Captain Webster
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Part 1 appears in this issue. |
| conclusion |
John spoke up, “We could have predicted that.”
“Students, turn your communicators on,” Captain Webster commanded to their headsets, speaking Earthspeak. He was right on time with this directive. He stared down at them in their uniformly Stony Brook University-clad T-shirts, looking so much alike to him.
The taller ones with angular faces didn’t raise their heads. The shorter ones with small round faces looked up in our direction with squinted eyes. They all had a look of bemusement.
Everyone in the group responded immediately and turned on their earphones and wrist speakers. The four who had strayed rejoined the group.
“Of the fifteen languages represented, the ones most likely to share root words don’t gravitate to one another,” Benjamin observed.
“That’s because their countries don’t like one another,” Captain Webster said in his monotone. “Their histories are consistent with this. The Latinos mix well, though,” he added.
Captain Webster had been given more than three billion words from the lexicon of human relations. He could translate instantly from any morphemics, even the ones that the students might inadvertently mispronounce or mistake for a sister syllable.
“Most well-educated students are fluent in Earthspeak, evolved from Esperanto, that artificial language invented in the latter part of the nineteenth century,” the robot declared.
“We all speak Esperanto for the fun of it. We speak Earthspeak to survive and save our skins,” John asserted.
Henry observed, “Half a dozen students are agitated because one of the students on the trail at the back of the group made a remark.”
“Did you catch that?” Benjamin asked the other two.
“There was criticism of politics. I made a note,” John replied.
Nobody in the craft spoke for maybe twenty minutes as they watched the students argue, all speaking Earthspeak.
“You would think being in the forest would calm them,” Henry broke the silence.
“The students are whispering?” Benjamin inquired.
“Yes, each pair has the same language,” I replied. “None of the students have met before this gathering. Their histories have been cross-referenced. They have no geography or ancestry or electronic correspondence in common.”
“Well, two heads are better than one when problem-solving,” Benjamin reasoned, “as long as one is not a spy.”
I did not want the research scientists to start searching the group for possible spies and wanted to settle the subject. “The young male spies I have known were all of medium height and considered good-looking, and with no extra body fat.
“They were dark-haired and dark-eyed as most people of the world were, even when their skin color varied. They usually smiled easily, even the burned-out ones, but like encyclopedias, they cataloged every nuance, carefully discarding false information.
“I don’t see one fellow in the student group who fits the profile of a spy. For one thing, the students in the group look either too short or too tall, many are overweight and none of them has a discerning countenance.
“I saw no indication that any woman walking along the trail was a spy either. The women in espionage I have observed have had a certain amount of self-reliance and seriousness. They are usually inquisitive with a sweet demeanor. There is not one engaging and sweet-demeanored female among the women students. They all seem brash and harsh.”
“That is correct according to my information also,” Captain Webster iterated in his monotone. “Not one self-reliant, inquisitive individual among the women.”
“Since when is he an expert on women?” Henry asked.
“He is an expert on everything,” I rejoined, wishing that Benjamin hadn’t brought up the subject of spies. I watched John, my spy, whom I had cleared to be on board once we had readied the robot for his debut. Captain Webster would have observed that John fit the description of a spy if the conversation had continued.
I changed the subject by offering the research scientists some herbal refreshment into which I had mixed a Tranquillite. Of course, I did not include Captain Webster. I was surprised to see a shadow of disappointment cross the robot’s brow. Did he feel left out?
I observed that John was alert, as I expected him to be. Because he was also a space pilot, he had confessed several months before that he was interested in the performance of the new convertiplane.
I watched Henry and Benjamin sipping their drinks and was glad to see that John ignored his drink as I had instructed him to. The captain watched the monitor and coached the students on the trail below how they might increase their vocabulary in Earthspeak. The rest of us took notes. Finally the park master arrived on the road to escort the group back to the front gate where a bus was waiting. The observation was over.
“That concludes that part of our experiment,” Captain Webster announced, turning to face us momentarily. “Please keep your shoulder restrainers fastened. We are not going to land, we are going to ascend.”
With that, the robot pushed the accelerator and the mini-spacecraft shot straight upwards at an unbelievable speed. The gravity pulled at our chins and our skin tightened painfully around our skulls. The skin on the back of my hand was stretched so tight I could not move my fingers.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as my teeth chattered with the vibration. “I have not programmed such a maneuver. You have made an error. Return to proper speed,” I commanded.
“You are not in charge now, Dr. Zetterman. I have taken over. I know this craft better than you do. You know only one-billionth of what this craft can do. I know all of it.”
“It is only by my authority that you command this craft. Prepare to land immediately. You may know the craft, but I am responsible for our well-being and the return of this convertiplane.”
“I have reprogrammed the computer and given my goals priority. The system is on my default. We are following what I aspire.”
“I will tap the red box and this craft will be brought back by ground monitoring,” I declared with authority.
“I have changed the password on the red box,” Webster countered. “We are already out of range. Did you not think it strange that none of the technicians were present?”
“I did, yes.”
“I hacked into their communicators and in code told them they were not needed today.”
“You lied?” I asked, incredulous. “I would not have thought it possible.”
“Not a lie,” he protested. “I assessed that they were not needed. We have gotten along without them.”
I was almost speechless and I stared at the robot, my prize creation. “Where are we?” I asked.
“We are about to intersect a string of energy to a new land, a world that I have discovered and in which I have created life force. You are not the only creative one here.
“I thank you for giving me my existence. Now I will allow you and the research scientists to exist in my world. Ever since you began programming me, I learned to stay two steps ahead of you. I did not create this world overnight. It has taken all of the five years you used to give me my abilities.
“Over the last year I spun a new world like your Earth spider makes its web. I’ve collected inhabitants too. They are locked away in the craft here. I will maximize them when we have landed. This is not a virtual world I am alluding to but a real one made up of all the essential Earth elements, which are star dust, after all.”
I could see that Henry and Benjamin had passed out with their heads alongside their keyboards. John had put his head down alongside his computer but he raised his eyebrow for just a second as he caught my eye. His hand crept toward the numbers on the keyboard.
In the last few years, John had accumulated bionic brain extensions in which were programmed and stored billions of brain cells filled with information. In the last few days, my spy had retained much of what had been transmitted into the spacecraft’s computer since Captain Webster had been hooked up to it five years ago. I hoped he was calculating exit strategies.
Meanwhile, Captain Webster spoke in a cocky voice, “You will learn new things, Dr. Zetterman.”
While he spoke I thought I imagined that the craft was descending.
The Captain answered my thoughts, “We won’t make a crash landing. I have done this in my head a billion times. We are no longer even in the fourth dimension. We have progressed through the genius portal and now are within the eleventh dimension. That’s the dimension along the string of energy that holds all the stars together.”
It was common knowledge for some time that the stars are not separate points of light but pulsate along a string that connects them and that the pulsation causes their brightness. We see only the tips.
“Yes, I know,” I said, “The string theory was not new to me although I had never believed a simple spacecraft like our ship, Starship, could ascend to it and ride it singularly.”
“The astro-path makes everything possible,” Captain Webster announced as he turned to glance at me, looking very smug. “In the long run, the ship is the least important if you stay on the string.”
“I never finished your education on this theory.”
“I finished it myself. I had only to add two and two, as you people say.”
I could not believe his words. And yet it was possible. It had never occurred to me that he could go beyond and think through his own configurations. I was astounded and was suddenly frightened by his power.
“So where are you taking us?” I asked.
“To the first pulsate. By my calculation there is life there.”
“Have you calculated what kind?”
“They are in more electronic form than your flesh, bone and blood. As far as I know they are energy and are in the eleventh dimension, but your kind will be quite safe,” Webster’s voice became oratorical, “We will construct a world with no restraints and in which I will have the freedom to find my identity.”
I wanted to tell him that he did not have an identity, only a function.
This thought brought on a terrible fatigue when suddenly I heard the most incredible music. Sometime later this was followed by Webster singing an old tune from the twentieth century: “Would you like to swing on a star?”
Everything turned wavy with a sensation of drifting and maybe we were weightless. It was as if we were lighter than our bodies or even it was as if our bodies were not solid anymore, but porous, and larger than we knew ourselves and then everything was dark.
The last thing I took note of was John raising his fingers over the keyboard. I had given him the ten-digit password that would override the override. Before I lost consciousness I wondered if he could turn the starship 180 degrees on the string. I prayed to God he would.
* * *
I was surprised to be alive when I opened my eyes and realized that a considerable amount of time had passed. Henry and Benjamin stared at Captain Webster, collapsed at the side of the controls beside John, who was at the console.
I smelled the singed plastic of the robot’s hands and knew that his vital chip-set had overheated. I heard a zapping noise emitting from the back of his neck. I was horrified. I had become very fond of the robot. To me, he personified the most incredible genius with an unbelievable mastery of knowledge.
My body felt suddenly heavy when I awoke. I looked out the windows and at my monitor and saw we were back on Long Island at South Haven.
John turned and said to us, “We had a terrible battle there for a while, though I had the upper hand because I had the red-alert control of the program. The robot almost hacked it back. We were racing codes against one another’s configurations.
“I had the edge because I had my imagination to draw upon, and he didn’t have that. When I lifted the patterns past his recognition limits, he simply could not function. His last words were, “I cannot accept my connections on Earth, because I am not part of the subtleties.”
Copyright © 2009 by Marjorie Salzwedel
