Annihilation (Star Force Series) by B. V. Larson

their environment at a time, Marvin could see many at once. His cameras weren’t as good as our eyes, but he made up for that by having a lot of them.
    Due to this major variation in visual input and processing, his perspective on the visual environment around us was quite different. Rather than looking only at the item we were discussing, he liked to use his mobile visual sensory systems to try to see my point of view. He wasn’t very good at indirect empathy, but he excelled at direct mimicry of behavior.
    Finally, I had the data he was referring to. It had been in an old file saved months ago. “According to this, the planetary mass of Yale is about one percent lower than it was when you made your original readings. That’s incredible. Have you got anything else, Marvin?”
    He slid up beside me at the table. “Possibly,” he said.
    I looked at him expectantly. He studied me with many cameras at once. I knew he wanted me to ask him more about it, and to praise him for his accomplishments. He was odd that way—he liked it when people begged him for facts. He also liked to keep secrets. Sometimes he used critical details of information as bargaining chips to gain privileges. Usually these privileges came in the form of an approval to perform some kind of nasty experiment.
    I’d played his little game many times. Over the years, I’d worked up a counter to his manipulations. I decided to employ it now.
    My first move was to nod and tap the screen, closing the file.
    “Very good, Marvin,” I said. “I think I have enough for now. You’ve done an excellent job. Once again, you’ve proven to me that my decision to make you my Science Officer was the correct one.”
    Marvin’s cameras flicked from the blank screen to my blank face and back again.
    “Don’t you wish to study the matter further, Colonel Riggs?” he asked.
    I shrugged and reached for a cup of algae-based coffee. “You’re the Science Officer. You’ve made the call. Your commander has been briefed, and you’ve decided he’s heard all there is of value to know. I trust your judgment on this one.”
    “That’s very gratifying, Colonel Riggs.”
    “Good. Now if you don’t mind, I have a number of issues to attend to before we reach orbit. We’re only a few hours from planetfall.”
    “But I think there might be something else to discuss.”
    “Oh yeah?” I asked, trying to look bored. I fooled with my coffee mug, adding cream and sugar. I hated cream and sugar.
    Marvin appeared disappointed. His tentacles drooped and stopped thrashing. “Yes, there’s a localized point where the leak is occurring.”
    “You know where the leak is?” I asked.
    “Yes—at least I have it down to a one hundred square mile region of the southern oceans.”
    I nodded. With languid slowness, I reached out and tapped at the screen. I knew I couldn’t afford to appear eager. I opened the file but didn’t bother to flip to the appropriate screen. Instead, I paused to sip my coffee.
    Algae-based coffee tastes pretty bad to begin with. But with sugar in it, the flavor had moved from sewery to sugary-sewery. I winced, but tried to hide my disgust.
    Marvin studied me and finally couldn’t handle it anymore. He reached up with two tentacles and touched the screen, making spreading motions and spinning the globe of Yale to the correct angle. I smiled slightly. It was kind of fun to make him impatient for once.
    His tentacles rattled and scratched on the touchscreen until he had the correct view displayed. By this time, several staffers had taken note of our conversation and stepped up to watch. I ignored them and pretended to be enjoying my coffee. It was a good thing, I figured, that Marvin had no sense of smell. If he had, he’d have known right away I was faking.
    On the screen, he’d displayed a region known as “Light Blue” on the moon’s surface. For the most part, Yale had no real features. It had clouds and a little scrim of polar ice at the top and