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ART was excited, I could tell. It spun off processes impatiently as I boarded and went through my usual patrol-and-reconnoiter (too many syllables for such an important activity, more evidence that humans shouldn’t do their own security, but Ratthi had given me a word-of-the-day program and kept springing them on me to check if I was actually using it). When I settled down into my favorite chair, ART gathered its processes back into itself. One of its service drones rolled up to my chair carrying a glittering cube about the size of a Preservation fruit.
“ART, I don’t know what this is.” It had 'Property of the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland Library' stamped on it, and I was pretty sure ART got a crew member to acquire it clandestinely. It’s not like ART has a library card. I’d learned about library cards during my visit to 'Pansystem U.'
I was making a survey of historical databases for an unrelated task, ART began. It was going to tell the whole story before it got to the point, and there was nothing I could do to stop it short of shutting myself down. While sorting through freehold files with broken provenances (I’m not going to give ART the satisfaction of looking that up until I’m away from its prying sensors) I found a small collection of media labeled 'World Hoppers.'
The media’s archival trail doesn’t predate my metadata on the series but its origin is unknown. The storage container (the drone wiggled smugly and the cube slid around on its sample plate) is older than the earliest episodes by at least a hundred years. I haven’t opened the media yet, but I have used an automated process to convert it for my display system. Would you like to watch it with me?
Okay, fine. ART was right to be excited. Previously unknown Worldhoppers media? Not just for us, but maybe for anyone alive now? I was impressed that ART had waited for me. “Yes, let’s watch that now.”
ART flashed the media onto one of its multi-use walls, turning an entire side of the room into a viewing screen. A flying drone cam showed us a large open-topped building on a sunny planet. It looked a lot like the Preservation Active Theater, which did not show any media at all but was a place for humans to watch other humans fight over a ball.
(Yes, I know it’s called sports. No, that doesn’t make it less dumb.)
The drone cam zoomed down toward the building, which had lots of seats filled with humans acting excitable.
None of the Worldhoppers we’ve watched used a cold open. ART spied on media classes at Pansystem University after our first trip together, so now it talks like that. I’ve had to learn a few words in self defense.
“Maybe this is the title sequence.” The flat ground in the center of the building had some humans behaving less excitably, but I couldn’t make out what they were doing because the title —hah, see, ART? this is the title sequence— appeared floating in front of them with a blast of music.
“WORLD HOPPERS LXXVI.” It was bold and golden-green and there was some kind of animal illustration with it.
I believe it is a stylized amphibian. I could feel ART rummaging through reference materials. Perhaps it is supposed to be a… frog? It didn’t usually sound hesitant about knowing things, but being a spaceship meant that planetary fauna was one of the few things I knew more about than ART did.
“Yes, that looks like a human who’d never seen a frog tried to draw one, but why—“ we both stopped and just watched, as an announcer welcomed us to the planet-wide ”event of the year” and began explaining the rules and expectations of a strange sport.
Half an hour later I said, “ART, I don’t think they’re going to start exploring new planets.”
The speckled one is about to do the high jump, pay attention.
Three hours after I boarded ART the speckled one was disqualified because its handler had given it undeclared chemical enhancers, and we took a break.
“That’s not Worldhoppers.”
No. Why Pansystem thought to preserve the amphibian sporting events of a distant freehold is unclear to me. I am pleased to have found it, nonetheless.
“It’s not like what we usually watch.”
Perhaps the novelty makes it more engaging.
“Give me a copy when I go back to Preservation. I think some of the humans will be ‘engaged’ too.”
It was a week since ART dropped me back at Preservation Station, when Amena pinged my feed with an audio recording. She was using her best version of Mensah's and-I-mean-it voice. I winced. Her impression was coming along nicely.
“Get your ceramic butt planetside this instant. The moms are making me clean the tadpoles out of the bathtub and find a safe place to dump all these frogs. It’s your fault for giving my sibs that dumb show, so you’re going to help.”
I couldn't see how the immature risk-assessment abilities of human children was my problem. But if I didn’t help she’d probably cut off her siblings' access to our private media-sharing hub. I tapped TravelSys with a request for the next shuttle departure.