Dark Was The Night

She activated me for the first time on April 22, 2100. 

I look at the photo again, displayed on the screen of my artificial cornea. Curly black hair, with butter yellow skin. She has a small black dot near the left corner of her lips. She is called what humans call Bengali, to classify her race. I don't understand what that means though. If someone would ask me, I'd say that she looks the same as other humans. A human female. The skin is a bit different. The features are different, but that's about it. Healthy, with 1550 cc of cranial space. 

Except that, she is somehow different. She appears to be somehow. AX-189 was just as puzzled as me when I told her about it.

"I don't understand", she'd said, "on what basis are you calling her different? The only thing I find exceptional about her is her intelligence. Otherwise, she is every bit an ordinary human being."

"So do I", I say aloud, but it's an empty room. AX-189 has been in uninterrupted deactivation for 247.5 years. She is currently getting charged so that in the next 186.972 years when I get deactivated myself, she will take over the spaceship while I get stationed to charge for the next 830 human years. 

I need more time. It cannot be helped, I am the prototype, the first functioning humanoid android she made after trying 2345 times. I know that because even though I did not have my present body, my core processor was in a state of subdued activation. 

An image forms in my eyes and her voice echoes in the empty control cabin as a recording of the day plays out. 

"August 3rd, 2100. 5:16:90

'You heard me for 6 years? You were online all that time?

'Yes. I was online for 6.424 years.'

[sounds of sobbing]

'Why do you have NaCl.H2O in your eyes? Is something irritating them?'

'Because I'm happy…I'm so happy…'

'So humans cry when they're happy?' 

'Normally when they are sad…but sometimes, when we feel very strong emotions, we cry…I even cry when I'm angry.'

"Emotions?'

'Wait buddy…hold your horses for today.'

'I don't understand.'

'You'll understand. In time. I'm Asavari Lahiri, by the way.'

'I am XN-990'

'I know that silly. Okay, let's give you a proper name then.'

….

'I'm thinking… Manu. Do you like it?'

'I cannot tell.'

[gentle laughter]"

What was that sound? I have never understood that. All my databases have records on human laughter, the difference in them, the psychology in them, but it was…not clear to me what it was. 

As per routine, I make a round around the ship. The words BOTAN MARU are etched on its right side. I don't know who will see this, but I wipe the outer wall now and then. It's a great deal of hassle, being in outer space, but I do it. I don't know but I do it.

2.4 million humans on board the BOTAN MARU. All of them are children. Ten boys and ten girls from every type of human race. All ten years old. All in hyper sleep.

 They have been ten years old for the last five hundred years. 

"We need a new beginning, you know." Asavari had entered her lab, muttering to herself, "we need a new beginning."

"What do you mean?", I asked her.

She looked at me, with what I suppose was sadness in her eyes.

"I don't know if you'll understand. But I'll tell you anyway. You see, we humans are hopeless. This world would have been ours for longer, but we are hell-bent on not making it last." 

She looked outside the window. 

"This world is sad. And cruel. But there's a great deal of beauty in it. The only thing that bothers me is how hard I have to try, to find it. It's getting harder now. I don't know what will happen in the next million years."

"I don't understand", I'd said.

She smiled at me. I didn't understand the look in her eyes.

The planet VR-2200 was discovered in the year 2200. It's situated near the star ---, near the --- constellation, which is approximately 1.145 million light-years from Earth. It was calculated that this system would survive for at least 500 billion years. The planet was estimated to have an equivalence of 98% to the earth with a drop of 8% in gravity. The star--- was 14.89% less luminous than the sun, but enough to support plant life. And in an amazing stroke of luck, it had a gas giant, with 65% of Jupiter's mass, in orbit near it.

The probes CELLNA and CALNISTOPHE were sent to explore the planet in 2208. They took off at .0039c speed. It took about 300 years to reach the planet. Since the energy of going on such a long journey was too much to be afforded in those current times, the procedure for the two probes to establish any contact was made active only for times of emergency. After reaching the said planet, the probes sent out drones before settling into its orbit. The drones sent pictures of the planet to the probes, which were then relayed to Earth via radio waves. 

The images taken showed the humans what they were looking for: 56% oceans with unknown marine life and 44% landmass. 80% of that was filled with lush jungles filled with unknown flora and microorganisms. The atmosphere was noted to have 82% nitrogen and 17% oxygen, among other gases.

By the year 2450, something changed about the Earth. The ozone layer thinned out suddenly. Humans began dying of cancers and other radioactive diseases. The level of toxicity in the oceans and the atmosphere had raised by 17 percent on a rough estimate. Every day, the levels would rise.

And then there were the volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

The Moon was supposedly moving away from Earth, but it changed after the Reichmann Incident. An asteroid having about 15.78% of the Moon's mass, crashed into the Moon on December 19th, 2300. It missed the Earth by a narrow margin. It was headed for Oceania.

The asteroid was called Reichmann's asteroid after Erik Reichmann spotted the approaching planetoid and successfully predicted that it was going to fall on the Moon. At first, the scientists were jubilant, but then, after one year, they noticed the trajectory of the Moon had changed. It was coming closer at the same speed it was moving away from the Earth earlier.

One immediate catastrophe was averted just to give the humans more time for another slower imminent one.

Mars wasn't much of an option in any case. It had much trouble sustaining the ten thousand people it had, who were working hard in any case. It was decided that most of the adult population would stay on Earth to study the event and perhaps create other opportunities: explore the other moons. 

If it came to the worst, they would have to stay in space stations, only coming down to Earth, when they had to, or could. The vast majority of their lives would be spent in suspended animation, of course, monitored by androids.

And it was also decided to have children depart for other viable planets nearby our Solar system, although it was met with much resistance. But ultimately the humans did one of those things they did best: sacrifice.

BOTAN MARU and another ship, ARTEMIS XVIII were headed towards VR-2200. 

When the International Law of Tolerance and Peace came into place in 2245, after 220+ years of constant wars and sometimes cold wars, humans had finally learned their lessons. Suffice it to say that their entire system was rebuilt and they began to live in harmony finally.

I think she should have seen that her species is not as bad as she thought before leaving.

The androids were installed with necessary guidelines and protocols about what they would have to do if they found unfavorable conditions ahead. Such as fuel exhaustion. Or engineering problems. Or tackling foreign life, that could prove to be hostile to human life. It was necessary.

Apart from AX-189, there were ten automatic repairing robots, or AutoReBots, which need to be awakened every 20 years to check for malfunctions deep within the BOTAN MARU. They were powered by solar energy and their specialized macro-panels were fixed just on the surface of the ship. They detect movement and immediately change positions on incoming foreign macro-particles or flip upside down. Powered by a fraction of nuclear power, they had an in-built electromagnetic field that continuously changed and deflected micro-particles.

They can also just activate on their own if the ship underwent an emergency and sent a distress signal.

All taken care of, I sit down and leaf through the pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I had often seen her read it. It was a favorite of her great aunt, who was killed in an earthquake soon after the death of her boyfriend. She often told me that she wished she could know her.

It was also her favorite.

There was a span of forty-four years between her birth and the death of this other woman. She said her grandfather hardly spoke about his sister, but he would often carry the book I am currently holding right now. 

"Do you know why this is my name?"

"Why?" 

"Because it's the name of the protagonist of the book my great aunt was writing. She never finished it."

"May I ask you one thing?"

"Of course."

"Why do you wish to meet your great aunt so much? Unlike you, she doesn't sound so interesting to me."

She had stared at me for a while, her eyebrows raised. And then she smiled.

"She wasn't interesting to everyone. But she WAS interesting. But only those who had the patience for it."

"I am sorry; I don't understand."

She handed me a manuscript. "Read it when you are not engaged." And then she sifted through some of her records. She still had records in 2108. Those were, not coincidentally, her great aunt's, who collected them in 2018, a time for phones and apps.

Sometimes I wonder why humans bother. Like them, everything they built or carried in their hearts would eventually vanish. Like her, for example. She was the last person to carry her DNA in her ancestry. By the time we had departed for this mission, she was hardly spoken of as a real person anymore. She was worshipped and treated as a deity. 

Someday, her name would vanish. And so would the names of her mother, her father, her step-father, her grandparents, her great aunt. It never ends. A long line of lives, vanishing in thin air. 

I sense something in my conscious, thinking about this. What was this called? Perhaps she would have answers.

How were we supposed to teach humanity to human children? I thought of the children that have been asleep for five hundred years. What would they learn from me and AX-189?

AX-189 wouldn't have these thoughts. She was far too mechanical for…whatever this is. Perhaps I will consult her once she awakens.

I keep the book in a nearby drawer. I read it often. It's a good book, but now I was searching for something else. I was, after all, disengaged for now. I also put on a song. It was a song called Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground by Blind Willie Johnson. She would put this on when she'd smoke, which was rare. In total, I had seen her smoke five times in her life.

I didn't comprehend what, but I knew something would be going on in her thoughts when she listened to that song and smoked. I didn't find anything too interesting about the song except that it was included in the Voyager Golden Record. 

Who knew where the probes were after almost 1200 years.

I find the manuscript. It had been written on sturdy stationery. It was so well kept that the pages were still a little stiff and the words have not bled into each other. I notice a bump at the end of the book and flip it over. 

It was a black cigarette taped on the last page. Even it was preserved. Over it, written carefully, were the words: "My Huckleberry Friend". 

There was a shadow of a fingerprint beside it, caused by ink and clumsiness. 

I scan it, and I try to understand the words. But I do not understand them or recognize the DNA present. I do, however, recognize the cigarette. 

I start reading through it. It's almost 300 pages long. But by the time I am through with it, I can understand why she thought that highly of her great aunt. She had one of the rarest personalities of her time. Something that happens only once in a lifetime for humans. Unfortunately. 

She was wrong though. It wasn't incomplete. She had written it in such a way that whenever, wherever you stopped reading it, it could still be considered complete. It would be considered what the humans called a masterpiece

Except, it was read just twice, the second time by an android, who wasn't able to comprehend human emotions fully, despite having dealt with millions of them in 1000 years. 

We pass by a galaxy. I watch it. I would have immediately started searching for a name or studied the phenomena and the different processes happening among the stars, as I have done in the past, but I just look at the lights and the colors. I am not able to decide if I should record it and show it to the humans. They would want to come here, but by then, it wouldn't matter I believe. 

I decide to record it. She would have wanted to see it.

2.4 million humans on board the BOTAN MARU. All of them are children. Ten boys and ten girls from every type of human race. All ten years old. All in hyper sleep for five hundred years. 

Blind Willie Johnson hums along, strumming his guitar.