A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)

by Becky Chambers

Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city.

Dex realized with a stomach-souring thud that they were standing on the wrong side of the vast gulf between having read about doing a thing and doing the thing.

Dex took note of Mosscap’s phrasing. “So, it is correct, then? You wouldn’t prefer they or—” “Oh, no, no, no. Those sorts of words are for people. Robots are not people. We’re machines, and machines are objects. Objects are its.” “I’d say you’re more than just an object,” Dex said.

The robot looked a touch offended. “I would never call you just an animal, Sibling Dex.” It turned its gaze to the road, head held high. “We don’t have to fall into the same category to be of equal value.”

You’re a generalist. That’s a focus.”

“I know where water comes from,” Dex said at last. “I know that every drop that comes out of every tap comes from a place like this. I know that the water in the City comes largely from the Mallet River, and the water in Haydale comes from Raptor Ridge. But I’ve never been to those places. They’re just … names. Concepts. I know that water comes from rivers, or streams, or whatever, and then it gets processed and cleaned, and then it ends up in my mugs, but I don’t … I don’t think about it. I don’t think about a place like this being something that I can use. This doesn’t look like a resource, to me. It’s … it’s scenery. It’s a pretty picture. It’s not for the taking. It certainly doesn’t feel safe.”

“But that’s … that’s immortality. How is that less desirable?” “Because nothing else in the world behaves that way. Everything else breaks down and is made into other things. You—you are made of molecules that originated in an unmeasurable amount of organisms. You eat dozens of dead things every single day to maintain your form. And when you die, bits of you will be taken in turn by bacteria and beetles and worms, and so it goes. We robots are not natural beings; we know this. But we’re still subject to the Parent Gods’ laws, just like everything else. How could we continue to be students of the world if we don’t emulate its most intrinsic cycle? If the originals had simply fixed themselves, they’d be behaving in opposition to the very thing they desperately sought to understand. The thing we’re still trying to understand.”

“So, the paradox is that the ecosystem as a whole needs its participants to act with restraint in order to avoid collapse, but the participants themselves have no inbuilt mechanism to encourage such behavior.”

“I think there’s something beautiful about being lucky enough to witness a thing on its way out.”

It is difficult for anyone born and raised in human infrastructure to truly internalize the fact that your view of the world is backward. Even if you fully know that you live in a natural world that existed before you and will continue long after, even if you know that the wilderness is the default state of things, and that nature is not something that only happens in carefully curated enclaves between towns, something that pops up in empty spaces if you ignore them for a while, even if you spend your whole life believing yourself to be deeply in touch with the ebb and flow, the cycle, the ecosystem as it actually is, you will still

have trouble picturing an untouched world. You will still struggle to understand that human constructs are carved out and overlaid, that these are the places that are the in-between, not the other way around.

“I wish I could understand experiences I’m incapable of having.”

Without constructs, you will unravel few mysteries. Without knowledge of the mysteries, your constructs will fail. These pursuits are what make us, but without comfort, you will lack the strength to sustain either.’”

You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is.

You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”

“Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”

“Then how,” Dex said, “how does the idea of maybe being meaningless sit well with you?” Mosscap considered. “Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful,”