Foreign Object story
Murderbot accompanies the PresAux team back to the habitat. The recording of the security cameras shows that in their absence, more superior SecUnits and a representative of the hostile third party—now identified as GrayCris—visited the habitat and left an invitation to meet at a rendezvous point to negotiate terms for their survival. After a security check, the PresAux team take Gurathin to the medical bay. While Bharadwaj performs surgery on Gurathin's leg, Murderbot plugs into his data port to turn off his sense of pain. The connection allows Gurathin to find out what it calls itself and that the SecUnit was involved in the deaths of 57 clients, which Gurathin reveals to the group and condemns Murderbot for. Murderbot admits it's not sure if it killed the clients or not and agrees with Gurathin's assessment that it could be defective and dangerous, then it leaves the group to go out on its own. The PresAux team concludes that GrayCris is illegally after the alien remnants and that they will liquidate them once they find out their location. After mulling whether to abandon or betray its clients, Murderbot comes back and announces that it has a plan.
11 total · 2 choice · 3 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| AI point of view | choice | A point of the story is to speculate on how an android might view humans. The story is mostly narrated by the titular Murderbot's inner thoughts. |
| android | choice | The story follows the titular Murderbot, a humanoid robot with organic parts that functioned as a security unit. There is no indication that Murderbot ever existed as a biological organism that became enhanced with technological parts. |
| invasion of privacy | major | Murderbot "plugged into" Dr. Gurathin and rummaged around in his mind. Murderbot, hypocritically, got upset when Dr. Gurathin turned the tables on him. |
| trust | major | The scientists discovered that Murderbot had killed a mining crew of 57 people in the past. They, again, discussed whether and to what extent they could trust it or were safe being around it. |
| trust in a potential foe | major | The scientists discovered that Murderbot had killed a mining crew of 57 people in the past. They, again, discussed whether and to what extent they could trust it or were safe being around it. |
| AI safeguards | minor | In the space opera Murderbot liked to watch, the Navigation Bot assured the crew that that she was incapable of endangering their lives shortly before dooming them out of revenge for having wiped her memories of her former lover. |
| brain-computer interface | minor | Dr. Gurathin had a port in his neck that allowed him to interface directly with computer systems. |
| drug abuse | minor | Gurathin refused pain killers prior to his emergency surgery out of concern that taking them would lead him to relapse. |
| polyamorous relationship | minor | Pin-Lee, Arada, and Ratthi were in some sort of marriage arrangement with each other. Ratti declared that he could no longer do the "tripartite arrangement" because he had fallen in love with only Pin-Lee. |
| traversable wormhole | minor | In the space opera Murderbot liked to watch, the captain ordered the Navigation Bot to guide the ship through a wormhole. |