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| HENGIE A short story from the pen of Jonathan
Day. What on - or off - Earth can happen when a robot artist shaped like a dragon
starts collaborating with the space programme? Read on to find out. In the beginning it seemed as though everyone had collaborated with the space programme. Geologists, seismologists, vulcanologists, palaeontologists and gerontologists - so why not artists? That was a long time ago, of course. The perception of space was now less precious and the cleaning lady up the road could book her weekend jaunt on the holiday moon shuttle over the Internet. However, the result of the dedicated collaboration between all those art theorists, colourists, experts in perspective and, of course, robot technicians still existed. He was called Hengie. Programmed to expand his database over more than a century, the robot had become one of those unique and wonderful anomalies that economic common-sense would never again reproduce. Compared to recent robots, he was an ancient experiment to their pre-fabricated modernity that would be replaced as soon as an upgrade was available. Though made in a time when self-destruct modules were installed in robotic units as a matter of course, Hengie was no dinosaur. More an indestructible dragon, somewhat unwieldy until it came to applying pigment to metal-based canvas. When he added colour, he breathed fire. A process to anneal pigment to a simulated canvas was designed solely for him. Hengie could apply his colours with palette knives or fingers, depending on the texture he required. The main difference from a conventional painting being that the result set like enamel while the canvas remained flexible enough to roll for transit back to Earth. Peppered with cosmic dust, the artist's canvasses were quite distinctive. In Earth's atmosphere, they glinted as if dusted with diamonds. Though unique, Hengie was no ephemeral novelty. The demand for his glorious spacescapes increased over the decades, sending their value into the realms of inner-city real estate. Hengie became a wonder of the Solar system that could never be switched off. As a consequence, his programming developed an obsessional commitment to art that was a little scary. The agency who managed the robot remained in constant contact with Hengie to prevent him deciding he wanted to become one with the Universe and donate his mineral components back to the natural forces that initially generated them. In fact, in robotic terms, Hengie was growing a little flaky. Fortunately, his artistic ability just increased. * * * The sky here was mauve, flecked by the silver trails of comets. Had they struck the moon, Hengie was poised to paint, they would have catastrophically re-arranged it. As the robot worked, he was tempted to chase every subtle nuance in the background made by Neptune's looming limb. Hengie quickly and meticulously pushed the pigment onto the indestructible canvas with a palette knife and his multiform fingers, ignoring the buzzing of his alarm circuits warning him to slow down. What did his programmers know about inspiration when they had probably been stuck in some artificially lit office on the pressurised 500th floor of an office tower? As his ship orbited the glorious moonscape illuminated by Neptune's subtle reflecting light, Hengie was communing with the stars. He could read the movements below Neptune's gaseous shell and track meteors skimming its outer atmosphere. The masterpiece finished, Hengie released the easel and painting from the hull of his orbiting ship and clambered back in through the pressure lock. He set in the course to his next assignment and downloaded the commission chip. It had been transmitted as a priority from a client not previously known to his agency. He had never come across a request for anything quite like this. There would be very few pinks, mauves or delicate oranges, let alone bright colours, required for his painting, though he could possibly get away with a hint of silver. Hengie secured his last canvas in the store with a thousand others awaiting the courier who would skilfully roll them into half a dozen bundles and pack them into a delivery pod. Then, in a manoeuvre that would have pulverised mere flesh and bone, the gravity of Neptune slung shot his ship away from its moon and onto a course for Jupiter. Had Hengie's programming allowed it, he would have probably been contemptuous of the wealthy clients who coveted the beautiful things he created, but out in the reaches of the Solar system there were more immediate matters to worry about. The artist had to be more concerned about than the gravitational attraction of his subjects and occasional corrosive atmosphere, than human acquisitiveness. Even though he was being despatched to a location where even automated probes had disappeared, Hengie proceeded with programmed enthusiasm, his only interest to record the wonders of the Solar system in the way that mocked the photograph in all its manifestations. Whether digital, vector or on emulsion, no image could match the pure artistry the robot's optic circuits were capable of. He didn't just see and record, Hengie's sensitivities percolated his subject and encapsulated its glittering whole. Sometimes his commissions sent him to the gaseous giants for such extended periods only the ancestors of the client who had commissioned the painting would see the canvas. As long as Hengie always made his pickup rendezvous, he could have left the Solar system altogether to paint the Kuiper Belt and no one would have complained. After unpacking a batch of canvasses, the robot settled down in sleep mode. Hengie woke to a bleak grey vista only ever lit by the reflected light of Jupiter. Rotating the planet was the spiteful volcanic splendour of Io and icy grandeur of Europa, yet this small, barely recorded moon with nothing to recommend it artistically was the client's chosen subject. His not to reason why... There was no corrosive atmosphere, dangerous gravitational eddies or meteoric bombardment to contend with so Hengie brought his ship down onto the surface of the desolate proto-moon. The artist programmed into his circuits the sort of palette that would satisfy the artistically deprived mentality that had mistaken this gloomy place for a work of art. This was going to be like transforming shale into cut diamond. Hengie set up the easel in the zero gravity and secured his palette to its stand. He would have turned his artist's eye towards the grandeur of Jupiter's huge rotating cloud system if the choice had been his. Instructing him to paint the half-lit barren rock about him might have been a surreptitious way of checking to see if he was still up to the job. The robot was happily oblivious of the tiny system failures that intermittently made him mistake purple for grey or sprung steel palette knives for his multi-purpose fingertips. Once the mistake had been made, he accepted it as part of the original intention sooner than admit the error. Also, impulses sometimes leap-frogged safety gates to make him very cranky when asteroids spoilt the view or bursts of solar wind burnished away the newly applied pigment. Clients accepted these anomalies to their paintings as part of the artist's statement. His agency saw it as a potential system failure. Satisfied as he could be with the dreary moonscape, Hengie completed two canvasses of the dismal aspect in quick succession. What was he doing here when there were space probes to photograph this sort of thing? They were probably the ones that had already been sent and not returned. Something suddenly fizzed and quickly faded. It might have been a small meteor. Unable to come up with an explanation, Hengie uncharacteristically conceded that there could have been an error in his circuitry. After all, he was getting on. The artist continued to paint, anxious to complete the commission. This moon wasn't only a dismal lump of rock, it was probably orbited by the remains of the probes shattered on its unforgiving surface. Just as Hengie began to crave the brighter end of the spectrum, a brilliant slice of light opened before him like a vertical clam that had swallowed a firework display. Despite his immediate instinct to record the event, he stopped painting. Even a solar artist of his calibre had to be fazed by something eventually. As this anomalous star-filled gap in reality opened wider he lowered his paint-impregnated fingers and did the robot equivalent of a gawp. Hengie had seen many strange and wonderful things in the Solar system and painted most of them, but he had never encountered anything quite like this. The robot detected that on the other side of the chasm of light was the another dimension he was not authorised to paddle in. He was programmed to handle pigments and canvas, not dabble in the reality bending astrophysics of his subject. Then the rest of the client instructions he had downloaded kicked in. Hengie wasn't here to paint pictures. The most unique robotic construction in the Solar system was here to find out what was destroying modern technology's sophisticated probes. The reasoning behind it was logical. An ancient unit like Hengie was robust enough to withstand everything the Solar system had bombarded him for over a century and could easily survive whatever was picking off technology so advanced it could never be exposed to any atmosphere. The crotchety robot was not flattered. Worse still, he was being ordered to PHOTOGRAPH this anomaly as though he was a cheap digital camera. Hengie's artistic circuits rebelled. The light was now so intense it spilt out onto the dismal rocky landscape. Here was the ultimate definition of opposites attracting: a glowing eternity swallowing gloom so real it could have been rolled out like grey marzipan. Now Hengie was being ordered to blow up the small moon with explosives. Whoever was issuing these instructions had no idea just how cranky Hengie had become. This was an artist they were ordering about. And his ship carried no mines. What did he have that was powerful enough to destroy a moon? This was the way earlier technicians thought when they installed a powerful remotely controlled module inside units like Hengie. The artist hesitated. Would they have done such a thing to someone as important as him? No, they wouldn't have dared. The only explosions that came from him would be of his own making. Hengie moved towards the widening vista of welcoming light. Did they seriously think he would sacrifice his precious circuits for the sake of humanity? All intelligent robots had been programmed with the potential for self-sacrifice. Being intelligent, they soon learned how to purge it from their circuits. Hengie was one of the first to achieve this. As he continued to peer into the blazing abyss, the light ceased to bombard his optical circuits and a wider spectrum became visible. Colours merged with sound to weave a coruscating eternity. The artist could see some of the probes that had been sent to investigate the anomaly dotting the brilliant sky like tumbling stars. The authorities on Earth believed that this exquisite slash of light was a rift to another dimension and in the process of turning their reality inside out. Hengie was being made aware that the fate of the Solar system depended on him. He had to think about that. Having encountered the most startling and beautiful vistas accessible to the human species, he had never seen anything quite like this. If he obeyed the commands, this dazzling universe would be destroyed. Hengie prepared to place a tentative steel-capped toe in the alternative reality to test whether it was really there or not. The robot had plenty of replacement feet if it turned out to be some gravitational anomaly. The beautiful cosmic bubble was switching the nature of the dull rocks as its glowing skirt fluctuated over the shattered moonscape. The shale had been transformed into diamond - cut diamond! If this fissure in reality was damnation, it was a glorious one begging to be painted. Though not programmed to understand the physics of alternative dimensions, Hengie could only assume the authorities were so worried because it was some sort of parasitic wormhole, perhaps manufactured by an alien technology. Sentient beings might have existed in this jewelled throat to another universe. And Hengie was supposed to destroy it! He was so drawn to the anomaly's glamour he craved to swim in its fatal attraction. As for detonating enough explosive to seal the jewelled gateway forever to accommodate an irrational mortal fear? The robot's artistic perception was more accurate than a convention of human art dealers. Without him, humans would be limited to the earthbound scenes of allegory, sentimentality, abstraction and landscape. Hengie knew what the Cosmos really looked like. Who were these mere mortals to tell HIM to destroy perfection? Hengie stepped over the fringe of the alternative dimension and into the new glittering Cosmos. Reality exploded. The rent in space-time created a second red spot on Jupiter. The search probe soon located Hengie's easel and canvas, still bolted to the moon rock. The shards that had been his body casing and drive units spangled the shattered remains of the destroyed moon as they tried to find an orbit, their sheared edges glinting in Jupiter's light. The value of Hengie's canvases trebled. (c) Jonathan
Day 2003 - all rights reserved For more of Jonathan's work, check out his website at http://www.sfday.eurobell.co.uk
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OTHER CONTENT - February 2003
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