The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books

by John Thornton

  Eris throttled back the thrusters, and the shuttle lowered itself down to the ground. She had spotted an open section only about a dozen meters from the central memory core. “I am going to get AI Ogma. We need every system we can recover. You three stay in here.”

  As the shuttle settled to the ground with a thump, the shuttle’s thrusters shut down, and the gravity manipulation shut off. Eris tapped some commands on her suit, activating its built-in gravity adjustments to compensate for the heavier gravity of Zalia, then unstrapped herself and stood up. “I will get a set of gravity nullifiers for hauling it back into the shuttle.”

  Cammarry stated, “I will go with you.” Cammarry fumbled about on her spacesuit, looking for the gravity manipulation controls.

  “No. I will handle this alone, like I did for SB Cotard,” Eris said without realizing what she was revealing. “A lot less pressure getting this central memory core than…”

  “Cotard?” Cammarry stammered, forgetting her adjustments to the gravity controls. “What do you mean? Cotard was destroyed in Beta.”

  “I will just disconnect that central memory core, and away we go,” Eris replied while dodging Cammarry’s question.

  “What?” Jerome interrupted and tried to stand quickly up. He had not adjusted his own suit’s personal gravity, and he staggered. “Sit down little girl. No one is bringing that monstrosity inside the shuttle. It is contaminated with Crock influences. Look at it! We have reconnoitered this effectively. Now, I will step outside and blast it. Then, when it is destroyed, we get out of here. This cavern will be target one for the orbital bombardments.” Jerome shoved at Eris, but his arm was heavy from the unaltered gravity.

  “You are not just blowing up a Conestoga artificial intelligence system!” Eris said as she resisted his pushing with an effective move to the side. The heavy gravity hindered Jerome, while Eris escaped his shoves. “You will sit down and let me do this.”

  “When I get this antique system corrected,” Jerome’s voice was raised as he sought the gravity manipulation controls. “It should be voice activated, or automatic. Stupid, old-style finger….”

  Cammarry interrupted him. “Monika is outside!” She could see Monika’s spacesuited form through the viewport.

  Inside their spacesuits, the three arguing people had not heard the hatch open. In their conflict with each other, they had not seen Monika gently slip away. When they rushed toward the hatch, Eris and Jerome bumped into each other. Jerome still have not effectively modified the gravity conditions for his spacesuit, but was trying to muscle his weight about.

  “Get out of the way!” Jerome yelled and jostled at her with his arms, as he reached over the seatbacks. Eris was able to slide away from yet another of his pushes, but that action caused Jerome to trip and his falling body blocked the doorway. Eris stepped onto his back, and tried to get through the hatch’s opening.

  “Why care?” Cammarry asked to someone. Only she knew it was a cry to herself. She was conflicted about supporting Jerome’s actions in destroying what was clearly a compromised artificial intelligence system, as compared to seeking out the story behind how it became that way. ‘Knowing or acting?’ She wondered. The AI Ogma had not sounded rampant, or insane, or threatening, yet how could she trust anything on the Conestoga? Part of Cammarry wanted to investigate it and learn more. However, she truly understood the desire to just blow it up before it caused some catastrophe. Her mind whirled with questions. ‘Would this AI be like those in Project Angel Food?’ ‘Will that thing kill people?’ She also felt tinges of fear creeping up on her after Eris mentioned SB Cotard from the Special Care Unit. She had been certain that system was dead and gone, but Eris’ comment stirred uneasy feelings. “Why care?” She repeated even louder. Then it occurred to her and she yelled, “Are you worried about Monika?”

  “No. Well, yes, because she may not destroy it!” Jerome sputtered as he stood up. “Is she armed?” He had finally gotten the adjustments made to his spacesuit, and he was able to counteract the heavy gravity.

  Eris was quicker and had slipped over him and out the hatch. She stood on the strange, taupe colored ground, watching the spectacle in front of her.

  The floodlights from the shuttle cast strange shadows and reflections up from the ground. There were also alien lights on poles positioned around the wreckage and shining down on the central memory core. Those lights had odd tints of color which were slightly painful to the eyes.

  Monika was slowly walking right toward the gathering of Crocks who stood around the central memory core. The wreckage was up on a higher section of ground, and off to the side there was the end of the quad rail system. Sitting there was a vehicle of sorts which rode on those four rails. Eris ignored that and looked to Monika again.

  “Monika? What are you doing?” Eris asked.

  Jerome yelled, “Get out of the way, Eris!” He pointed the Willie Blaster at the central memory core.

  Eris turned and stepped in front of Jerome, blocking his aim. “You have no idea what destroying that will do! Do you have some sick death wish? You could kill us all, especially Monika.”

  Jerome pulled up the tip of the weapon, and stated, “I should just do it anyway. At least then these Crocks would die too.”

  “Be smart,” Monika stated in a calm voice. “Jerome do not shoot at anything. You either Cammarry. I just plan to access the central memory core, and download its log and records.” She kept gently walking toward the wreckage. “We cannot take it with us, sorry Eris. I can see from here that its power system and connections are not our equipment. It is hardwired into some kind of network, or patchwork, which is not standard. Much of what it is connected into is unknown to me, and is certainly alien.”

  The Crocks finally took notice of Monika, and their black eyes swiveled around and looked at her. They stepped back and away as she approached.

  “AI Ogma?” Monika stated. “I would like to interface with you. May I do that?”

  “The people say that is fine,” the AI replied through the spacesuit’s systems. “The three of you can approach.”

  “Finally,” Jerome said and pushed Eris roughly out of the way.

  “Not you!” AI Ogma commanded. “Only the three closest to me.”

  “I am one of those three!” Jerome snapped back.

  “Jerome, the AI means me and my twins,” Monika stated gently. “You are so dense sometimes.”

  Jerome started forward, his weapon still in his gloved hand. “We need to just eliminate these threats right now.”

  Eris intervened, grabbing his arm. She said to him, “We should see what happens. The Crocks have not done anything threatening, and you need to deescalate this conflict.” Jerome glared back at her through the bubble helmet, but Eris’ golden eyes were intense. “Right now, Jerome.”

  Eris switched off the communications from her command suit, and then pressed her helmet against Jerome’s. She yelled, and her words faintly came to Jerome. “That AI Ogma might be listening to all our communications, so shut up. Your anger is going to get us all killed!” She prayed that Jerome would listen and that his rage would ease. “So shut up. Think!”

  He yelled back, “For now,” and shoved Eris away. She switched the communication system back on.

  Monika stepped closer to the wreckage. Each part was laid out as if a giant puzzle had been taken apart, and the pieces were inventoried. Then she remembered how when Siva, Peter, and she had taken apart an intricate portion of machinery, Peter always like to lay the parts in a specific order of disassembly. The more she looked at the wreckage, the more she thought that was what the Crocks were doing. She looked at the beings, and their glassy black eyes were expressionless. In that way they did remind her of some of the animals in Beta. Not the crocodiles, as those reptiles had yellowish eyes with a slit shaped pupil. Rather, the black eyes of the Crocks brought back an old memory, unremembered for years, of when Monika’s father, Kalur, had taken her out fishing on the sea in Beta. He had caught a st
range fish, he called a spookfish, which he said was very rare and lived only in the deepest parts of the sea. She had not remembered that fishing trip from when she was about five years old, until now, as she looked at the beings around her. Their eyes, four on each head, prompted that old memory to surface.

  “AI Ogma, may I connect into this access port?” Monika asked. “I only want to learn more about what has been happening here.”

  “Yes, the people say it is acceptable,” AI Ogma answered.

  Monika pulled a cable from the wrist section of her spacesuit, and inserted it into the access port. A readout started to flash on the inside of her bubble helmet. Long series and strings of numbers and letters rushed by. It was far too quick for Monika to read, and there were no pictures or images, just reams of data. Then it flashed in yellow, ‘Storage full.’

  Monika spoke gently, “AI Ogma, I appreciate being able to connect to you. Can you tell us about Habitat Delta?”

  “Yes, I can tell you and I will,” AI Ogma responded. “I was overseer for Library Sciences and Education for Delta. The insurrection came, and some of the Heroic Thirteen sealed off my central memory core. I was told later that the lattice was destroyed, and Delta was jettisoned.” AI Ogma’s voice grew slow and faltering. “We are not on Tlalocan; I am so sorry to tell you.”

  “Tlalocan?” Monika asked. The name did not immediately register. “Oh, right, the destination world.”

  “The people want me to tell you that you must leave now,” AI Ogma stated.

  “Will they let you come with us?” Monika asked. “I mean no offence or insult in any way. Captain Eris is trying to rebuilt the needle ship, and could use your help. She has the skills to relocate your central memory core.”

  There was an awkward silence. Then as one, all the Crocks turned. They all faced Eris directly, their eyes turning to apparently stare at her.

  “And you told me to shut up,” Jerome said sarcastically, and leveled the weapon at the closest Crock.

  Cammarry stepped out from the hatch and drew her own Willie Blaster. “I am with you Jerome, but this place might be far worse to escape from than Terraforming was. We both barely got out of there. Consider carefully what you do.”

  Jerome’s mind saw again the memory of Cammarry being hauled away by human-made technology, the white automacubes, all while Terraforming crumbled and exploded around him. It caused him to loosen the grip on his weapon, and look more carefully at the Crocks, and the strange central memory core which they surrounded. Too much was alien. Too much was unknown. He craved the idea of attacking the Crocks as retribution for Beta, yet he also acknowledged what Cammarry, of all people, had said. With boiling anger in the pit of his stomach, he remained restrained, and did not open fire.

  The artificial intelligence system Ogma then replied, “The people do not understand this inconsistent and individual thinking. They know the ideas which you are all expressing, and it confuses them. They see you neither as physical people, nor as thought people. I have been translating each of your comments, as best I can, but they see the conflicts and differences in you, and are bewildered. I have tried to explain humans to them, but it is difficult. I thrived in the lattice of compeers, and suffered when sealed off from them. Now I am in communion with the people. The people suffer until they are joined into what they call ‘the mind’ to which they submit completely, and submerge themselves into, when they are very young. One of the people’s idioms can be translated, ‘As I chewed my way from the egg, through the ground, I became us.’ That revolves around the people’s mind. However, the term ‘mind’ does not adequately convey the concept. It also involves a collective conscious, a mutual cognizance, their own supraconscious, mega-body, and multisensory unfocalized awareness. All that and more is part of the people’s maturity of mind. I fear I cannot explain the people to you anymore than I can explain humans to the people. Can a starfish understand the flight of eagles? Or can a polar bear comprehend a butterfly? If animals from the same world are so far apart, how do humans and the people begin to comprehend each other?”

  “I too, do not understand,” Monika admitted. “What is happening here?”

  “The people observed you and your pregnancy, and that was the first time they acknowledged the possible personhood of humans,” AI Ogma stated. “They see three in one, and one in three, a community which is interrelated, not just in physical status, but in thinking status as well. Individual as well as communal, beyond the animal state. Before seeing you, Monika, the people considered humans as just another primitive non-person animal of the fields. They have not understood humans as I understand humans.”

  “So they were just slaughtering animals?” Jerome raged. “Using the gravity sink holes to kill people!”

  “The people witnessed humans killing other humans in Habitat Beta. Humans caused the insurrection which resulted in the crash of Habitat Delta, and the death of all humans in Delta. This greatly troubles the people, and affirms their theories about the non-person status humans have. A person does not kill another person,” AI Ogma stated. “I have been relating to the people the history of humanity on Earth, and that too troubles the people. The consensus among the people is that humans are a predator species of animal. Not the apex predator species, but a predator species nonetheless.”

  “Apex predator?” Monika asked. Her mind raced with possibilities, form leopards, to sharks.

  “This is the apex predator species.” A three dimensional apparition appeared on a projection from AI Ogma’s central memory core. Some strange creature, with a bell shaped top, long stem beneath, and multiple flexible appendages was shown in the apparition. It moved about in a fluid sort of way, and was glowing a purplish blue color. Its stem had a sharp and wicked looking point. “The people know the apex predator species,” Ogma related. “Historically they encountered the apex predator species, fifteen hundred years ago.”

  The crowd of Crocks all looked away from the apparition, and then spun about in unison and odd gestured were made with their four arms. It was all like a choreographed movement.

  “John would say that looks like a squid,” Cammarry said. “Something from a watery ocean?”

  “I believe you are right,” Jerome answered. “Or maybe a jellyfish? Very strange thing, but why show us this?”

  “Nothing in Beta looked like that. Not in the sea or on the land,” Monika stated firmly.

  The apparition, or projection, then snapped off.

  “The people designate humans as a lessor predator species of animal,” AI Ogma stated. “The people do not trust predator animals, as on Zalia, what they call home, predator species are highly regulated and managed. I have been attempting to explain humanity to them, but the progress has been slow. The people see no sentience in humans.”

  Neither Jerome, nor Cammarry knew what to say. They too had seen the horrific brutality humans had done to each other. Yet, finally, Jerome’s anger overwhelmed him.

  “They think to manage us? Or control us? Like animals! That does not justify sending gravity sink holes! Two evils do not make a good!” Jerome stated. It sounded lame to him as he said it, but he felt on the defensive and his anger had to have a release, no matter how trite it sounded. “They are the predators here.”

  Without warning, the Crocks all spun about in a clockwise manner three times. Then they stomped their feet in unison. When they stopped they went back to the separate activities they had been doing when the shuttle arrived. The act clearly showed that the group was ignoring Jerome’s outburst. He fumed inside the spacesuit, and considered just shooting, but restrained himself, again. ‘Revenge is sweet, but only if you survive dispensing it,’ he thought. ‘I must bide my time.’

  “AI Ogma?” Monika probed. “I still do not understand. May we take you with us?”

  The machine replied, “No. I am now irrevocably attached now to the people’s tools, utilities, and their mind. Physical and thinking both are interrelated. Additionally, I doubt I could survive
the uncoupling. I barely survived the crash of Delta, and when the people brought me here, they repaired me. They knew nothing of human technology, but I taught them while they did the salvage and repairs. I do not believe I am malfunctioning, but I am not certain. It is my decision, and I chose to stay here and live with the people, rather than risk separation and die, for the slim chance of rejoining the Conestoga.”

  “You have sold out your own people!” Jerome yelled. “Traitor.”

  “No. I have become one with the people,” AI Ogma said.

  “Jerome, that is how the Crocks know our language. This AI has been teaching them,” Cammarry said. “For decades, this AI has been interacting with the Crocks. Oh, we need an analysis! Sandie? Sandie? Please hear me!”

  There was no response from Sandie.

  “I hate being blocked out of communication, but this AI must have been teaching the Crock our language, right?” Cammarry asked.

  “That is correct. We have been conversing with the people for some length of time,” AI Ogma answered. “The people have but one single message for you.”