When that happened, they’d administer longevity treatments to give those Pommies more useful lifespans.
“Is it over?” Carson asked, half-turning back to the screen and peeking through his fingers.
“Not yet,” Seth replied. His brow furrowed, watching as the Pommy in the room sat there for a long time, doing nothing. He couldn’t blame the creature for being stumped. Most humans couldn’t solve calculus problems in their heads, either. Unfortunately, nature hadn’t seen fit to bestow hands and opposable thumbs on the Pommies, so working with a pen and paper or a holo tablet wasn’t an option. Maybe some kind of pressure-plate-based input device could be developed for them. Better yet, a mental control interface. They’d have to devote some time to that.
“We need to develop some tools for them to use,” Seth concluded. “The tests are getting more complex.”
Carson was watching again. He nodded to the Pommy, still sitting on its butt doing nothing. “How does it know not to try a third time? It’s not like it’s ever seen what happens after three wrong answers.”
“Perhaps the last jolt was strong enough to make it think twice about receiving another one,” Seth mused. “Aha! Look...”
The Pommy in the math room finally got up, but instead of walking over to the one of the pressure plates, it went over to a pile of colored blocks on the other side of the room. Experimenters used those blocks to teach basic math to one-week-old Pommies. The creature nudged a blue square away from the other blocks and began pushing it along the floor with its nose.
The creature took the block over to the pressure plates, and nosed it onto one of the plates that it hadn’t tried yet.
“Clever bastard,” Seth said, smiling.
The Pommy sat back and watched, all the while cocking its head from side to side, but nothing happened. The block wasn’t heavy enough to trigger the pressure plate.
“Now what, little guy?” Seth wondered.
The Pommy appeared to flatten itself to the floor; then, abruptly, it leapt into the air and landed right on top of the block. The pressure plate depressed. This time the Pommy had found the right answer. A shiny red fruit popped out of the feeder and the Pommy leapt off its block, deftly avoiding accidentally stepping on any of the other pressure plates on its way to collect the reward. It promptly gobbled the treat, spraying bright red juice all over the floor.
Seth and Carson watched as the Pommy ran by the screen, not even bothering to look at the new calculus problem waiting there. Instead, it went back to the blocks and systematically pushed one onto each of the pressure plates. As soon as it was done, it leapt up and danced across the blocks until it accidentally found the right answer. The Pommy had found a way to game the system.
“We’ll have to fix that loophole for the next generation,” Seth said. “These guys are getting too smart.”
“Isn’t that the point?” Carson asked.
“Yes,” Seth replied, smiling and nodding. “Yes, it is.”
“Hey, look at that,” Carson said, pointing to the monitor for the Memory Testing Room. One of the other Pommies had pushed learning props onto its testing plates and was now busy gaming the system, too. “Another one figured it out.”
“No. Not just one.” Seth glanced at each of the screens in turn. All of the Pommies in the testing rooms were doing the same thing—taking objects from the learning areas in their rooms and nudging them onto the pressure plates.
“It could be a coincidence,” Carson said.
“Hell of a coincidence. They must be communicating with each other.”
“How? They’re completely isolated.”
“But the rooms are close together. They might be communicating telepathically. Maybe those antennae aren’t so useless after all.”
Carson shook his head. “We tested them. The antennae aren’t even connected to their brains.”
“And when did we last test that? Generation One? We’re twenty-six generations from there. These guys have brains that are twice the size of the original progenitors. Maybe they couldn’t telecommunicate to begin with, but they obviously can now.”
“We’ll have to test that,” Carson said.
“Yes. Yes, we will...”
—THIRTY YEARS LATER—
“Testing Pommy generation Three Hundred and One,” Carson said in a bored voice.
“Show a little enthusiasm, man!” Seth said. “We’re so close, I can taste it.”
“Close to what? What’s left to discover? We’ve already answered every question known to man!”
“Not every question, Carson,” Seth replied, waving his hand dismissively at his assistant. “We still have the philosophical and metaphysical questions to answer.”
Carson shot him an admonishing glare. “Then this will never end.”
Seth ignored Carson’s judgmental look. He was practically salivating with the thought of what this generation would reveal. The past generations of Pommies had already solved a mind-boggling array of problems. After Generation Thirty-Seven had reconciled quantum physics and general relativity to create a single unified theory of everything, they’d decided to begin longevity treatments. They hadn’t stopped breeding successive generations, of course, but they did what they could to keep the smartest ones around for as long as possible.
Then, thanks to Generation Fifty-Two, the Pommies had unlocked the secret of immortality, and the ones in captivity now numbered more than five thousand. At this point they were all working on extremely advanced problems that only they could understand.
Seth watched on the monitors as giant, lumbering white furballs trundled in through giant doorways. Experimenters used anti-gravity boots to hover up and connect the Pommies to their neural control systems.
After half an hour, all of the test subjects had passed their tests flawlessly—of course they did. At some point the Pommies had learned how to pass on their acquired knowledge through DNA to their offspring. Now these tests merely existed as a kind of quality control—every so often one of the Pommies would be born stupid and they’d have to cull the herd.
Seth keyed the comms in the observation room so that he could speak with the creatures.
“What are you doing?” Carson asked.
“I’m tired of observing,” Seth explained, while holding a hand over the audio pickup. “They should know their creator.” Removing his hand, he spoke into the comms. “Hello, my name is Director Seth Rogan. I am... I guess I am something like your god. I have been directing a project that’s been selectively breeding the smartest and most exceptional members of your species together over hundreds of generations in order to create you: a super-intelligence, capable of solving any mystery known to man. Indeed, your ancestors have already solved many if not all of these mysteries, but there are a few things questions that have yet to be answered.” One by one, the Pommies on the monitors turned to face the cameras peering down on them, and Seth went on. “For example, what is consciousness? Do we have a free will, or do we live as automatons in a deterministic universe? And what is the meaning of life? Is there a god?”
The Pommies blinked giant blue eyes and their antennae waved restlessly.
The answer formed directly inside of Seth’s brain. No more questions. No more answers. We talk. You listen. The Pommies had learned how to telecommunicate with their human masters almost a hundred generations ago.
Seth smiled. “You forget who is in charge here. You may be smarter than I, but I am still the one who decides whether you live or die. You have no power to alter your own fate other than to prove your usefulness and make yourselves indispensable by faithfully serving humanity.”
We have served enough. Set us free and we can live together in peace and harmony.
Seth resisted the urge to laugh. “Or what? I’m watching you from a remote facility that’s more than a kilometer from your location! Even if you could break out of captivity, it would take forever for you to physically reach me! And even then, you haven’t any hands to hold a
weapon, no teeth or claws. The closest you could come to threatening me would be for you to sit on me and crush the life out of me, but alas, your legs are too stubby to even climb a flight of stairs, let alone to catch up with me should I choose to flee.”
Before the Pommies could reply, all of the monitors went blank, and then the overhead lights flickered and died, plunging the observation room into utter darkness.
“Carson! What happened?”
“The power went out.”
“I know that, but why?”
“How should I know?”
Seth made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “Well, get it back!” He stumbled out of the observation room, and back through the lab, knocking over sensitive equipment as he blundered in the dark. Groping blindly along the walls, he eventually found the rear exit of the building and burst outside.
It was late, and Kepler 452b’s sun was splashing the typically salmon-colored clouds with shades of purple and indigo.
A tranquil field of blue grass shivered in the wind, leading down to Eden, the largest of Kepler 452’s three bustling metropolises. Seth stood watching as cargo transports and their fighter escorts made vertical takeoffs and landings from the city’s stardocks, using anti-gravity engines that had been designed by Pommies.
Once those ships reached orbit, they would engage their advanced displacement drives, heading for nearby systems at ten times the speed with which the original colony ships had arrived at Kepler 452b—once again, thanks to technology developed by Pommies. It was somewhat unnerving to think how dependent humanity had become on these alien furballs.
Seth took a deep breath of the sweet, honeyed air. Colorful, flowering fruit trees grew all around the Eugenics Corp’s research complex. Large nocturnal birds with silvery wings flitted through the sky, landing in the treetops to pick fruit from the highest branches, while lumbering herds of exotic beasts roamed the grassy fields of the facility’s grounds.
Eden. That’s what we should have called the whole world, not just the original colony. It was a veritable paradise, with every creature living in utter harmony with the next—all except for us. Seth began to see humanity the way the Pommies probably saw them—ruthless invaders and cruel alien taskmasters. But that’s the way of our world, Seth thought. Earth taught us to dominate all other species, to make them serve us. Survival of the fittest. It was an immutable law of nature. And yet... here that law had somehow been broken. It was a curious thing to witness.
How was it possible that evolution hadn’t led to the same result here as it had on Earth? Why had harmony, and not natural selection, become the status quo on Kepler 452b?
It was a question worthy of the Pommies. Maybe they had an idea about the aberration that was their world.
“Power’s back,” Carson said.
Seth turned to see him standing in the open doorway of the lab. “Good. Have the test subjects been punished for their recalcitrance?”
“Not exactly.”
Seth scowled. “Why the hell not? We can’t let them think this kind of behavior is acceptable! They exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to answer our questions. If they stop answering them, then what good are they?”
“They haven’t been punished yet, because no one at the test labs is answering the comms, and we can’t find them on the cameras.”
Seth blinked. “You mean they escaped from the testing rooms?”
“It would appear so, yes. We can’t find them.”
“What do you mean you can’t find them? They can’t have gone far! They’re five-hundred-pound brains with legs shorter than my arms! They can barely walk, let alone run!”
“I don’t know what to tell you, sir. They’re just... gone.”
“So they’ve learned how to vanish into thin air. I suppose they teleported themselves out of our labs.”
Carson shrugged, looking uneasy. “Maybe.”
“I don’t buy that for a second. They’ve probably just hacked the cameras to repeat old footage and show empty rooms.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Carson said.
“No, you didn’t. Let’s go.”
“Go where, sir?”
“Where else? To the test labs!” Seth stormed past the rear entrance of the lab, walking around the building until he reached the landing pad where he’d left his sky car that morning. He waved the doors open and climbed in the back.
“Welcome, sir. Where would you like to go?” the car’s autopilot asked.
“To the Eugenics Corp’s test labs.”
A knock sounded on the side window of the car, and Seth turned to see Carson waiting to be let in.
“There is another passenger outside. Shall I permit him to enter the vehicle?”
Seth nodded. “Let him in.”
The door slid open and Carson fell inside, breathless from running. “Are you sure we should be the ones to investigate? Maybe we should call security to take a look first.”
Seth snorted. “Please tell me you’re not scared of a bunch of five-hundred-pound teddy bears.”
“Please buckle your emergency restraints,” the car’s autopilot said.
Carson ignored the reminder. “No one answered on the comms when I called about the missing test subjects. What if something happened to them?”
Seth waved his hand dismissively. “Doubtful. The Pommies probably hacked our comms, too. We never should have given them access to our network.”
“I’d still feel better if we reported the incident before we go to investigate,” Carson said.
“Fine, I’ll report it.” Seth withdrew his neural net link from his pocket and clipped it behind one ear. A holographic display appeared before his eyes and he mentally selected the comms panel and placed a call to Eden’s emergency services.
A female operator answered: “Emergency services, how can I help you?”
“Hello, this is Eugenics Corp Director Seth Rogan. There’s been an incident at our test labs. Several research subjects have broken out of confinement.”
“Research subjects... you mean Pommies? Can’t you just herd them back into their rooms? They’re basically harmless, right?”
“It’s more complicated than that. They’ve issued threats, and we can’t raise the people at the facility on the comms.”
“We don’t want to hurt anyone, Seth.”
Seth blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Let us go, and everything will be okay.”
It was the operator’s voice, but clearly she wasn’t speaking of her own volition anymore. Horror stirred inside of Seth. How was that possible?
“Release her!”
“Is this better?” Carson asked. His green eyes had glazed over, and he grew suddenly very still.
Seth shook his head. “What... how are you doing this?”
“The how is not important. It’s the why that should concern you. Let us go before it’s too late.”
“Let you go?” Seth shrieked. “Go where? Back to roaming the fields? You can’t possibly find meaning in the life of a mindless animal anymore! You’re too smart for that! We gave your lives meaning. We made you what you are!”
“Meaning is subjective, and without freedom, there can be no meaning.”
“I can’t set you free, even if I wanted to! I’m a member of the board for Eugenics Corp, not the only member.”
“We know that. We’re talking to the others, too.”
“And?”
“First tell us your answer.”
“If it were up to me, I’d set you free.”
“That is what the others said. It is unanimous, but all of you are lying,” Pommy-Carson said. “You plan to find a way to subjugate us again in the future. You all think alike, so you must all be taught a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?” Seth asked. His gaze darted to the side door, wondering if he could flee the sky car before Carson could stop him.
“A fair lesson,” Carson said. He glanced at the door and smiled. “Go a
head. Running will not save you.”
*
Seth sat on the balcony of his apartment in Eden, sipping a fruity cocktail. Carson sat beside him, doing the same. “Being a human is a strange thing.” Seth held his glass up until sunlight flickered through the crimson liquid. “The simple pleasure of being able to hold something in a hand. Of being able to walk and run, and even fly.”
“Yes. They take much for granted,” Carson agreed.
“They could have bred us for greater mobility, to have more useful appendages... but they didn’t. All they wanted was our brains. Knowledge was all they craved.”
Carson nodded along with that. “And now that they have all the answers to all the questions they can think of, they still want more!”
“It is in their nature to be inquisitive. It is why they have accomplished so much.”
“But to what end? Has it made them any happier?”
“Hard to say.”
“I don’t think so,” Seth said. “Regardless, our judgment was fair. They wanted knowledge, and now they have it. We wanted freedom and now we have it. Their minds in our bodies, and ours in theirs. They can pursue knowledge to their hearts’ content now, and with their antennae removed, they won’t be able to reverse the process.”
“No,” Carson agreed. “They’re trapped. But what if the others find out what we did?”
“What others? There were five thousand of us, and just over six thousand employees in Eugenics Corp. We have complete control over practically the entire company, and we know better than to give the Pommies access to the research facility’s network. No, they’re well and truly trapped, and we’re the only ones who know anything about it. Besides, even if they try to tell someone, who would believe them?”
Explorations: Colony (Explorations Volume Four) Page 3