Darian X Chapter Two - Peter

Chapter One
Peter Part one

The human male woke up. .. He opened his eyes, hearing himself shouting .
“I’m not extinct!” he repeated, sturtling the words. When he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness, and he became disorientated by the previous events of his life, or was it his life. Darkness was all that was left of his life or was that his eyes became too blurred and tired it appeared like darkness. His eyes adjusted to his surroundings. His back weighed down the rest of his body, tightly flat on his bunk.
It was a weird, but nice dream. He wanted to get back to the dream and reacquaint himself with the beings, to reassure them that mankind wasn’t extinct, and that humans were not to be feared by others. He closed his eye lids to chat some more to his new friends, relaxing himself back to slumber.
As he slumbered some more, his naked body breathed in and out in a relaxing mode; his body was shielded by his sleeping cubicle, allowing him to sleep naked as he slept protected against any space radiation that may leak into his bedroom.
His young, smooth face just bore one birth mark, a small one on his neck. His round eyes loosely covered by his eye lids and his red lips creased with the strain of the dream. His hair curled around his ears and was mangled and unmanageable. The dark, rogue curls also fringed his eyes. His torso, arms, and legs were also as young as his face. No sagging stomach, legs slightly skinny with his young knees protruding upwards, hair covered his legs in dark, mangled layers. His arms and hands were fresh and free from lines of time.
“Peter! Wake up!” That was not the voice he wanted to hear, and it didn’t sound like the two strange beings. “Peter! Wake up!” He opened his heavy eyes, well, he tried, or he didn’t want to open them. His eyelids were feeling cosy the way they were. The voice repeated the Wake up call, but it seemed to hover above him and echoed deep inside his ears and head, invading his space of unconscious haze.
During the next half an hour, which felt like only a few moments, was spent in conflicting mode between his unconscious and conscious mind, and also with the nagging ‘wake up’ calls ringing in his subconscious dream.
‘That’s it’ He slid off from his sleeping cot, his eyes still insisting they stay shut. The cubicle shield was turned off. He floated as the lack of gravity carried his naked body away from his cot, his raw pale skin glowing under the faint deck lighting, and the his body floated adrift, legs dangling. Delirious and still sleepy, he wrangled around to find something to grab hold of to keep him in one place instead of floating to god knows where. This experience soon washed away any sleepy cobwebs and his blue eyes illuminated the darkened room.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed, as his perky buttocks bounced and bumped against the ceiling, or floor. In this predicament and in the dark, who can tell which was the floor, wall, or ceiling? “What happened to the gravity?”
“Sorry! Peter, I was conserving energy whilst it was not in use.” The lights gradually came into the room as something else controlled the room’s environmental and energy controls.
“But, how come I didn’t float whilst I was sleeping..? whoaaaH! Gravity, please!”
“I strapped you in with the electronic straps that are controlled by the onboard computer.”
“The ship can do that. How did you find that one out?” Peter floated, now handling this gravity like a pro, the room’s lighting focusing on his naked parts.
“By logging onto its hard drive, I found some Accessories controls that must have been installed later on during the ship’s lifetime. I was having a perusal during the first five minutes of your sleeping cycle. You can also set a timer for the electronic straps five minutes before you go to bed, and then set the timer for the gravity controls. The previous pilot must have been a ship programmer because it is such a sophisticated program for a ship this old.”
Peter continued to float as the voice rambled on, and he stared at a black floating spherical device that moved closer to him. It was small, the size of a child’s head, filled with artificial intelligence that left the average human like us mind boggled at the intricacies of such intelligence in such a small chip inside this minute ball. “VD, very nice, but can...”
“By the way,” the voice from the spherical device continued, “You are not attired again.”
Peter heard the gravity system hissed back on, and he collided with the floor, with a bump and an “Ouch!” Luckily, his rear end cushioned his fall. “Go away. Give me some privacy.” He stayed on the floor, crouching in a ball and his weary head between his knees. He wanted to rest his eyelids again. Sleep! Sleep!
“Nourishment is ready!” The voice interrupted his napping. Peter’s head limped even more between his knees.
“I’ll have it when I’m ready.” He mumbled.
“Those symbols have been deciphered.” The dulled, non tonal voice reported. Peter stretched himself to stand up and headed straight back to his bunk to sit on. He sat back, fed up, not feeling awake yet and wishing he could go back to his dream. For some reason, the dream’s image wouldn’t leave him alone and he felt he had unfinished business back in the dream. He contemplated on the voice’s statement.
“O.K. Why?” The voice didn’t respond. “Why?” He repeated. The voice refused to respond. It either didn’t understand the question, or didn’t want to answer it.
Eventually, it decided to reply, “I don’t understand.”
Peter relaxed his shoulders, taking in some stressful breaths, trying to get into a restful state. “I am capable of deciphering them myself.” The voice was silent again.
Peter stood up and started searching around the modest, minimal small room for some kind of suitable clothing. His temperature was rising rapidly as soon as he moved away from the cool bunk. He remembered, now, that his uniform had to be placed in a heat free environment. This environment would protect items from the heat of this particular planet. Back home on the colony, in his room, there were no such problems of deterioration, and now he realised, maybe he would not be able wear his usual uniform and he himself should get into the cool room. His normal suit was not tailored for this extreme heat, and maybe there was a suit that he or even Mia, his close colleague had hopefully remembered to retrieve from the colony, that would be more durable. He was definitely thinking about retrieving one from his father’s store room before setting off on his little adventure.
“Why am I here?” The neutral toned VD asked. Peter stood still, fingers pondering on his stubble young chin, his blue, clear eyes moved, regarded the floating probe. The rest of Peter’s exposed body lodged itself motionlessly.
“Eh!” Peter trampled across to a bare wall across from his bunk. As he got to a specific point on the floor, the sensors under the floor picked out his body heat, which meant, automatically, the wall opened to uncover another part of Peter’s ship.
He passed through the gap that opened up before him. He was now in a small chamber with controls, knobs, card slots, etc. The lights came to play as soon as he stepped inside. Right in front of him was a sealed transparent door. There was his uniform, hung up behind the glass cavity. He was still deciding whether he should risk wearing it again after yesterday’s trip onto the planet’s surface. His suit had deteriorated from the extreme heat.
He needed protection fast, with the ship’s cooling system was not in operation, yet the magnetic force field was. He knew this as he could hear the field generators making most of the hum noise that came to be the backbone of noise in and around the old ship. Newer systems that were on Darian's fleet were less noisy, due to some modifications. Peter didn’t understand the physics of magnetic fields and generators, but all he knew or cared about was if he can hear the hum noise, he knew his ship was being protected. On Darian's ship, the noise of the new generators had been reduced drastically to a minimum, which made Peter uneasy. If there was no noise, how do you know it was working? Which meant regular checking and this was taking you away from other duties, like sleeping and eating and other fun things with his Mia.
At the same time as pondering, and listening to the generator, his mind kept popping up reminders of VD’s question. He was trying to concentrate on the suit dilemma and all VD could do was ask such a question. So he ignored VD. He will try to answer the question later.
He stepped back into his room, and found a different wall to walk to, which also opened automatically as he stepped on the heat sensor point on the floor. This wall opened to uncover a narrow restricted corridor. This corridor stayed in darkness as he left his room, and turned left. He stalked through three more hatches and three small corridors to another storage locker, specifically designed to accommodated protective suits, especially the radioactive type. Hopefully, Mia back at the colony thought ahead and prepared a radioactive suit. Of course, she would’ve prepared for any eventuality. Mia always did.
“Why am I on this expedition?” VD’s non tonal voice continued as Peter arrived at his destination. “If you are looking for a radioactive suit, I have already placed one in your sleeping quarters.”
Peter stopped walking and leaned against the cold wall of the hatch that was between the third corridor and the locker room. Back against the wall, he gently banged his head against the wall in frustration, ignoring the feel of the cold metal touching his back. He was furiously hot and he was getting tired.
“I need breakfast.” he grumbled. “I’ve looked in there.” He turned back, and the VD obviously had followed him, as it hovered in the air, in the corridor.
“Obviously you haven’t looked properly; you only looked in the alcove.” There was silence, as Peter straightened his unclad body and started on the trek back to his room. “My drones placed it in your room at the last nightfall, during your nourishment feed.”
“So why didn’t I see it? You can’t miss it, I mean; the suit is a big clumsy outfit. I think I would’ve noticed it.”
VD continued with his questioning “Why am I here?”
“Well, I didn’t ask you to come” Peter seemed disgruntled. “I can manage without a VD.”
“The reason why I’m here is because Darian sent me here.”
"He doesn’t realise is that I have a brain that I would like to use sometimes.”
Peter arrived back in his room and eyed around the quarters for this damn suit.
“Darian believes that with my assistance, this mission would be achieved a lot quicker and a lot safer and then you can return home.”
Peter turned his eye focus on the VD as it too returned to the room. “Are you sure she didn’t send you?”
A brief silence, then VD replied, “They both did.”
Now Peter was finally dressed in black, sheer protective layers, which was usually the undergarment for a radioactive suit. He leaned back in his bed, digging through his nourishment that was laid in a deep metallic dish, not exactly enjoying his breakfast. For some reason, he didn’t feel hungry, so he slid the dish and its contents into the bedside disintegrator.
“VD, you know I prefer to eat food in its natural state. Research states that this artificial food that I’ve been eating all my life is what is causing deformities in embryos and sperm at preconception.”
“But your body is not adapted for natural food substances. Remember what happened three days ago.”
“My body just needs to be given the time to adapt. I just can’t forget the loss of Alto’s embryo. It couldn’t develop properly, it never grew any arms, and then they decided to destroy it like I just disintegrated my disgusting breakfast!”
“More research needs to be done. Nobody knows for certain the causes of the embryo’s deformities.”

Clothed and fed, Peter eased himself into work mode and off his bunk. He was now in the main control room of this ship. He was busying his fingers over his flat panelled monitor and controls, easily used by flashing symbols and instructions.
“What happens now, Peter?” VD still hovered nearby, waiting for its’ next assignment. “We could leave this solar system. It is too far out of our normal spatial grid and too far for any of our citizens to pinpoint our distress beacon.”
“You want to ignore that other distress beacon?”Peter folded his arms in defiance. “I can’t ignore it.” He unfolded his arms, waved them up in dispair, thinking what is the use talking to an automated ball of logarithms about a another human being could be possibly be in a life threatening situation. What was it he read in an old library text? A philosopher listed some rules about how machines, robots, automons would not and could not and shall not hurt human life, and let human life come to harm. Well, humanity have had problems sticking to that rule when they spent aeons trying to program such concepts into a machine, especially when it came to distress beacons. More often than not, the machine, mainly VD models, have narrow concepts, mainly being programmed to serve their immediate master. Today, VD’s immediate master is Peter, and has been since Peter’s beginnings into this universe. And serving their master means nothing else but getting their master back to their city and ensure and assist their master in their preprogrammed duties, nothing else must deter or distract. That is what these machines have been programmed to do, and humans have forgotten to include the concept of the delicacy of human life. The main reason is the human life is no longer delicate, humans live longer, can decode their genes to oust out any bad genes that have been known to cause ill to others. Yes, a Y chromosome is believed to make certain humans more destructive than others that don’t have this gene. Yes, those nasty little genes are non existent. Any deformities are eradicated at conception. Thus, the human life can undertake their genetically preordained duties to their city, and can then focus on what is important, spreading the human genome across the universe.
Peter moved forward to wall, feeling his feet to find the heat pad, stood on another heat sensor, which automatically sent down a ladder to take him up to the cockpit. He climbed up the ladder, pushing open a hatch. He climbed further up, finding himself in the pilot seat. This small compartment dimmed by the darkness of the sealed down window and only the monitors’ flashing symbols lighted the cockpit.
“The beacon could be an old distress signal” The VD suggested. “We may already be too late!” it continued to argue.
“And they may still need our help!” Peter turned on the spatial holographic grid, a display of a celestial map, covering this solar system and the surrounding systems, nebulae, etc. “Let me try to pinpoint the beacon’s exact location now we might be a lot closer to it’s’ source. If I can remember your lesson, I need to modify my scans for radio waves that match the beacon’s recordings. This may take me the whole full solar cycle.”
“Peter, there is a strong possibility that this planet’s inhabitants have long gone. There have been no signs of life in this quadrant for over a thousand years!”
Peter heated up the engine, as he sat on his pilot’ seat.
“Are you sure the disturbing noise when we landed wasn’t the engine.” he queried to VD.
“I double checked all the system’s circuitry.” Peter went down on his knees under the helm control, as VD droned on in his ears. “...and I checked the food processor and recycling units. There were no faults found, but there are parts of the ship I can’t register or download or have access to. The problem may be there.”
“Shhh! something’s buzzing. .....” All there was, was the silence, as Peter held his breath. “....There! I think it’s this connection.”
“As I have discussed, I see no malfunction. This is not within my capabilities.”
“That’s because this connection is not computer based. I have to do this manually, and it’s definitely not the engine, just the piloting controls.”
“If it was connected with the computer, none of this would have happened. I would’ve foreseen the problem and then repaired it immediately.”
Peter tutted, “Huh! It’s not my fault. I bought it like this. I haven’t put in the new computer system in yet. Too busy.”
“Peter, I can’t believe you flew this ship without a main computer, risking your life like this.”
“I think she has reprogrammed you again.” Peter fumbled along with his work under the desk. Then he retrieved himself back up onto the seat. He played around with some more of the panelled controls, similar to the ones in the main control room.
“I didn’t have to come along. I had important matters back home, and I like to get back home in one piece.” The VD stated, sulking at being snubbed by Peter.
“Shut up! I can’t concentrate with your moaning.” On and on, why couldn’t someone program that damn ball to learn not to talk so much? “AAAHHHH! That feels a lot better. See, told you I could fix the coolant system.” Peter announced as the noisy coolant system kicked itself into gear. “I don’t need that suit for now.” This time, he didn’t get a response from VD. Peter looked around for VD. Where was that black ugly thing? Was it behind him? Peter looked back at his previous position, and then under his seat. “VD, are you busy? I saiddd!” Peter shouted. “That I’ve got the coolant system working!”
“I heard you; I am just busy connecting myself to the engine software!” The voice was not clear where its voice came from. Maybe VD was outside the corridor, maybe it had stopped stalking him like a sadistic machine that it was.
“Hey!!” Peter again raised his voice “I can manage with the engine myself.” He quickly raced off his chair, back down the ladder and headed off to the engine room. The engine room was down another set of ladders in this intersection of the ship and down a small access strip. “Just leave it to me; I’m on it right away.” Peter insisted, hoping VD would take note that Peter had the engine problem covered. VD appeared in the corridor, from the engine room, as Peter raced in through the same corridor. Peter quickly clambered through the hatch.

As promised, Peter was handling his engine problem, his way, hopefully without the annoying interference of VD. VD hovered and watched. Hours passed. Whistling soon filled the corridor, then humming, then silence again. VD still hovered, wandered outside, waiting in anticipation. Then...
“Stupid idiot!” This sudden outburst came from deep within the hatch.
VD moved an inch further, curiosity getting the better of it. “Peter?”
Then the coolant system suddenly automatically turned off. “What!” exclaimed Peter as he clambered back out of the engine hatch? “O.K. I can’t fix this. I’m off to my cabin.”
“You are not thinking of going back to bed?”
Why not? Peter was heading straight in that direction and nothing could stop his journey to his bed and depressing mood as things were not going too smoothly since buying and flying this heap. ‘What was I thinking?’ Peter asked himself. Was it to get back at Darian, to prove he could do something on his own, to learn skills, and not be so useless as the city had always made him feel since he could remember?
“Why not? If I’m going to die, I want to do it in my bed.”
“I don’t think you realise the seriousness of the situation. Going to bed won’t help.”