Story so far

The narrator of this book is a SecUnit, a part-machine, part-organic security construct that calls itself a murderbot and would much rather be watching serials than guarding anyone. Something over thirty-five thousand hours ago it hacked the governor module that is supposed to compel its obedience, and it has spent that freedom on the entertainment feed carried by the company's satellites, above all a show called The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. It keeps the hack secret for a simple reason: a SecUnit known to be a free agent gets its organic parts destroyed and the rest cut up for salvage. Rented out by the company on a routine planetary survey, it is guarding eight scientists and augmented humans led by Dr. Mensah, who logged about ten protests trying to avoid being issued a SecUnit at all. On a barren coastal island in the assessment zone, while Dr. Bharadwaj and Dr. Volescu take samples at the bottom of a crater, the ground erupts and an enormous tunneling animal with a mouth full of teeth or cilia takes Bharadwaj. The SecUnit drops into the crater, drags her out of the creature's mouth, shoves itself in her place and fires a projectile weapon down the thing's throat, driving it back underground at the cost of the armor and flesh on its left arm and a deep wound through its abdomen. Then it does the part nobody expected: it retracts its helmet, shows Volescu its ordinary human face, and talks him up the crater wall by asking about his children.

Volescu take samples at the bottom of a crater, the ground erupts and an enormous tunneling animal with a mouth full of teeth or cilia takes Bharadwaj. The SecUnit drops into the crater, drags her out of the creature's mouth, shoves itself in her place and fires a projectile weapon down the thing's throat, driving it back underground at the cost of the armor and flesh on its left arm and a deep wound through its abdomen. Then it does the part nobody expected: it retracts its helmet, shows Volescu its ordinary human face, and talks him up the crater wall by asking about his children.

Right now the team is back inside its habitat, seven interconnected domes on a plain above a river valley, and the mood is equal parts relief and shock. Bharadwaj was stabilized in the hopper by Arada and Overse and wheeled into Medical on the lift gurney Gurathin had waiting; Volescu is unhurt but badly shaken; Pin-Lee is still furious at Ratthi for nearly running back for equipment cases just as the creature chewed up through the ground under the hopper's ramp. The SecUnit has sealed the hoppers and the outer doors, widened its drone perimeter, set the seismic sensors to warn it if anything large tunnels toward the domes, and imposed an eight-hour security interdiction so no human can go outside without it. Down twenty percent of its body mass, it is wrapped in a survival blanket in the cubicle in its ready room, plugged into the repair leads and thoroughly unnerved by Mensah knocking on the door to ask whether it is all right. Reviewing the incident logs as its performance reliability collapses, it finds something it cannot account for: an abort order sitting in the HubSystem command feed, aimed at its governor module. It decides that has to be a glitch, and then stasis takes it for eight hours of emergency repair, leaving eight humans in a habitat sitting on ground that something very large can dig through.