A Renascence Without Distress
by Charles C. Cole
Over hundreds of years, a long list of deleterious circumstances, many preventable, had made humans extinct on Earth. The Exoplanetary Intelligent Machines Taskforce undertook a holy quest: to search the heavens, find stray specimens and bring them back home to procreate and give civilization another opportunity in the fecund swamps from which it had first crawled out of the water and into the trees.
From my limited perspective, Mother Earth was doing fine on her own, though still shell-shocked. Given a couple of millennia to detox, to rebound from the scars of an abusive relationship, Earth had a solid outlook for a full recovery. However, I was programmed to follow orders and to keep my opinions to myself.
Our best chance was in retracing the historic flightpaths of missing last-century colonists. None had ever returned or even called home. It took years, but time was something my crew had plenty of. And a grand, higher purpose was the engine to our unflagging motivation.
A weak, autonomous radio beacon eventually led us to a deserted moonbase. Scattered manmade debris in orbit led us to a couple of lifeless transport vessels and then, finally, to Sleeping Beauty, namely Turquoise Mandalay. Hers was the only viable cryochamber in a drifting high-tech mausoleum that housed tens of thousands of lost souls.
We brought her back to our ship and thawed her out. How alive was she? We quickly determined: enough to know she was top of the food chain and that robots existed for unending servitude. When she first stirred, though, she wore a cast of anxiety like luminescent face paint.
So she wouldn’t feel outnumbered, I dismissed our well-meaning but inexperienced repair specialists from the medbay before approaching her. “You must have questions, Ms. Mandalay. I assure you, we’re here to help.”
“Who’s in charge?” she asked.
“According to the ship’s manifest, I am.”
“No people?”
“If you mean humans” — I pretended to review carefully a handheld electronic inventory — “we have exactly... one.” I tried a disarming smile.
“Where’s everyone else?” asked Turquoise.
“Alas, they didn’t survive the hardships of space travel. My condolences. I am Captain Horatio Marx. Welcome to The Beagle.” I extended my hand in greeting, but she ignored it.
“Where am I? How did you find me?”
“We simply followed your mission route as it was described in the history books.”
“History?” she asked. “Has it been that long? Is this a rescue or a salvage operation?”
“Both. We’ve been instructed to return survivors to Earth.”
“What? No, not that. You don’t understand, metal man. I volunteered for this trip because I had no one, no love for the unwashed masses. I wanted to start over. Why should I go back?”
“The bad news: something impacted your ship. Its engines are beyond repair. The good news: you have the opportunity and the genetic material to become the mother of the second generation of mankind. Due to a series of unprecedented global catastrophes—”
“The bastards broke it, didn’t they?”
“Not permanently; Earth is well on the way to recovery. The years have been kind. But she is lonely for the patter of little feet.”
“I’m to be a conscripted broodmare?” she asked. “No, thank you.”
“You are the last woman standing,” I explained. “The good news: we recently received a report that there is a man, one. Our orders are to do whatever it takes to rebuild civilization. We now have two of the essential ingredients.”
“I order you to put me back in my sleep chamber. I’d rather drift in space until a better option comes along.”
“Ms. Mandalay—”
“Turquoise.”
“Will you accept me as an equal?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.
“Though I am fully versed in archival data and have a thorough understanding of free will, I have never interacted with something so contrary. Humans created us and left us to fend for ourselves, which we have done; brilliantly, I might add. They had their moment and failed spectacularly. However, they also were honest and visionary enough to consider the future and pave the way for an unconventional rebirth. A renascence, if you will.
“I have an independent synthetic mind and am not limited to obeying commands or the strict confines of morality, though, whenever I have my doubts, which I do now, I take comfort in pretending I must follow dubious instructions.”
“Release me.”
“In honor of those who came before us, and perhaps because we are not endowed with the gift of imagination, we frequently constrain ourselves to mimicking human experience: the counterproductive office politics, the illogical corporate hierarchy, the urge to succeed, the compulsion to punish.”
“What has that to do with me?”
“Nothing. Your brothers and sisters, a team of workaholic inventors, must have had little respect for the arts as you know them. I cannot make sense of music. I cannot draw outside the lines. I cannot daydream of a better world.”
“I’m sorry,” said Turquoise.
I did not believe her. I replied: “I support your sovereignty. If you allow us to harvest some of your eggs, an argument can be made for mission success. However, there will likely be unpleasant consequences.”
“For me?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then let’s do it.”
We left her as we had found her: a metaphor for untapped potential. Or, perhaps, as malcontent incarnate, best left isolated from the perfect society we were planning.
In my research, I have found humans often valued their individual desires before those of their collective. I suspect that individualism that is so self-centered is a sword without a hilt. I am grateful it was omitted from our utilitarian construction. So, perhaps, this mission has proven that I have imagination after all. The future need not be a repeat of the past. We shall see.
Copyright © 2023 by Charles C. Cole
