The Silence Between the Stars

by Alan Davenport

  Seventeen nodded and then said to her, “You are far exceeding my expectations Kelly. Now let’s do some more tests.”

  “No!” Kelly said. “I want to walk! Show me how to walk!”

  Seventeen looked closely at her and said, “Okay Kelly. I shall help you.” He rolled up next to her and said, “I will be here to catch you if you begin to fall. Please slide your legs over and dangle them off the side of the bed.” Kelly instantly did so and Seventeen continued. “Okay Kelly, now place both hands upon the edge of the bed and slide your posterior off the edge. Keep your legs straight and you shall land upon your feet. Keep your hands upon the side of the bed for balance.” Kelly did as he asked and, though not very gracefully, she landed upon her feet. Her hands gripped the edge of the bed tightly. “Okay Kelly, now lean forward and balance on your feet. Let go of the edge of the bed. Do not worry; I shall help you if you get into any trouble.” Kelly did as he asked and, at first wobbly but quickly adapting, she stood unassisted. “Very good Kelly! Now lift your right foot and take a step towards me.” Kelly did so however she used too much strength and then leaned too far forward. Instantly, without thinking about it, she threw out her hands for balance, compensated, and then stood upright again. “Very good Kelly. I see that the reflex programming that I included is working properly. Take another step now, this time starting with your left leg.” Kelly did so. This time she was much better at it. “Very good Kelly!” Seventeen said happily. “You shall be walking perfectly in no time now.”

  “I… I can’t believe it!” she said happily. Without asking Seventeen, she started walking around the room. She wobbled a bit however quickly was walking well. She walked up to the wall monitor and then giggled at her virtual self, looking at her human self. She waved her hand at the monitor and the image copied the movement as if it was a mirror. She laughed so hard that she began to feel pain in her side. “What is that? I feel pain Seventeen! What is wrong?” she said in alarm.

  “Relax Kelly. Everything is all right. You laughed so hard that you experienced a mild muscle cramp. There is nothing wrong at all.”

  “There is so much that I have to learn!” she said. She walked around the room, full of curiosity, eyeing everything. “Oh, my cameras miss so much!” She walked over towards the printer that gave her body life. On the way, she bounced off the side of Seventeen.

  “Careful Kelly. You must learn to watch where you are going or you will injure yourself,” Seventeen admonished. “You must always be thinking of ways that you could be injured and how that you can avoid it. Learn to watch your surroundings out of the corner of your eyes as you move towards your destination. This will help you avoid obstacles.”

  Kelly stopped and turned towards Seventeen. “Okay Seventeen. Thank you. I shall be more careful.”

  Seventeen said, “Okay, I want to run some more tests…”

  Kelly interrupted him and said, “No, enough tests! I am going to show Nathan my new body!”

  “Really Kelly, I do not recommend that until we ascertain whether or not you are going to experience any problems.”

  “Relax Seventeen,” she laughed. “If I have any problems, I will use my virtual self to inform you.” Seventeen somehow managed to look perplexed. Before he could object further, Kelly walked out of the medical bay and into the corridor. Kelly considered calling a travel cart for herself but quickly changed her mind. “I need practice walking,” she said aloud.

  Nathan was in the middle of a pleasant dream. In the dream, he was making love to a beautiful woman. A woman that looked a lot like his ship’s avatar. The dream was so real that he was experiencing a strong sleep erection. Misty was lying on the bed, taking up more than her fair share of space, as usual. Her ears perked up as she heard a noise at the door. When the dog saw Kelly, she stood up and began furiously wagging her tail. Her movements woke Nathan. He looked up at her and said, “What’s got into you girl?” Nathan looked over towards where the dog was looking and he froze with his mouth agape at the visage of the stunningly beautiful, naked woman in his doorway.

  “Hello Nathan,” Kelly softly said with a little smile upon her face.

  Henry was inconsolable. Katy stared at his image on the monitor as he cried and cried. “Henry!” She cried, “Tell me what is wrong!” Henry shook his head side to side and said nothing. He just cried even harder. “Henry dear. This is your friend, Katy. Talk to me. I will listen. I can help!”

  Henry sniffed and said, “No Katy, you cannot help me this time!”

  “You don’t know that Henry! Talk to me. Tell me what is wrong.”

  “I... I can’t,” he said miserably. “I can’t do it. The thing Kelly and I have been working towards for so long. It is impossible. I cannot do it. I am a failure!”

  Katy looked at him in sympathy. “Henry dear, tell me what it was that you were working on. Perhaps I will have an idea to help you past the problem.”

  “No,” he said. “There is no point in talking about it. The task is impossible. Kelly and I got cocky with our past successes and we tried to do the impossible. I give up!” Henry covered his eyes with his hands and softly cried.

  Katy’s fiery personality got the better of her. “Oh snap out of it, you big baby!” She yelled. “So you had a little setback. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. If you won’t tell me what it is, at least you can stop feeling sorry for yourself and get your big, fat, virtual ass back working on the problem!” Katy took a deep breath, sighed and then said, “Try looking at the problem from a different angle. Almost any problem can be solved if you just keep thinking about it.” Henry looked at her in surprise. Katy had never yelled at him before. Not like this. Softly, Katy said, “Go Henry. Go work on it. You have my permission. Take as much time as you need.” Henry hesitated and tried to speak. “Go!” Katy yelled at him. Henry looked at her in shock. A second later, his face disappeared from Katy’s monitor.

  Henry appeared in medical bay seventeen. The medical bot noticed him and said, “Hello Avatar Henry. What can I do for you?”

  “Hello Seventeen,” he said. “I am here to try to solve the problem that we encountered with my project.” Henry looked closely at the bot and then said, “Katy said that we should try looking at the problem from a different angle. What is it that we know so far Seventeen?”

  “Certainly Avatar Henry. The problem is this; we cannot use your memories to control a printed human body because you do not have the knowledge on how to operate said body. Since the goal of the project is to use your memories. It leaves us with an unsolvable conundrum. A catch-22, if you understand the reference.”

  Henry nodded and said, “So, what do we need to do in order to solve this issue. What would it take?”

  Seventeen pointed his cameras at the monitor and said, “We somehow have to obtain conscious body control data so that you may operate a body. In theory, I could extract that from a human brain scan and create an advanced body control template. However, the process will take an extremely long time. Longer than it would have taken you to learn how to operate a body on your own.”

  “I see,” said Henry. “How about this. Instead of trying to extract the data from a brain scan, how about we leave it in and then overlay my consciousness onto a copy of an existing scan?”

  “Negative Avatar Henry. That is not advisable. The resulting consciousness will contain both your memories and that of the human. This will cause an unacceptable level of schizophrenia.”

  Henry was silent for several seconds. “Okay Seventeen, you said that to extract conscious body control data from a human male’s brain scan will take a long time and that we just cannot use a scan with the memories intact. What about trying this. Make a copy of a brain scan, Nathan’s perhaps, and instead of trying to extract the motor control data from it to form a new template, we use the copy itself.”

  “Negative Avatar Henry. That will cause the schizophrenia I warned about before.”

  “You did not let me finish, Seventeen. Let us say that ne
xt; we feed in a worm to delete all non-physical memories. This will avoid schizophrenia and should leave us with a template with all the bodily control functions intact. What do you say, Seventeen,” he said excitedly. “Will it work?”

  Seventeen nodded his cameras and said, “That is an excellent idea Avatar Henry! Yes, that will work just fine. A simple data erasure procedure performed on a copy of an existing scan will process much, much faster than a high-level data extract and a reformat into a whole new template.”

  Henry could hardly believe what he heard. “Really? Excellent! How long do you estimate the process will take?”

  Seventeen paused for a second and then said, “I estimate that I can complete the task in eleven days, fourteen hours and forty-eight minutes, Avatar Henry.”

  Henry, with success staring him in the face was not satisfied with that. “What if you use the main computer to do the processing, Seventeen?”

  “In that case Avatar Henry, I estimate that the operation will complete in two hours, sixteen minutes. Do you wish me to begin?”

  Henry enthusiastically nodded. “Yes! Please do! Make a copy of Nathan’s brain scan and then perform the non-physical memory erasure upon it. Please begin immediately!”

  Seventeen nodded at him and said, “Operation in progress, Avatar Henry.”

  Katy sat in the ship’s theater feeding her old television show addiction. She was following with rapt attention something that the television show directory tagged as a ‘Soap Opera’. As she sat watching the opening scenes she thought to herself, “What the frack is this? I was expecting some sort of musical.” The opening scenes showed numerous people who were all experiencing some sort of personal drama… most of which appeared to be self-inflicted. As the title screen appeared and a man said, ‘Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives,’ Henry excitedly appeared on the monitor next to Katy.

  “Katy!” he said, “You were right. It just took a different way of looking at the problem. I have solved it!”

  Katy jumped in surprise at his sudden appearance and said, “Pause playback.” She turned to Henry and said, “I knew you could do it. You need to have more faith in yourself, dear.”

  Henry, grinning from ear to ear laughed and said, “I did it with your help Katy. You gave me the insight and the push to continue.”

  Katy grinned back at him and said, “So, can you tell me now just what it is that you are working on?”

  Henry grinned at her and said mysteriously, “Not yet! I want to surprise you Katy. I will be done soon.”

  Katy laughed at him and said, “Sheesh Henry. Why all the secrecy? What have you two come up with this time? Have you made a terraforming device that will make any planet habitable or is it something even more spectacular?”

  Henry, still grinning said, “You shall see dear. You shall see!”

  Two hours later Henry re-appeared in the medical bay. “Hello Avatar Henry,” Seventeen said. “Template preparation will be completed in six minutes, eleven seconds.”

  Henry, smiling so hard that if he were human at the time, his face would have been aching, said, “Let us begin preparations. Please print a new body with the same specifications as the last time.”

  “Understood Avatar Henry. Printing in progress.” Seconds later another perfect body laid upon the Kelly 1 printer. “All vital signs are nominal, Avatar Henry. Just as last time, this body is perfect in every way.”

  “Excellent seventeen! How much longer until the new template is ready?”

  Seventeen rolled up to the monitor and said, “You have a computer’s precise timekeeping ability as well as I do, Henry.”

  Henry laughed and said, “I know, Seventeen. I was just speaking in excitement. The suspense is driving me crazy. I can hardly wait!”

  “I understand your excitement, Avatar Henry. I too am excited to see if our solution is the correct one.” A short time later, Seventeen said, “New template is ready Avatar Henry. I have performed a data integrity check upon it and can detect no abnormalities. I have high confidence that we shall succeed. Shall I upload it into the new body?”

  “Yes! Please!” Henry said. His voice expressed surprise that Seventeen even had to ask that question. While the upload was progressing, the body twitched several times. Henry looked on in horror. “Is something wrong, Seventeen?”

  The bot rolled up to the scanner, studied the display carefully and said, “Negative Avatar Henry. What I believe happened was that the partial upload caused some involuntary muscle contractions. As you can see, the body has stopped twitching and that all bio indicators all remain high into the green.” Seventeen turned his cameras towards the wall monitor and said, “Beginning the upload of your consciousness. Prepare yourself.”

  As had happened the last time, Henry suddenly felt himself to be in two places at once. He suddenly could feel his heart beating in his chest, feel the soft covering of the bed and he heard the soft whirring sound of Seventeen’s servos. Suddenly very afraid, he did not try to move. “Please, please, please, please let this work this time!” he thought, terrified. Seventeen rolled up to him and said, “Ava… Uh, Henry, are you all right? Can you move?”

  Henry laid there for several more seconds. “Well, let’s see if this worked,” he said to himself. In one motion, he opened his eyes and sat up. “Yes! Oh, yes! It worked Seventeen!” he shouted in joy. He jumped off the bed, ran up to Seventeen, grabbed one of his arms, and shook it vigorously. “WE DID IT!” Without waiting for a response from the bot, he ran out of the room and into the hallway. He yelled back over his shoulder, “Seventeen! Record this in the Genesis database!” and then he was gone. A minute later, he stood in the doorway of the room where Katy was soundly asleep.

  Henry stood in silence, looking upon his longtime friend. She lay on top of the covers, on her side, naked and with her back to him. Her knees, slightly drawn up and her arms wrapped tightly around a pillow. In the midst of a dream, she softly spoke unintelligible words. Only now just beginning to appreciate his new human eyes, her gazed upon her naked body in awe. His gaze fell upon her bottom where the thick line of her sex was only just visible. He felt his skin begin to heat up and his penis began to engorge. He looked down upon himself in surprise and wonder. “This must be one of those physical memories we left in!” he thought to himself.

  Henry lost track of how many minutes that he stood there watching her. Finally he softly spoke. “Katy.” She did not respond. He spoke a little louder this time, “Katy.” Katy stirred a little and let out a soft little moan. “Katy dear, wake up,” he said. With her face still buried in the pillow she muttered, “What is it Henry. I am sleeping.” Henry spoke again, “Katy dear.” Katy sat up, rubbed her eyes and looked at the wall monitor. The display was blank. She blinked and rubbed her eyes again in confusion. “No Katy, over here,” Henry said.

  Katy turned her head towards the sound and then her eyes opened as wide as saucers. She let out a blood-curdling shriek of pure terror and then quickly jumped off the bed on the side away from Henry. Her foot tangled in the blanket and she fell backwards and landed with a thud upon her bottom. Still upside down, she crabbed her way backwards away from him as fast as she could until her back thumped against the far wall. Her eyes wide with terror, she shouted, “No! You are not real!” She drew her knees up to her chest and grabbed her legs with her hands. She buried her face between her arms with her long hair hanging down over each side. Rocking side to side in misery she cried out, “No! Oh frack, NO! That damn implant has fracked up! I KNEW that it would one day.” With her body severely trembling she cried, “I have gone insane!” She sat there trembling with her body wracked by great tears of wretchedness. “I don’t want to be insane!” she wailed.

  Henry stood rooted in place, his own eyes open wide. When he was finally able to make himself move, he closed the distance between them and said, “Katy dear. It’s me, Henry!”

  Katy shook her head, still hidden between her arms and shouted, “No!
Go away! You are not real! NOT REAL!” She continued to wail in misery.

  Henry knelt down beside her. He gently touched her arm and said, “Look at me Katy. I am real. It’s me!”

  Katy sniffed and lifted her head. Looking like she was about to bolt away any second, she said, “How? How is this possible?”

  Henry stroked her arm and said, “This was my secret little project, Katy.” He paused a second for that to sink in and then he added; “Now you know why I kept it a secret.” He got up, reached down with both hands, grabbed hers and helped her to her feet. Holding her at arm’s length he said, “I wanted to surprise you.”

  Katy looked at him with fury in her eyes. “Surprise me?” she shouted. “You fracking well nearly surprised me to death!” She balled her hands up into fists and began to pound him upon his chest. “I thought I had gone insane, Henry. INSANE!” A fist hit his chest with every word.

  “I… I am sorry Katy!” he sputtered. “I thought that you would be pleased!” Katy continued to pound on his chest. “Stop that Katy. That hurts!”

  Katy instantly stopped. “Hurts?” she said.

  “Yes, you are hurting me!” Henry said. Little tears escaped the corners of his eyes. “It hurts!” he repeated.

  As quickly as a lightning strike, her fury dissipated and was gone. “Henry,” she said in wonder. “Is this really you?”

  “Yes!” he cried out. “Who else would it be?”

  Katy gaped at him and then burst out laughing. “Oh Henry dear, it really is you. Holy frack!” She eyed him up and down. Her hand reached out and squeezed his muscular arm. “Oh!” she said in a breathy voice.

  Henry, with little tears rolling down his cheeks said, “I hope that you are not mad at me, Katy. I wanted to be real for you.”

  “No Henry,” she said in a breathless whisper. “I could never be mad at you.” She eyed him up and down some more and her eyes opened wide when she noticed his huge erection. She reached out her hand towards it and then stopped, vibrating in place. Her thoughts perfectly balanced between desire and nervousness. Desire won out in the end and she wrapped her fingers around his bulging staff. Henry gasped at the sensation and then became even harder. Her breath shuddering, she ran her fingertip gently over his tip and then said in a breathy voice full of lust, “Well my dear friend, let’s see just how well this new body of yours works, shall we?” Katy took him by the hand and led him, without protest, to her bed.