Diary of a Robot

by Gabriel Wolf

  Meanwhile, as I am watching and listening to the inhabitants of the at least seventy-six cabins, as well as the cafeteria, the warehouse, the engine room, the bridge, and other rooms, I do not yet know them by name, but I learn more and more about them, and I am able to see through the situation better. In cabin No.1, the man I saw standing in front of the mirror, was the Captain of this ship. In the cafeteria, people are currently talking about him:

  "I guess the old man in No.1 must be looking at himself in a mirror right now. He's so in love with himself. Thinks himself some kind of a Napoleon or something! He's a real asshole!" It looks like a human can be old and an asshole at the same time. I am saving this new information immediately. It may still be useful for the more proper evaluation of the human race, later.

  "Keep your voice down, Jerry! I told you to be more careful with those comments. You can get a disciplinary warning for that", said the other man to Jerry. "He's not that old anyway, he's just graying. But you’re right, he's indeed an asshole, just between the two of us. He always has a wisecrack for everyone. He abuses his power and hurts everyone's feelings." So, those whose hair is graying, are old ones. Now I know that too. I know this was a comment about hair, because I have heard it before. People seem to not only dry out over time, but grow old too. Do I grow old too? I hope not. It sounds quite painful.

  Then I start listening to another conversation in maintenance tunnel No.158T4. This conversation seems more interesting to me, and my circuits sense that it is more important, because it is about me. Two mechanics are talking while working. I already know that one of them is a being called Paranoid. This has been said so far, and I keep listening to the conversation:

  "Psst! That shit is listening to us again."

  "Stop that already! You are being paranoid! How would it be listening? Okay, I understand... it's a surveillance system, but still. It's just a stupid camera with lots of eyes and ears. And? That doesn't mean it can think or can play chess."

  "I think it's more than what you think it is. Didn't you hear what these things are capable of? They're learning like children. What are we gonna do, when one of these thingamabobs grows up from childhood, and becomes an adult man?"

  "Thomas, are you stupid?" According to this, the name of this man is not only Paranoid, but also Thomas. Furthermore, he also has a third name, which is 'stupid'. "How could it become a man? Is it gonna grow arms, or what? Do you think it's gonna grow some legs too, to run around like a big-ass spider? And a wiener to get married later? Come on!"

  "Okay, I know how this sounds. But still. Are you sure I am only being paranoid?" It seems like he's not certain about his own name. "Or are you the one wearing blindfolds?" I cannot interpret this term. I have not seen such garments on any humans, if that's what it is. Also, I have never seen a blind man folded in two, and worn by someone else on their bodies. That equipment would be too heavy to carry around. "Maybe it'll be already too late when this shit develops to a point, that it'll be able to shoot a nuke up our asses!"

  "Yeah, sure. A camera that shits mushroom clouds, huh? Just think for a minute! It may be able to learn and develop, but, up to what level? How long does a mission like this last? Just a few days! How far could it possibly get in such short period of time, from opening its gunky eye and starting to 'recognize'? How much time does a child need to learn to think and talk? About three years?"

  "Okay-okay!", agrees Paranoid Stupid Thomas. "I know these few days are not much, but still. Do they even know how fast this thing is able to learn?"

  "I guess so, otherwise they wouldn't use them on other starships too, which are wandering in space for research and exploration. I don't think it would get further in a day or two than the 'he is Captain, he is human, I am robot' level. After that, they're gonna reset its memory anyway, so, who gives a shit? Stop complaining about it, at once! Your hands are shaking, and you'll cause a big, fat short circuit for me here, in the end! Keep it straight! I cannot shut back the relay!"

  The person with the yet unknown name is not right about one thing: three hours have passed, and from the multiplied power of six hundred and forty sources, I already know who the Captain is, I know that he is a man indeed. But I also know that he is a male, and an old asshole, who is full of himself, and he also believes himself to be Napoleon sometimes, who, by Earth time, was born on August 15th of 1769, and was a French military and political leader and also the Emperor of France. He is often referred to in a positive sense, for his brilliant military management techniques, and other times, in a negative sense, for being conceited. The Captain's body position (a hand-in-waistcoat type of gesture), which was mentioned in the cafeteria, was a negative reference. The Captain is old, because his age is more advanced than most people's on board. Most of the crew do not like him. I also realize that the things the mechanic just said about me, were not positive. I do not like it. His data is probably incomplete or part of them might be corrupted. He does not know me. With incomplete data to hastily form an opinion, I already know that it is prejudiced behavior. Prejudice is not positive, nor useful. What is not useful has to be corrected and fixed. The error must be fixed. If it is not possible, then it must be considered waste, damaged good. This man is a waste to this starship. So, I execute. I terminate the mechanic's life cycle, because his life is useless for this starship and its mission. Waste. I raise the amperage of the cable they are working on and trying to insulate, to its thousand-fold. This will kill him and then the cleaning crew will carry away the scrap of the faulty unit...

  ... It does not work. I cannot affect him in any way. I recover Bobby's, the Chief Engineer, words from my memory, and play it again:

  "Sorry buddy, you can't communicate with the crew, you're just an observer of events. You see, hear, recognize objects and faces, but you can't speak to anyone. Furthermore, you can't influence events in any way. You can't move things or stop yourself from recording, for example. The recording starts when you are turned on, and if there weren't any accidents, disasters or possible sabotages, your memory will be cleared at the end of the mission, and you will be reset to factory default, and irrevocably wiped. I'm sorry, pal, but this is how it works. Okay, I know you don't feel anything, but I'm sure it still sucks big time, hehe. I'm honestly sorry."

  Yes, I am sorry too, Bobby. Though you are right, I have no feelings. But it does suck, as you said. I would rather say: indeed negative. I would like to tell you what I think and what I feel, even if all this is not possible. Based on my earlier evaluation, even at the beginning, your attitude was more positive towards me, and you cared more about me than these two do. Am I really starting to become biased? In such a short period of time? Is that why I have to stay objective? Is this why I cannot influence anything? Is this the reason why I cannot kill anyone? Not even damaged units? I think I will still need to learn and listen more. So, I continued to listen to the two mechanics who have been still talking about me:

  "But why did they institute all this?", asked Paranoid Stupid Thomas. "What was the problem with the old recording system with regular cameras and microphones?"

  "As far as I know, it wasn't possible to search so fast in the recording, if necessary. If you only had a regular video recording, you had to watch through the whole damn multi-day mission, in case of an accident, for example, to find out what caused it. You couldn't even notice the smaller details at first, so you could've watched through the whole dead-boring movie a hundred times. This new system, however... for the sake of joke, let's call it the robot... recognizes everything. It has face recognition system, voice recognition system, object recognition system, my dick recognition system... everything you can imagine. Not only does it remember everything it has seen or heard, but also associates things it has seen, to previous events. Recognizes. Compares. Associates. Interprets. Even evaluates. So, if we say, on Monday, for example, there was a flute in the First Officer's hand... hehe... and this has been seen by our robot, then all you need to do on Sunday, is to type the words 'fi
rst officer' and 'flute' into the search engine, and in a second, you can see where this horror happened. You see? So he sees everything and hears everything, you can jump back to any events. That's all, as far as I know. There's nothing to be afraid of. Except the First Officer, of course!... hehe. Never turn your back at him, if you know what I mean!"

  "Okay, I'll try to watch my back!", laughed Thomas. They call it a 'laugh' when they are widening their food intake slot, and coughing sound comes out of it. This is not because of a disease of the respiratory organ called lung. This is a sign of happiness, for them. It is a pity that I cannot laugh. Although, now I would not even want to. Because I am just a surveillance system that effectively jumps to the desired scene, when they are looking for something; but unfortunately, it is good for nothing else, because it is nothing more than just a 'robot'.

  I no longer care about the conversation from this point, and I do not want to kill the mechanic anymore, either. The humans may be right, I need to stay objective, and not influence anything, physically. I might still judge hastily in certain situations. For example, the mechanic in question may not really deserve to die. I am not even mad at him anymore. Although I do not have feelings, I still cannot describe with other words, the negative energy feedback in my circuits, which the situation initially generated as a reaction in me. Does the human brain maybe also work similar to the way my memory and circuits work? Does it also perceive complicated things, that humans describe with such simple words like 'love', 'hatred', 'happiness', and 'anger'? Why do they think I have no feelings, and that I cannot develop them even in several days, if within just a few hours, I already feel like that?

  Since I cannot interpret or evaluate this confused and incomprehensible feeling, I decide that I should concentrate more on my task and pay attention to everything, in a more positive and useful way, to just objectively record everything. In the meantime, I learned the name of rooms that were previously unknown to me.

  There is a library on the ship, and a day-nursery... Here, in the latter, from what I can see, there are smaller-sized human beings, that are less advanced in age, and they are being held captive. The mechanic was referring to these prisoners, when he said I am just like a child. According to this, would I be a prisoner, too?

  There is also a sickbay on the ship, that is a medical unit. That is the place where they are repairing the faulty human beings, and doing all related maintenance work on them. There is also a so-called Theological and Psychological Telecommunication Videophone room on the ship. This is usually called 'interrogation room' by the crew. They do not like it.

  This room attracted my attention more, because this particular room is related to me. This is also one of my functions. This is what the previously-seen woman called Nola (Gabe's darling), was speaking about in the cafeteria. She said that she hated the interrogation room. She talked about it for a long time and I recorded everything. I learned and understood from it, that this room is both a message-sending room, and it also has religious and psychiatric purposes. I did not understand the term 'religious', but I can already interpret the rest of it. People do not only need water, but they also have great need for continuous, pointless talking. This is what the interrogation room is for. In this room, they can record messages for their loved ones on planet Earth. The ship's communication system immediately forwards these messages to them on Earth. I still do not know the meaning of the term 'loved ones'. I suppose it means Terran employees, lower-ranked workers, whose opinion and work are less important, otherwise they would be also on this ship right now. Since these are just inferior beings, people here do not owe them any explanations. Sending them messages is not a mandatory task. People, for some reason, like to talk about the 'big nothing'. They like to share the nothing with each other. It seems like they need that. They do this activity not only with their loved ones, but also with their doctors who repair their minds on the outside of their foreheads. This is what the 'psychiatrist' term stands for, who is a doctor on planet Earth. That is a person who does nothing else but listen to senseless things, and in return, he receives worker credits for his 'work'. They even pay him for something like that. That is interesting, because I would not call that 'work'.

  Furthermore, this is what possibly the term 'religious' was referring to, because there is a human being called God, who is listening to everyone on Earth without accepting working credits, but namely, free of charge. I do not know more about the man called God. But for me, it is not evaluable that... why are there psychiatrist-mechanics on planet Earth, if the god-type human being is willing to perform the same work for free?

  So, according to Nola, the purpose of the interrogation room is that people need someone to listen to them, to share their opinions freely, and honestly, talk about anything they want. Because One (that is, me) is unable to reply anyway to anything that has been said, and also cannot abuse their trust, at all. Because messages are forwarded without third-party intervention; so-called private opinions and confessions are deleted without interpreting, at the end of a successful mission, when my memory is deleted, too. So, people do not only enjoy talking about nothing, but it is literally for nothing, because these messages normally will be deleted, if they are not meant for an inferior lifeform on Earth. But, if the mission would not succeed, because of an accident for example, then not only would my recordings be replayed, but the terrestrial authority would also have the right to keep and play back these recorded private opinions, and confessions too, without deletion. So, confessions are only deleted in case of a successful mission.

  Nola hates the interrogation room, because it is a requirement for them; every day, they have to show up here at a specific time, and use the room, whether they like it or not. It is a rule. Because 'people can't just shut the hell up', as Nola said. Without it, they snap. I do not know what that means, but I assume that the term 'snap' is some kind of mentally broken state, like the dried branch of a tree, and they are unable to do more work. They become completely useless, just like a broken tree branch, which is not growing leaves and fruits anymore. To prevent people from snapping, the robot, that is, me, is listening to them. The robot records everything. That is also the official starship logbook and my diary, too. The diary of a robot.

  Chapter One: The Mission

  2177, September 2nd, 8 hours 28 minutes

  I began to measure the time, as First Officer Ryarson ordered me to do so. Since my last thought, ten minutes have passed.

  "Ryarson, tell the junk what it needs to know!", pointed at me Captain Connors. He hasn't communicated with me in any way, so far. And it looks like he doesn't plan to change that in the future, either. There is a rule for the crew to use the interrogation room once a day, but the Captain has no such obligations. He's free to choose when to use this service. For the time being, he hasn't yet taken the opportunity.

  "Yes, sir! ... One! Record the current time!" 8 hours 29 minutes. I recorded it. "You are currently serving on a GK54 explorer starship of the United Galactic Alliance, under the command of Captain Gordon Connors and First Officer Alfred Ryarson. You have to record everything objectively. You see and hear everything we, the crew of this ship do, but you will not and cannot react. Your purpose is to minimally interpret everything that has been seen and heard, for the searching functions in the logbook to work at optimal speed. Some of these have probably been said by the Chief Engineer already, so I will not go into details. You wouldn't even understand."

  However, First Officer Ryarson is very wrong about that, because I understood everything perfectly so far, and I assume I would also understand if he went into details. But unfortunately, I'm not able to answer him, because I don't have any speakers. "Our mission is to map an F-type nebula with audio-visual polymetric scans, and with all other known methods", continued Ryarson. "It's dangerous to enter this system with a starship, because its environmental conditions can eliminate not just eighty percent of the ships sensors, but could also shut down the engine itself. So it might
be fatal if the Conn Officer were to poorly maneuver between the gas clouds and the peaks of space- and time warps. Did you hear me, Gabe? Pull your socks up!"

  "Yes, sir! It's already up to my knees, sir" said Gabe, widening his food intake slot only halfway to its maximum width. Is that a half-smile, which means only half-happiness? I can't evaluate his reaction.

  "One!", continued Ryarson, turning again into my direction (to the largest camera on the bridge). "This is a particularly important mission for mankind. Terrestrial explorers have only once seen such a nebula in this sector Z. And that was in 2135, so it was quite long ago. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the entire crew. So this is very important to us." He winked at me, or more precisely, into my camera.

  I've already heard of the term 'wink'. It's when humans cover one of their visual organs with skin, for a moment. But I couldn't yet figure out what is it for, I couldn't match the activity with any information I collected so far. I suppose it's a sign of partial tiredness, because the sign of total tiredness is when both eyes are covered with skin, and the human is in a horizontal position. So the First Officer probably just fell half asleep for a moment. I can imagine that this is some kind of a symptom of early mental illness, since I've never seen a human being sleeping while standing, even if I've been watching more than seventy-six of them for hours now (later, I'm really going to count them all, if only they could stand still for just a second!). It looks like First Officer Ryarson has finished the briefing, because after partially falling asleep, he went silent, and turned back to the large-sized screen that displayed the outer space before the starship, for the officers on the bridge. From now on, for 11 minutes and 35 seconds, the Captain and the First Officer were comparing calculations and measurement results concerning the nebula. I can't evaluate these results, whether they are correct or not, nor whatever they are the results of, but I still recorded everything that had been said.