In case you missed the first segment of this space opry (in the style of 2001 Space Odyssey), please feel free to check it out here. And now, here’s the actual story as told to me by Trent-2-6000 after the last deep consideration of tardigrades and life and dust careening through space. Maybe.

Trent-2-6000 sighed.  He swept more random Mars dirt into his vacuum-hermetically sealed containment unit and went about his business on the probe.  Actually, this was his business on the probe, and it was dreadfully dull.  Space was supposed to be this exciting new frontier, this brave new world… but it really wasn’t any different than life back on Earth.  The newness had long since worn off several trips ago, and the slow passage of the years was beginning to get to him.  How long had it been now?  And here he was, still playing clean up crew.  He was actually sort of surprised that they couldn’t get a robot to do this job – oh wait.  Sigh again.

Trent kept forgetting that he was, in fact, a robot now.  There just weren’t many reminders out here, of his old body, of his old life, of Earth, of anything really…  Just floating along, this tin can became all he knew; time and space just kind of stood still in the periphery.  His currently lifeless body was submerged in cryo-crypto-cyano-freeze (or whatever they called it) while he worked off the payments to resuscitate it.  His robot body was stiff and unaccommodating, not at all what he’d pictured when he enlisted for the Mars missions to pay off the triple-interest-bearing student loan debts incurred in human form.  He could have gone military, but when he signed on for this assignment, bright eyed and bushy-tailed at graduation, he was hoping for something a bit more Captain Kirk or Han Solo or at any rate notably less Wall-E.  But it just didn’t pan out that way and now here he was, traveling back and forth on the Mars Voyager, cleaning up space grime.  So much debt… so much dirt.  He was going to have to have a word with the job placement division at the school once he was done with all of this, assuming that the career guidance counselor who talked him into this was even still there.

It was painfully lonely out here in space.  It often seemed that Trent was the only cognitive entity on this vessel, though the computer technically qualified.  Trent’s duty was to keep everything clean and tidy so that the computer could do its job efficiently and effectively without being bothered to clear the space grime itself.  Apparently that work was beneath it, actually quite literally since it wasn’t hooked into the mechanics needed to engage in such tasks anyway.  It was programmed with a single role at hand, getting to and from Mars and conducting the research as requested, and the computer made it abundantly clear that had no time for idle chitchat with the janitorial bottom-feeders working to earn their freedom.  It generally ignored Trent unless there was something specific that needed to be attended to.  And then it was just “Dust-Buster, do this” or “Dust-Buster do that…”

Sometimes the dust was hard to catch.  It settled oddly between spaces, like cracks in sliding doorways and computer keyboards and battery packs and so on.  Sometimes it seemed to fabricate places to hide in that weren’t previously obvious.  It drilled down in the interstices as if it had some unseen purpose all its own.  Trent wondered why there were even so many nooks and crannies for it to hide in since this wasn’t a manned vessel and no actual crew were aboard to use things like keyboards.  Hell, those had been outdated for well over a century now – just how old was this spacecraft anyway?  No matter, better to just focus on the work.  He swept more debris into a containment unit.  As he did so, he was sure he heard something, like a tiny almost inaudible severely muffled scream.

He looked into the clear acrylic dome at the dirt.  He could sense it looking back at him, waiting.  Surely he was imagining things.  His mind suddenly reeled to Horton the Elephant declaring, a person’s a person no matter how small.  But Dr. Seuss didn’t make any more sense here in space than back on Earth after the last World War had decimated all the oceans and there were no more free trees or clovers for such a speck of dust as Whoville to land on – everything was held tightly under lock and key, blockaded away to be dispensed as the all-controlling government saw fit.  Hell, people’s real bodies met pretty much the same fate upon adulthood, at least as far as the masses were concerned anyway, and many lived their entire lives as robots with their human vessels left in catatonic stasis.  Trent shook his dark musings off and continued on his one and only real job.  But the feeling that the dust was looking at him was still unsettling.  In fact the dust wasn’t settling at all, it was swirling and ebbing about the containment unit in cloudy eddies, like some kind of strange iron-red cloud apparition or ghost.  It began to take shape.  It formed into lips, which parted to speak.

“Hello there mechanical being.”

Trent stared at it quizzically as a long bout of silence passed.  The pursed lips seemed to await a response, but from whom?

“I’m talking to you,” it persisted.

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I didn’t think you had meant to address me,” Trent 2-6000 stammered, “I’m not wholly used to being mechanical.  This robot body, it’s different than the one I had back in school…  I was still just a boy then; they let us grow up in the system until we age out,” he spoke dreamily, distracted by reflecting on more interesting times.

“Is there someone else here?” the dust piqued hopefully, as if growing bored with conversing with the young janitor and hoping to speak with his superior.

Trent glanced over at the computer, which seemed to be busy compounding equations in its free time, like always.  “No,” he replied, “just me.”

“Ok, well…  Then, dear mechanical being, would it be possible for you to free me?”

“Wait, what?  No, absolutely not,” Trent was taken aback again.  “My sole role on this mission is to sweep up the space dirt so that it doesn’t contaminate any of the equipment or settle into places it shouldn’t be.  It, um you, must stay contained, as per my orders.  It’s out of my hands… er reach.”

“What are you afraid of?” the red cloud quipped as it began to swirl into the shape of a beautiful female face around the mouth that it had already formed, lips plumping and parting slightly.  “What, exactly, do you fear that I might do?” it insinuated slyly.

“Ummm, I don’t know,” Trent-2-6000 stared into the acrylic dome at the beautiful half-formed human-ghost face staring back at him.  “I was unaware that you could do that, whatever you just did, so the possibilities boggle the mind…”

“I can do a lot more…” the ghost girl interrupted, her voice lilting playfully.  “What’s your name robo-boy?”

“That, that’s probably classified information…  But it’s Trent.  Just Trent,” he stammered.  It had seemed like an eternity since he had laid eyes upon a girl, and now he was becoming rather sadly smitten.  By… a cloud of dust.  He sighed again.

“Well then, Trent Just-Trent.  Any chance you could let me out of this box?”   The dust smiled coyly.

“I really shouldn’t…”

“My name’s Ayarvenia,” the dust girl interjected.  “I’ll make it worth your while…”  The apparition winked.

  Trent glanced back at the computer, which was still engaged in its own computing.  Sigh.  “Oh Hell, yeah, I guess…  Ay-ur-veenia…  Just don’t get into anything you shouldn’t or it’ll be my shiny metal ass on the line,” he said as he released the containment lever and slid the lid off of the dome.

Please return next Sunday for the exciting conclusion to this space opry story.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.