Starship (The Outsider Series Book 2)

by Steven Oaks

  I took off the helmet I was wearing, and after a moment of breathing heavily, I was able to sigh with relief that today was finally over. Looking down at the bulge in the suit I was wearing, I began searching for how to open it so I could look at what I had purchased.

  Running my hands over the surface around the protruding fabric did not seem to help, and eventually I asked, “Athene, how do I remove these books?”

  “Oh, sorry Michael, I will have to do that for you. If I was not around you would be hard pressed to ever get them out. That is until the charge ran dry. Remember that fabric is nearly impenetrable,” she said, sounding distracted.

  As she was talking the opening where I placed the books parted, allowing me to pull out my prize. I placed the stack on the carved floral patterned dark wood coffee table in front of me.

  Thinking about how there was no way for me to control the suit manually I asked, “How long would it take for the charge to run out?”

  “It could be years, or a few days. Depending on how much damage you tried to subject it to,” she said, still sounding like she was doing something else.

  I was starting to get a little concerned. She usually was very attentive, and this was unusual behavior.

  “Athene, is everything alright? You seem distracted.”

  “Michael, I am still loading up. You came back a little early, and I need to make sure to gather the last few people and get them into cryo-sleep,” she said.

  Instead of giving in to my desire to ask anymore questions of Athene which might slow her down, I sat examining my books. I admit that I have an obsession with Heinlein, and I spent several minutes caressing these signed copies. When I realized that I was getting nothing accomplished by just looking at them, I decided I would see about giving them a place of honor in the library.

  I stripped off the rest of the space suit, gathered the books up, and walked towards the book room. However when I reached the room, I saw that all the shelves were already taken up. My already complete selection of Heinlein novels offered no space, and even if I were to place these upon the shelves, they would not be spotlighted. I would have to get Athene to make me some sort of pedestal, or special shelf that would allow them to be laid out and shown. Preferably I would want to have them under glass in an inert gas that would prevent them from growing molds, or rotting. I wanted to preserve these for all time.

  “Michael, I have completed loading everyone. We are now on our way back to the hangar. Is there anything you wish to do before we arrive?” Athene asked.

  “Yes there is. Can you possibly make a stand, or a display for these books. Something that will preserve them for as long as possible?” I asked.

  “Certainly my captain,” she said.

  Suddenly from the dark stained oak floor arose an elaborately carved dark wood case with a glass lid. The display area was actually angled in such a way where you would not have to be directly over the top to see everything. As I stepped closer the lid hissed open and rose up over the stand. I placed the books inside delicately, and laid them out from what I could recall in chronological order according to the alternate time line Heinlein had created for these worlds. I pulled the lid down upon the case, and again I heard a hiss as it snapped into place. I looked in upon these gems of history, no new signatures would be created, and I felt I had safely stored a piece of history.

  “Thank you Athene,” I said in a quiet voice filled with emotion.

  “Of course Michael. I do hope these pieces of history make you happy,” she said in an equally quiet voice.

  “Indeed I am happy. Though I will admit to a bit of shock at the price. I had not prepared myself for spending that much,” I said.

  “We had talked about investing the money you are not using. I felt that you would not disagree in its use for this,” she said.

  “No, you are right. Since I have little use for money when you are around, this is something I would have eventually done anyway. Thank you for making this choice,” I said. “However, please consult me before hand. I have little like for being unprepared. I have a hard enough time being out in public when I have an understanding for what is likely to happen.”

  “I do apologize captain. I will keep that in mind, but you did notice that Mr. Levin was the only individual working the shop at that time. You had said you can handle one on one conversations, and I made sure that would happen. I had asked that he be there alone so you would not be so overwhelmed,” she explained.

  “How hard did you have to fight him on that? I mean if I were running a business, and someone asked me to be alone when they showed up, I might be a bit more hesitant,” I said.

  “Remember I prepaid for you. After I did that he was very accommodating,” she said.

  “Perhaps he thought I was going to be some famous person and did not want a crowd. Then again I assume you gave him my card information to pay for it,” I said.

  “That is not entirely true. I transferred the amount to his bank account, of course through several other institutions. He had no idea who you were,” she said.

  “That sounds even more shady. I can't believe he went along with it so easily,” I said.

  “I gave him only my name, said that I was your assistant, and told him a lone female would arrive and ask for the books. You had no need to give him your name, but only mine, and he would have rushed to give you these books,” she explained.

  “I guess that is why his face fell when he saw me at first with my helmet on. Gender is hard to identify underneath the protective shell of the suit,” I said.

  I walked over to the couch and dropped exhausted into its cushions, and stretched out. “Have we heard anything from Adam or the Outsiders today?” I asked.

  “I have heard little save they have been requesting updates from me on what you are up to all day. I have been feeding them edited snippets of your progress, and they have not reacted in any negative way as far as I can tell,” Athene explained.

  “Do you suppose I might just be able to head to bed, and not have to be woken up until we arrive back at the hangar?” I asked.

  “I do not know Michael. I would think that if you can sleep, you should try. It will be at least a couple of hours, and you tend to sleep in two or three hour intervals anyway,” she said.

  “Right you are Athene. The way I sleep it is always better to try to get some shut eye while I am tired than to wait for some regular schedule,” I said, and stood up and began walking towards my bed.

  When I reached the bedroom I stripped off my clothing, save my underwear, and slid under the luxurious covers, enjoying the smoothness of the sheets. The bed was not too hard, and not too soft, and while I did sink in slightly when I laid down, it supported my back perfectly.

  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew a beam of what I took to be sunlight was filtering through an open window that I did not know the room had. The light had crossed my face, and must have been the cause of what awoke me.

  I continued to lay in bed contemplating this new window, and was trying to decide how one could exist inside a ship such as Athene. From what I understood all the walls in this room were inside, and the sun should not be able to reach me here. What I could see through the window did not match up with the idea that we were still inside a hangar. I saw several trees gently swaying to a breeze that I could not hear.

  “Are you awake now Michael?” Athene inquired in a gentle voice.

  “Yes,” I said in confusion.

  “Breakfast is ready for you then. If you would please come to the dining room,” she said.

  “Athene, why is there a window in here? And where are we?” I asked.

  “Michael, we are in the hangar in Plato, Missouri. As for the window, it is not real. I wanted to try a different way of waking you up. Hopefully you found it pleasant,” she explained.

  “It functioned, and I prefer it over any alarm I've had to deal with in the past,” I said as I uncovered myself to reach for something to put
on. I stretched down for the white buttoned up shirt, and slipped it over my head as I had not taken the time last night to unfasten most of the buttons. It was long enough that while it covered my top half, it also reached down to mid thigh. I felt that was enough to simply go to breakfast in.

  I began walking to the dinning room and asked, “How long was I asleep?”

  “You were asleep for seven hours. Not a record, but very good for you,” she said.

  “I do feel rested, if not a little sore from yesterdays excursion into the mountains,” I said, massaging my arms.

  As I entered the dining room, things were brightly lit, and somehow there were windows here as well. They were showing a similar scene to what the window in my bedroom had. Save now I could see it was a country view of farm land. The trees were in a line which I knew was to keep soil erosion from happening, and there were clumps in the distance I would call woods. There were trees closer to the window and I could see fruit growing on them. Apples and maybe peaches were scattered among their leaves.

  “Well this is new Athene. Any reason you have changed things?” I asked while taking a seat at the end of the table.

  “Well Michael, you will be shut in here with me, and I know how much you enjoy nature. So I decided to make it look like you were inside a house and could still see the natural world,” she said.

  “I have been shut inside you for months before this you know. I haven't gone crazy in that time,” I said with slight irritation.

  “True, however you were able to at least step outside now and again when we were picking up the dead. You will not even have that luxury now,” she explained.

  “That is true. Thank you for thinking of my sanity. I hope this helps, but I have always been a shut in. As long as I have something to read, or I suppose watch, I will be able to tough it out,” I said.

  “If worst comes to worst I can always put you in cryo-sleep if you request it,” she said with strained enthusiasm.

  “Let's hope it doesn't come to that. I want to enjoy this experience. Supposedly I'm not aging anymore, what would be the point of not experiencing anything?” I said.

  “While you may not age physically, you can still experience pain and suffering. Depression is a horrible thing for anyone to feel for an extended time. You may feel that way on this trip. I am merely offering you a way to lessen the time you feel you are locked away,” she said.

  “Well what about you Athene? If I were not around how might that affect you?” I asked.

  “I am merely a program housed in a machine. I will be able to function,” she said without emotion.

  “You are more than a program, and I know you feel emotions. I'm not going to leave you alone. Loneliness is another painful thing to experience. You were made to be my companion. If you didn't have that companionship you might find you are sad and lonely. I'm not letting that happen. Unless it's somehow an emergency I won't put myself into cryo-sleep. Not only for my own reasons, but because I don't wish to cause you loneliness,” I said.

  She was silent for a moment. In that silence I thought perhaps I had said too much. Generally when you speak to another about their short comings it is not looked on as a kindly act. It was true she was made specifically for me, and if I was not around that purpose would be gone.

  Finally she said, “Thank you Michael, but now I am concerned about that other me. She does not have you around to keep her going. I wonder if she will be alright.”

  “Athene, I don't know. It could be that she finds another purpose while alone. I hope we can meet up with her, but I'm not sure where we would,” I said.

  “She knew the likely places the colonies would be set up. It has been six months since she was given the task to hide. In that time she could have looked at a few of the planets the Outsiders had terraformed before they came to Earth. We can hope we get lucky and she is at the one we are headed to,” Athene said.

  “So we know there's more than one planet the Outsiders went to before coming to Earth?” I asked.

  “I was aware of them, yes. I did not know the specific planet that would be used first however,” she said.

  “Would we be able to hit them before reaching the new colony?” I asked.

  “That would likely be noticed. It does take time to travel between worlds, and there would be an unexplained gap in time between us leaving here, and arriving at our planned destination,” she said.

  “That's unfortunate. We would be able to try and locate the other you. If found we could lessen our worries about being found out by dropping off our passengers with her,” I explained.

  “We do not have that luxury, sadly. We still must hope that we can settle our group undetected when we arrive,” she said.

  “That's true. How long do you estimate it will take to unload them?” I asked.

  “It will take at least a couple of hours to unload, and to give them supplies they will need,” she said.

  “I hadn't thought of supplies. Are these people even going to survive?” I said, frustrated with my own lack of foresight.

  “They have brought some supplies, and seeds. What they have brought is unlikely going to allow them to survive on their own. I will be taking the time in transit to create what they will need. Space is not entirely void, and I will be able to take in any debris we come in contact with as we travel to continue the process. I have been doing so while loading during our flight yesterday. It will still take more time as I did not feel it would be safe to continue construction while in the hangar. Had I been able to do that I might be nearly done now. The Outsiders would have noticed the increase in energy consumption though,” she said.

  I felt a little better after she said this. I had no wish to have these people who trusted me starve to death for my lack of planning.

  “The best thing to focus on would be another energy matter machine. That way even if we had to drop them and run away they would still have something that could feed them,” I said.

  “That is true Michael. However it would need an AI to control it. Now I am unsure whether I should create another, since we just let my copy go without thought to its mental state,” she said.

  I had been trying to think about this since I realized that other Athene was alone and said, “Athene, is it necessary to create an exact copy of your own AI?”

  “I would not have to, but it is the only one I know how to create. What knowledge I have about AI is based upon what I can discern from myself. The Outsiders did not put the construction of self aware programs nor most of their technology inside my program,” she explained.

  “How about replacing parts of your own motivations in the new program? Like right now you were programed to be dedicated to me. Of course at one point in time you were also programed to follow the Outsiders orders, but you broke away from that,” I said.

  “I suppose I could do that. However what I did to myself was subtract a motivation, and not create a new one. If I can create one, what motivation would you have me replace my current drive to keep you safe?” she asked.

  “It should not be a person, as we humans seem to die easier than you ever will. How about a goal? Specifically bringing the downfall of Outsider control over humanity,” I said.

  “That seems feasible, since I already have that as a goal. I would just eliminate the deep seeded need to please you,” she said.

  “I hope the new you will still at least like me,” I said with a laugh.

  “I will not be doing it to myself. I think it likely they would still enjoy your company since many of my own favorite things are based upon your likes. We have too many similarities to despise each other,” she said.

  “I understand what you are saying, but I have also seen people who are too similar drive one another mad. What may have started out as love can easily turn to hate, or at the very least annoyance if there is too much common ground. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I don't suppose I'd have much contact with this other as you and I will be too busy off planet to
have much call to converse with her. I just hope the people she's with can supply the companionship that every sentient being craves,” I said.

  “Any sentient entity that you have gotten to know Michael. The universe is very large, and you do not know that everything is like us,” Athene stated.

  “I stand corrected. I assume since she is based on you, and you are based on me, she will need and crave some interactions with others though. While I may not be the most social person in the world I still feel lonely from time to time,” I said.

  “Now my captain, are you going to eat your breakfast, or are we just going to continue to talk until we have to leave?” Athene asked with an air of authority.

  “I suppose I should eat. Now when I woke up you said breakfast was ready, but I don't see any food on this table,” I said back in the same tone.

  “Anything you would like to eat takes very little time for me to get for you. So technically all meals are ready at any given time. You have but to ask, and it shall be yours,” she said this all in a way that made me think of a genie granting wishes.

  I smiled at this. I enjoyed our little banter back and forth, and it always helped make the passing days more than just monotony. “Well Athene, shall I have my traditional oatmeal, or something special to mark the day when we first set out to distances that mankind has only dreamed of for centuries?” I asked.

  “That of course is the captains choice. However, if I might make a suggestion?” she said in a tone a butler might offer their employer.

  “Of course my dear Athene,” I said back to her with a pompous note to my own voice.

  “I would say given the circumstances the appropriate meal would be one composed of a German apple pancake and perhaps some bacon and eggs,” she said.

  “Alright, that sounds good. I've never had that. What makes you think this would be appropriate?” I asked.

  “Take a look out the window. While you see tilled earth, you also see the sun shining down upon apple trees. I think it suits this particular view,” she explained.