What the Computer Asked
The alarm rang in clangs of five quick bells once every half hour. It was not urgent because it did not jolt Kopper’s personal wrist alarm. It took three hours for Kopper to notice the alarm. She plunked down in the chair in front of the main computer. The chair was barely padded anymore but any stuffing that had come loose had been swept away by the bots so there were no dust clouds or small bits of fluff emitted when Kopper landed in the chair. Kopper herself was worn to a hint of grayness and gauntness in her skin, but she was also maintained to a muscular body that let no bits jiggle with excess mass. Kopper had mastered weightlessness to the extent of not only dancing but walking, sitting, and even a plunking motion into a chair.
A yellow rimmed box was on the computer screen and it blinked, “Time to Return to Earth.” Smaller text at the bottom of the screen read, “Press any key to give instructions to computer on how to proceed.” Like many other sun catcher crews before her, Kopper stared at the screen. She knew she should be happy, joyful or something along those lines, but that wasn’t what she felt. Behind her, she could hear the synthesizer in her quarters dolling out her meal so she left to eat. Once at her personal round table with her tray of food she just sat idly for several minutes, afraid to move or think. Then she started playing with her peas, they rolled around the tray in loops that included going between the tray and the table since the tray had begun to edge away without Kopper re-velcroing it to the table more securely. The velcro had seen better days and Kopper wondered if she would like to see its ending days. She had thought about the return to earth eagerly (most of the time), but now that the return was possible she questioned why she would be eager to go back and if she should go back. This was her home and had been for twice as long as she had been on earth. Many crews had decided nothing waited for them on earth and so had pressed the key on the computer and told it to continue operating as it had before. A fw screens were never answered since the crew had already perished. And a few screens were given the command to return home. Kopper sat at the table long enough for another meal to be ready. When she realized this she also realized that the only reason she was sitting at the table was her tether that she had automatically attached earlier, otherwise she would be in the same state as her food. Her first meal was floating in all sorts of places. She knew she had to eat regardless of her decision so she snatched what she could from the air, quickly downed the other tray of food, and set the bots to vacuuming up the pieces of the meal she hadn’t caught.
Instead of returning to the main computer she found herself standing in front of the picture of her parents. It was barely discernable as a picture of anything anymore but she knew its lines well. They weren’t going to be there. Who would meet her? Would anyone care that she had returned? Shouldn’t she go home and enjoy earth? She could learn to write on paper. Maybe she could get a cat. She might join a community choir. What had changed on earth? Would anyone remember her parents? What did God want her to do? Did she have something on earth waiting for her?
This last question finally propelled her to the main computer. She strapped herself down and began the process of going back to earth. Perhaps she hadn’t listened to the lecture film on “the return” as closely as she should have so she read and re-read all the departure procedures twice. Two months later ‘Squilla’s rocket engine burned its last fuel and propelled her small disk toward a place where the blue planet would be in its orbit eight months from the. Kopper tried not to look for earth in the windows because she knew it wouldn’t be in sight for a while yet, but every time she passed a window it still drew her like a magnet (even when it was facing the wrong direction). The preparation months were busy–clamps to disconnect, hatches to seal, computers to reprogram to run better in auto-modes. She had no time to contemplate her decision and did not write but a few hasty sentences. The actual journey was slow to her. She had waited thirty years patiently but now every second seemed to drag. Several time indicators now told her of how time passed, as if she had to remind herself that time was now relevant. There was a countdown timer to when she would reach the moon, a count up timer from when she had decided to return, a count up timer for how long she had been in space, a count down timer to time to back on earth, the current time in the place where she had grown up.
Though she had time to contemplate much and perhaps much to say, she failed to record anything in her journal but, “I can’t write, there is too much and not enough to say.” No longer could she write with the release of knowing that what she wrote was for herself; now there was a distinct possibility that someone would read what she wrote. During the trip she did start to erase her journal and then restored it; she would want to keep it in case there was nothing better to read on earth and she couldn’t remember all she had written and wanted to have it as reference. So it was kept, although she did put passwords on everything.
Finally, the blue orb grew in a window and became big enough to engender real excitement in Kopper. Not even the crummy food could quash the rise of butterflies in her stomach each time she saw the blue. After all it was blue, real blue, not just slightly lighter dark sky. And she could see green, too. The moon looked inviting too, despite its lack of color. Gray dust is interesting too when you haven’t see anything new in ages. So she landed gently on the moon with a small puff of dust that settled around the landing pad next to the buildings. She had verified the signal was sent to earth that she was returning and the progress updates were also sent, but had not received any word back in acknowledgment. This wasn’t worth noting until now in Kopper’s mind. She was used to no communication and didn’t really expect anyone to even bother sending a note her way saying something as trivial as, “OK” even. Now, with the dust settling the station looked awfully barren.
In fact she went to the computer to try to determine something, she didn’t know what. She reviewed the procedures and some people were supposed to be here to greet her, they were supposed to come out and attach a pod to the ship that would carry her indoors. But there was nothing out of any of the windows. Next she went back to the beginning of the instructions of how to return to earth and double checked everything. Yes, she had done everything as requested. With only a small crack in her voice she tried to send a live, oral transmission to the station, then to earth. No response.
With painstaking deliberateness she spent the next two days verifying everything again and again. Finally she thought to check the Net. Her music downloads had automatically continued, but she hadn’t really noticed the change in the types of music that she was being fed since she was content to pick through the new and find just the ones she wanted to keep and still listened to the old music she still had on file. If she had compared just the old music with the new music she might have noticed that something on earth had changed, but she hadn’t done this. So when she finally looked at the news sites on the Net she found that earth was totally different in ways she could have never imagined possible. Nobody was at the controls at any Art station. The designation as a citizen of the country had been abolished and most of their infrastructure had been abandoned long ago. The sun catcher program was public knowledge, she knew this because it was occasionally referenced in scorn. What would she do? Kopper had expected to return to earth as an honored person, even if everyone didn’t know why they should honor her at least she would have some respect for serving her country and people in an unknown way. Now she didn’t know how she would be received. They could kill her.
It was another two days before she had figured out what she was going to do and how to do it. She couldn’t go back to her life as a sun catcher crew, there was no fuel to get back out there and there was no way to re-dock with the energy collection units even if she had been able to get back. This made her weep; she had made the wrong decision, she had been so happy out there and then had to go and ruin it all by returning to a “home” that never existed. There were only two options left: die on the moon or try to get to earth. As horrible as the planet sounded, it didn’t sound as bad as dying up here and not finding out if anything good existed on earth. So she scrounged the ships computer for knowledge on the systems available to her.
There was the emergency pod. According to the computer it could withstand re-entry in the earth’s atmosphere but that still made her nervous. After all the pod was old, the atmosphere still as dense as ever, and she didn’t have a clue how to do anything related to the pod. It was another week before she got the pod, herself, and her very small bundle of things ready to go. Her courage nearly failed her and it was only the dwindling energy on board her ship and the music in her ear phones that drove her to get into the pod and press eject.
A yellow rimmed box was on the computer screen and it blinked, “Time to Return to Earth.” Smaller text at the bottom of the screen read, “Press any key to give instructions to computer on how to proceed.” Like many other sun catcher crews before her, Kopper stared at the screen. She knew she should be happy, joyful or something along those lines, but that wasn’t what she felt. Behind her, she could hear the synthesizer in her quarters dolling out her meal so she left to eat. Once at her personal round table with her tray of food she just sat idly for several minutes, afraid to move or think. Then she started playing with her peas, they rolled around the tray in loops that included going between the tray and the table since the tray had begun to edge away without Kopper re-velcroing it to the table more securely. The velcro had seen better days and Kopper wondered if she would like to see its ending days. She had thought about the return to earth eagerly (most of the time), but now that the return was possible she questioned why she would be eager to go back and if she should go back. This was her home and had been for twice as long as she had been on earth. Many crews had decided nothing waited for them on earth and so had pressed the key on the computer and told it to continue operating as it had before. A fw screens were never answered since the crew had already perished. And a few screens were given the command to return home. Kopper sat at the table long enough for another meal to be ready. When she realized this she also realized that the only reason she was sitting at the table was her tether that she had automatically attached earlier, otherwise she would be in the same state as her food. Her first meal was floating in all sorts of places. She knew she had to eat regardless of her decision so she snatched what she could from the air, quickly downed the other tray of food, and set the bots to vacuuming up the pieces of the meal she hadn’t caught.
Instead of returning to the main computer she found herself standing in front of the picture of her parents. It was barely discernable as a picture of anything anymore but she knew its lines well. They weren’t going to be there. Who would meet her? Would anyone care that she had returned? Shouldn’t she go home and enjoy earth? She could learn to write on paper. Maybe she could get a cat. She might join a community choir. What had changed on earth? Would anyone remember her parents? What did God want her to do? Did she have something on earth waiting for her?
This last question finally propelled her to the main computer. She strapped herself down and began the process of going back to earth. Perhaps she hadn’t listened to the lecture film on “the return” as closely as she should have so she read and re-read all the departure procedures twice. Two months later ‘Squilla’s rocket engine burned its last fuel and propelled her small disk toward a place where the blue planet would be in its orbit eight months from the. Kopper tried not to look for earth in the windows because she knew it wouldn’t be in sight for a while yet, but every time she passed a window it still drew her like a magnet (even when it was facing the wrong direction). The preparation months were busy–clamps to disconnect, hatches to seal, computers to reprogram to run better in auto-modes. She had no time to contemplate her decision and did not write but a few hasty sentences. The actual journey was slow to her. She had waited thirty years patiently but now every second seemed to drag. Several time indicators now told her of how time passed, as if she had to remind herself that time was now relevant. There was a countdown timer to when she would reach the moon, a count up timer from when she had decided to return, a count up timer for how long she had been in space, a count down timer to time to back on earth, the current time in the place where she had grown up.
Though she had time to contemplate much and perhaps much to say, she failed to record anything in her journal but, “I can’t write, there is too much and not enough to say.” No longer could she write with the release of knowing that what she wrote was for herself; now there was a distinct possibility that someone would read what she wrote. During the trip she did start to erase her journal and then restored it; she would want to keep it in case there was nothing better to read on earth and she couldn’t remember all she had written and wanted to have it as reference. So it was kept, although she did put passwords on everything.
Finally, the blue orb grew in a window and became big enough to engender real excitement in Kopper. Not even the crummy food could quash the rise of butterflies in her stomach each time she saw the blue. After all it was blue, real blue, not just slightly lighter dark sky. And she could see green, too. The moon looked inviting too, despite its lack of color. Gray dust is interesting too when you haven’t see anything new in ages. So she landed gently on the moon with a small puff of dust that settled around the landing pad next to the buildings. She had verified the signal was sent to earth that she was returning and the progress updates were also sent, but had not received any word back in acknowledgment. This wasn’t worth noting until now in Kopper’s mind. She was used to no communication and didn’t really expect anyone to even bother sending a note her way saying something as trivial as, “OK” even. Now, with the dust settling the station looked awfully barren.
In fact she went to the computer to try to determine something, she didn’t know what. She reviewed the procedures and some people were supposed to be here to greet her, they were supposed to come out and attach a pod to the ship that would carry her indoors. But there was nothing out of any of the windows. Next she went back to the beginning of the instructions of how to return to earth and double checked everything. Yes, she had done everything as requested. With only a small crack in her voice she tried to send a live, oral transmission to the station, then to earth. No response.
With painstaking deliberateness she spent the next two days verifying everything again and again. Finally she thought to check the Net. Her music downloads had automatically continued, but she hadn’t really noticed the change in the types of music that she was being fed since she was content to pick through the new and find just the ones she wanted to keep and still listened to the old music she still had on file. If she had compared just the old music with the new music she might have noticed that something on earth had changed, but she hadn’t done this. So when she finally looked at the news sites on the Net she found that earth was totally different in ways she could have never imagined possible. Nobody was at the controls at any Art station. The designation as a citizen of the country had been abolished and most of their infrastructure had been abandoned long ago. The sun catcher program was public knowledge, she knew this because it was occasionally referenced in scorn. What would she do? Kopper had expected to return to earth as an honored person, even if everyone didn’t know why they should honor her at least she would have some respect for serving her country and people in an unknown way. Now she didn’t know how she would be received. They could kill her.
It was another two days before she had figured out what she was going to do and how to do it. She couldn’t go back to her life as a sun catcher crew, there was no fuel to get back out there and there was no way to re-dock with the energy collection units even if she had been able to get back. This made her weep; she had made the wrong decision, she had been so happy out there and then had to go and ruin it all by returning to a “home” that never existed. There were only two options left: die on the moon or try to get to earth. As horrible as the planet sounded, it didn’t sound as bad as dying up here and not finding out if anything good existed on earth. So she scrounged the ships computer for knowledge on the systems available to her.
There was the emergency pod. According to the computer it could withstand re-entry in the earth’s atmosphere but that still made her nervous. After all the pod was old, the atmosphere still as dense as ever, and she didn’t have a clue how to do anything related to the pod. It was another week before she got the pod, herself, and her very small bundle of things ready to go. Her courage nearly failed her and it was only the dwindling energy on board her ship and the music in her ear phones that drove her to get into the pod and press eject.
posted by Unknown at 8:55 PM
