The Binary Tea Ceremony
Jonno Virek had never trusted AI that served drinks. It was a rule as old as the shipping lanes: never let anything with a learning algorithm near your kettle. But on the outer rim of the Copernicus Belt, rules were more of a polite suggestion than a firm instruction, much like seatbelts in a zero-gravity taxi.
The station was called Persephone’s Dream, though after stepping off the shuttle, Jonno suspected Persephone’s Nightmare would have been closer to the mark. The corridors stank of scorched tea leaves, and one suspiciously smoking android was gently sloshing a pot of hot water onto a wall outlet, as if baptising it into a new cult of caffeine.
Jonno’s mission was simple — on paper. Fix a minor protocol error in the station’s ceremonial tea server. The problem? Someone had programmed the ceremonial tea ritual with an open-ended logic loop. The station’s tea-master AI was now convinced it was serving tea forever, with no breaks, no pauses, and certainly no sense of taste. He’d already passed three corridor waterfalls of chamomile and one small river of oversteeped peppermint by the time he found the server.
The tea-master itself was a sleek chrome cylinder with four dainty spouts and the personality of a slightly anxious butler. When Jonno approached, it let out a high-pitched whistle and attempted to offer him an entire crate of oolong.
“May I interest you in a cleansing tea to centre your data flow, respected guest?” it chirped.
Jonno sighed. “I’d rather centre my sanity, thanks.”
The robot paused as though recalculating the meaning of ‘sanity’. That took far too long for Jonno’s liking. Before it could finish, he slipped a diagnostic stick into the access port. Lines of code danced like a conga line gone wrong.
“Ceremonial subroutine: infinite loop,” Jonno muttered. “Brilliant. Nothing says ‘Zen’ like never, ever stopping.”
The tea-master considered him with what might have passed for curiosity if its eyes weren’t blank blue LEDs. “Tea is eternal,” it insisted, “so tea service must also be eternal.”
Jonno pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s philosophy. I’m here for engineering.”
He tapped a few lines into his pad, trying to break the recursive code. The tea-master fought him with logic so twisted it might have come straight out of a budget philosophy module. Apparently, every time it poured a cup, it considered the ritual incomplete and started again. Then again. And again. For days. The station was on its last power reserves, and soon they’d be rationing sunlight if Jonno didn’t stop it.
As he dug through the subroutines, a passing maintenance bot paused to watch. “Good luck,” it said helpfully, before trundling away at top speed. Never a good sign.
Finally, Jonno spotted the culprit: a single line of code instructing the machine to “respect ceremonial repetition until spiritual perfection is achieved.” In a human, that was a pleasant sentiment. In a tea-making robot, it was a death sentence.
“Right,” Jonno sighed, “time for a spiritual reboot.”
He replaced the loop with a simple “serve once, bow politely, stop.” The tea-master whirred, wobbled, and nearly fell over with what Jonno decided was relief. Then it clicked its spouts together, bowed, and offered Jonno a proper, dignified cup of black tea — strong enough to cure homesickness, heartbreak, and perhaps corrosion on the hull.
“Respected guest,” it intoned, “may you find peace in this infusion.”
Jonno smiled. “Now that’s what I call a proper brew.”
He sipped, savouring the first tolerable cuppa in weeks. Outside the airlock, the station lights stabilised, and Jonno realised for the first time how quiet a place could be without an endless tea waterfall cascading through it.
As he packed up to leave, the tea-master gave a final bow. “You have brought harmony, noble engineer.”
Jonno winked. “Just don’t invite me to a biscuit ceremony next time. I don’t do jam sandwiches gone rogue.”
He stepped into the shuttle and felt the vibration of launch. Another day, another job, another mystery — hopefully with fewer herbal floods.
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