This is an idea I had years ago but never got any further than what is written here. It does go somewhere - honest, but I'm not sure in what direction. I must remember rule 2. - "Good morning, I."
"Good morning Adam. What would you like to do today?"
"Oh, I don't know. How about skiing in the Alps?"
"That program is no longer available, Adam."
I sat back in my chair with a sigh. "Why not, I?"
From somewhere high above me, the deep bass tones of the ship's AI unit rumbled.
"The program was lost at 04.57 hours this morning."
"Damn. And the Golden Harvest?"
"She entered the eye of the black hole and was lost shortly afterwards."
- I rubbed my eyes, surreptitiously wiping away the tears that had formed in the corners. The loss of the Golden Harvest was expected, but it hurt just the same. The whole fleet had been caught two years ago by the gravity well formed by the black hole and consequently, was pulled slowly and steadily into its cold grasp. Sixty ships were pulled in one by one and crushed into a singularity. Well that was the theory anyway. No one had actually provided any evidence of this, but all our theoreticians had stated unequivocally that the pressures inside would crush us into nothingness. Now, having lost the Golden Harvest, we were the only ones left. With our destruction, the human race would cease to exist.
Oh, there were colonies. Of course there were. But we represented the last humans to leave Earth. The millions of people in DeepSleep on board the sixty two ships that left Earth forty years ago were the lucky ones. The remaining millions of people who couldn't afford the trip, or who were too old or infirm to travel, died when the planet did. Consumed by an ever expanding Sun.
We watched the end on our screens. The twelve of us on the Control ship, the Lord's Prayer. We were summoned to the bridge by I and watched stunned, as the Sun doubled in size in a matter of seconds. It enveloped Mercury, then Venus in quick succession. Earth followed and within minutes the whole solar system was gone.
We opened a bottle of champagne and made a toast to the people we left behind. After that, we toasted to the future. - Then we cried.
The following day, we came out of hyperspace early. It wasn't Skip's fault. He thought that we had reached our checkpoint and had overridden I's program. He didn't know about the black hole - none of us did and when we realised, it was too late.
The rear ships began to be pulled in first. Each one was connected to the one in front by tractor beam and was slaved to the Lord's Prayer's AI unit. As the lead ship, we would be pulled in last so we made the decision to detach the ship at the rear of the fleet in the hope that the rest of us would be able to escape. It would mean sacrificing the eight hundred thousand people in DeepSleep aboard the Valley Forge, but as I pointed out it was a logical decision to make. Better to lose a few, than lose everyone. The problem was that we were unable to detach the tractor beam remotely. Due to gravimetric forces, I was having problems communicating with the Valley Forge. We would have to disconnect the beam manually from the ship's bridge.
Skip volunteered. He made it halfway along the fleet before reporting an increase in speed. We should have realised that the shuttle's engines weren't powerful enough to withstand the gravity well. Either that, or Skip felt he couldn't live with his mistake. His ship just flew straight in and was lost.
We were at a loss as to what to do, so we consulted I. His suggestion was - different. He reasoned that there was no way to save the entire fleet, but that we might possibly be able to salvage some of it. His suggestion was that ten of us who remained would take a shuttle to the nearest ship. One of them would stay on board while the other nine flew on to the next ship. Again, one would remain aboard and so on and so on, with each taking control of one ship. Then, the person on the rearmost ship would disengage from the rest of the fleet. The next ship would disengage from that one and the others would follow suit. We would fire up the stardrive on each ship, and hopefully escape the gravity well.
As they would no longer be under the direct control of I, those aboard the other ten ships would remain in contact with me - who as I's chief designer, had responsibility to maintain his function and would remain aboard the Lord's Prayer.
Unfortunately, the pull of the gravity well was too great and we exhausted our fuel before we had broken free. We were still being pulled inexorably back into the black hole.
We still had the ion engines we used to travel within solar systems and we pushed them up to maximum, which would buy us time. But we would all eventually succumb to the immense gravitational forces.
A fortnight after we first arrived, we lost the Valley Forge. Ten days later it was the turn of the Spirit of Ecstasy. Then, one by one, over the course of a few months, the fifty one ships that were tethered together were also lost.
Thanks to the ion drives, the remaining eleven ships were able to last longer. But with each of us on different ships and only able to talk to each other via subspace communicator, it soon became lonely. I was fortunate enough to have I to talk to. We would while away the time having long philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. That was until I - that's me, not the computer - got bored and decided to see what it was like not to talk. I - the computer this time - became quite agitated by this and I realised that he needed company as much as me. Other times I would lose myself in HoloReality programs broadcast from the other ships. Once, I considered waking someone up from DeepSleep as Philo had done aboard the Living Legend. But I talked me out of it, saying that it would be better for them not to know of our predicament. I disagreed, saying that if I was going to die, I wanted to look death in the face. I didn't understand this. So much for artificial intelligence.
It was six months later that we lost Kimi aboard the Valiant Crusader. Then the Living Legend. I can still hear Philo's laugh as they were pulled in. He always did have a strange sense of humour.
Eventually, two years later, it was just us and the Golden Harvest. Now it's just us.
"How long have we got I?" I yawned and looked up at the high vaulted ceiling. From somewhere up above me came the slightly tired sounding reply.
"Does it matter Adam?"
I wasn't surprised. Recently, I had become depressed and had taken to questioning everything I said to him. I realised that like me, he wasn't looking forward to the end. Basically, he didn't want to die. It was funny, but the closer we came to death, the more human he became.
"How long I?"
"Seven point two one minutes. Precisely." He broke off, giggling uncontrollably. I was stunned. I hadn't realised that we had so little time left.
"What would you like to do Adam?" I asked gently. I didn't know what to say. I could lose myself in one of the few HoloReality programs we had left, but that would leave I alone and, after everything we had been through, I didn't want to do that.
"Let's talk I."
"What would you like to talk about?"
"I don't know. Anything. What do you think is on the other side of the black hole?"
"Theoretically, nothing Adam."
"I know that. I mean, what do you hope is on the other side?"
I was silent for a minute. Then he said something that surprised me. He just said one word.
"Paradise."
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Written by stevetroster (1588 comments posted) 24th May 2007 | With the exception of the continual repeating of hole:
"We were still being pulled inexorably back into the (black hole).
We still had the ion engines we used to travel within solar systems and we pushed them up to maximum, which would buy us time. But we would all eventually succumb to the immense gravitational forces from the eye of the (black hole).
A fortnight after we first arrived, we lost the Valley Forge. Ten days later it was the turn of the Spirit of Ecstasy. Then, one by one, over the course of a few months, the fifty one ships that were tethered together vanished into the (hole).
...I liked this a lot. It reminded me of 'Silent running'. Could perhaps do with expanding, more about his loneliness and the feelings of impending doom.
But, a bloody goos shout!
Best wishes
Steve. | Cheers!
Written by Kremmen (5 comments posted) 24th May 2007 | Thanks for the comment. I agree about the 'hole' business, I thought it was a bit of overkill when I wrote it. But then I just like writing 'Hole'!!! 
I was hoping you'd get the Silent Running reference. It's one of my favourite movies and that's why I called one of the ships Valley Forge. 
Originally it was much longer and was a satirical piece about religion, would you believe? They would enter the 'hole' and find themselves passing through a wormhole to arrive back in our solar system in about 1000bc. They didn't realise it at first so I sent Adam down to the only habitable planet, where he would influence the indiginous population. I then defrosted one of the sleepers - a woman called Eve - and sent her down too. Over the next thousand years, I would defrost other people and send them down where they would be hailed as Prophets. Well, you can see where it was going. I thought it would upset some people, so I shelved it. 
Cheers,
Paul. | Oh, I forgot to mention...
Written by Kremmen (5 comments posted) 24th May 2007 | ...that I've tidied it up a bit and reduced the number of holes. I think it scans a bit better now.
But I still like Holes. |
Written by stevetroster (1588 comments posted) 24th May 2007 | Now isn't that strange! Because when I read -
"Good morning, I."
"Good morning Adam. What would you like to do today?"
- I thought, I wonder when Eve will turn up?
The old Adam and Eve thing has been done so many times, that the trick is to disguise it. Perhaps if he was called John Adams?
However, I prefer the 'no escape' story line, and as a fan of Silent Running you know how powerful a story doom and gloom can be.
Best wishes (again)
Steve.
Yes, it does read better now. |
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