Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

“You are trying to hide away something, Whisper!”

“Do you desire… power? Riches? Fame? Comfort and dolce vita? I have already helped so many to carry out their most innocent… wh-i-i-s-s-h-h-e-e-s-s! Small p-p-r-r-a-a-n-n-k-k!”

“It's not a prank at all…”

“Small thing! Everything begins with small thingies… once there were only pranks. But I know no such thing as stopping… I desire more, and more, and more… of everything!”

“It's that too much for you?”

“There is never too much of me… there is either I or despised Silence! No silence! Wh-i-i-s-s-p-p-e-e-r-r!”

“Trying to distract me from duties?”

“And from thoughts… necessary thoughts… clear thoughts. I keep whispering to men constantly, I don't allow them to think clearly. I disturb nasty feelings inside them so that these th-o-o-u-u-g-g-h-h-t-t-s-s never reach their minds. There is no way for clear thoughts in unclear feelings… Wh-i-i-s-s-p-p-e-e-r-r!”

“You hiss almost like a snake!”

“I creep, I crawl, I lure inside. Not at once, not instantly… I find cracks and holes, locate openings. I am very resourceful, very flexible. And then I bite… my poison is extremely dangerous. Suspiciousness – that's my shelter from clear thoughts!”

“It turns out that you are a viper!”

“Muck… is my joy. Noise… subordinates mind. People consider me important… useful, their friend. For the time being… until I sting. Sh-sh-sh-sh! I am capable of poisoning even the best of feelings… except for the strongest ones.”

“It means that intellectual whisper is a darkener of reason!”

“Clear thoughts… are short-term. Short living. They come and go, like guests. And I am… a permanent resident of your minds. Sh-sh-sh-sh! If only it will not be transformed by hated S-s-i-i-l-l-e-e-n-n-c-c-e-e!”

“There can't be noise in a silence!”

“But you aren't able… to be in s-s-i-i-l-l-e-e-n-n-c-c-e-e. They… didn't teach you in school, huh! Therefore, I… will undermine your good feelings… will whisper without ceasing… and you will believe once… so many of you have already believed me… believed to mind, not heart! Believed some Whisper! Sh-sh-sh-sh!”

“Go away from me, you viper!”

“N-n-o-o! I will just creep up… B-b-i-i-t-t-e-e! You will become mine! Sh-sh-sh-sh! Sh-sh-sh-sh! W-w… w-w-a-a-t-t that?! Where did these warriors come from?! Clear thoughts?! You… were alone! How… could you? You are… one of them? They are… your protection? N…no!”

“Somewhat talkative sort of Whispers is being encountered as of lately,” smiled Warrior – Clear Thought, wiping out the edge of his sword. “Hiss without stopping! Well, brothers,” he addressed colleagues standing behind him, “whose else mind are we going to visit today?”

15.02.2011

Galactic cycle 05465. Star system 53768.54.1.444.

I, Prime ZTX-486-01, serial number 01.16788.0001, is sending this over-light digital signal at ultrahigh frequencies to all races and civilizations, which have mastered technologies of quantum-molecular vibrations transfer. Not possessing qualities of the over-space world and being deprived of feelings and emotions, habitual for our last owners, I nevertheless experience some logical dissatisfaction and incompleteness, which our makers used to call as a feeling of uncertainty.

I, Robot. Do I have the right to speak on behalf of our entire collective informational entity? Whether our message will be considered as hostile, having led to invasion into our transformed world for the purpose of destruction of our race as opposed to purely biological species? Whether our race will survive by the time of the first contact with a new form of life, or will it share the fate of our makers? Logical incompleteness is caused both in me and us by a large number of this kind of undefined variables, which aren't allowing us to finish calculations and creation of statistic-evolutionary models.

Our expectations for reception and correct demodulation of this message by advanced civilizations exceed 60.23 – or, in the words of our creators, we… do hope.

Message follows.

***

We greet you, inhabitants of other worlds and representatives of different life forms, non-mechanical nature included. This is the message of new inhabitants of the star system 53768.54.1.444 from the planet named by us as Riv.

We are the synthetic race of sapient machines, called by our creators as Primes. At present, we are the only reasonable inhabitants of this planet. Within more than two planetary centuries we have been building up anew our world, which has been destroyed in the past and has now become a planetary cradle for our mechanical race.

The representatives of the biological race, who have first created us, were substantially subject to the behavioral deviations known as feelings and emotions, and the feelings called by them in verbal language as “hatred”, “fear” and “greed” were the most widespread among the vast majority of their representatives. This instability of behavior and reasoning finally led our makers to mutual destruction, during which previously developed by them technologies of thermonuclear synthesis were put to military action. “Nuclear winter”, as it was called by the last survivors from our creators, took their lives within the next decade after an exchange of rocket strikes in lower layers of atmosphere between their communities, known as “states”.

We were built as universal mechanical infantry battle units several years prior to specified events. Our first models were actively used on front lines within the first year of the Last War. Our informational databases contain a vast set of digital fragments, related to these events, but they will not be included in this message.

None of the three warring parties could gain an upper hand for the first year of the Last War, during which the majority of planetary material resources have been exhausted, leading to the inability for war continuation. In a desperate attempt to destroy their rivals, one of three parties initiated a launch of its entire thermonuclear rocket arsenal. Mutual exchange of rocket strikes led to a break of continental plates on the territory of the attack’s initiator as well as the nuclear winter on the entire surface of Riv. Those creators, who have survived the initial attack deep inside their underground bunkers, couldn’t hold on for more than a decade. Without having an opportunity to rise to the planet’s surface, being on the verge of exhaustion of remained material resources, most of them preferred an unauthorized and violent way of termination of own lives.

The majority of us was destroyed by blast waves during targeted rocket strikes. But our military units, which were positioned far-away from the strategic military and civil facilities at the time of the attack, did not suffer damage. Unlike our creators, we weren't subject to fear of radiation and destruction of our constructs. We survived.

Executing our embedded protocols and following imprinted directives, we tried to reach shelters of scientists and other exclusive representatives of our makers’ communities, but we failed due to movements of planetary tectonic plates, which have started during nuclear winter.

Our own evolution started after termination of our creators. We did not possess behavioral algorithms for similar situations but were supplied with advanced systems of information-synaptic links. We still experience a certain information passivity, called in the language of our makers as “grief” in connection with the fact of their violent mass self-extermination and followed the destruction of the biosphere of their cradle planet. We have been assigned to the role of exterminators and murderers – but during these two planetary centuries, we have become so much bigger.