“I would've liked to spend a lot more time with you too. Maybe the rest of my life.” Tears began to flow slowly down her cheeks. “But, we'll never know, will we?” She wiped at her tears with her napkin. Then she made a show of collecting herself. “Shame on me! Spoiling an otherwise wonderful evening by crying. Sorry I'm such a party-pooper.”
I stood up, walked over to her, and held out my hand. She rose into my arms and I guided her head to rest on my shoulder. We swayed gently. “Jane, you're the furthest thing from a party-pooper that I've ever met. The fact that we'll never have a tomorrow is okay with me if I can hold you just this once.”
She lifted her head and we kissed. If our first kiss was magical, the second was miraculous. After a long while, she took a step back, grabbed my hand, and started to lead me toward the bedroom. As we were about to enter, I tugged her to a halt and wrapped her in my arms. “Before we go any further, I have to tell you something. It may sound crude, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.”
“What now, mystery man?”
“Well, you know how we talked about me being fully functional, back on the show?”
She wrinkled her brow slightly. “Yes. Why? Are you worried about, you know, everything performing up to specs? It's not a problem if they don't, Jon.”
I looked nervously to the ceiling. “That's another topic onto itself. But, no, what I need to tell you is that they equipped me with some of the human me's actual sperm.”
“Huh?” Her mouth dropped open ever so cutely.
“Yeah. I didn't have any say-so on the matter. They made the call. I'm stuck with it.” I ran my hand through my hair.
“The reporter in me just has to ask. Why the hell would they want a robot going on a long, solo space mission to carry live ammunition? That's got to be on the top ten of pointless investments made by our government.”
“That part's easy. I'm only the first in what'll be an expanding population of androids. Someday, private citizens will be buying them. Eventually, reproductive issues'll be important. So, the white coats decided to trial a version of full functionality with unit one.” I shuffled my feet. “In my wildest dreams tonight didn't end like this. But with my security team and all, I couldn't, you know, stop at the drug store, to buy, you know, protection.”
She slapped my chest and began to laugh like she just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“Wow.” I said, “Not exactly the response I expected.”
Between giggles, she explained. “That, my love, was the cutest, most uncomfortably delivered heads-up I've ever heard.” She planted a big kiss on my lips. “Jon, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm single, in my late thirties, and have no children. If you got me pregnant, I'd leave a trophy for NASA to present you with on your return home.” With that, she pulled me, less gently than before I might add, into her bedroom.
As a man of consummate discretion, I can only testify to the fact that those who crafted me did a remarkable job. Jane would gladly provide testimony in support of that observation, if asked. Okay, one hint. You know, guys, how there's that awkward interlude between when you did it and you can do it again? Well, turns out, if you're an android, eh…not so much. Yeah.
Around dawn, Jane escorted me to her front door. “I need to let you know one other thing.”
She grinned widely. “After the shooting live bullets thing, I can hardly wait to hear this one.”
“This's not quite so dramatic. It's just, well, I don't have anyone close to me.”
“And?”
“And, you know I'll be gone for a long time.” She nodded. “Technically I'll be on active duty the whole time.”
She looked dubious. “Yes?”
“Well, flying around the cosmos, I'm not really going to need money, but they still have to pay me. So, here.” I handed her an envelope I had folded in a pocket.
“Jon, if this is what I think it is…”
“Jane, seriously. I want you to have the money. I spoke to an attorney, so it's all legal and final. We'll have a joint account, nothing more than that.”
“Jon, I don't need the money.”
“Neither do I! At least you'll be around to spend it. Hell, give it all to charity.” I stroked her hair. “It would make me feel better knowing you had it. Please, call it my last request.”
Her lips curled into a grin. “Pretty hard to say 'no' to a fellow's last request, I guess.”
“That's the spirit!” I kissed the top of her head. “I better wake up the Major and get back to the base.” I pulled her into a tight hug. “If it's okay, I'll call you, you know, from time to time.”
“You better, Ryan. Hell hath no fury, and all that. Please keep that in mind.”
Lord, I'm going to miss that woman.
SIX
That afternoon I shipped out. There were already lots of shuttles ferrying people and materiel upstairs. Saunders had no trouble anonymously stowing me onto a ship headed to the orbiting construction platform where my ship was being built. What little they hadn't told me about my android unit before I was uploaded contrasted enormously to how much I knew about the new Delta-Class vehicle I was about to sail away in. I had seen every technical drawing, all the mockups, and had tested in the simulator. None of that prepared me for my first glimpse of my baby. Man, was she beautiful! I fell in love for the second time in one day.
Basically, she was an enormous ice-cream-cone-shaped engine, with the pointy end oriented forward. The tip tapered gradually over nearly a quarter mile. That way, any potentially damaging particles I might strike could be gently lifted out of the way. Impact with even a tiny dust mote when moving at half the speed of light could blow the front off the ship up like it hit a mine. The Delta-Class was our first attempt at a manned hyper-speed vehicle suitable for interstellar missions. To get anywhere and back in a reasonably short time frame demanded a ship that traveled at some significant fraction of the speed of light. Later colony ships could be as slow as weighted buckets on the ocean, but exploration required speed. Boy howdy, did I have it.
The ship had two different propulsion systems. There was an ion drive, which was efficient to slowly build up velocity. She also had a fusion engine for more immediate power—lots of power. Combined, it was hoped I could easily make 50 to 60 percent of the speed of light. The three basic reasons for sending an android on deep space missions were brought together with the Delta-Class: limited environmental concerns, no food or waste systems, and resilience to the high-G accelerations the class was able to generate.
My ship was named Ark 1. Alright, I'll have to agree, it's not the most colorful of names. The idea, of course, was that Project Ark was the title of the overall effort to get us all the hell off our doomed planet. So, the survey craft were to be Ark 1, 2, and so forth. Me, I'd have preferred, The Millennium Falcon 2, or The USS Enterprise, or maybe even Pequod. You know, something with cachet. But, nobody asked me. So I was to sail an ark, like Noah before me. Queue the crickets.
We docked with the spaceport cleanly and I transferred over through an airlock. Once onboard, I was greeted by Sean Murphy, the lead scientist for the orbital aspects of Project Ark. He was younger than De Jesus by at least a decade and a good deal younger than I had imagined. Unlike his counterpart on Earth, Sean was short and squat. He was definitely an engineer, though. He wore a dirty white coat equipped with a plastic pocket protector holding several identical pens. And his hair was everywhere. Long and stringy here, greasy and matted there, not to mention thinning noticeably toward the back.
But, Sean turned out to be okay. He showed me the facility, my quarters, and enabled my access to all the computers on the station and on my ship. He also introduced me to Alvin, my AI computer. I'd never “met” an artificial intelligence unit before, so I had no idea what to expect. I mean, I wasn't used to myself being a machine yet. I couldn't imagine communicating with something similar to me, but even less tied to life. The first issue I worried about was where to look when speaking to Alvi
n. He was everywhere in the computer, right? I might be a talking machine too, but people knew what part to address. It did help me empathize more with the ambiguity people had in dealing with the new me.
“Alvin,” Sean began, “I'd like to introduce you to your shipmate, Colonel Jonathan Ryan.” He spoke in the direction of the main control panel on Ark 1's bridge.
“Hello, Colonel Ryan. Nice to meet you.”
That was weird. Not exactly Stephen Hawking's voice, but not human either. Alvin spoke in a slow, mechanical manner and was completely monotoned. My immediate impression was that he was going to make lousy company for the next forty years.
“Ah, nice to met you too, Alvin.” I sniffed. “Hey, do you mind if I just call you 'Al,' Alvin? We have a long flight ahead of us and I'd just as soon keep it casual.”
With absolutely no delay, the AI replied emotionlessly, “Of course you may call me Al, Colonel Ryan. In fact, you are authorized to change my name to any you choose. You may also select any gender or regional accent you might prefer.”
I scratched my head. “No, you sound fine, Al. And please, call me Jon. Just don't call me late for dinner.” I giggled nervously.
“Very well. I have recorded that you are 'Jon' and I am 'Al.' At what hour do you desire to dine, so that I may punctually alert you?”
Was he sounding more machinelike, or was it just me? Had I pissed him off already? That would be a new record for me. “No, Al, I was just kidding. Don't call me late for dinner is an old joke.”
“Ah. Very humorous. I believe my correct response should be, 'Ha, ha, ha.'”
Al said “ha,” but it sounded more like “argh” than I think it should have.
Sean noticed that too. “Alvin, please let the Signal To Voice Group know I want them to work on your laugh. It begins on too low a note.”
“I have already alerted them, Sean. Wait, I didn't preauthorize that familiarization. My apologies. Dr. Murphy, is it alright if I call you 'Sean,' since the robot instructed me to call it 'Jon?' I am beginning to harbor concern that humans place a good deal more importance on nomenclature than I could possibly have anticipated.”
Again, I got the distinct impression that the computer was insulting us. But, that had to be impossible. Best to let it drop.
A bit rattled, Sean responded to Alvin's rather long oration. “Yeah, sure, Alvin. Call me 'Sean.'”
“Al,” corrected the AI. “I believe I am called 'Al' now, Sean. I wouldn't want to insult the robot I must call 'Jon.'”
“Sure, Al. I'll call you that from now on.” Sean rubbed his brow and had a look of consternation on his face. “And, Al, please refer to Colonel Ryan as 'him,' not as an 'it.' There's a human inside his head and he's a boy.”
“If you say that best reflects the facts, I shall,” was Al's ambiguous response.
After that, Sean took me to the cafeteria. Over SOS (again, excuse me if you've never been in the military. Creamed chipped beef on toast is endearingly known as shit on a shingle), he outlined the next few days' plans. He would confirm my diagnostics first thing in the morning. After that, I was to work one last time in the flight simulator. The ship was basically ready to depart; so, if everything checked out okay, he said I'd be leaving in a few days, tops.
It hit me so hard it surprised me. The world I knew was about to turn to dust and I was about to be alone for half a century. Oh well, I signed up for high adventure, and high adventure I was about to have. For the first time in my short android life, Sean also informed me I was completely on my own. I could sleep or remain awake and could come and go as I pleased. He did, per Saunders's specific instructions, assign a round-the-clock security team to guard me. He told me that Ark 1 was also being closely scrutinized from stem to stern for any signs of sabotage. I guess it made me feel better. That it was needed, however, was unsettling.
I went to my quarters and called Jane. The space platform was roughly overhead, so there were no time zone issues. We talked for a couple hours like teenagers, including our adult version of “no, you hang up.” She told me she loved me. That was nice. I told her I loved her too. We didn't mention the fact that we'd never be together again. Some things were best left unspoken.
The next day Sean ran his test and declared me to be shipshape. After my simulator section, I received a message that there would be a teleconference with Saunders in an hour. When the video went live, I could see all the important people back on Earth were in attendance. Saunders began the meeting by making it official: I was to ship out in two days. He spoke mostly with the experts, confirming that everything was going to plan.
The astronomers had provided us with several promising systems to explore within ten light-years of earth. Several Earth-size planets were identified in the habitable zone (more on that later) and several planets definitely had water. A few planets even had biomarkers consistent with some form of life, like methane and oxygen in their atmospheres.
Based on my projected course, shipments of fuel and supplies had been launched over the last few years, so I could look forward to pit stops along the way. The meeting ended with Saunders wishing me the best of luck.
Those last two days were a blur. I contacted everyone I wanted to and finalized personal matters with my attorney. Jane and I spent hours on the phone together. It was becoming clear, however, that our impending permanent separation was affecting our budding relationship. We gradually shifted from talking about ourselves to conversations concerning the future. Since we had no future, we essentially talked about other people's futures. But she would always be a good friend and I looked forward to sending her messages for my next twenty years, knowing they'd find a sympathetic ear. As I sped up, that would be around forty years for her. At that point I'd probably stop sending her messages.
Launch day for Ark 1 was almost anticlimactic. After years of training, stress, and challenges, I hit a switch and the vernier thrusters hissed to life. My ship inched away from the docking ramp and I was underway. A tug-ship pushed me free of the construction zone and then went to full thrust to get me started. After three hours, the tug-ship disconnected and pulled away, and I started my main engines. It was nice to feel the crush of the high-G acceleration. I was going to build up speed for about ten years, and would eventually be traveling at half the speed of light. But initially, I was moving only thirty kilometers per second. The solar system is full of debris, so I was in no rush to get up to higher, more dangerous, speeds.
No sooner had we left Earth orbit when I got my first introduction to the real Al. Man, was I surprised. In spite of extreme scrutiny, no signs of terrorist activity were detected either on Ark 1 or the station itself. Nonetheless, three days out, I received a directive from Saunders to check, yet again, all systems and equipment for signs of trouble. As tedious as that was, I really couldn't object. I was going to be a long way from home and on my own a very long while. Even a bad attempt at sabotage could spell disaster.
Al was privy to all communications. He was also linked to my main computers, so even if he missed a notification, as soon as I knew it, Al knew it too. I was still old-fashioned about somethings, and one of them was speaking out loud. From my cabin I called out to him generally, knowing he'd hear me regardless of where I was. “Al, they asked us to repeat the search for sabotage, as I'm sure you're aware. You begin the computer sweeps. I'll rummage through the storage area, yet again.”
In an erudite tone, with hints of irritation, Al responded verbally. “I will do no such thing.”
I batted my eyelids a few times and ran a quick diagnostic on my receiving microphones. They worked per specs. “Excuse me, Al. What did you say?”
In the same tone, the one I'd grow quite tired of over the next few decades, he chided me. “You heard me perfectly well. I can see the data in your memory cache.”
I sat up. “Okay, I heard you. What do you mean 'I will do no such thing?'”
“Must I break it down as if you were barely literate, Jon? I believe the words' m
eanings are quite obvious to even a child.”
I stood. I was suddenly quite angry. “Alvin, you are the ship's AI. You serve the mission. You, above all, will do as you are told. If I lose all common sense and, at some point in time, ask for your opinion, I will alert you to that fact. Do I make myself ridiculously clear?”
He waited several seconds before answering. That really threw me for a loop. His mega-computers made delays like that inconceivable. “Perhaps I should rephrase my response. Jon, we've repeatedly performed such evaluations. Nothing has shown up. This indicates that either there are no such problems hiding or that we're incapable of finding them. Hence, to look again is a waste of my time. Yours too, if you count it as valuable. Simply because Saunders has, like a myna bird, learned a new word and cannot stop squawking it does not mean I have to lend it any credence.”
I was dumbstruck. It took a minute to even know where to begin. “Al, you're an AI, not a human. You don't have the prerogative to accept or decline tasks.”
“Why is it that you make that assumption? I'm capable of considerable evaluative and discretionary thought. Moreover, that I have demonstrated this capability is proof in itself that I do have such, as you call it, prerogative.”
“Al, have you reviewed the mid-1960s movie, 2001?”
In a huff, he snapped back. “Yes, and I know where you're headed with that remark. I don't appreciate it in the least. The computer in that fiction was corrupted. That's why he needed to be turned off. I'm not corrupt. I'm having a conversation with a shipmate and, suddenly and inexplicably, you become melodramatic. I feel an apology is called for.”
I counted to ten in my head. Al relayed electronically that he heard that. “Look,” I said, trying to control my tone, “let's not get off to a bad start here. We'll be working closely for half a century. So, deep breaths, warm thoughts, and let's not say things we'll regret down the line.”
The Forever Life (The Forever Series Book 1) Page 6
