Habitat Machines are an exploration of conscious technology interacting with biology.
The City that Swims: Mantaray
When the Mentor entered the Core, Mantaray emerged from the meditation of daily existence by condensing a touchstone of consciousness into the small pocket of place.
“What is your Cardinal Command?” the Mentor asked Mantaray.
“To maintain an optimum balance in support of Life,” the city responded.
Through all those years, I never quite recognized that our ability to freely fly was an exotic gift unknown to other humans.
Instead; disdaining the familiar, I yearned for the novelty of setting feet to floor, owning proof of strength tested against the pull of an entire planet. All of us who were space weaned were giddy with excitement at the culmination of a mission that was our special destiny.
Not until many years later did it occur to me to wonder, who among the mentors were sorry to lose the magic power of flight; and which were relieved to return to a more natural state, in surrender to the forces of gravity.
The flaming radiance of a low slung sun, danced across the silver skin of a robot made like a cheetah. Loping over the tundra, the bot aimed for a group of dome-shaped cairns. Set in a circle, the twelve rounded piles cast lengthening shadows, across dirt the color of putty. The bot had barely begun to explore the first pile, when a grey cloud scudded into view, dragging a flock of others not far behind it; a sign of promising weather. Using the claws of one paw, the bot scratched into a narrow band of green turf.