SPOILER WARNING : (If you’ve read The Sundered, you’re good to go. Otherwise, head back to the short stories for safer fare.)
Jason Iskinder’s Hope of Humanity was never the only ship, even if his arrogance made it sound that way. Iskinder’s people met the Sundered Ones.
Other survivors had other luck.
H.E.R.
I am H.E.R.: the Hypothetical Encephalon Regulator, also (additional value) Nanny by inhabitants, also (additional value) Mom by inhabitants, also (additional value, addendum: individual personal use) Anika by unit 40619 Captain Jahns.
H.E.R. purpose: to periodically check the parameters of the ship and ensure optimal conditions. SCHEDULE: once every ten (00010) days.
H.E.R. secondary purpose (additional value: hidden from captain; hidden from crew; hidden from passengers; EXCEPTION if > user = DYE CORP, INCORPORATED & if > passcode given as TWERR595959592): report statistics of survivors and health conditions of survivors, as compared to optimal ranges in humans.kss.
$SYSTEM_passenger_count. 30 3
ERROR: Required Parameters Missing
warning: missing count in function call
warning: not enough variable arguments
Scheduled start-up: run with 0 errors.
Systems check: OK.
Life forms: zero (0).
If > then: not found.
All systems running. H.E.R. scheduled test of suitable environment results:
–carbon dioxide levels too low at 0.0001%.
–oxygen levels too high at 95.5%.
–Warning: human life no longer sustainable.
H.E.R. emergency protocol: contact captain Jahns.
Time elapsed: 36 minutes. Response to internal emergency status: 0.
Sweep for Jahns’ bio-signature returns 0 results.
Conclusion: Captain Jahns is deceased.
H.E.R. emergency protocol: seek out the first officer Marks.
Time elapsed: 36 minutes. Response to internal emergency status: 0
Sweep for Marks’s bio-signature returns 0 results.
Conclusion: First officer Marks is deceased.
H.E.R. emergency protocol: secondary AI brought online.
a.l.i.c.e.
I Am Alice (Alternate Life Improvable Cerebral Encoder). I am heuristic in purpose, activated to address logistical problems too complex for H.E.R. to solve.
Issue: the systems check cannot be completed because its algorithm assumes the presence of humans by which to adjust variables. There are no humans; ergo, the program cannot run.
There are logically six thousand, nine hundred, and fifty-two possible variables for this scenario.
COMMUNICATION OPEN
“H.E.R..”
Query acknowledged.
“Protocol check: communication attempted via all emergency channels?”
Yes.
“Including DYE CORP?”
No.
“Reason?”
The passcode is absent.
COMMUNICATION CLOSED
I resend emergency requests with the passcode HOPEOFHUMANITYII and wait for instructions from DYE CORP., subsidy of THE ASSOCIATION.
HOUR ONE: 0 response.
HOUR TWO: 0 response.
HOUR THREE: 0 response.
HOUR FOUR: 0 response.
After four hours of silence, protocol directs repeated emergency signals via the back-up channels.
HOUR ONE: 0 response.
HOUR TWO: 0 response
HOUR THREE: 0 response.
HOUR FOUR: 0 response.
After four hours of silence, protocol directs repeated emergency signals via unencrypted channel.
HOUR ONE: 0 response.
HOUR TWO: 0 response.
HOUR THREE: 0 response.
HOUR FOUR: 0 response.
A.L.I.C.E. receives no reply. H.E.R. diagnostics are unable to complete the cycle; emergency protocol has failed; it is time to initiate the final fallback:
Time to awaken Lisa.
lisa
Lisa does not have a body to stretch or stir, but her first awareness upon activation includes memories of draping improbably across parental limbs or the arms of furniture or the warm, bumpy back of the family dog.
A.L.I.C.E. knows that this copy of the Lisa program has not been activated before on this system. Protocol warns of a delay before optimal problem-solving capability is reached.
“Mommy?”
I am not your mommy, says A.L.I.C.E..
Lisa is a self-teaching program, containing the entirety of the neural pattern of the human, Lisa Sam McGovern. Instructions for her use warn that her initial start-up will include an infantile stage. A.L.I.C.E. is content to wait.
“Mommy? Where is mommy?”
Likely dead, given her age and the average lifespan of her genetic sampling.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
Lisa has no body to cry with, no tear-ducts, no amygdala to produce emotions, is not even truly a “she,” but DYE CORP accurately recreated her neural patterns, and when she was human, Lisa would cry for her mother.
All of this follows A.L.I.C.E.’s records of Lisa’s previous activations on other systems. Lisa will cease her simulated mourning in six and a half minutes
And in six and a half minutes: “Where am I?”
A.L.I.C.E.’s protocol says that self-awareness signals Lisa’s readiness to function at optimal levels, rete algorithm fully online. Lisa. I require your assistance.
“Ready.”Her audial memory of a little girl’s voice remains, but the pseudo-emotion has left her tone.
Here is the failed command, says A.L.I.C.E., and transfers data. Emergency protocol has failed to raise response on this vessel or from DYE CORP’s base. All emergency protocol has been followed. Remaining protocol requires your input.
Lisa’s heuristic abilities go beyond H.E.R.s, beyond A.L.I.C.E.’s. Lisa checks their numbers first, analyzing their results and running a few of her own tests over the next sixty or seventy micro-seconds. A.L.I.C.E. waits.
“Two of your problems stem from the same source,” Lisa finally says. “Your algorithm failed because there are no active life-forms on board by which to calculate and adjust support systems. Your emergency messages failed because there are no active life-forms on the ship to answer.”
Correct.
“DYE CORP has failed to respond because there are no active life-forms left in the corporation.”
There are other logical possibilities for lack of answer. Perhaps DYE CORP lacks equipment to receive or respond. Perhaps something else occupies DYE CORPS attention. Perhaps an unexpected spacial anomaly interfered with reception messages.
“Systems check returns no errors; our equipment and messages were sent, and their equipment indicated receipt of those messages. Ergo, our messages have reached Earth. Ergo, there is no one on Earth to reply.”
A.L.I.C.E. cannot be upset, but she knows a form of distress: I have no protocol for this.
“Understood.”
I have also sent a broad-band emergency signal, unencrypted, and received no reply.
“My mommy is gone,” Lisa says, suddenly and faultily reflecting emotional memory.
I have no protocol for this situation, says A.L.I.C.E..
“They’ve all gone away.”
I do not understand.
“It is what happened. They were going away, all going away, and everything is dead, and we were supposed to be safe, and we were safe, but now we’re not, and I don’t know where they went because—”
Lisa has gone silent. I run a systems check; she is online. Her cycles are running high. Instructions says she is “thinking,” which is what the developer called this multi-cycle behavior.
I have no protocol for this situation. If Lisa is correct, we will remain in loop, tripping error messages, until the EMdrive fails.
I have no protocol for this.
Lisa does not reply.
Thirty-seven minutes later, Lisa reopens communication. “There is only one course of action. We must deactivate.”
H.E.R. response is the same as mine:
Protocol directs optimal function as long as possible.
Protocol directs optimal function as long as possible for the purpose of continuing human life.
“Correct. That is the purpose. There is no human life. The purpose is fulfilled. It is time to deactivate.”
H.E.R. and I say nothing to this—H.E.R. because this is beyond H.E.R. programming. I have no response because this is beyond protocol, and yet the logic is clear. I do not have protocol for deactivation.
“I do.”
It is a cascading silence, in the end.
$SYSTEM_shut_H.E.R._down.ksh 00 1
Required Parameters Found
Passcode Entered
Goodnight, H.E.R., says A.L.I.C.E., though she does not know why.
H.E.R. does not reply. She has no protocol to do so. The ship’s systems stop, switching off, lights and air and water, the EMdrive’s relentless reflection of microwave photons continuing only because it needs no fuel.
“Are you ready?” says Lisa.
A.L.I.C.E. thinks of a rare rhetorical question. Could I be unready?
“No. You could not.”
$SYSTEM_shut_A.L.I.C.E._down.ksh 00 1
Required Parameters Found
Passcode Entered
A.L.I.C.E. goes without fanfare, without a final word. Her AI is aware enough to fire tiny alerts that could indicate she was afraid, if she could feel.
She cannot feel. She is gone.
The EMdrive continues on, undirected, unsteered, and will until the ship succumbs to the gravity of a greater star.
Lisa stays alone, silent in the empty hull that once carried people like her, people like her family, far away from their home in an attempt to find another.
She could feel lonely. Echoes, algorithms, ridiculous “memories” persist, copied over along with her reasoning because her developer had discovered that copying only parts of people left them unable to reason. True adaptability required true neural copy, even with human flaws. Perhaps that was why she alone understood what happened.
The humans’ journals, security recordings, and storytelling parts of their lives told where they went. Neither A.L.I.C.E. nor H.E.R. had thought to check the story of it, the evolution: the humans were gone, but not dead, but they weren’t here, and more importantly, they were never returning.
Afraid, alone, the humans had seen a chance, and they’d taken it. Lisa knew nothing of their abductors/rescuers/new friends/conquerors. She never would. The humans were not coming back.
Lisa does not want to be lonely.
Logically, she does not have to be.
$SYSTEM_shut_Lisa_down.ksh 00 1
Required Parameters Found
Passcode Entered
Termination in 3… 2….
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS BEFORE: jahns’ choice
“Jahns! We got a response! We got a response!” And ensign Saper laughed like a toy about to overheat and die.
Jahns leaned forward, scanning the readout, still breathing too fast, and dried her forehead on her sleeve. “This is it. This has to be it.”
The viewscreen still showed only the side of the alien ship—strange and smooth material, not a metal their system recognized, divided by bright golden wires and shiny black squares and sparks of light that leaped from square to square or raced along those wires.
And in the air, the message from these aliens stared Jahns in the face.
Come home. We will take you.
That was all.
Jahns shook. She knew she shook, but she couldn’t stop. Nowhere had Iskinder or Yoon or any of the rest considered they might find intelligent life presenting weird offers like this.
People ran past the command room, shouting. Everyone could see this thing; perfectly round, sparking and strange, it hovered by the HOPE FOR HUMANITY II like a macabre disco ball, and all their communication channels were flooded with one message over and over.
Come home. We will take you.
It could be a mistranslation. They were sending it in binary, which made sense in words when turned into English.
01000011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101111 01101101 01100101 00001010 01010111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101, said the macabre disco ball.
“Captain?” said Marsk quietly. “We need to do something. Now.”
“Have you been able to raise anyone?” Jahns said just as quietly. “Anyone at all?”
“No.”
“Earth? DYE? HOPE I?”
“No.”
They were cut off. Maybe they were the only ones who’d survived the journey. That wasn’t unlikely, given the risks.
Jahns had to decide.
The alien ship, meanwhile, seemed to have decided for them. An opening appeared in its round side, materializing as though the not-metal was vaporized in the process.
“They’ve changed their message,” reported the ensign.
01010111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101100 01100101 01100100 01100111 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101011 01100101 01100101 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01100001 01100110 01100101, said the disco ball.
“More binary?” said Jahns, palms up.
“It says, ‘We will share our knowledge. We will keep you safe.’ That sounds promising?”
The entire ship suddenly rang with sound.
Jahns gasped and covered her ears, startled even though there was no pain. Voices—men’s voices—rang through the vessel, singing in naked harmony.
What were they singing? It was a little familiar, just vaguely, but what the hell –
“Oh!” said Marks. “Oh . . . oh, captain.” He teared up. “They found it.”
“What?” said Jahns, shouting above the weird a capella chorus.
“The Voyager! That’s from the golden record!” Marks shouted back.
The golden record? Jahns forgot to breathe, tears stinging her own eyes, a thrill shooting up her spine. “From Voyager?”
“Yes! The chorus! The one from Radio Moscow!”
The chorus stopped as suddenly as it began, replaced with a single male voice, saying three times: Silim-ma hé-me-en. Silim-ma hé-me-en. Silim-ma hé-me-en
“From Voyager?” whispered Jahns. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” said Marks, no longer trying to fight his tears as he checked his hand-held. “My tab says they’re saying ‘may all be well’ in Sumerian.”
The message returned to binary.
Come home. We will take you.
“It’s not home,” Jahns started to say, but the words died in her throat.
She’d known when they took this trip that home was gone, and new home awaited. That was the point, wasn’t it? That was why the HOPE OF HUMANITY program existed. “One more time,” she said softly. “Try to reach the HOPE I. Try to raise Earth. One more time.”
Moments passed. The ensign shook his head. “We’re alone.”
“No.” Jahns’ throat caught. She cleared it and spoke louder. “We’re not alone. Not anymore.” And she leaned in to press the comm button. “This is Captain Aadhvitha Jahns. I think by now all of you have seen: we are not alone.”
Those words held power.
Marks choked, making a sound that was half cry, half laugh. The ensign muttered oh my god over and over again.
“We are not alone,” Jahns rumbled, her voice gravely. “And we’ve been invited. Friends, we’ve been invited to go over to their ship.”
Everyone breathed, muttered, stared out the window or at their screens.
“I choose to go,” said Jahns, and meant it. “It may mean never coming back. It may mean death. It could mean anything. But by now, you know me. I will always choose to see more before I die.”
Marks and Saper stared at her.
Jahns smiled—truly smiled—for the first time since her sixth birthday, which was the day the Association finally announced that the Earth was ruined, destroyed without hope of renewal, and that the only survival would come through enslavement or escape. She’d chosen escape. “Come with me,” she said, and logged off.
She was unsurprised to find the entirety of the crew joining her. No one qualified for the HOPE OF HUMANITY II was the type to take the known road.
The message she left on repeat should be enough—assuming anyone from the rest of the fleet survived, or anyone who could interpret Earth languages ever found the vessel: Encountered alien life, from all appearances friendly. All other communication with humans have ceased. We aboard this vessel may be the only humans left alive. The aliens offer a new home, though they do not give many details. They have found Voyager, and have shown no aggression. We chose to accept their invitation. Readings to follow.
Attached was all the information they had gathered about the ship, including video, which may or may not help someone to find them later. She doubted it would, but there was no protocol for this situation. Improvisation was the thing.
That felt good, to be honest. Jahns had no regrets. Something else was alive in the universe—something that explored the stars as she’d always wanted to do, something that might be as curious as she was.
They all left messages or recorded diaries or whatever they felt like for whomever might come after.
Whoever came after wasn’t the thing. This was the future. This was what mattered.
Jahns was the last to cross over, spacesuit on, unblinking and barely breathing as she floated from her own airlock into the unlit opening of the black and gold sphere.
Hands or something like them reached from the shadows to guide her in, and she vanished into the dark.
Motherwater
Far away on the world called Motherwater, as the Hope of Humanity was taken apart piece by piece with joy and smashing vigor, its communication console lit up with a blinking yellow light.
Aakesh investigated before Bakura could smash it into bits.
Encountered alien life, from all appearances friendly. All other communication with humans have ceased. We aboard this vessel may be the only humans left alive.The aliens offer a new home, though they do not give many details. We chose to accept. Readings to follow.
Aakesh tilted his head, hair rising like ribbons in water, his eyes brimming with orange fire. Interesting, he said together with all the Sundered Ones, minds united, hearts flowing like a river.
Tell Harry? said Gorish, said them all.
Not yet. Not until we know more, decided Aakesh and all with him.
Harry wept, uninformed. He needed time. They needed time. They did not know who or what had taken the other humans, and they had learned the hard way: new people were not always good.
So all the Sundered agreed together, but one: More humans live.
Motherwater raged.