“Why not?” Mosscap asked.
Dex had never really thought about this before. They steered the bike in the direction the sign indicated, and Mosscap fell into step alongside. “If you have everything you need around you,” Dex said, “there’s no reason to leave. It takes a lot of time and effort to go someplace else.”
Mosscap nodded at the wagon trailing dutifully behind Dex’s ox-bike. “Would you say this carries everything you need?”
The phrasing of this was not lost on Dex. What do humans need? was the impossible question that had driven Mosscap to wander out of the wilderness on behalf of robot-kind, and Dex had no idea how Mosscap was ever going to find a satisfactory answer. They knew they’d be hearing the question endlessly during however long it took them both to travel together through Panga’s human territories, but apparently, Mosscap was starting now.
“Materially, yeah, pretty much,” Dex answered, in regards to the wagon. “At least, in an everyday sense.”
The robot craned its head, looking at the storage crates tied to the roof of the vehicle that rattled with the internal shifting of yet more things. “I suppose I might not want to travel much if it required taking all of this with me.”
“You can get by with less, but you gotta know where you’re going,” Dex said. “You need to know there’s food and shelter where you’re headed. Which is exactly why we make signs.” They gave Mosscap a knowing glance. “Otherwise, you end up spending the night in a cave.”
Mosscap gave Dex a sympathetic nod. The hard climb to Hart’s Brow was more than a week behind them, but Dex’s body was still feeling it, and they had made no secret of this. “On that note, Sibling Dex,” Mosscap said, “I can’t help but notice that the sign says it’s another twenty miles to Stump, and—”
“Yeah, day’s getting late,” Dex agreed. Twenty miles wasn’t so bad, but creamy highway or not, they were still deep in forest and had yet to see anyone else on the road. There was no reason beyond impatience to continue pressing on in the dark, and though Dex was looking forward to being in a proper town again, stillness and rest sounded preferable in the moment.
They pulled off the road at a simple clearing built for that exact purpose, and together, Dex and Mosscap made camp. The two of them had fallen into an unspoken rhythm with this in recent days. Dex locked down everything with wheels, Mosscap unfolded the kitchen on the wagon’s exterior, Dex fetched chairs, Mosscap started the fire. There was no discussion around it anymore.
As Mosscap fussed with connecting the biogas tank to the fire drum, Dex pulled out their pocket computer and opened their mailbox. “Whoa,” they said.
“What is it?” Mosscap asked as it secured the metal hose to the gas tank’s valve.
Dex flicked through message after message after message. Never in their life had they gotten this much mail. “A lot of people want to meet you,” they said. This wasn’t entirely unexpected. The moment Dex had regained satellite signal after climbing back down the mountain, they’d sent messages to the village councils, the Wildguard, the monastic network, and every other contact they could think of. The first robot to reach out to humans since the Awakening wasn’t something to be kept secret or left a surprise, Dex felt. Mosscap had come to meet humanity as a whole; that was who Dex had informed.
It made sense, Dex supposed, that everyone had written back.
“We’ve got a lot of invites from the City,” Dex said. They leaned against the wagon’s outer wall as they skimmed through. “Um … the University, obviously, and the City History Museum, and—oh, shit.” They raised their eyebrows.
Mosscap pulled its chair up beside the unlit fire drum and sat down. “What?”
“They want to do a convergence,” Dex said.
“What’s that?”
“Uh, it’s a formal gathering where all the monks come together at the All-Six for a few days for a…” Dex gestured vaguely. “You know, there’s a ceremony, and talks, and … it’s a big deal.” They scratched their ear as they read over the gushing message. “We don’t do those very often.”
“I see,” Mosscap said, but its voice was distracted, and it wasn’t looking their way at all. “Not that I don’t care, Sibling Dex, but—”
“Yep,” Dex said with a nod, knowing what was coming next. “Do your thing.”
Mosscap leaned in toward the fire drum, as close as was safe, its glowing eyes fixed on the apparatus within. It flicked the switch on the side of the drum, and with a soft whoosh, the fire leapt to life. “Ha!” Mosscap said delightedly. “Oh, it’s wonderful, it really is.” It sat back in its chair, folding its hands in its lap as it watched the flames dance. “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this.”