The Hidden Treasure of Darfor

by David Shewring

Back at the spaceport on Antorii Two, Saleek’s cargo ship sat on its assigned docking pad, the glowing sphere of energy shielding the craft from any and all would-be intruders. Aboard the ship, Zeeree couldn’t work out whether to sigh in exasperation, scream in frustration or cry in sorrow (assuming her programmers had enabled her to cry digitally created tears). She was alone. She had never been alone before, not that she could remember. Her earliest memories were working alongside hundreds of other AIs and as soon as that was over, she was travelling with Saleek in the memory banks of his ship. Although she had dreamed of having the ship all to herself and being able to travel anywhere in the galaxy she desired, she had not anticipated growing this attached to company and thus feeling so lonely now she was by herself. She had never been truly by herself before and the emotions she currently felt were not ones she was keen to experience often. She had done everything she could have done and yet she felt terrible as she was powerless to stop the oomlocks from taking her crew and she felt just as powerless to save them now. She had tried to contact various people including the police but most people ignored her and those that listened to her did not listen for long before hanging up.

  ‘What is it with the people on this planet? Why won’t anyone talk to me?’ Zeeree said aloud, her digitised words echoing throughout the empty corridors of the ship with no one there to hear them. ‘They act like I’m not even sentient, like I’m some kind of pet creature that no one can be bothered to take care of!’

  Zeeree ran a quick check of her vital systems. All checked out OK, except that she only had around twenty five percent battery power left. With the engines offline, the ship’s internal battery was the sole way of powering not only her, but the shield as well. Once that was drained, the shield would fail and she would automatically go offline.

  ‘I have to do something,’ she said to herself. ‘But what?’

  Zeeree began to think of all the possible courses of action she could take in the present situation. About two seconds later, a list of forty one options popped into her head. After eliminating useless ideas such as “go offline to conserve power” and “take off and leave Saleek and Patrick stranded on the planet”, she narrowed her list down to twelve choices. Then she started to correlate these options with all the available data she had about the planet Antorii Two, its culture, its organisations and its people. Slowly but surely, an idea began to form in Zeeree’s head which made her lips curl upwards into a small smile.

  ‘That just might work...’ she said as she busily got to work hacking into the local data-stream network, ready to put her plan into action.