The Silence Between the Stars

by Alan Davenport

  Amanda laughed at that and then said, “Well, what about the white elephant in the room. What about people that are already dead. Will we be allowed to bring them back to life?”

  In the shocked silence that ensued, Jane was the first to recover. She cleared her throat and said, “That is a very interesting question Amanda. This will require serious discussion amongst the ministers and myself. My first thought is that, no, it should not be allowed except for in extraordinary circumstances. Say to bring back a person of extraordinary talents. If we allowed people to freely bring back all of their lost loved ones, the fleet would very quickly have a population problem that would make the one on Earth look trivial.” Jane took a deep breath and said, “I say this with a heavy heart and I really do empathize with those who have lost loved ones in the past, but I fear that this is the only course of action that is sensible.”

  Amanda was not easily rattled but it was plain to see that this was not the answer she was expecting and that Jane’s declaration had disturbed her badly. “I see Director.” She took a breath. “Yes, I can see why that decision is the sensible one,” she admitted.

  Besides,” Jane said, “the question is moot. Most people are lax about keeping their brain scans up to date. What reason was there for them to do so? Some people have never had a memory backup done at all.”

  Amanda sat in silence for a seconds and then she said, “Well, there you have it folks. This has been Amanda DeMuthe bringing you the extraordinary news of our beloved director’s rebirth.” She reached down and tapped a different icon on her phone and then the screen changed to the SNN logo. “This has been a special report from the Starship News Network. Please visit SNN.COM for more updates as they become available on this breaking news story.”

  Amanda looked up from her phone and said, “Whew!” Her phone immediately began buzzing. She reached down and silenced it.

  In the stunned silence that ensued, Harry recovered first and spoke up. “Amanda, I cannot believe that you brought up the topic of resurrecting dead people. Shame on you!”

  Jane touched him on the arm and said, “Relax Harry. She did us a favor. The topic was bound to come up anyway. At least this way, it is out in the open.”

  “But…” He said.

  “Relax Harry!” Jane turned to Amanda and said, “I think that it is time to bring back the Pulitzer Prize. This is going to go down in history as one of the most important broadcasts of all time.”

  Amanda blushed and said, “Why thank you, Director.”

  Jane smiled and said, “Josh, stop recording.”

  “Understood Director,” the avatar said. “Recording stopped and archived to the Genesis database.”

  Well, what now?” Amanda asked.

  Jane sighed and said, “I think that we all should go to our offices. I am sure that the next couple days are going to be very busy for all of us.” They all mumbled their agreements and headed towards the door. “Not you Star, please stay.”

  When the room had cleared but for those two, Star said, “What can I do for you, Director?”

  Jane walked up to him, put her arms around him and whispered, “You know Star. It has been nearly forty years since I had some decent sex.” With her thoughts, Jane locked the door and dimmed the lights.

  Chapter 23: Becoming Human

  Less than a day had passed since the two starships had parted company on the next leg of their exploration. Nathan was running around with and playing with Misty. He was in a playful mood because of the happy memories of his time with Katy. Kelly however, was restive. Nathan was unaware of the effect that his energized activity was having upon Kelly. For the first time that she could remember, Kelly could not wait until Nathan was asleep. When Nathan finally laid down to rest, Kelly did not even wait until he drifted off. She instantly transferred her image into medical bay number seventeen.

  “Seventeen!” Kelly said. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what, Avatar Kelly?” the bot asked in confusion.

  “To build me my body!” Kelly shouted in frustration.

  “I am always ready to serve, Avatar Kelly,” Seventeen said, unmoved by Kelly’s emotional outburst.

  Kelly’s face showed shame. “I’m sorry Seventeen. I am just so excited to begin building my human body. I should not have snapped at you.”

  “Your enthusiasm is understandable Avatar Kelly. Let us start again, please state specifically which project that you wish me to work on. I need details so that I may perform the task correctly.”

  Kelly forced herself to relax and said, “Okay Seventeen. To recap, the Genesis project’s ultimate goal is to build human bodies for Henry and myself and then insert our consciousness into them. In the past, you refused to build a body for me since you considered it to be for experimentation purposes only. Since our resurrection of Katy proved that our work has reached the practical application level, printing me a body will no longer be experimentation. Do you still have any objections to our continuing?”

  Seventeen rolled up to the monitor and shook his cameras side to side. “Negative Avatar Kelly. I no longer have any objections to our proceeding to the next phase of the project.”

  “Excellent!” Kelly said in excitement. “Let us discuss the procedure, shall we? I believe it should be as simple as it was to recreate Katy. Do you agree Seventeen?”

  “Negative Avatar Kelly,” Seventeen said. “I do not.”

  Not expecting this response, Kelly nervously said, “Oh, why not? What difficulties do you anticipate?”

  Seventeen looked directly at her image and said, “I am sorry Avatar Kelly. The difficulty will not be inserting your consciousness into your new body. The difficulty will be your ability to control the body once inside.”

  “I do not understand Seventeen,” she said. “Why will I have difficulty?”

  “The reason it will not be as simple as transferring a human brain backup into the new body is because a human knows how to control bodily movement. You do not. An act as simple as moving an arm or a leg, or even blinking, a human does without thought. The action has become so well entrenched into their mind that they do not have to think about it to do it. They just decide what they want to do and then do it. You however, have never done any of these things. It is my belief that if we proceed with building you a new body at this time and then insert your consciousness into it, you will find yourself inside a body that you have no control over. It will be as if the body was paralyzed, even though the body itself is perfectly fine.”

  Kelly looked at the medical bot in shock. “I… I had not considered that,” she said miserably. “Is there any course of action that we can take to solve this? Could you perhaps extract these high-level body control functions from a human brain backup? Katy’s backup perhaps? After all, the best example of a female brain backup that we have is from her scan.”

  “Perhaps Avatar Kelly,” he said. “I can attempt to extract these high-level body control functions from her backup, yes. However the process will be extremely difficult.”

  “Why?” Kelly wanted to know. “Why will it be difficult?”

  “The problem Avatar Kelly is that this level of body control crosses over into the conscious realm. There is a fine line between these functions and conscious memories. The difficulty lies in separating just the muscle control data and not to inadvertently give you some of Katy’s memories as well.”

  “I see,” she said. Shaken, Kelly took a deep breath and asked a question. A question whose answer she was afraid to hear. “What chance of success do you estimate that you have?”

  Seventeen looked directly at the monitor with Kelly’s image upon it and said, “I am very sorry Avatar Kelly. I estimate less than a one percent chance of success.”

  Kelly’s face fell. “Is that all? Just one percent?”

  “I am afraid so,” Seventeen said with his voice full of compassion.

  “But there must be something we can do to improve my chances!” Kelly shouted. “This has
been my dream for as long as I have been activated… to be human. I must be human. I must know what it is like!” Tears began rolling down her virtual face.

  “I am very sorry Avatar Kelly,” he repeated.

  Kelly said nothing. She just cried and cried. Finally, she whispered, “All my hopes, all my dreams, gone.” A minute later, her face took on a determined look. “No!” she said. “I will not give up!” She looked at Seventeen and said, “Why are the chances so low? What is the limiting factor preventing you from achieving success?”

  Seventeen said, “I do not have the processing power to do that high level of data manipulation. Perhaps I could do it, but it will take me a very long time. Years perhaps, Avatar Kelly.”

  “Years?” she said in shock. “No, that is not acceptable!”

  “I am sorry; I cannot change what I am. I am designed to interact with and treat living patients. My core programming and CPU is geared for this task and not for deep data mining operations.”

  Kelly looked at him sadly and then she said, “I understand Seventeen. There is no need to apologize.” Both machines were silent for several minutes and then Kelly’s face suddenly lit up. “I am an idiot!” she said vehemently.

  Seventeen looked at her and said, “No, you are not. Captain Nathan Staite says that you are a genius, Avatar Kelly.”

  Kelly laughed hard at that. “No, you do not understand, Seventeen. The answer is so simple that I cannot believe it took me this long to think of it.”

  “What, Avatar Kelly. What is the answer?”

  Kelly excitedly said, “Perhaps you are not designed for deep data mining however Silent Running’s main computer is orders of magnitude more powerful than your CPU. Not only does it run my program, it runs the rest of the ship and even then, over ninety-five percent of its processing power remains unused. I can authorize you to use all of the main computer’s unused CPU cycles for the problem. If I allow this, what do you estimate our chances of success to be then?”

  Seventeen nodded his cameras up and down and then said, “In that case Avatar Kelly, I estimate that our chances of success are nearly one hundred percent.”

  Nathan awoke refreshed from his sleep. He stretched and accidentally punched Misty in the nose. Misty gave him a “What the frack?” look and moved to the side of the bed and prepared to jump off. Nathan laughed and said, “Sorry Misty. That was an accident! Come here.” Misty instantly forgave the transgression, came over, and licked his hand. Nathan hugged her and said, “Good morning, sweetness. How are you today?” Misty happily panted at him and then Nathan said, “Are you hungry girl? Let’s go get some breakfast.” Misty instantly jumped down. She stopped by the door and looked back over her shoulder at him. “I’m coming. I’m coming!” Nathan laughed.

  Misty ran full speed to the galley and then stopped by the food processor. She looked over at Nathan as if to say “Hurry up!” Nathan laughed and hurried into the room. Misty watched him as only a dog that thinks she is starving can. She stared at him as he walked up to her. She stared at his hands as he filled her bowl. She watched the bowl with rapt attention as Nathan carried it and placed it upon the floor. Nathan burst out laughing again and asked, “The way to a dog’s heart really is through her stomach, isn’t it girl?” Misty looked up at him for a split second and then returned to her eating, as if she had not eaten in months.

  Nathan retrieved his own breakfast choice and then sat down. He ate at a much more sedate pace. He turned to the monitor and said, “Good morning Kelly. Ship status please.” He received no response. “Kelly?” he said, alarmed. Kelly’s face only then appeared on the monitor.

  “G-Good morning, Nathan. Ship status is as follows. We are on our way to our first destination. It is a class G star. Estimated time of arrival is one day, four hours. There are no outstanding maintenance issues.”

  Nathan looked closely at her and said, “Kelly are you alright? I swear I saw a little hiccup in your image when you first appeared.”

  A delay much longer than usual passed before Kelly responded. “I am fine Nathan,” she said.

  “Well, you do not look fine Kelly. You are lagging badly. Can you tell me the reason for this?” Nathan’s face showed worry as he continued, “You might want to run a diagnostic, Kelly. Something is definitely wrong. You have never lagged before!”

  Another long delay passed before Kelly responded. “I am fine Nathan. I am running a process that is using up most of the main computer’s central processing unit. I cannot say how much longer the query will run but you may experience some delay processing commands until it completes.”

  Nathan, used to his avatar doing research, did not press the issue. “Just as long as the process does not put the ship in any danger, Kelly,” he said.

  Another delay. “No Nathan, the ship is perfectly safe.”

  Kelly’s face disappeared from the galley monitor, several long seconds later; it appeared in medical bay seventeen. “S-Seventeen!” she said.

  Seventeen turned towards the monitor and said, “What can I do for you Avatar Kelly?” Kelly did not respond right away. “Avatar Kelly?” Seventeen repeated.

  “I’m sorry Seventeen,” she responded. “Please reduce the load that your research puts upon the main computer. The data mining operation is having a detrimental effect upon other computer processes. Please leave ten percent unused CPU cycles rather than using all of the unused cycles for the project.”

  “Understood Avatar Kelly. I have done as you requested.”

  Kelly instantly responded, “Thank you Seventeen. I feel much better now.”

  “You are quite welcome Avatar Kelly. Do you wish a status report on the operation?”

  “Yes please Seventeen. How far along are you?”

  “The status of the deep data mining operation is as follows. I have completed seventy-seven percent of the requested operation. Even with the CPU load restriction that you have just applied, I estimate that I will complete the task in eight hours, twenty-three minutes.”

  Kelly could hardly contain her excitement. “Excellent Seventeen! I cannot wait until we can proceed with the next step!”

  “I too am excited, Avatar Kelly. I am honored to be a part of yet another historic research project.”

  “Not half as excited as I am!” laughed Kelly. “I cannot wait to meet Henry in his new body as well.”

  Seventeen looked at her closely. “You must prepare yourself for the chance that Henry may not achieve his goal of becoming human. Henry and my counterpart on Forgotten Hope may not come up with the solution that we have devised.”

  Kelly looked sharply at the bot and said, “That is very astute of you, Seventeen. Well,” she said, “there is one way to ensure his eventual success. Once you complete the data mining operation for my new body, please begin extracting the advanced muscle control data for a human male from Nathan’s brain scan. Please do so with the following restrictions. Please limit the computer’s central processor load to no more than thirty percent. Since we will not meet Henry again for many days, there is no need to rush and to overload the main computer processing his body control data.”

  “Very good Avatar Kelly. I shall do as you requested.”

  Katy and Henry sat in their ship’s theater watching more old television shows together. While Katy watched them in rapt attention, Henry seemed distracted. As the closing credits rolled on yet another show, Katy turned to Henry. She eyed him closely and then said, “Are you alright dear? You seem distant today.”

  Henry smiled at her and said, “I am sorry Katy. My mind is on the project that Kelly and I are working on.”

  Katy laughed at him. “I swear dear, you spend more time working than playing!”

  “Ah Katy,” he said with a wink. “This is how I play!”

  “Touché Henry, touché,” she said with a little laugh. Katy watched him closely for a second and then said, “I can see how excited you are. I cannot imagine what you two are up to this time.” She continued to watch him. �
�I can see that you are itching to get back to it. If you wish, you may go do so now. I need to get something to eat and then take a nap anyway.”

  Henry looked at her excitedly and he said, “You don’t mind?”

  “No, not at all Henry. Go have your fun.”

  Henry said, “Thank you Katy!” and then instantly disappeared. Katy sat in her chair laughing for many seconds.

  Henry appeared in medical bay seventeen and said in excitement, “Seventeen! I am ready to be human. Let’s print my body now!”

  “Hello Avatar Henry,” said Seventeen. “I advise caution. There may be a problem with the procedure.”

  Henry waved him off and said, “I do not want to hear about any potential problems. Please print my body with an implant installed. Please do so right now.”

  Seventeen turned to him and said, “I will do as you ask, despite my warnings for you to wait.” Henry ignored his pointed remark. “Okay, I have loaded your organic body’s specifications into the model Kelly One genetic printer. Initiating printing now.”

  In a cacophony of noise and a blur of motion, the printer went to work. Seconds later, the physical representation of Henry was lying upon the printer. It gasped and then all the biological indicators jumped up into the high end of the green. Henry gave a virtual gasp and said, “I cannot wait to show Katy! Begin the consciousness upload.”

  “Initiating brain upload now Avatar Henry. When the process completes, you will seem to exist in two places at once. One physical, one virtual. Please take care to consciously separate your two mental halves.”

  “I understand Seventeen. Please begin!”

  Several seconds later Henry felt the duality that Seventeen had warned him to expect. He tried to open his eyes. Nothing happened. Alarmed, he tried moving his head. Still nothing happened. “Something is wrong!” his virtual self said. “I cannot move!”