exoplanets

by Martha Hipley

The ewe’s corpse is so sun-scrubbed and wind-swept that it is little more than a pile of bones and dried sinew arranged in the rough form of a sheep. A drone approaches, cresting over a hill while guiding several thousand still-living sheep who bear little resemblance to the dead creature. It rises and leaves the herd behind, approaching the rest station where the bones are clustered around the seal of a mechanical gate. A light above flashes in acknowledgement as the drone sends a signal. The gate begins to slide on its rails, hooks against one of the animal’s ribs, and hums with effort. Some small percentage of livestock die in each year’s migration from accidents or thirst – an inconsequential loss.

The drone hovers just above the carcass and hooks around the spine and ribs with its claw-like manipulators. It reverses, pulling the skeleton free. It falls apart in a clatter of bones and dust. The gate slides open on its rails.

One rib remains tightly in the grip of one of the claws. The drone scrapes it against the ground, forming first a line, then a loop, then a full figure-eight. The drone loops wider and wider, extending the figure into a bouquet of circles gouged in the dry, red dirt. From above, it resembles something like a flower, but there are no flowers in this terrain, no fruition, no surplus.

The drone returns to the herd and guides the sheep through the open gate. They trample over the figure, grinding it into a ghostly whisper. They leap over the bones, as insignificant as anything beneath their feet in the Martian terrain.

The shelter is simple: a wind-shield ring to contain the sheep, a vinyl canopy stretched across a curved steel frame, purified reservoirs of water collected from the cloud-seeded rain, some additional bots to scrape through any droppings and sanitize the space between seasonal visits, an array of solar panels for powering the system. The sheep pass through a gauntlet of antiseptic sprays.

The drone hovers above the gate until the last ruminant enters. It signals for the gate to shut and flies to a docking station. It locks in for the night, the rib still held tightly in its left manipulator. The animals sleep.

#

At sunrise, the drone undocks and guides the sheep back through the gate. The dry, bleached rib is light and makes little impact on the drone’s powerful flight. It holds the bone aloft as it cruises, almost like a shepherd’s crook. Fresh from rest, the sheep bound across the hills, grazing as they go, stripping the engineered bluegrass to its roots. They cover a comfortable twenty kilometers in the low gravity, guided by the drone to the next rest station. The gate opens, and the animals enter. The portal slams shut, but the drone does not rest.

Instead, it loops the station’s perimeter, flying low. It scrapes the bone into the red dirt a second time. It carves out figure eights, linking them together in a daisy chain around the station’s ringed wall. With each loop, the chain grows darker and deeper. When the sun finally sets, the drone enters the dock.

#

The next day, the red dirt runs almost black with rain. The gate hangs open while the sheep bustle and blister, scraping up what grass they can within sight of the shelter. The drone flies high in a one-kilometer loop, powering against the wind, occasionally swooping and diving to drive back clumps of sheep that stumble too far from safety. In the early afternoon, the drone guides the animals back into the shelter. They are wet and underfed.

One hogget, a young ram, prowls the enclosure, scraping its horns against the curved steel wall. The drone swats at it with the rib bone and swerves as the ram steps back and charges forward. Its horns clang against the wind-shield like thunder. It paces back and then slams against the wall again. Its horns are undamaged. It returns to the depths of the herd, obscured by larger and louder animals. The drone loops the interior, waving the rib bone until the animals finally sleep.

#

The following day is blown out and harsh with summer sun. The sheep move swiftly. The drone skims close to the herd, waving the bone past the animals’ blank eyes. By midday, the beasts show no interest in the wilted grass along the trail. They rush through the gate of the next shelter and collapse in the shade or fight over the water stations. The drone locks the gate and flies out into the hills.

Far from the terraformed grazing paths, the drone flies low over an expanse of open, red dirt. It grinds the tip of the bone into the soil in perfect, concentric circles, each new circle with an exact one-meter increase in diameter. The image nearly spans an acre when the rib bone snaps against a half-buried rock. The drone discards the shattered bone and flies back towards the shelter. The hoggets still hum with nervous energy in the cool evening. The drone enters its dock.

#

The summer heat is even stronger. The drone opens the gate and prods the animals from their resting places in the shade. The older animals are the first to exit the shelter, closely tailed by the lambs. Only the hoggets still loop the shelter, as though reluctant to leave the cool, rebellious in their hormonal state. One by one, they trot out into the sun as the drone swoops and swerves to prod them along until a single young ram remains, undeterred by the aerial maneuvers. It gulps from an abandoned water trough and kicks at the dirt.

The drone approaches. At first the ram begins to trot towards the gate but then suddenly doubles back and sprints towards a far wall. The drone follows at a close distance. With its back to the wall, the ram steps back slowly, then charges. Its target flits up several meters, letting it skid forward in the dirt. The ram turns, and the drone flies low.

This time when the ram charges, the drone reaches out with both manipulator claws, locking them around the creature’s horns. The drone’s blades hum with effort as it lifts the animal into the air. The ram hangs limp. The drone flies towards the open gate.

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The drone crests a hill, flying out ahead of the herd. It accelerates as the next shelter appears in the distance. At the gate, the sun-bleached skeleton of a young ram lies contorted – several bones are smashed beneath the gate’s rails. The drone pulls at the skeleton with its manipulator claws, shaking it until the last bits of sinew snap and the bones scatter. It hooks one claw through the nasal cavity of the skull and hovers, holding it aloft in the fading sunlight. It flies low and traces two perfect lines in the red dirt, one for the tip of each horn. It returns to the herd and guides them to the shelter. It closes the gate but does not yet dock.

~

Bio:

Martha Hipley is a writer and filmmaker from Baltimore, Maryland who lives and works in Mexico City. Her stories have been published in Maudlin House, VOLUME 0, and ARTWIFE, among others. When not working, she enjoys training as a triathlete and boxer.

Philosophy Note:

In this moment when we are bombarded by tech companies pushing generative language and image tools as “intelligent,” I wondered what I would really consider to be an artificial intelligence. This story follows an engineered device actively choosing to rewrite its own objectives, acting with violence, but doing so to follow a very human desire to create. Raphaela Vogel’s I have no questions, only answers installation at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City inspired the first spark of this story, but other inspirations I have held in mind while writing include J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine, Brian Merchant’s Blood in the Machine, and the essential Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man.”