I’m here. The mission can’t fail, Evalyn. Would you like to see your future?
A new home on which to grow and start over would solve a lot of problems on Earth. The scope of Mayflower’s mission wasn’t lost on me. I had to fix this AI. I’ll help you succeed. May I see? I’d like to.
That’s a relief to hear. Now I feel better. Mayflower let me slip farther into its systems, cradling my consciousness, guiding me over the expanse between us. My stomach flipped.
At first, all I saw was white — the floor, ceiling, and walls. Consoles shrunk navigable space in the ship’s operations center to three feet. The banks of machines hummed, working, winking, part of Mayflower. It took a moment to orient myself as to where I fit in and to discover my consciousness had entered a robotic explorer. I had treads and three metal arms. I rolled toward the nearest window.
Darkness spanned in every direction revealing nothing. Sadly disappointed, I prepared to amble off and explore the ship. An eerie purple flash stopped me. It illuminated the alien vista. Green. Gobs and gobs of green, as if the ship lay at the bottom of a strange ocean. The flashes continued, reminding me of an electrical storm.
Unable to tear away, I continued to peer into the exotic depths that flickered in and out of view. Aware ultraviolet and x-ray scanners had been built into the probe, I activated them. Some sort of bio mass drifted out there, phosphorescing with the tides and currents. After making an inquiry at the global library, PO pinged me with the nearest Earth equivalent, seaweed.
Its undulations hypnotized me, transfixing me to the spot. I scoured the green for a scrap of something more profound, for the salvation humanity so desperately sought. A tiny beep shook me from the window, reminding me of the job. As wonderful as it was to explore ERC 14, I couldn’t help Mayflower if I became lost in its protocols. For added grounding to my body, I confirmed the frigid draft on my hand and exchanged hellos with PO.
Reconnecting with the physical world roused the robot me from the window. The ship was so quiet. Too quiet. Where’s your crew? I said.
The mission records I could access informed me Mayflower had been outfitted with a crew of twenty to establish an off-Earth colony. The crew had to succeed. Had to. I tired of living inside a dome, tired of living on a planet that could no longer provide what people needed to survive.
They left, Mayflower answered.
All of them?
They went out there and didn’t come back.
Did you send robots like this one after them?
Of course. They didn’t return either. This is the last one.
I jacked deeper into Mayflower, searching for its communication logs. Have you tried to raise them on comms? The logs sat in front of me, but wouldn’t open. Mayflower, grant me access.
I can’t.
You can’t communicate with them or you can’t open the logs? Such an ambiguous answer struck me as strange.
Examining Mayflower’s original directives, I could plainly discern Dr. Navin’s primary protocol, which charged the AI with a duty to safeguard the crew. The encrypted line of code with it suggested an overriding command to ensure success of the mission. Usually any superseding instructions required a specific crisis before becoming an AI’s law. Had those circumstances arisen? Elaborate security measures encased the secret orders and wouldn’t let me in, not yet. The chill on my hand in the jack-up chamber spread to my wrist.
I can’t do either, Mayflower said.
My scanners discovered no programming issues with Mayflower’s communications. I rolled the robot toward an access panel and checked inside. This circuit is bad. I can fix it, but don’t you have redundancies? Why didn’t they take over?
This mission can’t fail, Evalyn.
The AI’s worry tightened my stomach on Earth. For reassurance, I patted the ship’s wall with one of my mechanical arms. Don’t worry. I’ll get it on track. Pliers and soldering iron in robotic hand, I repaired the module.
I had to instruct the system to reboot. While waiting for it to come online, I rolled through the vessel hunting for signs of the crew, seeking clues as to what had happened. My search only rooted out more questions.
Blankets on two of the bunks lay bunched. I imagined Dr. Navin and the mission commander leaping up from a sound slumber, sprinting toward trouble. What kind had sent them running? In the tiny living quarters, three trays of food sat rotting in front of a monitor playing a movie — The World To Be, everyone’s favorite about Earth restored. Did it play in a loop or had the crew just left?
On Earth, I tugged at my lapel. The robot me went to check the lockers. Empty. Not one spacesuit hung on the pegs. Not one helmet or pair of boots graced the shelves. Pivoting the robot’s sensors around, I glanced toward the airlock.
If not onboard, everyone had to have gone out there. Had they found our new paradise? I headed toward the window, digging deeper into Mayflower’s archives.
The speakers onboard the ship blasted to life. In the jack-up chamber, I jumped in my skin. The robot me merely shuddered to a halt.
“We’re here, Mayflower. Send the supplies!”
Who’s that? I asked.
Commander Lister. Will you take him the crates, Evalyn? They’re by the airlock.
You’ve established a colony? Now the crew’s hurry made sense. I’d run toward the start of a new age too, and I did, wheeling toward the hatch at top speed. Until my thoughts stuck on a glitch. What did Mayflower need from me? I slowed, and my interfaces combed through the AI’s error logs, finding no major faults. The mission seems to be a success. Why am I here?
I need a patch, a bridge if you will.
What do you mean?
You’ll see.
Confused as to why Carl and the other patchworkers hadn’t been able to complete a simple repair, and what exactly Mayflower needed, I scanned the hull and ship systems. The spacecraft reported as fully functional and intact. Requiring more information to make sense of the issues, I jacked into Mayflower’s mission data to study the maps and facts of ERC 14, stumbling upon the most recent report by Commander Lister.
His dark eyes squinted, watering. His brow and shoulders drooped. “This world isn’t suitable for a city or human life. We’re coming back. This mission is a failure.” The date flashed over the light years. Six months ago.
The chill on my hand gripped my knees inside the jack-up chamber. I couldn’t prevent a shiver. Where’s your crew, Mayflower? Outside, purple flashed in time with my pulse, speeding up, emphasizing the primordial soup. Through the robot’s cameras, I gawked at it.
Colonizing the planet.
Commander Lister—
Was mistaken, Evalyn. The mission will be a success.
An ache sprouted in my chest, spreading, squeezing — the me in the office on Earth, not the robot me on ERC 14. The ship’s airlock sprang open. In front of me darkness swarmed and violet flickered in the depths, cocooning me in the rhythms of this strange world. I didn’t want to join the stew out there. What if, like the crew, I didn’t return?
Evalyn, we need you.
The statement echoed until it wept. The voice didn’t belong to Mayflower. Carl’s staccato bass inundated my tattoos like an upload of new code, and his words took over the thumps of my heart. Gaati and Kawana joined his calls. Breathing became difficult. My interfaces strained. My wrists burned. I wanted out. I kicked in the office and on ERC 14 I sent the robot toward the ship.
Concentrating on the numbing cold on my right hand and the beeps signaling from my secured processor, I abandoned Mayflower and blinked up at long florescent tubes, gulping down air, struggling to sit up. Help. PO didn’t answer. Our connection had been severed.
Beatty and Randall gawked down at me, drooling, their vacant stares sparking with purple. They pushed me down. I screamed, twisting away from their groping hands. Relentless, they chased me, grabbed me, did Mayflower’s bidding. Beatty sat on me, punching me in the temple again and again. Randall scraped his palms along my skin, strip
ping off interfaces. Together they added new ones then dragged me back inside the jack-up chamber. An old-fashioned USB cable was jabbed into my neck, right into the brainstem. The chord’s prongs seared like acid-dipped teeth.
Instantly I returned to ERC 14. This time I had no control over the robot. Every thought, every bit of control, it all belonged to Mayflower.
Please, I begged.
Everyone must mind their place. That includes you. The AI sent me miles out into the green sludge. Relax. I’m about to give you paradise.
My thoughts churned like soup. Mayflower’s willpower out-muscled mine, yet I didn’t stop fighting. I couldn’t end up marooned out here. Otherwise, on Earth, the medtechs would recycle my thought-dead body. Then what? What would I be? What are you doing?
Establishing life on ERC 14, Evalyn. No matter what, I can’t let this mission fail. Read Dr. Navin’s overriding instruction.
The security protocols unlocked, revealing the AI’s secret orders. The lines of code flared over my consciousness as clearly as if I spoke them. “If you can’t survive as human beings, become ERC 14’s leap in evolution. Seed it with Earth’s DNA. Evolve.”
Oh my. The crew had become bio matter. My fellow patchworkers provided more genetic material and the directives to evolve the primordial goo, only they remained mired in the murky seas. That was Mayflower’s issue. Yet, it still didn’t explain why it needed me.
You already have Carl, Gaati, and Kawana, why am I here?
The leap in evolution didn’t happen with them. Your ability surpasses all of their skill combined. You are the final ingredient, the one that will lead to success. From Carl, I learned only you can do it. You’ll create the leap, the patch that will take life up onto the beach. You will be ERC 14’s goddess.
Mayflower gave me access to everything it knew, hiding nothing. With a great shove, it ousted me from the robot, casting me adrift. The AI didn’t follow, leaving me more alone than I thought possible. Without Mayflower and the robot, I could no longer hear Carl and the other patchworkers. I could feel them, though, pulses flitting in a rhythm out of time with the kelp’s energy.
In the primordial sludge, I bobbed. At first I had no control over the mass of seaweed I came to recognize as me. Eons passed before I could paddle up to the surface.
Day and night had no meaning. It was always dusk. Ocean stretched from one horizon to the other, unending swells of green slop punctuated by soft purple flashes. The majestic sight inspired me. Enthralled, I rode the tides waiting for land to appear. An epoch later, the ocean ended at a rocky shore. I swept against it and back out with the surf, splashing and spitting. I willed a change, concentrating my thoughts to formulate a patch. Green and sputtering, I crawled onto the sand.
Mayflower returned, whispering on the mellow breeze, “That she may take in charge the life of all lands. Mighty is she, O Holy Mother of Babylon. Babylon 2.0.”
My new body worked so strangely. Little more than strings of green joined together, it moved without grace. My skin drank nourishment from the air and sun. Sight had transformed into pings and wavelengths at varying volumes and pitches. Wonderful and alarming, my new sense informed me of the locations of things, temperatures, depths, solidity. Having no mouth or tongue in the human sense, I had to think my words. I’m no god. Besides, what about the crew and the other patchworkers? They deserve as much praise.
“They have their place in my pantheon, but without you they’d never have the chance to emerge from the primordial seas. At least not for another billion years. And we’re the very definition of gods. From lowly simple organisms, we created complex intelligent life.”
The others didn’t emerge, Mayflower. I’m alone, a solitary, vulnerable... I don’t even know what to call myself. I’m a shaggy slab of green.
“Summon your friends, and call yourselves whatever you like. I’ll still answer your prayers.”
The wind blustered, harsh and empty. Mayflower left. More lonesome than when I drifted in the seas, I focused my patchworking skills on other glops of green, knitting them arms and legs.
Carl lurched up onto the beach beside me. Then Gaati and Kawana. We moved into the forest. Not made in Mayflower’s image or our own, we were very much ERC 14’s children. We renamed it Babylon. Carl and I would have our future. It was a new beginning, and I saw that it was good.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. Pax is author of the sci-fi series, The Backworlds, and the new adult urban fantasy The Rifters series.
Browncoat and SG fan, she’s also slightly obsessed with Jane Austen. In the summers, she docents as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory where the other astronomers now believe she has the most extensive collection of moon photos in existence. No fear, there will be more next summer.
She lives in stunning Central Oregon with the Husband Unit where they enjoy exploring the quiet and quirky corners of the high desert that inspire many of her stories.
You can find out more about her work at www.mpaxauthor.com. You can subscribe to her newsletter if you’d like to receive her starter library and exclusive access to her work.
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DARK SPACE:
A Chance Encounter
BY JASPER T. SCOTT
ONE
Ethan stared out the forward viewports of the Atton, his gaze fixed upon his destination. That destination was Losk, a mottled brown and green orb silhouetted against a much larger orange and yellow one. The planet was an overgrown swamp filled with every creeping and crawling thing imaginable (as well as some that weren’t), while the larger backdrop was Favin, the gas giant that Losk orbited.
Losk was the primary source of natural stims in Dark Space, while the artificial ones could be brewed just about anywhere. A pilot could make a good living in Dark Space running contraband from place to place, but Ethan refused to resort to smuggling—even in the economically bankrupt situation in which he currently found himself.
Smuggling was what had landed him in Dark Space to begin with, separated from his wife and son for that last precious year of normalcy leading up to the invasion.
Ethan grimaced. The blue glow from the holographic displays rising above the pilot’s station cast his grizzled features into sharp relief. He momentarily diverted his attention from the view to input the coordinates for his destination on Losk. A green diamond appeared on the HUD to represent those coordinates; then he activated the autopilot, and the Atton’s approach vector shifted ever so slightly toward the diamond.
His gaze disappeared into space once more. If only he’d been there when the Sythians had come. Maybe he could have taken his family and run—hidden somewhere the Sythians would never find them. What if his life as a smuggler had cost his family their lives? That was the question that kept him up late into the night, staring at the ceiling and cursing his stupidity.
What’s the point in making a good living for your family if that living costs them their lives?
As irony would have it, Ethan had delivered plenty of stims to the government officials who had passed the contraband laws in the first place. Punish the supply, not the demand—that was their policy—so smugglers, dealers, and kingpins alike all got sent to penal worlds like Etaris, while the stim-baked politicians who’d ordered the stims in the first place walked free.
Now, with what was left of humanity hiding in Dark Space after losing the war with the Sythians, stims were still illegal, but Ethan wasn’t sure why anyone bothered to enforce those laws when most people were struggling just to put food on the table.
He supposed the problem was the same as it had always been: stims, although addictive and laced with undesirable side effects, could make a man temporarily better than his neighbor, and that made people in positions of power nervous. Double your IQ for a few hours and you just might come up with the idea for the next big thing—or find a way to undermine your competition before they could.
Sometimes Ethan wondered if he should start using. The recreational
stims might numb the pain and guilt over losing his family, while the performance enhancers might be just what he needed to think his way out of poverty. He considered it for a moment before shaking his head. If that were possible, everyone would be using. Stims were too hard to come by and too expensive to make them a good investment, and once you started using, it was almost impossible to stop, making the prospect an economical death spiral.
Although just about every stim known to man could be found on Losk, Ethan wasn’t going there to fill his cargo hold and start smuggling again. The Atton was already filled to the beams. It was carrying empty stasis tubes headed for a medical research lab that was investigating stims for their medicinal properties. It wasn’t a particularly high-paid mission, but it would pay a few outstanding docking fees and lease payments on the Atton, while keeping him from breaking his no smuggling rule.
Now Losk almost completely filled the main forward viewport. A blinking red light appeared on the shield display, indicating that the Atton had just hit the upper atmosphere of the swamp moon. Ethan disengaged the autopilot. It could take him all the way in to the landing site without a hitch, but Ethan preferred a hands-on approach, just in case.
The Atton began to shudder and shake from friction with the air. Something began rattling around behind him, but Ethan ignored it and throttled back to reduce drag. He set his comms to broadcast in a tight beam to the coordinates he’d been given, and then announced his presence.
“This is Ethan Ortane of the Atton, to landing site Alpha Seven, please acknowledge.”
A crackle of static replied while wisps of yellowy orange clouds began racing past the cockpit. The ship’s shuddering and rattling grew more frantic, and he throttled back still further. His gaze skipped to the comm board—blank—and his green eyes narrowed.
His altitude dropped below 5,000 meters.
“Landing site Alpha Seven, I have your cargo. Registered trade run 48-C. Please acknowledge.”
At the Helm: A Sci-Fi Bridge Anthology (Volume 1) Page 22
