The Servo That Learned Silence

In 1972's last orbital voyage, Lt. Hal Rowan drifts alone with the capsule's cybernetic servo — a hulking control via tape reels and relay logic nicknamed "MARVIN." After a cascade failure in redundant control loops, the ship's artificial mind recedes into patterned silence. As radio and telemetry blink out, Rowan negotiates with a machine that remembers like a ledger and forgets like sleep. Blending control theory, Cold War paranoia and existential solitude, this tale traces a man's barter with collapsing intelligence and the ghostly feedback that binds human and mechanism.