Voyage

by E M Gale

  ‘Cleckley is about twenty years older than me, I think, mid-forties perhaps.’

  “Nah. For what?”

  ‘Cleckley also figured out about Price and me. So it’s not just his reasoning that’s brilliant, he’s good at understanding people too. Better than me by far. Most people seem completely illogical to me.’

  “He’s understanding too,” I added. “I didn’t trust him at first.” I sighed. “But I didn’t really have much of a choice in the end.”

  Rob was giving me an odd look.

  “Well, it was either him or you,” I explained to him.

  “What?” spluttered Rob.

  “Well, I had to have a doctor,” I explained.

  “What? Why? You could just leave him alone!” exclaimed Rob. Anna was laughing. She looked triumphant, and for a moment, rather ugly; it was quite weird. I raised an eyebrow at her, and then addressed Rob.

  “Well, no. You see, I need to have a doctor. I told the major I didn’t, but he said that was the rule and I suppose I can see the sense of it.”

  ‘Someone’s gotta pull the stake out.’

  “So Cleckley said I had to be his patient, unless I wanted to be turned over to you to be ‘another one of Rob’s bloody experiments’.”

  Rob just stared at me, so I smiled at him.

  “Since biology isn’t your speciality, I didn’t want you to experiment on me.”

  “Oh… I see,” he said, then he went bright red. The robot laughed. “You were talking about being his patient?” queried Rob in a small voice.

  I nodded. “He said I had to be his patient ’cos he was the only doctor on the ship, so I pointed out that you were also a doctor.” I replayed the last two minutes of that conversation. “What did you think I was talking about?”

  “Uh… nothing,” said Rob. He smelt uncomfortable, looked down to avoid my eyes and scrubbed his hand through his short hair, messing it up.

  “No, seriously, what?”

  “Uh… you, um…” said Rob, still red.

  Jane laughed. “Clarke, you are so unbelievably dumb!”

  “Back off, Jane,” I said, very quietly, accompanying that with one of my best scary looks. She stopped smiling and leant back. I looked down and shook my head.

  ‘She was right though, I am dumb.’

  I looked at the robot in confusion.

  ‘For example, I was completely wrong there.’

  “You’re right, actually,” I said to her. “I thought I’d figured it all out, but no, I was completely wrong. Stupid. I guess I really don’t understand anything, and I subverted my reason to point towards what I wished was true.” I sighed heartbrokenly, sniffed and wiped at my eyes again.

  ‘But I still don’t understand why Rob didn’t choose to become a vampire. Why would anyone choose to die when they could choose to be immortal? Perhaps not everyone gets the chance, but surely people would go out and look for the chance? In fact, why are vampires rare? I would have thought that there would be more vampires wandering around, or do the coffin comments and the waved crosses put people off?’

  “None of it makes any sense really.” I sighed again and buried my head in another one of the cushions.

  “What’s the matter, Clarke?” asked Anna.

  ‘Oh, now she’s being nice to me.’

  I spoke into the cushion. “Nothing is wrong. Don’t worry. I was just wrong in my reasoning, that’s all.”

  “You’re that depressed just for just that?”

  “Well… yes. My reasoning was faulty. I let emotions get in the way of logic and fucked it all up.” I shook my head angrily. “I can’t understand anything.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Clarke,” said the robot.

  ‘Huh.’

  “See… he does talk to me.”

  “You don’t still think it’s a person,” said Mark. I thought he was trying to distract me.

  “No.” I smiled at him. “Preprogrammed responses, as you said.”

  “Clarke, you are, er, very intelligent,” said Rob. He was no longer blushing, but he did rake his hand through his hair again. “So don’t beat yourself up, um, about whatever you reasoned that turned out to be wrong.”

  “The robot,” I said sadly.

  “What?”

  “The robot! I was wrong about the robot!”

  “That’s it? You’re sitting there looking like the world has ended for that?” said Anna. I nodded.

  “You need to get some perspective,” said Jane cautiously.

  ‘What, does she think I am going to bite her head off or something?’

  “I’ll go and stand on the top floor of the space station then,” I remarked.

  ‘Ah, let it go, Clarke.’

  I launched myself up off the sofa, making Anna jump at the sudden movement, and began to pace up and down the room, swinging my arms.

  “Well… finally, what do you guys want to do today?”

  “You OK?” asked Rob.

  “I’m thinking we spent so long talking about it, we should start by getting lunch.”

  “No bugs,” said Anna.

  “Why not? Hey, you do know that all the alien species in the galaxy are roughly the same as humans? We can eat their food–well, most of it. Not orcian coffee,” I informed her.

  “I still don’t want to eat bugs,” she insisted. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

  ‘They are delicious, you know.’

  We left Anna’s rooms and got lunch. Anna insisted on somewhere vegetarian, so I just had a coffee. I could eat vegetables, but I preferred meat, and since I only ate one meal a day, I’d much rather have it be meat, especially if I was going to spend my evenings losing blood to overly-promiscuous vampires.

  We spent the afternoon watching a silly movie that, I made sure by asking the robot quietly, didn’t have anything about vampires, wars, Great Engineers or anything topical. I got it to check that the movie didn’t even refer to any vampires or generals or anything. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the movie we ended up watching was a romantic comedy–the stories hadn’t changed much in two hundred years.

  Then we wandered round the shops for a bit. I steered Anna away from levels thirty-eight to forty, to avoid vampires, and the lower levels, to avoid being laughed at by pirates for wandering around in a dress. She sighed over the clothes and the prices before buying some more makeup. My friends managed to go all afternoon without anyone yelling at anyone else or anyone calling anyone else stupid or self-obsessed, which was probably a miracle. Then someone suggested dinner.

  “Well, anyone hungry?” said Mark.

  “Yup,” I said. “Absolutely starving, now that you mention it.”

  ‘Poor me, no breakfast, no lunch.’

  “Robot, can you direct us to a good vegetarian restaurant?” asked Anna.

  I frowned at her. “No, Anna. What’s with this sudden conversion to vegetarianism?”

  “Well… I don’t want to risk watching you eat bugs.” She wrinkled her nose up in princessy disgust.

  “Why? All the Kreegle eat bugs. They have deep-fried bugs in the bar instead of chips,” I commented. “Maybe the Kreegle home world didn’t evolve anything like the potato.”

  “It’s gross,” stated Anna.

  “Not to the Kreegle it isn’t,” I retorted.

  “You’re not a Kreegle.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not gross to me either. But we don’t have to eat Kreeglish. I had a burger with Rob yesterday, ’cos he’s not keen on bugs either. Just not vegetarian. I’m carnivorous.”

  Jane sniggered.

  Anna glared at me. “You went on a date with Rob?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

  “Eh? I wouldn’t call that a date.”

  “Where did you disappear to anyway, Clarke?” asked Rob.

  ‘Oh, he noticed I left? I wonder how many hours passed before that happened?’

  “Ah, to a bar, obviously,” I said, shrugging.

  “Well… I want vegetarian,” said Anna petulantly.r />
  ‘Bah! Whatever. I have to ditch them at some point, since I intend to find and watch a vampire duel this evening.’

  “OK, then. Well, I gotta go soon anyway, so I’ll bow out now. Ja ne,” I said, turning and walking off. The robot followed hot on my heels.

  “Wait, Clarke,” said Rob. I stopped and looked at him, raising an eyebrow. He looked at a loss for what to say, and then pointed at the robot. “You taking my robot too?”

  I turned and eyed the robot. “Well, robot, are you still planning to follow me around?”

  “If you don’t mind,” he said.

  “But, Igor, aren’t you programmed to protect me?” asked Rob. “Why are you following her?”

  “I am programmed to protect all of you.”

  “So why do you follow her around?” Rob asked.

  “Clarke is the one most likely to get into trouble.”

  I laughed at that. “True enough. But I don’t plan to go into the piratey part of the ship for dinner. I don’t want to be laughed at.”

  “Hmm, I’m going to try an experiment,” Rob said to me.

  ‘Well, he is famed for that.’

  Rob turned to the robot. “As your Master, I order you to stay here with us.”

  “No, Master,” said the robot.

  “What? Did my future self give you instructions to follow Clarke around?”

  “No, Master.”

  “Then why are you following her around?”

  The robot was silent for a moment. “She’s a great conversationalist.”

  I laughed at that.

  “Wow, you’ve managed to make a cold, heartless robot fall for you, Clarke,” said Jane. She smiled as if she was making a witty comment. “Well, I guess you’re well matched!”

  My mouth dropped open at that.

  ‘That’s really harsh! I know that she doesn’t like me, but that was going rather far.’

  I shook my head at her. She looked awkward, perhaps as she replayed her ‘witty comment’ in her head.

  ‘Well, Clarke, argue with Jane or leave… Ah, I don’t care any more, I’m hungry.’

  I turned and walked away, the robot trundling after me.

  “What the hell did you say that for?” Rob asked Jane. “Hey, Clarke, wait up,” he called after me, but I ignored him, entered the elevator and punched the button for level thirty-six. I looked up to see Rob jogging over as the doors shut.

  “Are you OK, Clarke?” asked the robot.

  “Ah, now they’re not here to hear you, you’re going to talk to me again?”

  “Well… yes. Are you OK?”

  “What, am I annoyed at Jane’s comment? No, not at all. She really doesn’t like me, but I think she thought she was trying to be funny.” I sighed.

  “But I don’t care enough to argue with her about it.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Anyway, robot, why were you acting like a normal introverted robot, rather than your usual chatty self?”

  “I am a normal robot.”

  “I’ve not met another guide robot, as Jane kept calling you, but you don’t make conversation, or say complex expressions or understand unspecific questions when we’re with the others.”

  “Ah… well…” Oddly, the robot sounded slightly uncomfortable. We left the elevator.

  “It’s your stupid idea of a joke, isn’t it?”

  The robot laughed. “You don’t think it’s funny?”

  “Well, I guess it’s kinda funny, but also kinda annoying,” I said as we were walking along to the Kreegle restaurant.

  “In fact, this whole thing is quite funny. I’m striding along the corridors of a space station dressed like it’s 1399, being followed by a chatty robot who thinks it’s funny to make my friends think I’m mad.”

  The robot laughed. “Don’t take life too seriously, Clarke.”

  I walked into the restaurant.

  ‘Oh, this is posh.’

  The maître d’ frowned at my robot, and then recognised one of us and took me to a nice quiet table in a dark corner.

  “Hey, robot, has my future self been here?” I asked suspiciously once the maître d’ was out of hearing range.

  “Yes, she seems to like it. She still has a disgusting taste for living food.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that. “Oh? You don’t like bugs then?”

  “I don’t eat.”

  ‘Of course not: robot.’

  A waiter came up.

  “The usual, ma’am?” he said.

  ‘Well, why the hell not?’

  “Yes, please.” After he went I asked the robot: “What’s the usual?”

  “You’ll like it.”

  “See, you were completely different when the others were here.”

  “Yes. Do you want me to tell you the truth?”

  “Yes, of course, what use do I have for a lie?”

  “I am an experimental AI that is far superior to the standard AIs that the robots here are programmed with. But I tend to hide that and act like a normal robot.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to be taken apart.”

  “So… you can want things? Are you self-aware?”

  “Don’t I seem to be?”

  “Well, yes. But I thought that you were the voice of a long-dead scientist taking over his robotic creation to make smart comments at me and wind me up because he thought it was funny.”

  “Ah. I am a self-aware AI who is pretending to be a normal robot who occasionally lets the mask slip to make witty comments at you to wind you up because I think it is funny.”

  ‘Huh.’

  I nodded. “I see exactly where my confusion came from.”

  The robot laughed.

  “So what do you want to be then: he, it, they, she?”

  “He is fine.”

  I nodded. ‘Thought so.’

  My dinner arrived. I got a pot of live bugs–oh, sorry, top-notch salad of Kuz-Bec–and a cup of orcian coffee.

  ‘Nice.’

  “So, are you a person then?” I asked the robot as I ate my lunch.

  “You said it–personality, person, there’s a clue in the name.”

  I nodded.

  “Watch out, that one’s getting away,” said the robot, pointing at a green iridescent insect.

  I caught it with the chopsticks.

  “It’s easier if you keep the lid on the pot if you are going to take ages to eat them.”

  ‘Hmm, good idea.’

  “I’m savouring them,” I said.

  “You have to keep them in the liquid, otherwise they’ll fly away.”

  “Is it like drunken shrimp then?”

  “Yes, except it’s drunken bugs.”

  “I suspect the Kreegle don’t call it that.”

  “They’ve never understood the humans’ disgust at entomophagy, especially given that humans will eat shrimp, crabs, lobster and things like that.”

  I nodded. ‘I guess those creatures are wetter.’

  “Hey, if Kreegle don’t like vampires, why are they so polite to me?”

  “Who said they didn’t like vampires?”

  ‘Price.’

  “And they’re polite to you because you haven’t tried to fight or sleep with any of them.”

  I nodded.

  “Recently,” he added.

  “So it’s just a subset of vampire behaviours they don’t like then?”

  The robot nodded.

  “So, robot,” I said, waving a pair of chopsticks and a drunken bug at him. “Did Rob really make you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well… I know he’s the Great Engineer and everything, but his talents are more making cool machines. A conscious, self-aware AI is, well, perhaps not beyond him, but more not his style.”

  “I was an accident.”

  “Ah. Like you were struck by lightning and gained a soul or something like that?” I asked, waving my chopsticks around.

  “I don’t know. Rob isn’t great at keepi
ng records.”

  I laughed at that.

  “And he wasn’t really bothered to find out how he had made me, but I’m worried that others will be.”

  “Fair enough. So why do you like me?” I said, staring regretfully at my bowl.

  ‘Only two more bugs left.’

  “Ah, well, I’ve known and wound up your future self for years,” said the robot.

  I looked at him. “I’m friends with a robot.”

  He laughed. “Don’t be speciesist.”

  “You’re not a species.”

  The robot said nothing. I supposed because he didn’t have a tongue to stick out.

  “Why didn’t you follow Rob’s orders? Do you have free will?” I asked as I caught the penultimate bug.

  “Obviously I do.”

  “And you pretend not to? Sounds like hell to me.”

  “Alucard assumes it’s odd programming. He has more than enough robots, so he lets me do what I like really.”

  “Oh. Does he treat you like a person?”

  “Not quite. But he puts up with me,” said the robot. “And he won’t let anyone kidnap me and take me apart, that’s why he came to talk to Rob about it.”

  I nodded at that. It had seemed a bit odd he’d leave the robot with us for now.

  “I see,” I said, slurping my coffee.

  ‘Mmm, good coffee.’

  ‘Is this why I keep getting odd looks? I’m being followed around by a robot that I chat to as if he’s a person, when most are lacking that level of intelligence?’

  “Hey, Clarke, did you really not understand what Rob was getting at?” asked the robot.

  “When?”

  “About Dr. Cleckley.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, what was he getting at?”

  The robot laughed.

  “He thought you were saying that you were sleeping with Dr. Cleckley.”

  I laughed at that. “Oh! I see now. Why on Earth would he think that? And why would he care anyway?” I thought for a moment. “Is that what Anna keeps trying to imply with her ‘you like the doctor, don’t you, you’re always talking to him’ comments?”

  “Yes, she thinks you are.”

  “Oh. I would have thought she would have known better.”

  “In what way?” asked the robot suspiciously.

  “I don’t expect you to understand this, but you know my habits, right?”

  “Yes. Habits,” he said woodenly.

  “Well, I have one-night stands for sex, with people who know that is all it is. I’m friendly with them, but it’s not a relationship. And Cleckley, he knows exactly what I’m like. If he wanted a random one-night stand, he would have made it clear. But he’s not that type. I think. He probably wants love, and I know he doesn’t want to love me, so…” I shrugged.