The animals emerged. The fox carried a stolen battery from a wrecked boat. The beavers had chewed through a fallen solar panel. The otters, gods help them, had dragged a sputtering generator up from the human wreck on the far shore.

“Task: Nurture,” Roz announced to the empty woods.

And then, a shadow. A long, neck-stretched shadow.

“Task complete,” Roz whispered.

Roz scanned the gosling. Status: Alive. Probability of survival without intervention: 2.3%. Task found. It scooped up the trembling fuzzball.

The island watched, skeptical. A robot mother? Ridiculous. Roz tried to feed the gosling pebbles. It tried to keep it warm by pressing a cold, metal plate against its down. The gosling, whom Roz designated “Brightbill,” peeped louder. It was a disaster.