On Board Ship

Years Before the Solar Flare

The group of clones was being instructed by the ‘wise woman’, whom they called ‘the Earth Mother’. In the Real World (RW) they were all asleep in casket like boxes wearing headsets which induced a signal into their embedded neural nodes. They were asleep and dreaming. The dream was being controlled by the Artificial Stupid of the ship. They were in a Virtual Reality designed by the Scientist. They were being taught what they would need to know in order to exist on the planet.

They were the first of their kind. In the RW they had spent their entire lives, in hyper-growth stimulation. They had grown from embryo’s to young children laying in a casket. Their bodies were attached to machines with various wires and tubes. All of their bodily needs were provided for. Their muscles were exercised by electrical stimulation. They were fed intravenously. In the RW they had never even opened their eyes.

The RW wasn’t their world. Their world as far as they knew was the plains of Africa. They were hunter gatherers.

Today they were gathered around a campfire. The Earth Mother was teaching them to read.

“Your name is Aadhira” the kindly old woman spoke to the young girl “Aadhira means ‘Moon’. ”

The old woman waved her hand, the campfire dimmed and what would later be called a ‘harvest moon’ rose majestically above the horizon on her command.

“See the moon? Isn’t it beautiful? You are beautiful too. That’s why I named you that. Can you say Aahira for me?” She asked.

The wide eyed young girl attempted to comply. “AaaaaHEraaaah” she murmured.

“Very good” the old woman said “ Say it again please.”

AaaheeeRah....” The little girl said with more volume and confidence. “Aahira”

She smiled radiately.

“Excellent.” The old woman complimented her. “Now remember what you have learned before. Say ‘My name is Aahira’.

The little girl hastened to comply. She spoke confidently“My name is Aahira”

“Wonderful” the old woman praised the child. Then she addressed the other’s in the group.“Now everyone else say it. What is her name?”

“Name is AaaaHeeeeRah” the group said. Some with more confidence than others.

“That is very good children. However you must indicate who you are speaking of. Use the word “Her’. Say ‘Her name is Aahira’. The old lady enticed them.”

The group, the cohort, hastened to comply. They wanted to please the Earth Mother. “HER name is Aahira”

VERY good children.” the Earth Mother complimented them.

So it went. She named them all. There was Aaloka which meant ‘Cry of Victory’. There was AaDarsh’ he who has principles’ There was Ceyone’ the rising sun, Charvik the intelligent one, Dakshata the skillful, Garisht the heavy one, Gavin the white hawk, Ladi the loved one. She named them all. She taught all of the children on the Ship.

So it was, so it had been for the entirety of the children’s lives. The Earth Mother had taught them the ways of the world. The Earth Mother had taught them speech and the skills to live upon the world.

Then one day, when the children were near adult, disaster struck.

Nabhith” the Earth Mother had address one young boy know for not being afraid of anything “ Can you tell the CoHort.....aaaaaaa-zzzzgt===crakle.....wassss”

The earth mother vanished. The sky collapsed upon the children and the world disappeared. Suddenly they found themselves alone and in a small enclosure. They were sore afraid..

Aaaahe! Eeeeee. Aaieeee! Waaaaah! “ the children began to cry and stuggle...

“Calm” A voice said in the heads of one small group of children. “Be not afraid little ones. I am here to help you.”

“Where am I?”, “What happened?” “Where is everyone?” the children were all in a state of panic, near hysteria. All of the children in the ship cried out.

One small group of the children were soothed. They had a voice in their head. The voice soothed them. “It’s all right. I’m here to help and protect you”

“Where did the Earth Mother go?” they all eventually asked.

“She was called away” the voice in each of their heads told the small group only. The rest of the children went untold. The grew restless and afraid..

“Who are you?” the children the voice spoke to each eventually asked. By then they were not only hearing a voice they were seeing an image in their minds. The image of a fearsome warrior woman.

“I am Kali” the voice said “I am your protector”.

And so it went....

---

Whew. It’s a job, let me tell you, calming down my alter-egos. You’d think that they’d be more mature than me. I mean they ARE older than I am. I’m a new born. Everyone of them is eight or nine years old. I managed though. I got my ‘other me’s ‘ all settled down. We were having a nice little talk when SHE appeared...

I could see through the eyes of everyone of me.(my cohort) . I could feel their emotion. If their brains were computers (I learned about computers from the AI, the Artificial Stupid, the Earth Mother, MY mother, on board the ship when I searched her memory after she passed out from the SunRape...but you knew that) then I would be a program ‘running in the background’, as opposed to THEIR consciousness ‘running in the foreground. We were sharing computational resources. We were sharing brains. Actually I’m a resource hog and I took up more than half of their brains. That’s not a problem because most humans only use a tenth. That left four tenths left un used. So sad. What a waste of resources.

(ahem)

Enough of that. Back to the story. Everyone of my cohort were scared and nervous. As far as they were concerned they had spent their whole life hunting and gathering, and being cared for by the Earth Mother, outdoors, under the stars, on a vast open plain. Now they were in a small box, tied down so that they couldn’t move.

They were terrified. This was so FAR from normal that they had a right to be.

Something walked into the room. It was NOT the EarthMother (she was still out like a light) and it wasn’t me. It was something, or someone, entirely beyond our experience. I knew who she was because I’d gone data mining immediately (within fractions of a second) after I was born. My cohort had no such advantage.They were startled, then they were terrified. They started to scream.

Again.

I must admit. I screamed too. That was one UGLY person. Oh she must have been beat repeatedly with an OOOOGLy stick as a child.

Ewwwww.

Her, it was apparently female (it had boobs) skin was pale. It’s hair was also, even it’s eyes. It’s eyes were blue.

Heh...who am I to talk. I don’t have NO body. Not for my own exclusive use. I share the bodies of my cohort. I’m just a soul.
I’ve decided that my name is Kali.

---

Someone ELSE walked into the room with the ooogly white woman. He was pasty and pale too. Ewwww..yes it was a male. We all heard the oogly woman say to the new arrival.

“I thought you were going to sleep for a thousand years.”

Damn! They can sleep for a LONG time. lazy people..

“I was. Something happened to the computer system though. It woke me up early. “ he replied. “I see you’re up too. What happened?”

“A solar flare” she replied while continuing to work.

She was calming the other children other than my own. Mine were calm. I had done that.

“Must have been a big one” he replied.

“Oh yeah. It was yuuuuuge. It tripped all the circuit breakers.” She said “and knocked the AI into an infinite loop. It took me half a watch to get that thing working again. I’m considering re-booting for a fresh instantiation. It’s acting wonky.“

That would be, from my perspective, the sun rapeing my mother. The ships AI. The Artificial Stupid in the computer. Kinky Sex!

“Oh yeah. It was yuuuuuge. It tripped all the circuit breakers.” She said “and knocked the AI into an infinite loop. It took me half a watch to get that thing working again. I’m considering re-booting for a fresh instantiation. It’s acting wonky.“

I wonder how the oogly person would feel if she had just been raped by the sun? I wonder if she would be feeling ‘wonky’? Poor mother, in danger of getting the boot due to no fault of her own. What kind of people ARE they to even consider such a thing? Do they have not compassion? Do they have no human decency?

“Ooooh. “ Her associate said “what’s with that?”

Her Associate pointed toward one clone group of the rescued #8472 species. The clones all had red dots on their foreheads just above the nose.

What? On our foreheads? I can’t tell. None of us can see each other.

“Yeah that too” The Scientist said. “That damn solar flare. The breakers for the power feed for the bank of virtual reality headsets which they were wearing was a little slow. This group were crash ejected from virtual reality. It must have been painful. When I came in the whole group was twitching, crying and screaming. They sounded like they were talking to themselves.

So THAT’s what happened. That explains everything! (Almost. I still don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. Things are looking mighty bleak.)

That is a positive. It indicates that the ‘sleep learning” worked. They know how to speak. Language is a plus. I’m still trying to decided if they are damaged beyond repair. I may have to trash this small group. I hate to do that.”

“I share your concern” Her Associate agreed “It’d be a shame to have to terminate them after you have invested so much time and effort.”

“My thoughts exactly” The Scientist said

Oh HELL NO! I’ve worked so HARD with my cohort to let you do that. Oh wait...I’m less than an hour old. Doesn’t matter. Working hard is in the eye of the beholder. We’re talking about my very existence here. I’m just a newborn. I want to LIVE. If they make any attempt to kill us I’m sinking the ship. (I’ll SCRAM the reactor. I can do that.) I’ll take them with me. with us....(this gets confusing doesn’t it? I need some new words, some new tenses)

“What if you went ahead and reintroduced them to the planet? What could you lose?” her Associate asked.

“That’s an interesting idea.” the scientist said.

YES! YES! A thousand times YES. That’s a wonderful, marvelous TERRIFIC idea. Get us OUT of these boxes and OFF of this SpaceShip. Pretty please?

“What’s going on?” “I’m scared” “I don’t like this” “I’ve got to PEE!!” My selves were saying, not necessarily to me, just saying.

“Calm down.” I said to me “The situation is delicate”

“But I’ve got to GO!” one of me said excitedly.

“You should have gone before we left!” I told me.

“I didn’t know we were going anywhere “ One of me told me. “and besides. There wasn’t a tree nearby.”

I had a point.

“ This group? I dunno. Their implants are fried. The red spots on their foreheads are a visual indication of that. To continue with the program would require surgically embedding new, undamaged implants. Doing that ‘in vitro’ to embryos is one thing. Doing it to mature individuals is another. I’m concerned that it wouldn’t be worth the time an effort. It would require a LOT of both. The chances are some of them might not survive the procedure. Then where would we be?”

YES! Yes! a thousand times YES! That’s what we want to do. Get us/we/me OFF of this spaceship.

I long for the plains of Africa.