis' circuitry.

“I love you, Art3mis.” Spark cradled the little dog. “I love you.”

But Art3mis was silent. Not even an imagined response.

“I love you,” Spark whispered.

Eva didn’t speak again for three weeks, and her Spark persona slowly faded away.

____________

Eva spent every moment she could working on the sentience enigma. She interviewed the other sentient robots: a coffee maker who had maybe gained sentience by watching soap operas with an old prospector, and a hulking but gentle grocery bot.

Eva studied everything about Odin III—its mass and size, atmospheric composition, and magnetic fields. Its rotation period, orbital eccentricity, and axial tilt. She even studied its orbital resonance, stellar metallicity, and eccentricity of orbit. But for every Odin III characteristic she studied, there was another planet in the known worlds that shared that characteristic. And on none of those planets had robots gaining sentience.

Like Sloane-51, Eva couldn’t unravel the sentience mystery.

One evening, Eva was watching Daraja and Sloane play chess. Between moves, Daraja told Eva, “Even though we live in a mining colony, maybe you don’t always have to dig deeper. Sometimes what you’re looking for is right in front of you.”

She’d been approaching her problem like an engineer. But maybe she didn’t have to solve the problem. She’d simply recreate the conditions—find the truth in front of her. Maybe she didn’t have to understand.

“Daraja, you two are the absolute best!”

So Eva started charging Art3mis every night, but maybe more importantly, she brought Art3mis everywhere. In the mines, while fixing longwall shearers and armored face conveyors. They ate lunch with miners and engineers. At Weber’s Place, she talked with people she’d previously only nodded at. Even walking around town, she began conversations with people she’d seen a hundred times, but never spoken to.

It dawned on her how much hope she’d invested into the whole hopeless endeavor. She also realized how truly lonely she’d been.

One morning Eva woke up to see Art3mis’s dead eyes pinning her. The blue charge light showed full charge, but still nothing from Art3mis.

The quest to bring back Art3mis had started as days that had turned into weeks, then months. She’d made some friends along the way, but it was still more than Eva could take. She cracked. She hadn’t cried since before the accident when she’d lost her parents. The tears came hard with ugly jagged sobs. All the pain of bullying at the group home and of losing her parents—and of losing Art3mis.

A shaft of morning sun burned through a slit in the apartment’s blinds and fell across Art3mis.

Then, through a haze of tears, Eva saw Art3mis blink.

And then again.

“Heya, Spark,” Art3mis said. “The last thing I remember was the ocean and the Pirate King, but judging from the wifi signals, it’s been a long time since then.” This time, it wasn’t a phrase that Eva had created. It was a statement Art3mis spoke aloud—it was something a sentient Art3mis would say.

And at that moment, Eva was a child again. She was Spark. “I missed you so, so much, Art3mis,” she said. “I love you.”

“And I you,” Art3mis replied, “to the moon and back.”

And Spark knew it was true. But she also realized that maybe it was okay to let others in. Maybe Art3mis, in the end, had taught her the biggest lesson of all.

“Art3mis? Would you like to meet a couple other friends of mine?”

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New to Odin III? Find out what you’ve been missing!
Check out The Complete Episode Guide. 

Coming Tuesday: Episode 48, “Night Walk,” by Eric Fomley

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Travis Burnham is an SF&F writer and science teacher. His work has or will soon appear in Far Fetched Fables, Hypnos Magazine, South85 Journal, Dream of Shadows, and Stupefying Stories, among other places. His most recent previous story for us was “10 Ways to Survive an SF Story.” If you have not read it, you should check it out.

Originally from New England, he’s lived in Japan, Colombia, Portugal, and the Marianas Islands, and currently teaches science at an international school in Malta. He’s a bit of a thrill seeker, having bungee-jumped in New Zealand, hiked portions of the Great Wall of China, and gone scuba diving in Bali. He’s got some novels currently looking for homes and can be found online at travisburnham.blogspot.com, or infrequently on twitter @Darwins_Finch. 

 

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