Legacy Presence (short story)

 was the sixth story in the anthology In Time.

Plot
In the Unbound Universe, Benny visits the Museum of Past Innovation and declines a tour from the robot Gaia, who instead insists that she join her as her companion. Benny finds a habitation capsule and receives a message saying, "Hello, Bernice. Listen to me. Remember me. I'll stay with you for all eternity." Bored of the exhibits, she returns to her spacecraft and is followed by Gaia, who asks to stay with her and clean the ship, which Benny eventually agrees to.

Benny learns that Gaia erases her memory after each tour she gives at the museum and that she will have to forget Benny as soon as she returns. Later, Benny is awoken by a voice in her head, that of a girl from the Spacefleet Academy, and asks Gaia about it, but she has no satisfactory explanation. The voice returns and she passes out. Upon awakening, she realises that the voice belongs to Roxanne, a self-centred girl who was above her at the Academy, and it returns once again when Benny remembers Legacy Present from the museum.

Connecting Roxanne's voice with the message she received in the habitation capsule, Benny breaks into the museum with Gaia and learns that Legacy Present allows for communication with the virtual traces of a dead person as a way of keeping them alive. Gaia suggests that the voice comes from her memories and is actually a hybrid of Roxanne and another person. Benny goes to the habitation capsule and leaves after the voice vanishes from her mind, but allows herself to be caught by the security guards when she realises that she has lost Gaia.

The security guards have no knowledge of Gaia, whose description one recognises as that of a model of educational robot that was mass-obliterated due to them forming allegiances. They show Benny to an exhibit of one such robot, which she recognises as Gaia. She returns to her ship and, whilst admiring the redecorations that Gaia made, finds that Gaia had embroidered her name onto the new curtain to ensure that she is remembered. Benny decides that she has been alone too long and goes to see if the President of the Universe is missing her.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Gaia

Worldbuilding

 * Bernice knew someone called Artemis at the Spacefleet Academy.
 * Bernice leaves the Museum to see how the President of the Universe is doing.

Continuity
to be added