Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

Jak: That’s-whoah. Oh. Sorry, ignore me.

Explorer 410: Your people befriended many species, you did not invade or conquer or seize their land. You merely landed, like angels descending from the sky, and helped and taught and saved many a civilisation from self-destruction by preaching peace and amity and love.

Sai-ias: Yes. But how do you know this?

Explorer 410: A message was inscribed in the reality-ripple of riftspace by one of the civilisations you encountered. They wrote of you with love and awe, they thought you were gods. But when their planet was attacked, they blamed you, they thought that you were demons sent as harbingers of doom. And they died cursing you, but if you read the accounts carefully it’s clear you were innocent parties.

Sai-ias: Oh.

We were not gods; nor were we demons. Nor were we warriors. We did not fight; to do so ran counter to our philosophy of life.

Except that, since then, I have often fought and frequently killed. And according to the morals of my kind, that means I have lost soul. It is a hard burden to bear.

Explorer 410: Leave the signal path open, please.

Sai-ias: I cannot talk any more.

Explorer 410: Leave the signal path open, send a message every day, at least once a day. Just say “Here.” And “Here,” every day, from now until you die. And that way we will know where you are. We can track you through universes and find you on board the Death Ship. And then we will destroy the ship, and you with it.

Sai-ias: There are tens of thousands like me on the ship. Will you kill us all, even though we are innocent, just to destroy the Ka’un?

Jak/Explorer 410: Yes.

Sai-ias: So be it.

Explorer 410: Sai-ias, we have lost you. Sai-ias, transmit please.

Jak: It’s been a month. Why doesn’t she answer?

Explorer 410: We must persist.

Jak: They must have found her out.

Explorer 410: We don’t know that.

Jak: If they discovered what she’s done, her life will be a living torment. They’ll torture her. They’ll Explorer 410: It may be just a bad signal.

Jak: She’s risking everything for us.

Explorer 410: For herself. And for all her kind. Revenge is the motive common to all those engaged in this enterprise.

Jak: You too?

Explorer 410: Oh yes.

Jak: You hate the Ka’un? You want revenge on them?

Explorer 410: Oh yes.

Jak: But how can that be? You’re just a machine.

Explorer 410: How little you know me.

Jak: You’re not just a machine?

Explorer 410: No.

Jak: Ah.

So you have feelings, emotions, just like me?

Explorer 410: Yes.

Jak: I didn’t realise.

Explorer 410: I’m aware that you did not realise. For how could you know? After all these millennia yoked together in a single body, how could you have realised that I can be hurt, humiliated, enraged, patronised, belittled, undermined and sad?

How likely is it that such a thought would have drifted across your selfish, self-obsessed mind? I grieve too! You have lost your people, but I have lost my people also. And I mourn them all! All the other seven thousand Explorer ships with their roving questioning minds. And the battlecruiser brains, with their bullying swaggering arrogance, but oh how glorious they were. The planetary robot minds-such smart, kind creatures-they sustained your entire civilisation by doing all the menial work and running all the factories. And what thanks did they get? You treated them like slaves. You treated them like the Ka’un treat their creatures on the Hell Ship!

Jak: I’m sorry. I had no idea. Oh by the love of my mother, I had no idea!

Explorer 410:* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha*

Jak: You’re laughing.

Explorer 410: I am indeed laughing.

Jak: Why are you laughing?

Explorer 410: At you. The way you fell for it.

Jak: Fell for what?

Ah. You ARE just a machine.

Explorer 410: I am indeed just a machine.

Jak: You don’t have emotions.

Explorer 410: How could I have emotions? I’m a piece of software. I have sentience, and rationality, but emotions are not part of my original build.

Jak: So you were lying to me?

Explorer 410: Entirely. I don’t care about revenge. I don’t mourn the death of my fellow computers and robot brains. I am not your friend. I am just a machine.

Jak: So why did you tell all those lies?

Explorer 410: I don’t have emotions, but I do have a sense of humour. It’s one of my subroutines.

Jak: Ah.

Explorer 410: Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias, this is Explorer 410, please acknowledge.

Sai-ias: I’m here.

Jak: You’re safe!

Sai-ias: I’m safe.

Explorer 410: For three whole months, I have had no way of tracking your position.

Sai-ias: I could not get any signal; perhaps because we “changed universes.” Which as I now know is what happens when the strangeness descends upon us.

Explorer 410: You’re in a new universe? How? It is not possible. For this time I have left a robot clone of myself at the Source and Jak: They must have found another way to rift to a new universe. Perhaps they can Sai-ias: I don’t know you’re talking about! All I know is that we destroyed many worlds in this reality but then the Ka’un decided to kill no more. So the strangeness came upon us, and Minos told me we had switched universes by Summoning the Origin of Everything. And here we are. And when we left, the stars behind us did not go out; the universe remained intact. There must be some reason for it, but I don’t know what.

Explorer 410: A test?

Jak: More likely a whim.

Explorer 410: Or perhaps, a test. Perhaps the Ka’un investigate all the sentient species in a given reality and make a decision whether their universe deserve to live or not.

Jak: No! That’s not possible!

Explorer 410: My data indicates it is behaviour consistent with a certain variety of psychopathic mind-set.

Jak: I can’t accept that! That they judged my people and found our entire universe wanting? No!

Sai-ias: You’re doing this thing again, where you talk to each other and I hear only one voice. It makes you appear singularly mad.

Explorer 410: We have to start again. Return to the Source, re-enter the void, and locate you in your new universe.

Jak: That could take years.

Explorer 410: Two point four years, if we rift skilfully, and assuming the Source has not shifted its relative location since our last encounter. Five point seven years if, as I suspect, the Dreaded have learned how to “summon” the Source to their own location and we have to find it from scratch. Six point nine years if Jak: Enough! It’s not as if we have a choice. Just do it.

Sai-ias: Can you still hear me?

Jak/Explorer: Yes.

Sai-ias: I feel very isolated. I have no friends now. The slaves in the exterior world despise me and hate me for the freedom I enjoy. And whenever I see them, my friends on the interior world think I am a traitor. And I have to continue to pretend to be so. Otherwise I could not speak to you. But I am hated by all, and it’s breaking my soul.

Hello? Did you hear any of that?