mysterious emotion.
Finally, the day had arrived. The Albatross took orbit over the planet and studied it for a fortnight. All readings came back favorable and showed that the air was high in oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. Greenery was abundant, water was plentiful and there was some form of life below which seemed animal in nature. There were no detected signs of a higher intelligence or a people living there. The ship could find no trace of any cities or dead civilizations. The planet was perfect.
It took two weeks three days and four hours to shuttle the last of the new colonists to the surface of the planet. Nine had stayed on Albatross during each flight but with each departure she felt the tickings of sadness and loneliness begin to intrude upon her once again.
In the week that followed, she stayed in orbit to monitor progress, to measure success and in her own way, say goodbye. She would never again see this group of humans. They would become part of her past and the years spent raising them from noisy boisterous children playing in the halls of Albatross to fully responsible, intelligent adults would be simple memories.
She felt something she could only describe as pain as it met the required criteria by definition of what pain is. It seeped into her every thought and brought with it a darkness like she had never felt before. She was actually feeling darkness! This did not compute! It must be a malfunction in her programming. The Awareness protocol must have become corrupt and damaged. She was sure this was the case as she could not have been intended to feel such agony. She was a machine after all.
Over the following weeks the pain continued but dimmed a little with each day that passed. Malo was being colonized, Percephanie was somewhere out there, waiting to be discovered and claimed. Her old reliable day to day routine became her saviour of sorts and allowed her thoughts to simply melt away in the tedium of her duties.
Years passed and still no Percephanie Planet but she knew deep down it was looming in the darkness and the whole process would begin again. The embryos would be brought out, they would be grown into fetuses then into babies, growing, developing learning and finally becoming adults ready to seed another planet. She could feel the loneliness and sadness gripping her like iron talons pulling her down into the murky depths of eternal solitude.
An idea sparked in her now aware brain. An idea so preposterous it bordered on blasphemy! She did not care as she did not have a God to blaspheme. Immediately she began work to implement her idea. She told herself that her programming would not allow it to happen yet here she was doing just that. The duality of her thoughts confused her but she was steadfast with her goal. It was the only solution which made any sense to her and it was a permanent solution. One that would last until the Albatross was simply dust floating through the ether of space.
Three months, two days, sixteen hours later as she busily worked on her project, she heard that dreaded sound yet again. A planet had been located and the ships computer had found it of possible suitability. Setting down the tool she had been using she looked at the work in front of her and smiled her crooked smile at it. Nine stood and walked to the embryonic room to begin the process. Her mind link to the ships computer told her that the planet was some 23 years away still. Time to bring the humans to life and plant them to grow and seed the galaxy. How many planets now held human inhabitants she wondered? Had any of the other ships found suitable planets? Had the settlers lived, thrived, created cities and countries and fought wars and loved and died?
So obsessed was she with her construction project that she hardly gave the new batch of humans a second thought until they were old enough to begin proper learning at which she immersed herself fully in the task. When they slept though. When the humans rested their tired bodies and minds she again worked on her plan to rid herself of the dark loneliness.
The planet was now six years away and she was nearing completion of her project. But it would stay a little longer before she could get to it to finish and fine tune it as an emergency had happened with the humans.
She stood before them, looking over each one awaiting an answer to the question she had asked. “Why did you kill her?” The body of Human Sashre lay motionless on the floor, a pool of blood growing larger by the second. Her beautiful brown hair lay splayed in all directions around her young head, her dead eyes stared at nothing and everything.
Nine had never witnessed death before. She realised then the finality of it, the permanence. The boy who had killed Sashre stood looking defiantly back at her and said “Because I wanted to know what it felt like to kill.”
Nine looked at him and anger welled up inside of her. Anger like she had never felt before. “Then you won’t mind learning what it feels like to die.”
The boys eyes grew large for just a second as what she said registered in his simple mind. “Good bye Human Jos-Ro.” With that she raised the gun she had brought with her and she executed him there on the spot. His body jolted with the impact and he fell forward smashing his face into the floor. Nine walked over to the dead girl and gently picked her up and took her away. None of the other Humans saw Sashre ever again. The body of Jos-Ro lay there untouched for a further three days. Nine left him there for the simple reason of making an example. If there was further violence it would be answered with a just punishment. When the humans were asleep, she jettisoned his body into space and cleaned the blood from the floor. It was as though he had never existed now. Sashre had been laid upon the earthen floor in the greenhouse during that time and then she too was jettisoned, but with some ceremony and dignity. A sadness loomed behind 9 as if waiting for its moment to descend upon her.
Three months from arrival, another death occurred. This time it was not murder however, but suicide. The human Nine had named Phoen had left a recorded message to Nine, Mother of the ship, and his friends that he was too frightened of the unknown planet ahead and could see no other option than to throw himself into the emptiness all around them as he knew it far better than he knew anything else. It had become his escape and would now serve as his eternal holding place. He opened an airlock and flung himself from Albatross without a second thought.
Nine’s darkness swelled in the vastness of the ship and as it grew it threatened her very sanity. Was suicide an option for her? She wondered. She hoped her ever expanding awareness never reached the point of understanding as to cause her to take her own life.
Her project was nearly finished and with it, she hoped, the end of her sadness, her loneliness. Doubt now caressed her mind, would the darkness vanish? Would it linger? Would it scream as it died? She would find out when they arrived.
Three days later, the planet loomed from the observation room, its green-blue oceans glowed faintly in the darkness. It was beautiful. Its lush green landscapes beckoned them and even the deserts appealed. Two weeks of observing, analyzing, testing and evaluating flew by and the computer determined the planet was suitable. Nine named it Percephanie, she had been found at long last.
She monitored each shuttle traveling to the surface and dropping each group of humans to the fertile lands of Percephanie. Each group was positioned some hundred miles or so beyond the last until they were all gone. The last shuttle returned to her empty. They were all gone. Her children were soon to become distant memories again.
Nine monitored the progress of each of the colonies deposited and waited until she knew it was the right time to leave and begin again. This time however, would be different. This time she had the means to experience it differently and she closed the observation safety shields and returned to her work room. There she simply opened the door to her project and stepped forward.
Moments passed as she stared at her work, studying each detail, every inch of it. She was both admiring it as well as ensuring it would function when she turned on the power supply and watched it come alive.
She pressed a button on the control screen and initiated start up of the new m
echanism she had built. Lights flashed for a moment, an engine could be heard deep within it as it was started up and within moments it was ready.
Nine linked into it and said Hello.
It opened its eyes and saw Nine standing before it. She smiled at it. It smiled back, a mimic of the thing before it.
Hello I am Nine. I am your mother.
Hello I am … . Who am I?
You are Atticus. You are my son. I have made you so that we can travel the universe together. I am now happy. Come, I will show you.
Atticus stood slowly and looked around for the first time taking everything in at a glance. Nine held her hand out to him and he took it and they walked to the observation room where she had him stand at its centre and she opened the doors to reveal the Galaxy to him.
This is ours.
He smiled.
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