Chipmates
Created | Updated Feb 8, 2004
A Short Story:
CHIPMATES.
"We have arrived", said NavCom.
Mike Kelly started. He had been leaning against the front bridge window of the freighter lost in a reverie of family and friends, staring out into the empty void of the ocean.
Captain Mike was 51, had been at sea since he was 18. When he first went to sea there had been as many as five people on a ship. Now he was alone.
The Merchant Shipping Acts never quite summoned the courage to allow ships to go completely unmanned. Someone had to carry the can if a rogue computer drove a freighter into the side of one of the floating cities that they called passenger liners. It would have to be recorded as 'Human Error'. We can't have people worried about the reliability of the mainstay of their lives. This was Captain Mikes inheritance, a marine scapegoat.
NavCom did all the work of navigating and controlling the freighter, EngCom ran the reactors and MedCom kept Mikes quarters clean and tidy, provided totally balanced meals at precise times and cleaned the air when Mike took the occasional drag of a prohibited substance in his boredom.
"We have arrived," said NavCom again when it received no response to its earlier pronouncement. Simultaneously it pulsed MedCom to check for Captain Mikes vital signs and whereabouts. MedCom ran the implant in Mikes neck and almost instantaneously reported that he was awake, was in the same space as NavCom control, had acceptable hearing capacity but a slight unsteadiness in heart function and neural nerve response.
"We have arrived", said NavCom.
Mike looked out of the window again. It was pitch black outside. This didn't surprise him greatly because few things used lights anymore. Light was just a problem caused by disfunctional humans. Machinery did not need light to operate and it certainly did not need humans. But, he had not felt the bump. However good NavCom was it could never ever put the freighter into a docking bay without a bump. The sea saw to that, refusing to be calm and come under computer control.
"No we haven't", Captain Mike retorted.
"We have arrived", repeated NavCom, using exasperation scale three inflection in its voice.
"No we haven't", said Mike, using plain old annoyance at any damn scale.
NavCom pulsed MedCom for Captain Mikes Brain wave readout. Annoyance scale two said MedCom. NavCom computed, derived the formula and assessed it as the correct response and said,
"We have reached our destination".
Mike looked nervously around. NavCom was always right. There was no need for him to know where they were, what the freighter was doing or even the status of his own accommodation. He was a highly paid scapegoat but it had never occurred to him that one day that function might be called upon.
He spent most of his time in his accommodation watching the CD's. MedCom saw to it that he slept for 7.3 hours per 24 hour period, his bodies calculated sleep requirement. That he consumed precisely 3000 calories per day and exercised 2700 calories per day. If he went into a sulk and refused to do any active exercise, MedCom would stimulate his muscles while he slept to consume the correct amount of excess energy.
Mike walked around to the Chartroom. He gazed at the real earth display and it showed Port Naseby offshore island terminal with a red flashing light in centre screen alongside the grain terminal. Centre screen was always his freighters position. The real earth display moved under the centre point as the ship sailed.
"But there is nothing here, we're in empty ocean", said Mike, more to himself than the computer.
"We have arrived. Your orders have been carried out precisely," replied NavCom. MedCom registered scale three disbelief. NavCom searched its banks , bypassed disbelief and registered it under humour.
Humour was a brand new input chip for NavCom. In the twenty years or so that the system had been operating ships, hundreds of Captains had committed suicide or disappeared completely. They always unplugged the neck chip so it had been made compulsory to have it implanted. It had not helped because MedCom simply reported the chip to be out of range if the Captain jumped over the side. No method had been found of picking up a Captain who did not want to be rescued and who managed to avoid the recovery grab for the duration of the preset maximum delay allowance.
"What do you mean, what orders?" asked Captain Mike.
"On departure you're order was 'we must arrive first'".
"Of course it was, we always try to arrive before the other ships. We get the best price for our Company that way".
"Your order was not to arrive before the other freighters, it was to arrive 'first'". NavCom checked its humour chip. It had been given humour in order to give the impression of a personality. It was felt that in spite of the sophisticated CD entertainment system that allowed the Captains to escape into virtual reality and experience anything they desired there was something missing that made them go insane. The most popular virtual CD had proved to be : 'Sexual encounter, undefined, unrecorded'. Land based males always seemed to go for: 'World cup football, centre forward, winning team, recorded'. The boffins had sweated brain cells over the problem until some bright spark of a teaboy had casually said:
"Perhaps they just want someone to talk to; to have a bit of a joke now and again".
The boffins leapt on this suggestion. A humour chip was created for the NavCom. Not one of the Boffins knew a joke, or even had a sense of humour so they programmed the chip with books such as: 'Film Humour, the 100 Best Cinematic Jokes'. 'Great Practical Jokes of the 21st Century'. 'The Essex Girl Joke Book Annual 2132', etc. They installed the usual response recognition device with a one to ten scale. Number one being mildly amused and number ten, semi-concious from hysterical laughter. The program only had one flaw. They were unable to define at which point in a conversation the humourous response should be inserted never having been used to humourous responses themselves. They didn't see why it should be their problem anyway. The death of a few Captains hardly caused a problem to the navigation of the ships. Their only previous input had been to resist increases to the preset delay allowance. There were plenty of available Captains, it only took two years to train one and the huge salary was an irresistible draw. So, they put a bridging circuit in to the MedCom system. It should be a MedCom programming team problem anyway.
Perhaps the boffins should have told the MedCom team about the bridge? Why should they? That was admin. not science.
Captain Mike was nonplused. The NavCom didn't normally use that much exasperation in its responses.
"Define erroneous input", said Captain Mike.
"Your order was that we must arrive first. 'We', defined as 'collective name for speaker and all others that the context shows him to be representing at that moment. 'Must', defined as obliged to do, 3rd singular. be certain to (do). 'Arrive' defined as come to destination or end of journey. 'First', defined as earliest in time or order. We have arrived first". NavCom pulsed MedCom to see how the response was greeted.
MedCom read the neck implant and analyzed the brain wave patterns. Disbelief came out as top response at level four, something akin to 'You can't be serious!'
MedCom transmitted disbelief to NavCom. Perhaps this was where the flaw lay. No one ever disbelieved NavCom. It had been a flawless system for 20 years , why would anyone not believe it. NavCom searched for a chip to analyze the response. There was no other chip with a preset path for 'disbelief' in it. So it reloaded 'humour', the only chip not fully programmed, and filed the level four response in it.
"What do you mean we've arrived first? We aren't anywhere. We are in the middle of the ocean. We haven't arrived anywhere, this is nowhere, for God's sake!" Captain Mike was flustered.
"This is the precise location that the Port Naseby Sea Island Terminal will occupy".
"Will occupy?..............Will occupy?!" Disbelief was rising in Mikes brain. What in hell's name was going on? Anyone could see that the ship had just stopped in mid ocean. What was wrong with this ruddy computer.
"Will occupy", repeated NavCom, a further check showing a level five response. NavCom filed it under humour. This was going very well indeed for a first use of a new chip.
"We (as defined) are the first (also as defined) human entity or human constructed device to occupy the position defined as Port Naseby on the real earth map".
"You're bloody mad", shouted Captain Mike," Port Naseby was built 78 years ago. This isn't it, its just empty ocean!"
MedCom transmitted level six disbelief, NavCom filed it under humour. This really was going very well indeed. Already up to the 'hilarious' response and the coupe-de-grace had not yet been applied.
"The next human being to occupy this position will arrive tomorrow to begin the survey", said NavCom,"We are the first."
"That was eighty odd sodding years ago", yelled Captain Mike. "How the hell can we get somewhere eighty odd years ago?"
"Not eighty odd years ago", replied NavCom, using sincerity level four, "tomorrow. I have realigned our stellar time basis".
"You can't do that! Only space freighters are equipped to do that to avoid life span mismatching on their return."
"I can do that. You know that the delay at BritPort One was for me to be reprogrammed. You should have taken an interest."
"What have you done you bloody machine?" Mike had gone from simple disbelief to total incredulity now. A realignment in stellar time meant that he now existed 80 years before his wife, his children and all his friends, he was totally alone in the world, not just alone on this ship.
"I have extracted all internal functioning parts deemed to be included in the instruction 'we' and ejected the composite 78 light-years into space with an instantaneous return trigger set to relocate and reassemble the composite to this position on the real earth map. We (as defined) have retreated 78 years in time and are now the first (also as defined) to occupy this position. Your orders have been carried out."
"It's impossible! I would have felt something.....The gravity on escape........That's it!.......It can only be done in space. I would have felt the gravity."
"I used the gravity flux diverter that is normally used to allow the grain to flow up out of the hold into the Terminal hoppers."
"Oh my God, you bastard boffins. What have you done to me?" cried Captain Mike. "You can't do this to me , you can't..........You can't..........what about my kids? My wife?..........Bastards.......Bastards...........Bastards......." Captain Mikes voice tailed off. He lurched towards the bridge wing, tears streaming down his cheeks. He knew it was possible. The instantaneous return trigger was used to wipe out the duration of a space voyage and make it seem like a matter of days when the ship returned . It allowed a real time alignment to take place almost as simply as adjusting the terrestrial clock time on a freighter when it went east or west. It was irreversible, you couldn't eject at negative light speed. It was against the laws of physics.
NavCom pulsed MedCom. MedCom transmitted dibelief/despair level eight. NavCom filed it under humour. This was really going very very well. MedCom checked the Captains neck implant. It recorded increased heart rate, perspiration level at seven and random brain activity. NavCom analyzed the data and compared it with the program inputs on its humour chip. This corresponded with level nine, akin to hysterical laughter. If only NavCom had checked the human response chip mainframe input data at this point it would have found 'blind panic'.
Suddenly, the internal bridge from MedCom set up an emergency warning signal. Captain Mikes vital signs were dropping rapidly. Pulse rate, brain activity, body temperature plummeting. NavCom bypassed all systems and fed the warning into the humour chip. It was perfect, the data fitted level ten, semi-concious from hysterical laughter. The coupe-de-grace had been served. The humour response was total. A successful first test.
The clocks on the now empty Navigation Bridge clicked past midnight. They changed to 1/4/2136.
"April Fool", said NavCom, refiling the book, 'Great Practical Jokes of the 21st Century'.
The end.
A Short Story of 2131 words:
