Chronicle of Nautilus

Chapter 23: The Letter

“What happened in here?” Tom asked, looking at the younger copy of his old friend.

“I would call it a self-defense,” the new Ermac calmly replied, turned the gun in his palm and extended it, handle forward, to Landau.

Tom took the gun, turned on the safety and gave to one of the operatives passing by them. He then said, “Don’t you think there is something wrong in this picture?”

“Do you speak about that man lying by the old man? He shouldn’t be in here, should he?”

“I was thinking more among the lines of the blood on your shoes and hands.”

“The folks needed my help.”

“You were conveniently walking by with a lase-gun in your hand, heard the shots and—“Tom stopped and listened attentively for the continuation by the new Navigator.

“No, the computer asked me to come. I was studying in the preparation chambers when she told me to get a gun and come here as fast as I could.”

“I see. That’s what I wanted to hear.” Tom paused. “You are free to do whatever you feel to. We will leave in an hour if not less. Thank you for the cooperation, I will brief you the situation the next time we meet. “ Tom extended his hand.

The young man did the same and said, “But she had told everything there is.”

“I believe that she lied.”

Tom walked away, spoke shortly to one of his subordinates and left the room.

He went to an empty, silent kitchen, leaned on a table, took out the comms device and scrolled through the messages and alerts he had missed during all the action today. A title ‘The letter of truth’ on one of the messages caught his attention. He opened the message and checked the sender, it was Ermac. It was sent minutes before his death. The message was long and Tom decided to plop down on a chair.

Dear Tom,

Sorry for the late reply. There are things I want to tell you before I leave. You may have noticed that I have not always been an honest person. With this letter I hope to redeem myself and explain you everything what was left unanswered or untold. Be nice to the man who comes after me and do not judge him for my actions and mistakes.

Just like him, I am just a copy, a copy of the original that lived a few generations before me. I feel that the original was conditioned, trained and brainwashed to become a tool for the mission control that I am now. There are things hidden deep in my subconsciousness, of which I can only speculate – some fail-stop mechanisms that would prevent me straying away from the pat, perhaps. I never told you, but I am not sure if I am capable of making any mistakes at the controls. My head is not much different from a computer when it comes to the calculations. I wouldn’t be surprised if my copies were placed to pilot our sister ships.

During my life, there were times when I understood that my actions were wrong, but it was against my nature to do anything else than what I was supposed to, my will was too weak to resist the instincts. At youth I wanted to raise mountains, serve the mission and do everything it takes to. But with age my will got stronger and I became only a tired washed up, slacking man. It is no surprise that I must be ‘renewed’ from time to time.

You have asked me about the true causes of the blackout a few years ago. To be frank, I don’t know the specific answer myself. The word ‘strange’ would describe the incident the best. We were struck by a powerful energy impulse, waves and frequencies of which, we, humans are incapable of creating on a small scale. This incident was never supposed to happen, as impulses or magnetic storms of any kind are usually reflected by our 'shield’ (the ship radiates EM waves of specific frequencies to meet and break the incoming space storms). So I came to the two most plausible conclusions - the impulse must have traveled at a speed a few times greater than the speed of light and miraculously penetrated the shield or it must have hit us from another dimension. The only thing proved to travel at a faster than light-speed is information, but bursts of information does not cause EMP emissions. Other dimensions as you may know is yet undiscovered territory. 

I do agree with you, there is a high possibility of relation between the accident and the appearance of the terrorist. Many times in my duty I have encountered problems caused by the passengers. But never have they been as annoying as during the last two years. There were some wires cut between the engines and my controls, the air supply to the cooling plant of one of the engines was clogged more than once, some engine operators had died at the most inconvenient moments. Stacy told me she was taking care of things, but in time I wasn’t sure anymore, the problems were not stopping, they were increasing.  She even managed to bring back malicious software to the base from the city networks. Doors were getting shut at times, the lights would turn on and off for no obvious reasons. In time I got tired of Stacy’s lies. She had told that she had ‘taken care of the attacker’ for far too many times for me to keep believing her, so I came to you in hopes that you were going succeed where she had failed.

Please, do not think that she is defective. The only imperfection I have noticed in her is that she only trusts in me and herself only. She had taken good care of me during all the years on board. My substitute should be happy to have such a great maid and protector.

I was thinking for a long time if I should reveal you the true goal of our mission.  From what I know, you are going to stay on this ship till the end of its days, so in time you would find it out anyways.

You see, we are being sent so far for a reason. One of our early space probes had discovered a planet with hostile conditions for human life. It orbits a star 1200 light-years away from us in a habitable zone and is populated by intelligent life-forms.

The first part of our mission is to get there. Our journey is going to take at least 2000 years. The second part is to terra-form the planet, killing all sentient life during the process. The third part is to colonize the planet, establish the jump-gate, test it and make contact with other colonies. They will be allowed to use the orbit of our new planet for future space exploration and colonization towards the center of Milky Way. That way will achieve three goals in one shot.

What I find the most strange in all this is even though I know that destruction of sentient life is wrong, I have a feeling deep inside that I am going commit the genocide the moment we get there with no regrets. Even you are not going to stop me. You may be thinking that you are different from me, but you are not, we both are corrupted deep in our cores, only you were given more freedom. Your training was not so different from mine. You have things hidden deep inside your head as well.

I am sorry to bring you the sad truth. I know that you were always fond of humans and believed that we may change. Do not feel discouraged. Perhaps we can, we may only need a bit more time. The shadow of the mentality of our predecessors is too large for now. I am sure we will be out of its reach after we land.

Can you remember the time when you me and Claire went to the flower gardens on the top floor? I have not felt so relaxed and calm ever since. Do not let the man after me follow the path of loneliness. It was my mistake.

I wish you long and exciting life. Please, remember me for what I was and not for what I have become.

Your friend,

T. Ermac