Paudro Qro

Paudro Qro (pronounced crow)

** The Boy **

"I love all your inventions grandfather."

"They are wonderful," he replied and sighed, "but they are not alive like you." His grandfather would often say as he helped the boy from his bed to his anti-gravity chair. "Your heart is what gives you life."

"What about my soul?"

"Your soul gives you meaning." His grandfather replied. Day by day Enyar was accompanied by only one of his grandfathers creations. An mechanical bird who looked half owl and half crow. On his dying day the boy made his grandfather promise to give the bird his heart.

"Doctors give people mechanical hearts, why can’t we give Paudro a real one." If the boy ever heard the laughter and taunts of his grandfathers "learned" peers he never brought them up. His grandfather had once been head of the Nova Medical Facility on Pluto Three but, now drummed out of society by his beliefs.

**The Meadow**

Paudro watched as his creator sat cross legged at the edge of a door set within a carved out cave. From his branch Paudro scanned the one acre cliff the extended from the door. It was a meadow full of grass, flowers and a few trees carefully tended by his creator. His mechanical eyes clicked and opened their eyelids taking a picture, as he had been told, of the sunset. The meadow was the only vegetation on a world covered in red, rocky mountains and vast deserts of red, gold and yellow sands. He stretched his wings making several whirring noised as he did. He leapt from the branch of the tree which stood hundreds of feet tall and gracefully circled down to his creator. Once on the ground his movements became mechanical again but, in the sky he was as graceful as any other living, breathing, creature that could fly.

"Master." Paudro spoke in the voice of the boy he once watched over. He looked down as his master in the chair waiting for his eyes to flutter open. Each day he noted additional micro seconds added to the time it took before a response occurred and each day it was getting longer.

"Yes Paudro." Lifting his head Sepataul looked up at his creation. Paudro had the head and body of an owl but wings of a crow. The artificial feathers and large size of his body betrayed any hint of the true earth creatures he was designed after. Glints metal reflecting in the sun could be seen between the feathers. The solid green eyes with pale blue center disappeared only when Paudro’s lens closed like an iris from the outside in. Even after learning of the true origins and differences of the old earth winged creatures Sepatual decided to leave Paudro as he was, different but unique in his own way. The old man struggled to his feet using his cane to steady himself as he stood. "I have one one last gift for you. Something I have been working on for over a decade now and I think your ready."

The twenty foot tall iron door closed behind Paudro at his command. His metal claw feet made loud clicking noises as he walked awkwardly in the corridor. He followed Sepataul to a chamber filled with the most advanced equipment he had brought with him, augmented or invented. Sepatual sat wearily and out of breath at his work bench. "Lean...lean down and open your access port Paudro." He said in a weak voice. Paudro did as he was told and leaned down so that his left ear opened out and back to reveal a computer link port. Sepataul plugged a large connector to Paudro. "All that I know and all things about my grandson I am ready to give to you." Sepataul reach slowly for a metal band with wires attached and placed the circlet on his head. "This isn’t just a data transfer Paudro. This is everything we were." Paudro said nothing, he had calculated Sepataul’s responses and speech patterns and new when it was logical to respond. "You won’t understand right away maybe never." Sepataul took several breaths and appeared on the verge of passing out. Paudro had seen his creator fall asleep more and more often sometimes sleeping for more than a day at a time in the last few months. His sensors monitored and concluded that his creator’s functions were slowing, perhaps to shortly stop.

"I am ready for the transfer." Paudro said quietly sparking his master’s attention to remain awake. Sepataul’s heart had momentarily fluttered and was beginning to fail.

"So am I." Sepataul said as he reached up and patted Paudro’s metal and feather neck. He pressed a few buttons, leaned back in his chair and fell asleep as the computer did the rest. Paudro’s calculation for the data transfer time was innacurate but, he could not understand how his calculations were wrong. Hours had passed and the memory in the computer should have completed the transfer of information yet, more came. The information was chaotic. Random words, colors, sounds and concepts continued to upload into his sensor matrix control unit. Two days he remained perfectly still until the data transfer stopped. The information was far more than Paudro had calculated, so much so that it took him several minutes to restructure his sensors to realize how much time had passed. The connector automatically disengaged and fell to the metal floor with a loud clang. The computers had all ceased processing and were shutting down.

"Master." The data still overloading his control center Paudro did not register for a few moments that his master had shut down as well. Paudro’s chest section opened up and two mechanical arms slid out to gently embrace and carry his master outside. Unlike his awkward and mechanical walk Paudro flew gracefully from the meadow just as the sun was rising over the amber desert. He flew to the top of the mountain and laid Sepetaul on the ground. Patiently Paudro excavated a perfectly geometric shape of a rectangle and then laid the body of his master within it. In less than an hour the grave was covered. Paudro carved a stone in the shape an arc no taller than a young boy and placed it beside the already existing arc with Enyar’s name engraved upon it. Below his name Sepataul had instructed Paudro to engrave the words "Light of my youth". It was something Sepataul always said to Enyar. Paudro engraved Sepataul’s name into his own arc and started to continue engraving the same words but, he paused. He carved different words into the arc, "All things good to me." Enyar searched his memory unit but could not find a reference to the words ever being spoken. Random information sparked in Paudro’s central core but no words. Again he could not isolate the words he had writting but had no doubt they came from Enyar.

** The Journey **

"All things good to me." Paudro said outloud. His programming had instructed him to leave the moment he had completed the burial however, he remained until the sunset on the graves. Logic propelled him to obey his instructions but, something else drew him to stay. At nightfall he took to flight. Away from the only place he had ever functioned, away from the desert into the sky and beyond the pull of the planet’s gravity he flew. As he noted his speed and distance from the planet something new came to the forefront of his logic, emptiness. "What is my purpose now." Paudro tried to compute to himself. Instructions buried beneath layers of programming surfaced as if commanded.

"Explore all things and places I could not." The voice of his creator echoed within his central processing core. "You will find your purpose."