Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: December 6, 2015

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HOW THE ROBOCLEANER LOST ITS FLAG: PART 2

by Hazed

Last time, I told you about the strange case of the robocleaner that just wouldn’t relinquish its hold on the American flag it had been wearing for several years.

Camjaz, the being from the municipal cleanliness department on Mars, told me the story and confessed that everyone was at a loss as to how to deal with this unusual situation. You can read what he said in part 1 of the tale, here.

After he finished, I sipped at my frothy pink beverage and watched the monkey climbing up and down the curly straw for a few moments and pondered the predicament – and then it came to me. I knew how to return the robocleaner to its undraped state.

I drained the last few drops of my drink, and said goodbye to Camjaz. I didn’t tell him what I had in mind, just in case it didn’t work; after all, as a demi-goddess I have a reputation for being infallible (at least half of the time) so if my idea turned out not to be a work of genius, I would rather nobody knew about it.

I headed back to the Fed2 Star HQ on Earth, and yelled for my newsdroids, Zalt and Finegar (I gave them those names because they used to be waitdroids working in Chez Diesel). My plan required the services of a droid, and who better than one of my own trusty staff? I knew they’d do what I asked no matter how unusual or risky the task, because of their complete loyalty and devotion to me.

I hurried them to the spaceport and stowed them in the cargo hold of my ship, and we headed back to Mars. Since I was after some privacy for this adventure, we didn’t go back to Chez Diesel, but instead settled down in a corner of the Mars Interplanetary Hotel lounge, where they have those lovely soft squidgy armchairs that you just sink into. Bliss!

Over a cup of tea, I explained to the droids about the problem, and how the only way to remove the flag from the robocleaner was to get to it while the bot was down for maintenance. That meant one of my droids would have to disguise itself as a maintenance bot, sneak into the droid maintenance hole in the basement of the municipal cleanliness department, and get that flag.

After a bit of arguing, they agreed that Finegar would go. It was the smallest of the two, if only by a little, so would find it easier to fit into the confined space of the droid hole. But first, the disguise.

I popped into Tux Deluxe and distracted the salesthing with some chat about the latest fashions, allowing Finegar to use the ancient and dusty robotailer to produce a set of overalls that would pass for those used by maintenance droids.

In case you are wondering why maintenance droids bother to wear clothes at all, it’s because of a rather prudish ordinance passed by the municipal council some years ago which decreed that humanoid robots should always be clothed lest their naked metal parts inflame the lusts of impressionable youths – or something like that! These days it is mostly ignored, but any droids shaped like humans that are used by the council and its departments are forced to abide by the ridiculous ruling.

The robocleaner, of course, is not in the least bit humanoid, so isn’t required to wear clothes. If it was, then this whole kerfuffle with the flag wouldn’t be a problem.

But I digress. After purchasing a rather lovely hat with a big purple feather, I returned to the hotel lounge for another cup of tea, while Finegar made its way to the municipal building. I was able to watch its progress, because it had synced up its sensors to my comm unit.

It turns out, the droid has some skill as an actor; it had no trouble at all in fooling the other droids in evidence around the droid hole, and eased its way into the tight space to wait for the robocleaner to show up.

But after a while the quality of the image I was watching started to degrade. I thought there must be something wrong with my comm unit, so I tried turning it off and on again, but that didn’t improve matters. Then it started to emit a strange wheezing sound. I bashed it, but matters did not improve.

Suddenly, Finegar burst out of the droid hole, gasping and choking. It hadn’t been the comm unit malfunctioning, it had been Finegar. I despatched Zalt to find out what was going on.

Before long, they both returned to the hotel, Finegar looking very embarrassed.

“Sorry, your demi-goddessness,” it said sheepishly. “It’s the cleaning fluid – it turns out I’m allergic. It’s played havoc with my air intake, and the sensors have gummed up too.” Well, that explained the degraded image and the unpleasant wheezing. Finegar went on to explain that when it went for maintenance it always paid extra to have a higher quality of chemicals used, ones which didn’t trigger its allergies (and which left it with a rather pleasant smell of pine).

So I activated Plan B. There was nothing for it. Zalt would have to go. This time, I suggested that it take steps to make sure it wouldn’t be affected by noxious chemicals in the same way its colleague had been, so it grabbed a floral napkin from the table and tied it over its air intake, then headed for the droid hole.

Zalt, it seems, it not the actor that Finegar is. Its first encounter with a real maintenance droid almost ended in disaster, as the newsdroid stammered and stuttered as it explained what it was doing there, looking just about as guilty as it was possible for a droid to look. But fortunately the maintenance droid was not programmed to notice such subtleties, and Zalt was able to squeeze itself into the droid hole without tripping any alarms.

We didn’t have to wait very long before the robocleaner trundled into the space, settled into its docking station and powered itself down. Zalt tiptoed out from its hiding place and grabbed for the flag. It was tied onto the cleaner quite firmly, but fortunately Zalt had once been a member of the droid scouts so knew how to deal with knots, and was able to untie it and remove it.

But now the problem was, the robocleaner was blocking Zalt’s exit from the droid hole.

Securing the liberated flag firmly around its torso, my intrepid newsdroid performed some quite painful-looking contortions to squeeze itself over the robocleaner’s back and get out of the confined space. It’s just as well the cleaner wasn’t conscious, or it would surely have objected to another droid getting so up close and personal.

The funny thing was that when the robocleaner powered up again, it didn’t seem to notice the lack of its beloved flag. It trundled out of the droid hole and went about its sweeping, cleaning and polishing duties as usual.

I was able to report to my friend Camjaz that his problem had been solved. He owes me a very big favour now.

And so the tale of the robocleaner’s flag comes to a successful conclusion. If you examine the cleaner now as it goes about its duties on Mars, you will see it is returned to its naked state.

The only problem is… now Zalt won’t give up the flag. It wears it proudly, along with the floral napkin which it has fashioned into a bandana.

Oh well, unlike the Martian municipal authorities, I don’t care so long as it continues to write me great news stories!

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