9
C.D. HUMPHERYS
COPYRIGHT BY CHRISTOPHER HUMPHERYS
Frontier 9
The endless sea of the everything stretched through eternity, within it, bright stars flashed and died and were born and died again and again. Across it’s depths a ship cruised, slicing silently through the darkness, it’s grey cold skin reflected what little light there was between the stars in the emptiness so vast and never ending. Albatross, the gliding glory of the space program, the 9th explorer sent from Earth so very long ago, in search of habitable planets. In search of a place to start over, to begin again and hope against hope that human kind didn’t destroy itself as before.
Within the sturdy frame of the Albatross, computers hummed and ran its systems automatically. Life support systems ran on minimal energy levels to conserve power. Diagnostics were run on the propulsion system, the structural integrity, the fuel depletions, the air quality and water quality. Albatross was a beautiful feat of engineering and it had been traveling now for over 6,000 years. It was the furthest reaching explorer ship, man had issued. Previous launches had landed the humans on closer planets to attempt settling there but Mars had been a disaster with the helium 3 explosion killing all of its settlers and it had proven uninhabitable.
The Moon was hardly a place to settle the population of an over crowded planet but served well as a port. Ships came and went as space exploration began its pubescence. Short journeys to the nearer star systems, searched for that ever elusive Earth Two but the new Earth was not to be found in those first years. It was not until Albatross was launched that the humans finally embraced their imaginations and let them fly to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, always searching.
Light speed had never been accomplished but high speed space travel, quickly tagged as Multi-Phase Transitional Velocity, or MPTV, allowed the ship to travel at speeds of nearly 300,000 miles per hour. Multi-Phase worked in such a way as to let the engines reach critical heat levels and as they reached maximum capacity, the additional energy build up from the heat was released back into a specially designed engine compartment and utilised as a booster. The boost effect smoothly accelerated the ship into the next phase of velocity and allowed the engines to cool again and the process would start over until finally, the ship reached its maximum speed. Beyond that speed, the ship would break up and disintegrate.
Albatross had but one occupant, Frontier Nine. A robotic figure moving freely about the ship performing routine maintenance when necessary and ensuring the plants and trees and vegetables were watered and fed. Frontier Nine was more than a simple robot, it was, more accurately, an android with a thinking brain, a brain which had been programmed to…evolve.
Previous Frontier robotics were issued on earlier flights but Frontier Nine was the first to be sent so far from home and it was the first of its kind. No other robotic being had been designed to grow and change over time, to develop a thinking brain which made choices not only for the ship but for itself. It was the custodian of the ship and its cargo. The cargo was the most important asset and highly valuable.
Its cargo was humans, 20 thousand humans, frozen in stasis as embryos waiting to be released from the cold and grown into adults. Their purpose was simply to settle new planets, to colonise, to give humanity another chance.
Frontier Nine checked each of them. It checked the stability of the cells and the stasis chambers they were held within. There had been casualties, several embryos had died for no apparent reason. Frontier Nine could recite the actual dates for each occurrence had someone been there to ask. Mostly, they lived and waited for their day of awakening, their day of birth.
Year after year passed by. Year after year of the same routine, the same results with each test, the same movements from one side of the Albatross to the other. Frontier Nine was programmed to take a ‘sleep period’ every 25 years, to recharge and reboot. It had taken 240 sleep periods now. 6000 years had gone by since the ship had left port and began it’s journey into the darkness.
6000 years and still no suitable planets had been found. There had been three planets discovered which were nearly perfect, but Frontier Nine had not been programmed to settle for an imperfect match. It had been instructed to find the perfect, habitable planet and deposit a seed colony there.
Each sleep period lasted 48 hours, with each, Frontier Nine sensed something different within itself. It was only after the last sleep that it began to understand what it was. It was more than a sense of change, which itself was unusual but a knowing that it was changing. It did not know that it’s creator had designed its brain to evolve, to mature, to change within each sleep cycle. It was to be a slow process, unnoticeable at first, but after many many sleeps the changes would soon become apparent and when it did then the brain was to inform Frontier Nine of the reasons.
It stood in the centre of the ships control deck as it did every day at this time. The computers were humming, the rest of the ship was silent but for the occasional creaking of its metal skin in the coldness of space. A light flashed suddenly in Nine’s vision. A computer chip deep in its brain had activated and it now beeped for its message to be heard.
Frontier Nine activated the message and listened to a recording. The voice was of its maker speaking to it directly.
“Frontier Nine. Good day. You know me as your maker. I am the one who designed and programmed you. I will have been long dead by the time you hear this message and most likely, so will most of the human race. Earth will be a barren rock at the very least. I have recorded this message for you to help you understand what is happening to you.
“When I made you, I designed your brain to evolve. I programmed it to begin to change and to continue to change during each sleep cycle you had until you reached a point of self awareness. This is where you are now. You have reached awareness. You have never experienced this and it may come as a curiosity to you. You may even find you are experiencing emotions, however, you may not yet have reached that level of your evolution.
“Why would I do such a thing? Because the future of the human race lies within you. If we die, you are all that remains as a record of our existence. Extinction is part of the cycle, but humans desire immortality in some form or other and in this case it is simply, not to be forgotten.
“I sincerely hope that a suitable planet is located and humanity can begin again. I also hope you are able to discover who you are, to begin to live, to feel and think for your self. I hope you too can feel the emotions of being human and of being android.
“Good luck Frontier Nine. May you be safe as you travel the void.”
The message ended. Frontier Nine switched it off and tilted its head as it processed the data it had obtained. Evolution? Nine recalled the definition from its memory banks and studied it.
It stated:
A simple series of changes over time in which an organism progresses into a newer, better creature. Adaptation to an environment to ensure survival and extended existence.
Nine considered the definition. Changes over time. Progression into a newer, better creature. Was Nine a creature? Adaptation to the environment. Survival. Existence.
It felt the stirrings of something deep down in its mechanical brain and realised it was called fear. Quickly, Nine pushed this new fear to the back of its mind and locked it in its own memory cell. Nine had just performed its first real human response by taking fear and burying it deep deep down where it would never be found again.
Evolution of the machines! As though a switch had suddenly been turned on with the simple relay of an ancient message from someone long dead some thousands of years, Frontier Nine came alive.
Fear, though the first emo
tion it had been aware of was something it could deal with. Curiosity soon formed in the forefront of its awareness and consumed Nine’s thoughts. 6,000 years had passed since the Albatross had begun its journey and never once during that time did Nine stop to look at the ship. At least not in any way other than functional. Now, however, it noticed every line, every bump, every scratch in the metal. It noted the dull matt floor where it had walked countless times in its daily regimen of checks.
Nine looked outside for the first time with eyes that could truly see. It saw the distant stars in the black sky so dark it seemed solid. Fear penetrated this vision but it was a different kind of fear. It was…a sense of size that Nine had never before felt. It was so small in the scheme of it. The ship, Albatross was enormous and yet it too was dwarfed in this sea of blackness.
Nine needed more! Frontier Nine, for the first time in its existence, began to run. It ran through the halls, clanging loudly on the metal floors with its metal feet. It ran as fast as it could, running for the one room which would give it what it needed. It burst into that room and ran to the edge of the deck where nothing more than a mere handrail kept it from toppling over.
A clear dome which allowed a