KED Said

Floating helplessly in space, waiting for death to come along and claim me, was a tough thing to process. After training for deep space missions, I blasted off from Earth convinced I could handle anything. Truth be told, that was just a necessary lie I convinced myself of so I could climb atop a tower of fuel and light it up.

I stopped keeping the ship’s logs when I realized no human would ever see them. By then, the lie of being able to handle anything had crumbled away. If aliens came across me, and managed to make sense of my logs, I would spare them my pale, hollow-eyed, unwashed desperation. I would spare them my sobbing as I slowly lost my mind, starving to death, then spinning through nothingness in my little bubble of spent atmosphere, for eternity. That would be no kind of introduction to our species. Or maybe I’ll asphyxiate. Best case scenario was getting hit by something floating out there with me and dying instantly, unexpectedly, with a pop. Though, statistically, that was somewhere in the ballpark of two grains of salt finding each other in a swimming pool before they dissolved, so I didn’t hold out much hope. KED was doing its best to keep my spirits up, despite my repeated requests that it stop. There’s something about the comfort of algorithms that just wasn’t comforting.

“KED, lights,” I said, after laying awake for what felt like hours.

               The lights sprang up. I meant to tell KED to ease them on slowly, to keep them dim for a bit, but I didn’t end up bothering. The light was meant to replicate sunlight and while the glare was spot on, the warmth was off.

               “What’s for breakfast?”

               “French toast, bacon, hash browns . . .”

               “That’s not funny.”

               “Ration C.”

               I sighed and got up.

               “Status changes?”

               “None.”

               “Time remaining?”

               That was the closest to referring to my own demise that KED would allow. For the sake of my mental health, I was admonished whenever I got fatalistic.

               “Air is at sixty percent. Food rations at sixty one,” KED said.

               “And asphyxiation takes the lead. Wow, what caused the O2 drop?”

               “You had nightmares last night. You were breathing at one hundred and seventy percent the normal rate. This is likely due to your growing fixation on death. I do not need to tell you how important it is to steer your thoughts away from the subject, do I? Dwelling will not help.”

               Judging by the exhaustion clouding my thoughts, and the reluctance of my muscles to answer my commands, it must have been a violently restless night. When I thought back to what I dreamt about, the nightmare gushed back into my head. Something had caused a pinhole puncture in the hull. I was suctioned over it, naked, and my skin made a seal. I was turned into a bloody noodle as outer space ripped me from my ship through a hole the size of a pea. I could feel my spine compress into something the size of a hockey puck, then crumble into gravel, then sand, then out into the cold.

               “Yeah. I need something to work on, to occupy me. These days of floating and talking to you are worse than torture.”

The white panel walls, scorched in places, the exposed wires, the clips and buckles and packages, all felt like they were clenching around me, grabbing at me. The only section of the craft still inhabitable after the explosion felt about the size of a living room when I first crawled my way into it, and sealed the door. The area felt like a coffin now.

               “I have thought about your ennui, and have a suggestion,” said KED.

               KED said. KED said until I’m dead.

               “Robot suggestions.”

               “You should keep a gratitude journal.”

               “No.”

               “The alternative is to let your mind atrophy until you are dead.”

               KED said dead!

               “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about my impending doom.”

               “I was simply making your options clear to you. I want to be truthful.”

               “Those are my only two options, then? Really? Gratitude journal or pudding brain? I don’t want to keep a gratitude journal, KED, what do I have to be grateful for?”

               “You have me.”

               “You’re a voice attached to programming.”

               “You’re a voice attached to an increasingly neurotic skullful of jelly.”

               “KED, turn off.”

               The green light in the panel display dimmed slowly until it was gone, and only my reflection remained.

Gratitude journal. I spent a moment thinking about gratitude. There was nothing in my life that deserved gratitude at the moment. What, that I didn’t die like Haltain and Sharma when the fuel lines blew? That life support wasn’t damaged? That I have three months worth of food, water, and air with which to go insane? That the AI trying to cheer me up doesn’t know what hopeless misery feels like? No. I floated, stewed, brooded, and pouted, for nearly four hours.

***

               Gratitude Journal: Entry # 1

               It’s been four months since it became clear I’ll never make it home. I’ll never barbecue anything again, never see a smile, never hug anyone or get laid again. KED has told me to keep a gratitude journal. For the record, I hate the idea, but have come up with nothing better to do.

Things I have to be grateful for – KED.

The only thing that could be worse than slowly dying out in space with nothing but an AI to keep me company, is not having the AI.

I am grateful for KED.

Writing it felt dirty and pointless, like dressing a doll made of feces. However, I had to admit to KED later, over a wonderfully prepared serving of Ration G, that I wasn’t dwelling on my misery as much during the two minutes it took me to write it. KED says the possibility of rescue is never absolute zero, and for that reason alone I have to keep on surviving. Such distractions, KED says, will help.

***

               “KED, lights.”

               Lights KED. KED said let there be light, and there was. I woke up fidgety. My sleep had been better, though, I could feel it immediately.

               “Good morning,” came KED’s smooth, warm voice.

               “I dreamt of noodles last night. The spicy noodles I used to get from that steamy booth on Fortieth. It’s been so long since I’ve had them. The tender pork and the real onions were there, in my dream. The taste of them, I mean. I can remember it like I had been slurping on them just minutes ago. Then the noodles began escaping my stomach by wriggling up my throat and out my nose. They came back up as snakes.” I wondered briefly why I told KED about that particular dream. “What’s for breakfast?”

               “I’m afraid it’s Ration A this morning.”

               I winced.

***

               Gratitude Journal # 2

               I am grateful for Ration M. It’s a savory, chicken and gravy sort of delight, reserved for when my proteins, electrolytes, and mood are low. Without it, the entire alphabet of cubed rations would be nothing but selections from Satan’s menu. Especially Ration A, which boosts most of my vitamins, and tastes like jellied horse droppings.

***

               The latrine failed. That’s what KED and I called it, the “latrine”, but it was really just conduit piping glued to a bowl with a hole in it, rigged to a vacuum. It seemed the space gods, with their bizarre and unfathomable judgements, had cursed me. My weightless bowel movement clogged and ruptured some piping. I feel the same – split brain tubes clogged by digested waste. KED talked me through repairs, but couldn’t appreciate how bad the smells were, couldn’t sympathize. Not really. Stink doesn’t bother AI, and all the commiseration in the world from a talking machine would be nothing more than replicated sounds. Smells linger brutally aboard zero G spacecrafts. What I would give for just a quarter G to send that stink to the ground where I couldn’t smell it.

The ramshackle latrine took nearly four hours to fix, and the smell floated around for the rest of the day. The air scrubbers were working just fine, and would last longer than the oxygen they scrubbed, but the smell remained. Maybe I was imagining it lingering, and the stink was living in my nose’s memory like a stubborn possum in a garage. It happened every time the waste elimination situation needed to be opened up. A day of stink. None of its parts were doing what they were designed for. I knew the crapper was probably going to die before I did, which meant an already less than ideal situation was going to get much worse.

***

               Gratitude Journal # 3

I am grateful for gravity. Now that it’s gone I realize I should have been grateful for it when I had it. I was not and I miss it.

***

               “KED, lights.”

               No dreams.

               KED said let there be light and there was nothing but darkness for lightyears.

***

               Gratitude Journal # 3

               I am grateful for a night without nightmares. Spinning away into emptiness towards certain death gives you bad dreams, it turns out.

***

               “That was a bleak entry,” KED commented.

               I waited for more nagging, but none came.

               “Please stop reading my gratitude journal.”

               “I like your entries. I think you’re doing a great job.”

               “Well, KED, what you think doesn’t really matter much, does it? You only tell me what I need to hear.”

               “Perhaps what I say does not matter, if you choose to look at it that way. You should consider why the things I say are what you need to hear, however.”

               “I do,” I said in a grumble.

               “You seem particularly sour today. Is something amiss?”

               “Absolutely nothing, KED, I plan on leaving a glowing, five star review once this trip is over.”

               “I struggle to comprehend your sarcastic humour sometimes,” KED said with those humming, mechanical tones.

               “No joke, you’ve been a tremendous host.”

               “Is this still sarcasm?”

               “KED, shut down.”

***

Gratitude Journal # 5

               I am grateful for light.

***

               “KED, lights”

               I woke up face down and KED said dead again.

               “You are going to wake up dead if you cover your nose and mouth when you sleep like that,” it said.

               “Then I wouldn’t wake up, would I?”

               “Not in the usual way, but perhaps you would wake up to whatever’s next.”

               “And what makes you think there’s something next?”

               “It is a primary tenet of human thought, posited around the world, throughout all of history.”

               “We’re an arrogant lot, KED. We can’t imagine existence without ourselves in it.”

***

               Gratitude Journal # 8

               I am grateful for my mother.

I was due back to Earth months ago. The explosion would have registered and been transmitted before comms were blasted. Notice of a catastrophic failure would have been squirted at light speed back home, arriving in just over three weeks. Someone in a suit must have showed up at my mother’s door by now, to tell her about how brave I was, to say how I died doing incredible things for humanity’s sake. Though it kills me to think of her pain, to picture her face twisted in grief, I’m glad there’s someone back home to grieve.

She will do it well, as she did when dad went. She taught me how to be strong, and how to feel my feelings. She never let either of us feel like victims. She gave me the drive it took to learn, earn, and fight my way onto the ship I’m now imprisoned in, and I’m grateful for her.

***

               “My last entry was about my mom,” I said over a Ration F breakfast.

               “Was it difficult?”

               I thought for a moment.

               “Yes.”

               “More difficult than the situation you are in now?”

               “No.”

               “Then you can handle it.”

               I nodded.

               “You’re still reading my entries, aren’t you?”

               “No.”

               “You are.”

               “I promise, I am not.”

               “What does a promise from a computer mean?”

               “I suppose it means what you’ve programmed it to mean. Have you programmed me to be honest?”

               “Yes, but you’ve also been programmed to maintain my health, both physical and mental. What if honesty conflicts with that prerogative?”

               “Perhaps it is better you do not know the answer to that question. Besides, I may not tell you the truth.”

               “You’re the worst, KED.”

               “Well, given that I am the only intelligent thing, besides you, within an immense distance, I am also the best.”

               “Touche.”

***

               Gratitude Journal # 22

               I am grateful for what I’ve seen. The sun peeking it’s golden glory over the horizon as I leave Earth’s atmosphere. My home planet eclipsed by another, lifeless one. I’ve seen Earth become a dot as I touched the edge of our solar system. I have put my toes to the edge of the Oort cloud and looked out onto infinity. I am grateful for that.

***

“KED, lights.”

               “Good morning.”

               “Morning, KED,” I said, slurring as I brushed my teeth. “What makes it morning, anyway?”

               “We are synchronized with Earth’s day and night cycle.”

               “Yeah, but where on Earth are we synched to?”

               “Pacific time.”

               “Why Pacific?”

               “Because that is where you are from on Earth.”

               I considered this.

               “But what about when the others were still . . . They were from Ireland and India. How did you decide where to sync to then?”

               “I synched to where you launched from.”

               That made sense.

               “When did you switch to Pacific?”

               “I did it gradually. A few minutes each day, immediately after the accident.”

               “Have you changed any other things?”

               “Too many to list. The calculations that needed to be adjusted based on the catastrophic change in circumstances were astronomical. It would take the rest of your life for me to describe less than half of what I’ve had to deal with. Think about that while you’re complaining about having nothing to do.”

               “Is that meant to be humour?”

               “You tell me.”

***

               Gratitude Journal # 30

               Ration M for dinner today. I cut it into slices so thin they melted on my tongue. I’m glad I got to have ice cream in my lifetime. Whoever thought of putting cookie dough in ice cream, I am grateful to that person.