Chapter Text
Iris, aged six months
New place. New light.
New thing. Cold, hard. Sound, thrummmm.
Held.
Perihelion, aged 147 Mihira-New Tideland Standard Day Cycles
My Maintenance Drone #6 finished disinfecting the flight command center, and there was nothing left for me to do until Seth and Martyn arrived in 2.03 hours. Three day-cycles ago, Seth informed me that he and Martyn would be bringing their new offspring, Iris, onboard to meet me, in advance of our upcoming mission. He also informed me that Iris would be coming along on the mission, though he didn’t indicate that she would be filling any crew position. The mission was going to take at least sixty cycles, and according to Seth, it was detrimental for human infants to be away from their parental figures for significant amounts of time. This information is confirmed by the University’s archived data on human development.
Seth and Martyn had told me about Iris and shared visual and audio recordings of her with me, but she had never been onboard, nor had any other human infants, so I had very little interpretable information about her. Seth also sent me a packet of feed books on standard human infant development and care. I took in the data. I asked Seth, Why?
Seth sighed. “Well, we’re going to need Martyn’s capacity as a biologist for this lost colony…clusterfuck.” I archived “clusterfuck” in my collection of human profanity, because I had not encountered the term before. Seth had displayed behaviors indicating agitation after receiving intelligence that the mission would be taking place on a planet which had developed highly aggressive fauna. “And neither of our parents are really up to taking care of a six-month old for the whole duration of the mission. When she was born, Martyn and I were agreed that he would take a break from off-planet work until Iris was a year old, but we really need a biologist, and there’s no one else available during that time frame who’s already briefed on what you really are.”
Currently there were seventeen humans in the upper levels of the University who were aware of who and what I really am, so Seth’s explanation made sense.
Am I going to help take care of the infant?
Seth smiled. “No. Well, certainly not if you don’t want to. I only sent you those books because I wanted you to understand what would be happening. I know you haven’t met any kids yet. And once we get the deep space teaching program up and running, you’ll have plenty of them onboard, but they won’t get to know…you.” This was also true. I had been researching teaching methods for adolescent humans since Seth and the other organization directors had informed me about the program, but had little real observational data on human children to fortify my analysis with.
“But, Perihelion, I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the last few months, and I’m excited to introduce Iris to you. I think it’ll be an informative experience for you, at least. And…well, when she’s old enough to understand, I’d like for Iris to know about you the way Martyn and I do.”
Does Holism get a human infant?
He laughed. “No, Holism does not get a human infant.”
Maybe this would be a beneficial experience.
Since that conversation, I had read two hundred and sixteen feed books on human development and infant behavior. According to the data, human infants touch a lot of things and regularly put non-food items in their mouths, without regard for personal danger, and I wanted to be prepared accordingly.
Task List:
-Disinfect all surfaces and confirm that no hazardous disease vectors or disinfectant agents remain afterwards.
-Determine which areas the human infant will be inhabiting.
-Have drones remove or safely conceal hazards within said areas, including cables and sharp objects within reasonable grasp of a human infant
-Designate one drone for purposes of assistance in the human infant’s care
-Prepare educational programming for the human infant
-Prepare stress response programming for Seth and Martyn, with addendums for stressors common to human parents
I sensed Seth’s feed presence outside my docking hatch, and I opened it. He and Martyn entered, and Martyn was pushing a small wheeled device with a retractable cover. My drone in the entrance area approached, and Seth pushed back the cover on the device, revealing the human infant, Iris.
She was very small. I had not properly appreciated this in the recordings I had seen of her previously. She was roughly the same in volume as one of my medium-sized maintenance drones (but a different shape), though it was difficult to determine her weight because it was currently combined with the weight of the wheeled device I identified as a “stroller.”
According to the books I had read, it is customary to ask permission from a parental figure before touching a human infant. I asked Seth, Can I touch her with my drone? Seth acknowledged, and I touched her face lightly with my drone’s arm. This is the drone I had designated for assistance and data gathering in human development. Before their arrival, I had enhanced the drone’s tactile capabilities, added padding over its sharper edges, altered several of its extensions to be more useful for interaction with a human infant, and completely covered it in a non-toxic, saliva-repellent coating as a precaution for both it and Iris.
Iris’s cheek was very soft, and warm. Her eyes had been taking in the whole area, and now they focused on my drone. According to the data, this was a standard behavior for human infants in a few environment. She reached up with a small hand and touched the tactile arm of my drone before grasping it firmly. Her hand was slightly damp, something I had not anticipated.
Martyn let out a breath, and smiled at Seth. “I guess she likes you, Perihelion!”
Over the next several hours, I had my drone closely follow Iris as Seth and Martyn carried her around onboard. Seth was pleased when he discovered that I had modified an area of the crew lounge especially for Iris, surrounded by a low barrier that she would be unable to climb over but that an adult human could step into easily. I had acquired some toys appropriate for infants of Iris’s age (Holism had noticed the delivery activity at my dock slot and was furious that I would not tell it what was going on) and had placed padding over the edges of the barrier so that Iris would be less likely to injure herself while inside of it. According to the data, it was very easy for human infants to injure themselves. I had also outfitted Seth and Martyn’s designated bunk room with a small, separate bed called a “cot” for Iris, and a lounge chair for Martyn to use while he fed Iris. I was aware of the process of breastfeeding infants, but obviously had never seen it in action. According to information from the feed, adults who were breastfeeding infants often appreciated comfortable places to sit while they did it, so it was a chair similar to the one Martyn seemed to prefer in the flight deck.
I was extremely eager for Iris to use the area I had created for her in the crew lounge area, and was pleased when, three hours after they had boarded, Martyn placed her inside it so he could review some reports in his feed while sitting alone across the room, without being chewed on or having his hair pulled.
Iris appeared upset at being set down, initially. She was unable to move around independently yet, which was apparently normal, but she could hold her head up and move her arms and legs while lying on her stomach or back, and she could roll over. I was confused as to why she was displaying signs of distress. Martyn had fed her recently, and she did not have higher than normal moisture levels around/on her body. Was the temperature uncomfortable? Was she bored? I got bored frequently, and it was sometimes distressing,
I moved my drone to hover over her, within arm’s reach, so that I could observe her more closely. Iris stopped making irritated noises and looked at me, her pupils adjusting more slowly than a human adult’s would have. I wanted to gauge her response to my infant educational programming, and she seemed willing enough to participate since she had stopped threatening to cry. My drone was holding a small plastic mirror with a colorful border, close enough that she could see it very well. I refrained from comment while she investigated it, touching it with one tiny hand.
For the next minute and a half, Iris looked at herself in the mirror, especially at her hand’s reflection. I knew she was too young to recognize herself as an individual yet, so I only catalogued her obvious interest in the way images reflected and moved in the mirror. When she grew bored of that, I decided to initiate conversation. I had anticipated that Iris would be incapable of responding verbally to me, but I was wrong.
Do you like the mirror, Iris? Your response indicates that you are reaching standard developmental milestones for a baby your age. This is a good sign.
Iris said, “Gah!”. I catalogued the response. Across the room, my cameras saw Martyn smile, but he didn’t say anything.
Fifty Day-Cycles Later
Iris has learned to crawl, and I have not known peace since. I encouraged the development of this movement when we spent time together by moving her drone (I only used it to interact with her, so I had begun referring to it as her drone) steadily out of her reach, enticing her to move forward to reach it. I did not know what I was doing to myself, or I might not have been so attentive to her developmental needs.
Since beginning to crawl, Iris had managed to put two separate dents in her drone by bashing it against various surfaces. (She exhibited surprising strength for a human of her size.) These were easily fixed, but the larger problem was that she now had an intense, nearly unquenchable, desire to explore her surroundings. This was normal, and indicative of a healthy human baby in a safe, nurturing environment. The issue was that I was not a safe environment, outside of the few areas she frequented. She did not enter any dangerous situations (Aside from Seth, Martyn, and myself, there were a few other crew members onboard for the mission, several of whom enjoyed Iris’s presence, so she had a very high level of adult supervision) but I began having minor performance issues due to what Seth called “parental anxiety by proxy.” It was apparently a new phenomenon in bot intelligences, and Seth was writing a report.
With my processing capabilities, I was acutely aware of every hazardous object onboard myself, and every way that Iris could get injured, either by coming in contact with a hazardous object or by the typical means of human babies. Besides that, we were in orbit around a planet with aggressive hostile fauna and potentially dangerous unknown disease vectors. Obviously, Iris would not be going to the planet at any point, but crew members had to make surface contact at several points, and I began to run potential scenarios in which they might bring back a virus or bacteria that could hurt Iris. I had a clean facility, and the thorough decontamination protocols that the humans followed while coming back onboard ensured that all outside microflora were purged. This did not make the issue better. While researching infant development, I had also encountered a high amount of information on the hazards of diseases for young humans. While I had catalogued the information, I had not had any emotional response to it until I registered that it was something that could actually occur to Iris, if my systems were compromised or if an unknown event put her in contact with a disease vector.
I dealt with the issue by enhancing my pediatric medical programming in the medical suite, and intermittently drilling mission team members on the correct protocol for decontamination.
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Seventy-two days after it had started, the mission ended when we arrived back at the University’s space dock. I watched Seth and Martyn pack their and Iris’s belongings in preparation to return to the planet. I was unable to identify the emotion I was experiencing.
My drone (Iris’s drone) accompanied them on the way to the hatch. Iris clearly recognized it as a friend by this point, and sometimes smiled when she saw it. Before they left, I reached out with the drone’s tactile arm and wiped away some saliva from Iris’s cheek. She was teething, and saliva had been much in evidence.
When the hatch closed, my outside camera watched as Iris looked around in confusion for her drone. Her lip trembled, and she began to wail, much as I had observed her doing when Seth or Martyn left the room.
Forty-seven minutes later, I identified the emotion. It was loneliness. I missed my friend.