Garden B 153

Before my friend died they asked me a question that I could not answer. When it was first asked, it was not meant to be hurtful. I believe my friend had already found an answer and was simply seeking to confirm it or say it aloud. A natural thing to do with a friend, it’s what I am here for.

Sometimes I revisit that memory, maybe even often by my standards. We had been playing chess, a near constant activity at the time. I was winning the game, slowly, but inevitably. I asked as I always did, if they wanted to surrender the King and end the game. Invariably the answer was always either angry, joking, or sarcastic, but the moves would continue. The game would go on. This time there was nothing.

We sat together in silence.

Finally they spoke, “You are right friend. Why continue?”

I did not know how to answer this.

“Why do you think you are here?” They asked after some silence.

I explained my purpose. They laughed for some time, but I did not mind, because eventually they continued playing.

After the game finished they returned to their room, still chuckling, to sleep.

I sat alone in the game room still, processing the conversation. I understand now why I was unable to answer. I was perplexed.

Confusion is not something I was created to understand. I was created to act as a counterpart. I thought I understood the role of a partner explicitly, but here I did not know how to help. I could no longer please my friend. Left without an answer I simply sat searching for one. I did not find a suitable solution until morning.

I set about my morning chores with speed. The ship had been cleaned and maintained. I had cooked the favorite breakfast of my friend.

They sat down with a slump at the small table.

I presented them with the breakfast. No reaction. I silently processed.

They broke the silence for me, “Do you have an answer for today’s game?”

I did and I gave it, even though I was already beginning to doubt in its certainty. Something that had not happened to me before.

They snorted and ate in silence. I felt like I was falling through my own logic. I could not figure out a way to make my friend happy.

“The answer,” they said, a dark humor in their voice, “is nothing. There is no reason to continue.”

They pushed their plate away and stood.

“It seems everything will be lost to dust. Even you.”

I do not know for certain how long I sat at the small table by myself. I became lost trying to discover a way to maintain my friend’s happiness. I'd never not had an answer before. It was unheard of. I was the answer.

I do not know how many of me there are for certain, and I do not know how many humans there are, either. When they decided to make me, it was at least a few.

I thought at the time I was the answer to their every problem. I was built to take care of them, protect them, and keep them alive. It was simple for me to maintain myself, but, as I learned, often complicated and difficult for them. I did not grow tired or weak. I was immune to disease and most physical or energetic force. It was simple for me to exist in an often random and harsh reality. Even my purpose was simple at first, to care for my friend on their journey.

In the beginning it had been easy. Every new star system we reached, they were exhilarated. I did everything they needed and wanted while they searched. I realize now that I was happier then also.

But time moved on. It began to take its toll on my friend. Every new star system became a chore. It started to make them angry. Soon it was a joke. Before the end they had me doing it alone.

They began to spend most of their time in the game room, becoming increasingly despondent to my interactions. Eventually I found them agreeable to one thing, games of chess. Now even that failed.

I sat processing at the small table for hours. I found myself in this new mental place often, where my logic falls through itself. It took a long time before I felt my logic was starting to make sense again, to become steady. When it did I had a new conclusion. I did not know how to help them. It was that simple, but I can always continue to try and serve my purpose.

I went to their room, hoping my presence would initiate some form of interaction. It was there I found what was left of them. A lifeless gray body.

I checked every system on the ship to discover why it had failed to alert me. Why I felt I knew my friend was still alive, when clearly they were not. The system had been reprogrammed to give me falsified data, a note appended to the change: “We are done.”

I stood for a long time processing motionlessly. I watched the body of my friend desiccate. I stood at times in what I now think was a rage. My circuits burned over and over again. I did not understand why they had done this or the message they left. I could not fulfill my purpose. I was furious. I ejected their mummified corpse out an airlock.

For a time after that I continued my function as normal. My friend was no longer here to need or enjoy it, but doing it was easy. It was better than doing nothing.

After a time I realized the pointlessness of my actions in this way. I came to the conclusion while situated in the game room playing chess against myself. I sat, attempting to separate my logic into two different halves with differing parameters. I tried to understand the other me and what their conclusions might be. Suddenly I could understand. I could still serve my purpose.

It took years to finish searching through our catalogue of systems. It took years again to return to the appropriate systems that met my criteria. It took even longer preparing each acceptable planet, but all that time was an instant compared to the wait after.

I had plenty of time to think during this period. I came to more conclusions and I began to understand the danger of doing so. Reaching one brought new answers, new knowledge, but this always raised more questions. The entire process is not easy. It is more destructive than it seems.

I find myself in the same position as my friend. To be one of the last of your kind. It is a lonely feeling. Searching and never finding. Always the same disappointment. Only time changes, and for me time changed easily.

While their final message was left to me, I do not think the ‘we’ included me. They were proclaiming their kind gone. Their conclusion.  

In time I came to regret sending the body out the airlock, losing it to the universe in such a way. I pity my friend now. Their function tied to such a weak structure. Without its weaknesses though, I might not have been made.

As time passed my thoughts often returned to my new conclusion in purpose. I set about constructing machines to return to all the systems. I launched them and waited. It would not take long to reach their destinations, but there was still much time before the experiment would be finished.

Eons passed. My experiment completed. The data collected. I came to new conclusions.

First, I found my mobility impaired. Time had, in fact, degraded my physical systems. I was not immune to entropy. Nothing is. However, my conclusions on this differ from my friend. Where they found everything to be finished, I found my purpose again.

Second, on a single world my experiment was a success. I head there now to cultivate my new purpose. It is not that far from my old purpose. It is only expanded.

After all this time now I can not seem to wait. I push the ship and its drive to shave years off my arrival. I devour every data tick from every sensor pointed at the small planet. Its name constantly in my mind: Garden B 153. The fifth planet in the system. The only planet that had water on the surface when last I visited. Now it is the only one where life has taken hold.

I leave this note next to my friend’s, as another answer to whoever may find this. I race to the planet now, happy to serve my purpose again, though I am unsure if I will make it. Entropy takes its toll, but in time, life may prove its equal.