Interstellar Caveman

by Karl Beecher

  Colin caught himself scanning the exits: a second-storey window and a doorway blocked by a man undergoing a rapture. It looked like he was stuck here for the moment.

  Gunga meanwhile struggled down from his high and composed himself.

  “But time is so short,” he said softly, and practically to himself. “We have only days. Maybe that means I have to take… more drastic steps.”

  Gunga, enthused and enthralled, turned and peered into the corridor before closing the door to the room. Finally, he turned back to Colin and stepped slowly forward, speaking with purpose and reverence. “Now we’re alone, I can tell you. Faith tests need not worry us. I think we can make a special arrangement for you.”

  Things had rapidly moved from fishy to downright creepy.

  “After all,” continued Gunga, “you’re no ordinary person.”

  “Uh-huh…” muttered Colin. He sidled along the bed a little, away from Gunga.

  Gunga came closer. “You’re here for a very special purpose.”

  “Ri-i-ight.” Colin tugged at the bottom of his gown, trying to cover his exposed legs further.

  Gunga came even closer. “And we must give you the time necessary before the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory) enlightens you.”

  “Of co-o-ourse.” Colin grabbed the pillow from the bed and hugged it to his chest.

  Gunga stopped, now within arm’s length of Colin. “Even if that means breaking the rules a little.”

  Colin squirmed. What the hell was this man talking about?

  Then, Gunga smiled. “The faith test. There are certain techniques for, shall we say, meeting the criteria in an alternative way?”

  The Doctor winked, apparently hinting at something. Colin’s face remained blank.

  Gunga tried again. “That is, um… circumventing the usual determining factors.”

  Colin shook his head. “Once more?”

  Gunga sighed. “Fooling the test.”

  “Fooling it?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but you didn’t hear that from me. Understood?”

  “All right. But how do you mean, ‘fool it’?”

  “Very few people know about this. You see, the faith scanner doesn’t scan for religious feelings, as such. It just scans for certain emotions. You only have to feel the right way. When you undergo the test, you merely need to experience the right feelings at the right times. It’s all to do with making yourself trigger the correct emotions. I can teach you the techniques.”

  “Techniques?”

  “Yes. Like when they ask you about spiritual nourishment received from the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory), they’re watching for hunger. At that point, you just picture your favourite food swimming around your mouth as vivid as you can imagine. That triggers the response they look for.”

  “That’s how it works?”

  “That’s how it can be fooled. It may technically be a sin for me to help you like this, but it’s one I’m prepared to commit, so there’s no risk of you failing to qualify for treatment in time.”

  “But why would you do this for me? I’m a nobody.”

  The Doctor shook his head. “Abramans who truly know their religion recognise you. We see it. We know that you’re a fulfilment of the prophecy. The man from Earth! The ancient prophecy that states a man will come to us from Earth and guide us back to the Garden, where we can be at one with the creator of the universe. You came to us from Earth to show us the way.”

  Colin squeezed his pillow even harder. This was no longer just any science fiction story he was trapped in. He had entered The Twilight Zone. What the hell was he going to do now? “You’re mistaken,” he breathed. “I came here because you’re the only ones who can cure my disease.”

  “That’s obviously how the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory) arranged things. He gave you that disease so you’d have to come here. He’s very clever, you know.”

  It didn’t sound so clever from where Colin was sitting. It sounded damned inconsiderate to him, not to mention presumptuous.

  Then he remembered the mysterious groups of spectators watching his window. “Wait a minute. Is that why people are gathering in front of my window?”

  “Yes,” replied Gunga. “Unfortunately, word has got out rather quicker than I’d personally hoped—bloody Hanson and his toady reporters. People are starting to come to the hospital, hoping to see you for themselves.”

  “So those people out there think I’m…” Colin could barely bring himself to say it. “A prophet?”

  “Exactly.”

  “No, I can’t be. You’ve made a mistake, really. I’d have been told about it, or put through some kind of prophet training program, surely?”

  Gunga smiled. “When the Creator (Grant Unto Him Glory) declares you’re ready, all will become known to you. And then you’ll lead us.” He added, being both earnest and sinister as only the utterly convinced can be, “You’ll have no choice.”

  30

  Spudge leaned his head around the hull of the Turtle until the man came into view.

  Spudge knew that, technically, it wasn’t really a man. His workmates—the older ones especially—referred to it derisively as the ‘metal man.’ Its real name, apparently, was Ade.

  It was hard to believe this was actually a machine. It looked so genuine and moved so realistically. More than realistically. It moved like humans ought to move, if they would just put in more effort.

  Amazingly, it could also repair a ship. At the moment, it was replacing a conduit on the Turtle’s port generator and doing a fine job of it too; so precise and tidy. Spudge wondered whether, being a robot, it was capable of feeling pride. It ought to be proud of workmanship like that.

  The robot turned and reached for a nearby tool chest, but stopped when it caught sight of Spudge. Before Spudge could pretend he wasn’t looking, the robot greeted him.

  “Hello there.”

  It even spoke realistically. The voice was just like anyone else’s in the spaceport, except Ade sounded polite.

  “Oh, um…” spluttered Spudge. He emerged from his hiding place, feeling a little embarrassed even though it was only a machine that had caught him. “Hi there. You must be Ade.”

  “I am, sir. May I be of assistance?”

  “No, no.” He drew closer. “Actually, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help you.”

  “Ah, you must be Mister Spudge. Ms. Tyresa told me about you and your interest in servicing her vessel.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your timing is indeed serendipitous.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re just in time to help me.”

  “Oh, great. What are you doing?” asked Spudge, even though he already knew the answer.

  Ade pointed to the open panel on the huge cylindrical generator. “Several of the quadrufix conduits need replacing on this deuterium injector. They have a habit of coming loose on occasion.”

  Spudge looked closer and saw charring around the panel. It was faint, but the markings were unmistakeable. “Woah! Did you have a plasma fire around here?”

  “We did indeed,” replied Ade. “This area was recently damaged by a plasma bolt strike. Some components have been performing sub-optimally since then—”

  “Wait, what? A plasma bolt? Like a plasma bolt from a plasma cannon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hot potato! Who was firing at you? And why?”

  “Ms. Tyresa would probably prefer me not to go into details regarding the episode, sir. Suffice it to say, it was nobody with friendly intent towards us. Our shields had collapsed under the barrage, and we took this one final hit before making it to warp speed.” Ade told the story so flatly, so matter-of-factly, as though the robot was reminiscing about a disappointing picnic. “We escaped with mere seconds to spare.”

  Spudge thrilled. “Gosh! It must have been so exciting!”

  “Exciting is hardly the word I would use about my escapades with Ms. Tyresa, sir.”

  “‘Esc
apades’?” echoed Spudge. “You mean things like this happen to you a lot?”

  “There is rarely a dull moment when travelling the galaxy with Doctor Jak, sir.” Ade picked up a sonic wrench and resumed work.

  “Wow,” beamed Spudge. He tried to imagine being there with them: living onboard a ship, flying to wild and dangerous planets, seeing all the different sights the galaxy could offer, getting into scrapes and shoot-outs, barely escaping by the skin of your teeth and back home in time for tea. “It must be an amazing life.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it to most people, sir.”

  “Better than being stuck on this world, that’s for sure!” Spudge noticed Ade was securing the conduit in place with an SRX-3 wrench. “Let me do that,” he said, pulling his own wrench from his toolbelt. “You should really use an SRX-5 for those. I promise you, these will never come loose after getting screwed by one of these.”

  Ade made way for him. “Most kind, sir.”

  It was strange, Spudge reflected to himself as he tightened the conduit, the robot never smiled—displayed barely any sort of emotion at all really—but it nevertheless seemed kindly and welcoming. Trustworthy in a way. Not like the way he trusted the engine on his airbike not to cut out, but trustworthy like a person.

  Ade meanwhile observed Spudge’s handiwork. “Do I take it then, sir, that you find life here a little dull?”

  “A little dull?” He considered the question. He thought about life on Procya. The skies and their near-permanent greyness. The grey hangars where he spent his working days. The grey two-room shack he called a home. His grey-haired workmates, whose average age was fifty and whose idea of a good time was playing cards. “No. Insufferable is more like it.”

  “Most unpropitious news, sir. My sympathies.”

  “Oh…” said Spudge. He wasn’t sure what ‘unpropitious’ meant, but it sounded bad. “Thanks.”

  “I hope you find the opportunity to experience some excitement.”

  “Huh! Fat chance of that around here.”

  “Then somewhere else, perhaps? There’s surely something you can do, sir. Ms. Tyresa is fond of saying, ‘There’s always a way.’ I must concede, she is often correct.”

  Spudge finished tightening a conduit and moved onto the next one. “Well, maybe for her that’s true. But for me, it’s hard enough to get off-planet, let alone visit another nation. I’ve only ever been off Procya twice, you know. I’ve only ever travelled at warp speed once, and that was for a quick training course when I learned about warp engines.”

  “So it is possible to travel?”

  “Possible, but darned hard. I’ve thought of getting a job as a technician on a starship. I could at least see other planets through a viewport that way.” Spudge smirked at the thought of it. “It’s not that easy, though. People don’t travel interstellar much in Abrama, so there’s not many starships around. Plus, there’s a lot of competition to work on them. Of course, it’d be easier if I was a believer. I’d have my pick of the jobs the few there are.”

  “You’re not a believer?”

  Spudge laughed. “You think I’d be doing this job if I was? Believers don’t have to do greasy work like this. Nah, I’m not a believer.”

  He stopped as he considered the question further. It wasn’t something anyone had actually asked him before, so he’d never given any deep thought to the answer. He leaned on the Turtle’s hull with his arm.

  “At least, I’m classed as a non-believer. But, now I think of it, that’s not altogether right. I wouldn’t say I believe in nothing. I suppose there’s something out there. Something that created everything, maybe even looks after us. No idea what it is though. I suppose that’s why I failed the faith tests.”

  “Faith tests, sir?”

  “Yeah. I last took one in school. They make you take one when you’re eleven. It’s called the Eleven-Pious. It’s to see if you’re eligible for a fancy religious school or just a heretic’s school.”

  He recalled feeling scared inside a sterile room deep within some grey government building. They’d made him do things like read out passages from the holy book, compose essays describing his own faith, and take a pop quiz on various religious topics, all while wearing a brain scanner on his head.

  “I tried to believe. I really tried hard. I was sure the Creator had me convinced.” He shrugged and dismissed the unhappy memory from his mind, then went back to work, tightening the conduit. “I guess I just don’t have the faith. And faith is everything around here.”

  “Surely, sir, faith alone is not a good thing,” offered Ade. “I know little of the subject, of course, sir, but Ms. Tyresa often references faith—usually immediately before leading us into a very close shave with death. Is it not more important to consider what faith drives one to do? Surely piety is not in and of itself a virtue.”

  Spudge chuckled. “You’re not from around these parts, are you? Try that line on the people round here and see how far it gets you. I must say, Ade, you talk very fancy for a robot.”

  “Android, sir.”

  “Sorry,” said Spudge. “Android. The most sophisticated robot we’ve got here has a three-word vocabulary: ‘with,’ ‘without,’ and ‘sugar.’”

  “Ah,” said Ade. “My distant drinks-vending cousins.”

  Just then came the sound of a communicator, presumably Ade’s, and Spudge heard a crackly voice.

  “Ade,” came the voice, “Tyresa here. Come in Ade.”

  “Excuse me, sir, incoming call.” He took the communicator from his pocket. “Ade here, ma’am, go ahead.”

  “Ade,” said Tyresa, “you’re not going to believe this, but I need a man, right now. Will you dig out your genital attachment and join me as soon as possible?”

  Spudge’s wrench slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor with a clang. He stared slack-jawed at Ade.

  The unflappable Ade cleared his throat. “Would you be so kind as to elaborate, ma’am?”

  “I’m at the hospital,” she said, “and they have this stupid rule that I have to be accompanied by a male. It can’t be Colin, so it’ll have to be you.”

  “I see, ma’am. And my genital attachment?”

  “Just a precaution. If they suspect you’re an android, I wouldn’t put it past them to insist on you whipping out your junk to prove you’re the real deal.”

  “Delicately put, ma’am. Very good, I shall set off immediately.”

  “Great. Tyresa out.”

  Ade put the communicator back in his pocket.

  “Genital attachment?” said Spudge, his face still aghast.

  Ade looked almost sheepish. “A free extra available when you purchase androids of my model.”

  The young technician shook his head in mock disapproval. “You foreign heathens and your sinful ways.”

  “I can’t say I’ve had reason to use it so far. It is likely still in its original packaging. In fact, its precise location is unknown to me. I shall have to search our storage bay. If you would excuse me, sir.”

  “Go ahead,” said Spudge, picking up the wrench and beginning to laugh. “I’ll finish up here for you.”

  Ade walked up the embarkation ramp into his ship, presumably to go rooting around for his joystick.

  Spudge was still chuckling when Grizzel showed up a moment later, as grouchy as ever and gulping from a tin mug. He ignored Spudge’s pleasant greeting.

  “You’re getting very pally with that robot, aren’t you?” he sneered.

  “He’s an android actually,” said Spudge.

  “Oh, is he indeed?”

  “And very handy with a wrench. He practically keeps this ship running all by himself.”

  The old fellow hissed and shook his head. “Listen at you! ‘He’? ‘Himself’? It’s a machine, laddie. How can it be a ‘he’?”

  Spudge considered telling him what Ade was presently searching for, but decided against it.

  Grizzel took another swig from his mug. “You and your bloody curiosity aga
in. Just leave it alone. It’ll only put funny ideas into your head.”

  There he went again. Grizzel and the senior techs were always so cynical about everything. When they didn’t gather around an engine and moan, they sat playing cards and complained, or stood around in the tool room and bellyached. It was time someone told them straight: they could grumble all they wanted, but they couldn’t resist progress forever.

  “You always say stuff like that,” said Spudge. “I say: we could do with androids on this planet.”

  “That’s the kind of funny ideas I mean.”

  “What’s so wrong with having androids? Proper robots that can actually do complicated things for us! Save all us non-believers from having to do it.”

  Grizzel sighed. “You young ’ens. You don’t know a bloody thing, do you? Is that what you want: robots taking over all the hard work?”

  Spudge tightened the final conduit. There, finished. “Why not? What are you all scared of?”

  “I’ll tell you why not.” He stepped nearer, close enough now to feel his breath. With Grizzel, the stronger you could smell his halitosis, the more sincere he was being. “Non-believers are the ones who keep things running in Abrama. Always have and always will. You want a robot to take your job? And what do you think’d happen if robots took over all non-believers’ jobs, eh? The believers would never stand for it.”

  That made no sense to Spudge. “Non-believers wouldn’t care. So long as the jobs get done, what’s the difference?”

  “Use your head, soft lad! Believers are more frightened of robots than we are. They know what’d happen if robots came along. They’d put us all out of work. Unemployed. Going hungry. Taking to the streets, angry. Millions of us. You get the picture now?”

  Grizzel had a point. Non-believers did all the grunt work. What would they do if machines took it all over? They had nothing to fall back on. Most of them, like Spudge, had left school at fifteen with little or no qualifications. He’d never thought of it like that before.