Rogue

Rogue

1

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. No one can hear you fart either, and that seems like a good trade-off to me. Those government weenies could've made this sausage casing they call a ship more comfortable, no doubt. But better tight than big enough for a co-pilot. They quickly recognized that I don't play well with others.

I would've been fine taking this trip all alone. Still, the fancy head-shrinkers back on Luna insisted that I have "meaningful interactions." That's how I ended up with Wilson, the top-of-the-line, cutting edge, most advanced AI ever created. Unlike the volleyball in Cast Away this Wilson just wouldn't shut up.

No, I didn't name him. Software developers are forever trying to one-up each other with their cleverness.

"Ah, Good Morning, Jack. It seems like you're finally awake." The voice of Patrick Stewart filled the cockpit. Speak of the devil.

"You know I've been up for five minutes Jean Luc, and no, this voice isn't any better. You're still annoying."

He'd been experimenting with different voices. Took him long enough. I'd been berating him about his audible interface since we launched. It took him two sleep cycles to finally stop calling me sir. He'd already tried Sean Connery, Marlon Brando, and for some reason, Kermit the Frog. Do AIs know how to take a shot in the dark?

"Yes, of course, my sensors detected the microsecond you regained consciousness," Wilson continued with the Patrick Stewart impression. "But I thought you would appreciate some quiet time before we get to work."

"Sticking to your guns, eh? Alright, let's get started."

Wilson brought the lights up, and my bed transformed as it rotated me to a seated position. I had been flat for months during my most recent hibernation, and the seat made a squealing protest as it started moving.

"That's not the greatest sound I've ever heard," I said.

"On it, boss. Diagnostic complete. Lubrication applied. I assess the chair life has decreased cycles by 2%, which—"

"I got it."

If I didn't cut him off, he could go about my squeaking seat for hours. If there was one area where AIs still had a lot of room to grow, it was in predicting the kind of information a human would find interesting or important. It's those kinds of things that worry the decision makers back home and prevent them from relying entirely on AIs, especially when the mission is way out in the Oort Cloud and light speed is too slow for practical remote control.

As my seat finished its rotation, my hair brushed along the overhead. My bead head must've been fantastic. At 6'2", my body only just fit inside the ship. If I'd been any taller, a trip like this wouldn't have been an option for me. Then the judge's sentence of a long solo space trip for duties to be determined later or ten years of labor at Ceres Penal Colony would've had its options reduced by half.

I rubbed the months of sleep out of my eyes and stretched as best I could from my seated position. My back and neck rewarded me with satisfying cracks, and I turned my attention to the ship's status panel. It took me only a few seconds to realize something wasn't right.

"Wilson."

"Yes, boss?"

"What's going on? Why did you wake me? We're still two weeks away from the next checkpoint. And if there is some emergency, why haven't you told me about it yet?"

"Well, boss, my best practices programming advises that AIs should wait for at least fifteen minutes after waking a human before presenting any decision-making tasks to them."

"Scrub that, update your protocols. I want bad news right away. Got it?" I said. I was grinding my teeth as I spoke, trying not to yell at the stupid AI. Not because I worried about its feelings, I was pretty sure it didn't have any. But, it would feel too much like a man screaming at himself while locked in his car. And that would be crazy.

"Protocols updated, boss. I have removed the time delay upon waking and—"

"Wilson, out with it. Why did you wake me?"

"Oh, right, sorry. The sensors have detected an anomaly that will negatively impact our flight path."

"What kind of anomaly? Please tell me I get to blast some space junk."

"Unfortunately, no. Besides, I could have dealt with space junk, as you call it, without interrupting your hibernation. This anomaly will require a maneuvering decision. The sensors have detected a gravity well."

I was no astrophysicist. I'd been sent on this mission because I was pretty handy with machinery. I typically used my skills to disassemble and remove the most valuable and transportable parts of those machines. Hence my sentence. But even to me, gravity well sounded bad.

"What do you mean by a gravity well, like a black hole?" I asked.

"Not in this case. A black hole is a gravity well for almost everything. But from the perspective of Earth, Sol is a gravity well, and from the perspective of Luna, the Earth is a gravity well."

"Okay, from the perspective of my tiny one-man ship, everything is a gravity well. Why is this one an emergency?"

"Because Jack, this gravity well is uncharted. It's crossing our flight path, and it's the size of Saturn."