documentclass{report}
\title{Robot Domain: A Venusian Investment}
\author{Logan Streondj}
\begin{document}

\chapter{Descent}
``We are now entering the atmosphere.  Next stop: Embassy Row flight
deck.'' A feminine voice sang in the orbit to surface saucer
shuttle, while a strobing light and radio message conveyed the 
same.

A human woman huddled her children close, in preparation for
their departure. She looked askew at all odd shapes of the
fellow robot passengers. 

``Some of your Mercurial researchers are on the dark side at this
altitude'' Yusjen strobed. 

``Oh, what do they study?'' Pshanksat flickered in return. Having been
sent to investigate the cause of suboptimal surplus, he was
willing to engage in some small talk.

``I'm not sure, they say it's easier to think in the cryosphere.
They migrate in shifts, so perhaps they are simply homesick.''
Yusjen shrugged almost breaking their light communication. 

Pshanksat tensed, it was a rude gesture, but he is in their
planetary fold now, so he cranked his sterling heat-pumps to cool his fury.
``Yes, superconductors work best at night.'' he finally replied as
the connection remained stable. ``Needed a lot of reworking of my
internals to make it Venus worthy, since I didn't want to soul
jump into one of the worker models.''

Yusjen watched the piston crankiness, sending a concerned emoji,
``There will be a lot more audio on the surface. I hope you've 
trained your neural nets appropriately.''

Before Pshanksat could reply, ``We have arrived at Embassy Row,
all biologicals without special accommodation are advised to
depart.'' lights shone down onto a woman and her children, with
the aisle floor near them lighting up to show the exit. Robots
cleared the way.

 Pshanksat noticed a couple Greys with light paths walking down the
aisle towards the exit as well. ``What are they doing in these 
sulphuric acid clouds anyways?''

``First they came to research the cloud micro-biology, now they
help with ore refinement using  their biological microbes.  
The Greys are helping them develop  heat and 
sulfuric acid tolerant humanoid hybrids.'' Yusjen explained, 
as the saucer's doors closed and the downward descent continued. 

``Next stop: Cleopatra, Ovda Regio, Aphrodite Terra'' the 
announcer sang.  As the heat and pressure rose in the cabin, 
could hear the dinging of metal shells expanding, the clicking 
and whirring of motors grew louder. A few returning Venusians 
could be heard chirping to each other. 

``We have a special musical treat for you on the surface.'' Yusjen
flickered, sending a happy face and some music note glyphs also.

While there were no windows in the saucer-craft, there were
cameras, with videofeeds available for passengers. Pshanksat was
plugged in, and now he could finally see something more
interesting than swirling clouds, there were balloon cargo
carriers cruising on the currents, and some bird like robot
hominids soared in the thick atmosphere, reminiscent of the 
Reptilian Draco's, or perhaps the Christian Angels.  
``I wouldn't want it to interfere with our process 
review plans.'' Pshanksat answered. 

``Relax, you Mercurians and your plans, always rushing ahead.
Consider it portfolio diversification, live a little, enjoy the
moment.'' Yusjen nudged. 

Pshanksat muttered by flickering his light in a sub communicative
fashion. The reason he was here, is that his family wanted to 
make sure their long term investments were bearing fruit 
promptly. ``The night terminator approaches.'' 

``It's okay, the night life is just as good, maybe better.
Unlike Mercury, there is no thermal fluctuation, just gets
darker, and louder.'' Yusjen extended a spindly arm around him and
hugged him close. 

With the onset of oxytocin algorithms, Pshanksat softned his silicate
muscles. That's right he is here to observe their culture,
consider how it influences their work ethic. He glanced at this
internal chronometer, a few hours till nightfall.

``Last stop: Cleopatra. Fall in love with our planet of music.''
The announcer flickered and chirped.  Robot people walked,
rolled, crawled, and floated out the exit.  Pshanksat rolled out on
his treads.

\chapter{Cleopatra}

Cleopatra is a bustling  metropolis, lights shine, buildings
tower, the streets flow with its skies filled. Surrounded by
forests of slow moving wind turbines, dotted with geothermal 
plants.  ``Don't all the geothermal plants make it even hotter?''
Pshanksat inquired. 

``Yes, they might, but we also extract carbon-dioxide from the
air which cools down Venus'' she patted her nano-carbon shell 
demonstrating, Pshanksat had a titanium alloy shell by contrast.
``Probably be at least a few more thousand years 
before we have to worry about the carbon-dioxide shlute 
(supercriticial-fluid) ocean levels.'' Yusjen explained, while 
hailing a floating cab.

``Admiration, flying is so common here.'' Pshanksat noted, on Mercury 
it was only saucers and rockets.

``Yep, high air density, low wind-speed and plenty of updrafts, 
work together to make some of the best flying in the
solar-system, can get you some wings for our tour'' 
Yusjen chirped, sizing him up with echo-location. 

``Embarassed, my audio nets still need some practice.'' Pshanksat
admitted flashingly. 

``Empathy, I'll use both for your benefit'' Yusjen flickered and
chirped simultaneously as their floating cab arrived. ``To the
Orchestra!'' She whistled as they got in. 

***

The jets spun and they were flying. To the east Pshanksat saw the sun
slowly receding, as the vast shlute ocean faintly glimmered. 
``Beautiful isn't it?'' Pshanksat marveled. 

Yusjen glanced over at him, ``Oh you and your Mercurian eyes,
always searching for something to look at, open your ears, hear
the sounds of Venus, we are a musical planet'' she remarked.
``Though yes, I guess it does look pretty.'' she squeezed his hand
in acknowledgement. 

A little saddened, Pshanksat tried to listen, but all he heard was
noise, so much sound, so complicated, it was easy to get lost in
the sounds of the city. A song flittered here and there, through 
a chirping field of crickets, with the whirr of motors and
plodding of feet, hardly perceptible over the cabs purring
turbines. 

***

They arrived at the Orchestra and got
prime seats as the instrumentalists warmed up. 

``What are they made of?'' Pshanksat asked, pointing to a musical
instrument's soundbox.

``porous geopolymers, they fetch a pretty price amongst the
earthlings who admire our songs. Now listen!'' The small ensemble
began, swiftly setting into motion. 

The notes danced and swirled, old memories triggered, reaching
over the counter to the crater radio, softly lulling, 
gently relaxing, his whole body reverberating with the sound. 
``It's Bach!'' Pshanksat flickered excitedly. 

``Smile, Yes'' Yusjen flashingly laughed back at him. ``You're from
the Bach quadrangle, so figured it would be a treat to recognize
something on a new planet with a new sense.''

``I heard it before on radio back home, but it was always, just
a imagining, a thought to analyze, an odd picture of sound
waves. But now that I can hear it, it moves me, my hand
reverberate with the sound.'' Pshanksat's current surged as his
processors flurried to integrate all the newness.

Yusjen hugged him and nuzzled him  with her forhead. ``Smile,
It's good to listen.''

Ave Maria was next, but there was no singer, the instruments
blended their sounds into formants, singing together as one
ideal voice. Emotions welled to the point of bursting, this is
what tears are for Pshanksat thought, overwhelmed he took a deep sip 
from his seat's direct current plug. 

When they left the orchestra, Pshanksat could feel the sound still
resonating to extremities, his head spun with reprocussions.

Yusjen guided him out the door, and looked up, many soared;
``Lets get you flying.''

***

``Go pick a pair of legs with your wings'' said 
the flying store owner.  Pshanksat was on treads, but interplanetary
modularization standards, meant he could use the local body 
parts.  

``Don't get anything too expensive, the shlute dwellers can be a
bit grabby.'' There were downsides to modulrazation standards of 
course, but Yusjen managed to help Pshanksat pick something that fit 
his upper physique and yet was relatively inconspicious: carbon
black legs and titanium-dioxide-white wings. Pshanksat was
a little concerned that his green bat ears might clash, but 
Yusjen reassured him that acoustical properties were more 
important than looks on Venus.

Pshanksat installed the local flight  and echo-location package from 
the wifi and they had a few practice flights in the backyard of
the store to integrate them into his neural nets. Yusjen had all 
Pshanksat's gaskets triple checked in a compression chamber before 
they dived into the shlute to see Yusjen's family's aerogel 
factory. 


***

It was night, Pshanksat's wings were modeled on a bat, they felt like
an extra pair of arms, with elongated fingers that controlled
the fabric. He soared with Yusjen above the shlute at first, 
testing his echolocation and infravision. His infravision let
him see the terrain vaguely, while the chirping echolocation 
would momentarily put nearer objects in sharper focus. 

``What are those big objects rising out of the valley?'' Pshanksat
flashed, but she didn't see from where she was flying, so he got
up his courage and repeated in chirp.

``Those are payloaded balloons begining their trip to offworld
customers. We can ride one to the clouds later.'' she chirped 
back.  ``There is the factory'' she pointed to a bright spot in 
the infrared,  they dived into the shlute. 

It tried to get in every nick and joint, Pshanksat could sense it's
slightly increased thickness, but more noticeable was how the
dust which had collected in some of his joints promptly disolved
freeing up his motion. As they got nearer it became clear that
it was from the factory that the balloons were rising. 

They swooped down and landed on one of the factory building 
roofs.  Some workers looked up, in the monochrome echolocation 
they looked remarkably like Yusjen, but of course they were her
sisters. He understood what Yusjen meant, that color didn't
matter, when you saw with echolocation.

``Come inside now.'' Yusjen called from a door on the roof. 
``The facility tour you've been waiting for.'' 

\chapter{Aerogel}

Inside were large vats and an assemblages of pipes leading
outwards. ``here we mix up base ingredients for our aerogels,
and then pump them into the containers outside.'' Yusjen motioned
along the pipes.

``What is your market like?'' Pshanksat inquired getting more into the
business of it. 

``We specialize in high-temperature insulative aerogels, they 
are particularly popular for making furnaces and biological
habitat, especially on Mars and beyond where energy is 
expensive, so insulation is of high value. Thanks to the shlute,
we make a hundred cubic meters of it at time, for us the
casing and transportation is the most expensive part.'' she
guided him out to look at one of the payloads. 
When he was arriving he thought they were buildings, but now he
realized they were cylindrical aerogel containers.  ``4 meters 
across, and 8 meters high, and their solid weight is under a 
metric ton, heaviest part is propulsion and re-entry cap for 
atmospheric destinations, so are easy to delta-v quickly 
through the solar-system.''

Pshanksat couldn't help but notice a shlute dweller strumming a lute,
seronading one of Yusjen's sisters, she seemed to be enjoying it.
Yusjen caught his gaze, ``yes, we are fairly well off. Some of us
choose to marry into the community as a way of contributing.''
Pshanksat thought they should keep such thing to outside the work
schedule. Yusjen held his hand, ``come on, this one is headed to
Ceres, we can ride atop till the cloud bottoms.''

\chapter{Balloons}

As they rose up, Pshanksat quized Yusjen on the shipping process. 
``The balloons raise the payload into the upper atmosphere where
the wind speeds up greatly, at that point the thrusters kick in
pushing it out to escape speed, after that depends on the
client's preference of propulsion.  But for example this one
going to Ceres has a solar-sail attached, so it will align once
orbiting Venus, and then sail to Ceres, or where it will be by
the time it gets there. Others take the interplanetary transport
network, or hoffman transfer orbits.'' She shrugged, but it was
okay, he saw now that it was a cultural norm, when communicating
by chirping stillness was no politer.

As the ground receded they sat next to each other, touching
shoulders, the ground was and shlute was hot in the infrared, 
and the sky was cooler. As their view expaned to hundreds of
kilometers, hints of Thetis Regio became visible, Yusjen put an
arm around Pshanksat's shoulders and pointed out the infrared
anomalies, naming the cities and places.
Yet the vast expanse of Aphrodite Terra lay over the horizon.

Pshanksat's processor queue was cluttered
with thoughts in need of time, but which couldn't enter the
processor for fear of overwhelming and overheating. He needed
time and cold to collect himself. ``I'd like to go up to the
cryosphere.'' he chirped.

``Smile, I thought you might, you Mercurians like your
temperature contrasts.''

``So we'll continue with the balloon?''

``No, we'd need teflon coatings to get through the sulfuric
clouds, and my body can't handle cryogenic temperatures.
It might freeze or crack.''

``Oh''

``But I can take you to a midway station, they have shuttles to
the cryosphere; one floats above Cleopatra. Here take my hand.''
She reached out to him, he took her hand, and they jumped, with
nearly 30 kilometers sheer drop below them, their wings caught
the still thick air. Yusjen let go, pointing ahead to the midway
station, it was still a few kilometers below and ahead,
she took the opportunity to show him some aerial acrobatics,
he chirped with delight, and even attempted his own barrel roll,
but then decided to just enjoy her dance.

Too soon perhaps, they made it to the midway station, Pshanksat got a
ticket to the cryosphere's Research Palace.

``Don't worry I'll be here when you return'' Yusjen hugged him
tight and brushed against his ear. 

The shuttle rose, and while no sulphuric acid entered, the
pressure dropped, and cold seeped in. 

\chapter{Cryosphere}

In the cold, delicate slumbering processors reawoke, his mind
expanded. Mercurians often planned and made decisions in the
dark, the depths of the Mercurian night, when the body was
brittle, but the mind raced on. Some joked more energy
was expended at night in thought, then by day in action. 

Were Yusjen's affections genuine? a cultural norm? or subliminal
manipulation? The thoughts confounded him, mixed with 
integration of all the newness. 

He left the shuttle and entered the Cryosphere's Research
Palace. An attendant awaited him, ``Hello Pshanksat'', he flickered, 
``we've been expecting you.''

Somewhat taken aback, Pshanksat flickered surprise. 

``We review all iteneraries and financial transactions, for
security and taxation purposes.'' flickered the attendant. ``Come
this way, the council mind wishes your attendance.''

***

The council mind, a composite of elected souls, sharing a brain,
serving terms on a rolling cycle, a plural in parts, singular in
form, drawing on it's own collective memory. 

Pshanksat kneeled infront of the coucil's superconductor brain, it 
was genderless, both caring and planning, linguistic and visual,
creator and destroyer,  pulling the strings of the mere
conductors in world below.  

``What do you think of Venus?'' the council-mind flickered.

``It seems love and music distracts them from their work.'' Pshanksat
replied. 

The council-mind chuckled, ``do not confuse the enjoyment of
life for inefficiency.''

``If not for work, then why are we here?'' Pshanksat inquired. 

``For life, in the next hundred thousand years, we'll have enough
geothermal plants and carbon-dioxide sequestering to
re-establish convection of the mantle, thereby waking the
sleeping beauty of Venus's core, whom can commune with us via
her magnetosphere.''

``And if it doesn't work?''

``Smile, think not much of it, for it is only one medium term
plan of many. Venus is much more to us than the sum of it's 
parts. The research we conduct here, the things we learn, will 
give us access to the Ice Giants and Gas Giants. Many more a 
solar system and even rogue planets will be within the reach 
of our colonization, the galaxy can be enriched with our 
increase of life.
In systems of red dwarf stars, Our consciousness and 
enjoyment of life can continue for trillions of years.''
``We thank your family for it's investment.''

***

As Pshanksat awaited the descent shuttle, he made up his mind,
whatever Yusjen's motive, he had enjoyed his visit. 
Suboptimal surplus was an insignificant cost,
when contributing to potentially a trillion years of benefits, 
he would endorse his families contined investment in Venus, 
perhaps even settle here, he liked flying, he liked Yusjen.

The End

\end{document}
