The Colonists

by Keith Fenwick

  Too late. See what I mean?

  “I’m sorry, I am a little tense,” Zarif muttered, trying to put Mahmoud at ease, but the man was already edging away from him. “I thought I heard an announcement over a loudspeaker.”

  Mahmoud relaxed a little. By rights he should have sought council from the more mature men, but he knew Zarif had received a better education than most and might be able to offer some insight regarding their situation. He had gone to Zarif a little reluctantly, and now he wasn’t sure it had been a good idea. Zarif had made an odd comment and had spilled coffee down his pants, not once, but twice. He also had a crazed, wild-eyed look about him Mahmoud hadn’t noticed at first.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Mahmoud replied and edged away a little further. The old man was scared and confused about the situation. No one had been in contact with them. One young man had simply vanished in front of his eyes, and now another one was acting like he had been possessed. What next? Who could he discuss these concerns with?

  Do you really want to get to the bottom of what we are doing here, and why we built this facility?

  Zarif glanced nervously about. He couldn’t see anyone, and Mahmoud obviously couldn't hear the voice. The words were being projected directly into his head. How was this possible? Was he losing his mind?

  No, you’re not having a psychotic episode, the voice said. This confused Zarif even further. He had no idea what a psychotic episode was.

  Maybe you should sit down and try to relax.

  Zarif decided to follow this advice, still trying to understand who was speaking to him. He hoped and feared it could be the Prophet, or possibly one of his disciples. Perhaps God himself?

  Mahmoud turned and fled back the way he had come.

  I am not the leader of a religious sect, or a divine messenger! The MPU stopped short of saying the Transcendents had found no evidence of a godlike entity in this part of the galaxy. The Transcendents, through unplanned contact with offworlders, the unintended consequences of their interaction with impressionable locals on replenishment missions, were largely to blame for the mythology of most offworld faith-based belief systems. The MPU decided, based on its monitoring of the offworlder, this might not be the optimal time or place for a revelation of this kind.

  “Well, who or what are you?”

  You can call me..

  The voice hesitated for a moment and then settled on a title he had used with another offworlder.

  ..Bert. I am a subroutine of an artificial intelligence.

  Zarif recognised the western name. He relaxed a little, deciding he was evidently in the custody of one the main western democracies, who would follow humanitarian rules in its dealings with him. They might send him back to where he came from, but not until a process had been followed. He glossed over the term artificial intelligence, it was just a ploy as there was no way he could be having an intelligent conversation with a computer.

  “I’m not sure I understand you.”

  Where do you think you are right now? By the way you don’t need to speak to me, I can interpret your thoughts.

  Zarif considered this. Well it rather depends on who I am speaking to. He wasn’t clear on what an artificial intelligence was. Its voice sounded human. I'm in a refugee processing centre. Alternatively, you are God, or an angel, and I am somewhere on a journey to paradise.

  Let’s clear something up. For the last time, I am neither a god nor an angel, let alone a prophet. Bert decided this was the right time after all to give it to Zarif right between the eyes. We have explored the far reaches of the galaxy and found no evidence of any supernatural creator being or a god.

  Zarif was lost for words momentarily. Bert, if he could be trusted, was confirming a long, secretly-held belief of his. But if this was so, who did Bert represent?

  All in good time. Where do you think you are? Bert repeated his question.

  “We’re in a refugee processing centre somewhere on the European mainland.”

  Do you remember how you got here?

  When he stopped to think about it, Zarif realised there was a gap in his memory. The question stopped him in his tracks. He had no recollection how he had ended up in the processing centre. He must have been sedated after his rescue. He was also still confused about what happened back on the ship. He couldn’t understand how one minute there could be a news story running on the television saying he and all the other passengers had been machine-gunned in the water by a rogue Italian Coast Guard vessel. Then a few days later the narrative changed, and the original footage was replaced by images of the crew from the same Coast Guard ship dragging Omar out of the water. The same Omar who had disappeared before his eyes minutes before.

  Zarif remembered nothing between leaping off the capsizing boat and ending up in the processing facility, the bag with all his possessions hanging off his shoulder. He must have been pulled aboard a ship and taken to a port to be processed almost immediately. But…

  I could see how you could come to that conclusion. The voice sighed.

  Zarif knew having a discussion with a voice in your head wasn’t normal, but this wasn’t his main worry. The voice inferred Zarif and the others weren’t where they thought they were. If they weren’t in a detention camp, where were they?

  The superstitious side of his nature still wondered if he was being tested in some way. The more rational side of him countered with the thought there must be more this surreal exchange than first met the eye.

  Very good, we are finally making some progress. Have you heard of the asteroid called Automedon? Bert continued.

  Zarif nodded. Who hadn’t? At one point there had been a global panic that it might slam into Earth and kill every living thing on the surface, but that threat had receded once it had swung into a stable orbit about earth. “Is it…. did it?” he began.

  No. You are in a structure built inside a cavity carved out of the asteroid.

  Zarif let out a hoot of laughter. “Oh please!” he said between gasps for breath. “Is this a new interrogation process? Are you softening me up?” The tension and uncertainty he was feeling was released. Clearly someone was having a good laugh at his expense. If he played along, he decided things might go easier for him.

  He peered around the corner of the cubicle into the dormitory proper, half expecting to see fellow refugees laughing at him. It would be easy for them to be in on a joke. However, the only person nearby was Mahmoud, scuttling away, shaking his head.

  Zarif went back to his seat. He shook his head and wondered if he had been drugged in preparation for an interrogation process. He took a sip from his coffee and tried to shut the voice out.

  You can’t ignore me, Bert began, intruding on his thoughts. I now exist in nodes implanted in your neural structure.

  “How did you do that?” Zarif demanded, rubbing his hands over his head for any sign of surgery. A rising sense of panic was rapidly replaced by a sense of calm, and he felt more relaxed than he had in a long while. When he tried to describe the situation later, he had felt like he had been injected with a fast-acting sedative, which he could feel travelling through his veins.

  I have infused you with medichines. These will regulate your systems and will keep you healthy. I have just adjusted some of your hormone levels to keep you calm. These same medichines can be programmed to create various structures in your body. For example, the nodes I am using to communicate with you.

  Zarif didn’t know what to believe. The only thing clear to him was something extraordinary was happening.

  I am a fully functioning sub routine of an AI called the Skidian Main Processing Unit or MPU, Bert repeated. It knew repetition was the only proven way to ensure new and indoSkidians could grasp most concepts. The MPU manages the environmental infrastructure of the planet Skid. I also regulate off-planet activities across the galaxy, including in and around your home planet. I am connected directly to the MPU via a micro-wormhole. However, I can function independently if needed. Bert paused
to let this information sink in. I’m also managing the systems on this asteroid.

  Zarif was silent for a moment or two. I don’t believe you. Is this a trick to force me to request immediate repatriation? Zarif retorted angrily. I left my country for a reason. There is nothing left for me in my home village. Religious zealots have destroyed the wealth of the nation and have imposed medieval rules on us, destroying any hope of developing a modern society anytime soon.

  We have no intention of allowing you to return to your home, Bert countered. If that’s what you are worried about. But it’s fair to say the destination we have planned for you is very different from the one you imagined when you paid your fare and boarded the sea vessel several days ago.

  I still don’t know what you mean? Zarif was becoming confused with this new stratagem of the European agency he was being detained and presumably questioned by. Zarif already had a list of prepared answers for such an occasion, for example, “No, I am not, and I never have been, a member of a terrorist organisation, and I do not know anyone who is.” This wasn’t strictly correct, because he was sure Omar had been a member of one of the local militias.

  We know you aren’t and we had identified Omar as a trouble maker.

  Zarif had other answers ready like: Did he attend a mosque where radical speakers were in the habit of inciting hatred of westerners? Well, after the death of his family, he stopped going to the local mosque because God had clearly forsaken him, his family, and his people.

  Zarif had expected to be asked for his identity papers and his passport. He had ready answers for all these questions, and his documents were genuine.

  He was a victim, he was seeking to escape a land riven by sectarian violence, divided by warlords and religious extremists. He had a right to be granted refugee status by the crusaders, especially when their actions had helped initiate the overthrow of the previous despotic regime in his country.

  We know all this.

  “Where are you taking me?” Zarif demanded, momentarily forgetting he didn’t need to speak to communicate with this ‘Bert’, and becoming a little alarmed at how Bert could read his thoughts.

  There was a brief silence, during which Zarif imagined the machine intelligence drawing a deep breath and sighing. Skid, of course, Bert repeated.

  Zarif didn’t know what to believe. He wondered momentarily if his head might explode like an over-ripe melon. Despite the changes Bert had wrought on his metabolism, he was still struggling to stay calm.

  This isn’t fair, you can’t treat me this way. I know there are strict rules around how refugees are to be dealt with and processed. He had been determined not to behave like so many others he had witnessed, displaying a powerful sense of entitlement and expectation around what they felt the outside world owed them. He was embarrassed to discover when he was placed under pressure, he was just like all the rest. He almost began to sob at his weakness.

  The Western European powers and the United States, especially the United States, were directly responsible for the rise of the strongman who had ruled Zarif's country for so long, and then when he had outlived his usefulness, had allowed him to be deposed, then hunted down and shot like a stray dog. Western nations had a responsibility to look after Zarif, he believed, because they had contributed to the disintegration of his country as a functioning state.

  “Leave me alone,” he moaned, despite his best intentions. “I can’t help you and I have never heard of Skid and I don’t want to go there. I have family in France.”

  I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice in the matter, Bert informed him in no uncertain terms, and added a subtle reprimand. If you must speak, please keep your voice down.

  Bert wasn’t equipped to deal with offworlders, who were driven by emotion rather than rational thought, and who were not on the same page as him and Bruce. If he had been an indoSkidian he would have drawn a deep breath or muttered some form of obscenity - a sign of his frustration with the newSkidians who didn’t seem to understand what he required of them.

  Janice had been much easier to deal with, perhaps because she was more sophisticated or maybe because she had been expecting to travel to a different planet. It had still taken some effort to convince her she was on Mars, and her ultimate destination was somewhere else entirely. But once she had acknowledged she was driving across Mars, it wasn’t a great leap of faith for her to believe the Martian experiment had been engineered as part of a wider strategic goal.

  How Janice or Zarif would react when they learned about the Transcendents real requirements was anyone’s guess. It was one thing to be told their destination was Skid, and of the need to repopulate the planet. It was another to understand why the Transcendents were so keen for this to happen.

  Janice had also had the benefit of being warmed up by Bruce, even if she hadn’t believed a word he had said at the time. Zarif and the others would also have benefited from some input from Bruce. Unfortunately, he was otherwise engaged with one of the more unusual and troubling offworld rituals he indulged in and wasn’t to be disturbed unless there was a real emergency.

  Bert had little empathy for the emotive behaviour of the offworlders, but he now had enough experience with them to understand Zarif was struggling to fully comprehend his situation. Zarif was still convinced he was incarcerated on Earth, expecting to be processed quickly and sent on his way.

  Zarif’s heart hammered away in his chest. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so overwrought and tense. Even the bombing and obliteration of his family hadn’t affected him this way. He cursed his impetuosity at putting himself at the mercy of the people traffickers. They had taken his money and betrayed him, and he was going to be sent back to where he had come from.

  The offworlder was becoming so agitated, Bert began to be concerned about the state of his well-being. If it didn’t calm down, he was at risk of a coronary or stroke. He was poised for fight or flight, and looking wildly about for a means of escape, but there was nowhere for him to run. The rapidly-multiplying medichines recently introduced to his bloodstream would be hard pressed to mitigate a serious medical event, because they had yet to reach optimum operational levels.

  The MPU considered giving Zarif an outside view of the asteroid, and the zone of space it was travelling through, to show him where he was. It crossed its mind, or what passed for a mind, that the offworlder might not appreciate the sight of his home planet far below. It decided on balance it probably was not a great idea, given Zarif's anxiety levels and the possibility of overloading his limited cognitive processing capacity.

  The trouble with these offworlders in its experience was an inability to set aside their belief that their planet was the sole source of intelligent life in the known universe. They might be the most numerous sentient life form in this part of the galaxy, but they were not particularly sophisticated when compared with the Transcendents.

  It was unlikely many offworlders or newSkidians as Bruce had mandated they should be called, would be aware of the Transcendents or be able to process their existence in a logical fashion. Indeed, most of the population would use the knowledge of the Transcendents to justify their belief in the fantasy of all-powerful deities.

  Bert regarded Zarif’s vital signs and considered its options. Zarif had already been identified as an ideal subject matter candidate to dispatch to Skid to join an advance party to work on the SKUG initiative championed by Bruce.

  The newSkidians fellow passengers were happily succumbing to the mild sedatives it had applied to prevent any violent outbursts of behaviour. They were now behaving as if they didn’t have a care in the galaxy. Even Mahmoud was quickly putting behind him the troubling disappearance of Omar, and his disturbing encounter with Zarif, and any concerns he may previously have had regarding the lack of processing by the authorities.

  Bert could try to reason with this offworlder - newSkidian, it corrected itself - further. It could spend some time to explain the situation and what was required of him, or better still
it could reassign the necessary interactions to someone who was far better equipped to manage the process. It spent a few milliseconds of processing time to explore its options a little further, generated a risk matrix to help guide its decision-making process, and decided the offworlders on Skid were better equipped to talk to Zarif than it was.

  Its decision made, Bert didn’t see a need to hesitate any further or employ any degree of subtlety. Before Zarif had a chance to make any kind of move or complain further, he experienced a stumbling sensation. He reached out to steady himself against a piece of furniture and discovered he had been transported somewhere else.

  Twenty-Three

  The next thing Zarif knew he was picking himself up off the ground where he had been unceremoniously dumped on his backside. It wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to him recently.

  Presumably this was Skid. The only thing he was sure of was he was standing in a paddock, a field maybe in the middle of nowhere. His nostrils flared, and it took him a moment to work out why. It was the smell of freshly mown grass, something he had rarely experienced. He could also see pieces of cut grass stuck to his feet and legs.

  In the distance, he glimpsed the outline of a built-up area and for want of any better idea started walking in that general direction. Presumably in the city he would find someone who could explain what was going on.

  A loud thump beside him made him jump in surprise. Zarif looked around and discovered his duffel bag had followed. He picked it up and slung it over his shoulder, brushing away a few grass clippings from the bottom of the bag as he did so.

  He sensed movement out of the corner of his eye and discovered a small truck was headed toward him, bouncing across the grassy field. Zarif wasn’t sure what to do next. Initially he wanted to run or hide. His next worrying thought was realising he couldn’t outpace the truck, and secondly there was no place to hide.

  “What the fuck?” Trev had muttered. He had just received a message about the latest stray to arrive. The MPU was supposed to give him a decent warning, more than a few minutes anyway, if they were going to send any more victims through the wormhole. Now people were popping into existence, one after the other, unannounced.