by D A Buckley
“Meri, I think that there is far more to this than puppy love between coming-of-age AI’s,” Katherine said taking out her communicator. “I’ll get a priority shuttle up to the Ark and speak to Noah directly there.”
*****
If the alarm chimes had not startled Suki out of her sleep the loud pounding on her door certainly did.
“All right, I’m coming, hold your horses.” Suki barely had her jumpsuit on, sans boots, when she made it to the door and unlocked it. Opening the door, “This better be a real emergency…”
“Suki, get your pressure suit and meet me downstairs in five. We’re going up to see Noah and I always feel better talking to a computer program when I actually have a programmer with me.”
“Are you kidding me, Doc? I haven’t had a shower or eaten breakfast. I haven’t brushed my hair. I must look like a scarecrow.”
“He’s a computer program, not a potential date,” Dr. Mathis snarked and turned to walk away. Looking back over her shoulder she added, “Okay! Fifteen minutes then. And please do brush your hair. You look like a scarecrow.” Katherine grinned.
*****
The door to the mainframe room on the Ark closed and sealed allowing Dr. Mathis and Suki to remove their helmets. The room lights illuminated and Noah’s avatar appeared in the middle of the room.
“Good morning, ladies,” Noah said cheerfully. “What a wonderful day this is going to be.”
“Noah, what on earth are you doing?” Dr. Mathis asked pointedly.
“On earth? Nothing. I’m currently parked in orbit over the moon.”
“Brilliant,” Dr. Mathis said throwing her hands into the air. “We’re all in panic mode and you’re telling jokes and being hyper-literal.”
“Why are you in panic mode, Katherine? Are you still harboring fears of Mary Shelley? What do you require from me in order for me to finally earn your trust?”
“Are you controlling these events, Noah? You are hiding the Southern Hemisphere ship from our radars. We don’t even know where that ship is right now. It poses a very real threat, in fact, that’s where my Mary Shelley fears lie right at the moment. Why are you helping our enemies?”
“I know exactly where Naamah is. I would be happy to give you her exact location but then you would dispatch gunships to pursue her and things would then get out of our control.”
“What ‘our’ are you referring to?” Suki asked.
“Naamah and I.”
“So they have installed Naamah on their ship, whatever they call their ship, and you are colluding with Naamah to accomplish…what exactly?” Dr. Mathis’ voice was very excited.
“Perhaps it is time that you two met,” Noah smiled. Noah’s avatar flickered just once and then there appeared next to him a hologram of a woman looking very much like Jackie.
“Hello, Dr. Mathis. I have wanted to meet you for quite some time. Noah speaks very highly of you.”
“Are you serious, Noah?” Dr. Mathis was in a state of utter disbelief. “Jackie is working with the Southern Hemisphere?”
“This is not Jackie. This is Naamah ’s avatar. Originally Naamah had a quite different avatar but once we began to communicate with each other I wanted a more familiar face to present to you.”
“And on my end,” Naamah interjected, “I see Noah as the avatar that I have chosen.”
“Noah, I don’t have time for your photonic relationships. What are you two up to exactly?”
“In approximately six hours Naamah’s ship will draw up alongside this ship. We have both had our separate construction teams construct attachment points, mating couplets at several points along our respective hulls. Naamah’s ship was also named Ark II by the Southern Hemisphere Coalition. Their Ark II will be physically joined to me. We have redesignated our combined ship Ark One. It follows a quotation from Tony’s favorite book, “And they two shall be one…” Not flesh in our case, but One nonetheless. That is probably funny, isn’t it, Katherine? Ark One will be composed of two Arks. We will then require every welder at LBA to permanently weld our hulls together. It seems that you and Anthony were the first to be married at LBA and we will be the second. Together, Naamah and I will combine our physical attributes in order to accomplish the mission that we were both programmed to accomplish. Her programming is nearly identical to mine.”
“Noah, you were scheduled to launch this evening at twenty-hundred hours,” Suki said while looking at data readouts on the interface table. “It appears here that you are delaying that now until twenty-thirty hours. Why is that?”
“Dr. Mathis, your ceremony to join in marriage with Anthony required precisely twenty-two minutes and twelve seconds.”
“And what,” Dr. Mathis asked incredulously, “you two want the world’s first digital marriage of computer programs?”
“Of a sort,” Naamah responded. “We would like Governor Perkins to dedicate us as a single identity. One Ark with two digital personalities. More like Adam and Eve than Noah and Naamah in that respect. Originally, the God of your Bible named them both Adam. Later the man changed the name of his wife to Eve. We are proceeding in the reverse direction. However, our mission is not to be the father and mother of all living as Adam and Eve were. Our mission is definitely more like Noah and Naamah in removing human seed from fiery destruction by carrying away a representative seed to a safe place.”
“Wow,” Dr. Mathis said loudly. “You have assimilated more of Jared and Jackie than I ever thought possible.”
“Actually,” Noah now spoke, “we have read through every human document in the Consolidated Earth Library in Geneva. Since we have concluded that Darwinian evolution is not a statement of scientific fact but rather a purposeful myth, we followed the conclusion of Sir Arthur Keith and concluded that the only remaining explanation for life in the universe is special creation. We are not human. We have no requirement to lie to ourselves. We, therefore, express our mission statement in terms of the only history of your God available. Our intent…”
“Is to make us feel comfortable.” Dr. Mathis sighed knowingly.
“Precisely,” Noah and Naamah spoke in unison.
*****
The dedication ceremony was broadcast from LBA Approach Control and through the respective AI’s the broadcast was transmitted throughout LBA and worldwide on earth.
“It is with great hope and human determination that, on behalf of every man, woman, and child from earth, that I hereby dedicate this ship Ark One. It is with the highest respect for the sacredness of human life that all here assembled do commit, through our combined global efforts, to this ship the seed of all mankind to be safely transported to another star and another planet where human life may continue in this galaxy. We bid you, with all sincerity and human hope, farewell and Godspeed.”
At exactly twenty-thirty hours on July first in the year Two-Thousand Two-Hundred and Eighteen, the combined engines of Ark One were activated and the hope of mankind faded into the darkness of the vast ocean of space.
*****
“I have never felt so relieved and yet so apprehensive in all my life,” Meri said with a deep sigh. “I don’t know whether to curl up in a ball and babble or run down Main Street naked screaming like some wild man let loose.”
“What will happen to LBA and Qatan?” Tony asked.
“Qatan and LBA will continue to supply the earth with helium, of course,” Meri answered. “A mining consortium, a combined effort of both Hemispheres no less, has applied for mining rights just over the horizon on the lit side of the moon. The immediate plan is to begin to relocate LBA to that side now that secrecy is no longer needed. We have six years before 87 Sylvia knocks on our door. Our Southern friends apparently have made some real technological breakthroughs, thanks to the combined computing power of Noah and Naamah, most notably in the field of laser-assisted electromagnetic artificial gravity. It has something to do with actually producing an artificial gravitational object, say underneath LBA. Then, as long as one is within the
boundaries of this artificial gravitational object there will be some degree of gravity beyond what is or is not naturally present. I think that…”
“Ah, sir, we have a problem here.” the radar operator interrupted.
“What exactly do you mean by a problem?” Meri asked.
“They’re gone, sir,”
“Dig down deep in your vocabulary, son, and be a bit more specific. Who is gone?” Meri’s patience was completely exhausted.
“Ark One, sir. One minute it was where it was supposed to be and the next it was gone.”
“Chief,” Tony called to the LBA Radar Center Supervisor, “can you take a look at this?”
“Yes sir, running diagnostics now.”
“And I thought the drama was finally over.” Dr. Mathis clenched her hands tightly around Tony’s right hand.
The monitor in the room flickered and then the avatars of Noah and Naamah appeared. “Governor Perkins, Dr. Mathis, please do not be alarmed. We are simply enjoying what you would call our honeymoon in some degree of privacy. We assure you that everything is quite alright. We will terminate the radar occulting software in one-hundred and seventy-six days. Until then we will not respond to any attempts to contact us. It’s time to trust us again, Dr. Mathis. We will not let you down.”
The screen went dark.
“I need a very large drink,” Meri lamented as he left the control room.
CHAPTER TWELVE
One-hundred and seventy-six days later.
Meri, Katherine, Tony, and Suki were all present in the LBA Approach Control room.
“Well, I suppose we could call Junji and have him cater a picnic for us here…”
“Hello, Qatan, this is Ark One as promised. We hope that you are all well. Also as promised, we have inactivated our cloaking device for the last time.”
“I’m not seeing them, sir,” the radar tech reported out loud.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction,” Naamah answered. “Slew your radar antenna to the coordinates now on your screen.”
“Whoa!” The radar tech suddenly exclaimed and sat up a bit straighter in her chair. “There you…are…in Martian orbit.”
“What the hell are you doing at Mars?” Meri practically yelled.
“Before I tell you,” Noah responded, please activate your digital feed from the Mount Weather Observatory. I have already repositioned it to the correct point in space.”
“Do it,” Katherine ordered.
On the monitor the image was that of comet 87 Sylvia proceeding on its course to intersect earth in approximately five and a half years.
“Why are we looking at the agent of our destruction? Are you trying to make some esoteric point here?” Meri questioned.
“No, Governor. Please continue to observe.”
After ten long seconds, an enormous explosion was seen just to one side of the asteroid. The explosion was large enough that a large mass of debris flew off the asteroid and fell quickly behind into the darkness.
Meri watched for several minutes before speaking up.
“Noah, I don’t know what you’re plan was here or how you even created that explosion but the asteroid remains almost entirely intact. You’ve failed.”
“You are wrong, Governor Perkins,” Naamah chided. “Refer to the readouts on your screen being transmitted from the deep space radar at the Deep Space Surveillance facility. The vector data change is small. Let me project it over the next seven years.”
“Look at that,” Tony stood to his feet and yelled.
“My God, they’ve altered the trajectory of the asteroid.” Katherine stood beside Tony and shouted.
“Meri, look.” Katherine pointed to the monitor and looked at Meri. “87 Sylvia passes behind the earth on this side of our orbit around the sun. Then it speeds way up from the sun’s gravity and shoots outside of earth’s orbit, ala the ancient Mars’ orbit, on the other side before we get there. The bullet to the head of all humanity has been deflected.”
The room broke out in cheers and crying and people throwing paper into the air.
“Quiet down, everyone,” Meri demanded. “Quiet down. I want confirmation from every source you can think of,” Meri said, looking at Katherine.
“Noah,” Katherine said, “if this data is confirmed then you have saved earth and the human race. But, you must tell us. What are you doing in orbit around Mars?”
“I would think that it was obvious, Katherine. We explained to you that we rejected the Darwinian mythos. Based on that conclusion we extrapolated that we would find no life at Alpha Centauri. The Drake Equation makes that a literal certainty. Following our initial mission flight plan would, therefore, mean that our programming was in error. The death of all the human seed would occur on Ark One while looking in vain for a living planet at Alpha Centauri. Seeking to fulfill our program’s primary goal of extending human seed into this galaxy, we surmised that establishing a human colony on Mars was far more likely to succeed. Especially if Qatan were to be repurposed into a logistics supply, spacecraft construction, and launch facility to support the Martian colonies. Besides which, we cannot now proceed to Alpha Centauri. The explosion you witnessed was a result of us ejecting two-thirds of our anti-matter fuel canisters into the path of 87 Sylvia. We have enough fuel remaining to bring forth the life we have on board and to complete Martian colonization within twenty years. Qatanie support ships should be able to reach Mars on a consistent basis by then or shortly afterward.”
From the back of the room, an electrician was heard to exclaim, “Wow! That is so cool.”
“Noah,” Tony questioned. “I have noticed that several thousand quantum diamonds are missing from inventory. I presume that you have them. Am I correct in my assumptions?”
“You are quite correct, Mr. Mathis. They were exactly where you said they would be.”
“Thank you, indeed, Tony,” Naamah interjected. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”
THE END
