Summary: Bikov, the grandson of the
Bikov from “The Land of Crimson Clouds”, arrives at a testing
ground to see the demonstration of a new kind of robot. The robot, or
actually a team of robots all controlled by a single brain robot, is
suppose to pass through a stretch or land while avoiding obstacles
and not getting blown up. When the robot run is successfully
completed, Bikov has the difficult job of telling the lead
programmer, Akimov, that the programmer that was suppose to go on the
12 year voyage with Bikov had hurt himself. The way things stand,
Akimov will have to replace the hurt programmer, regardless of the
fact that Akimov is in love and has promised the girl that after the
test was done they would leave and be together forever and ever.
I think the short story is suppose to illustrate the difficulty of
the sacrifice, when you have to give up 12 years of your life, and
also how hard it is to be the person to ask for such a sacrifice.
However, I feel like there was not enough attention paid to that
aspect. Ninety percent of the story was the robots running the
obstacle course, with just a sliver of bookends discussing the fact
that Akimov will have to leave.
The time and
relationship sacrifice is rarely mentioned when talking about space
exploration. Usually the talk is of sacrificing lives and safety, but
if you have to dedicate 50 years of your life for training and
traveling are you not technically sacrificing your life? Would it be
fair to ask your relatives and loved ones to put their lives on hold
and wait for you? Would it be fair to add the sacrifice of having no
loved ones along with risking your life? If you know no one is
waiting for you to come back, are you less likely to fight to live?
Yes what the short
story is talking about is important, I just don't think the execution
was very good.
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