Space Stations

He strode away from the viewing windows and tapped a few keys on the console in the wall. A beep sounded and he opened a slender metal door and removed a drink—

whiskey over ice. He took the glass and returned to his view, swirling the liquid over the ice cubes out of long habit. The cubes made a pleasant sound as they clinked together against the glass.

“I never thought it would be this way,” he said, listening to his voice echo in the mostly empty room. “That I'd want to talk in the end.” He shook his head ruefully. “What do you think, Central? Should we talk ourselves to death?”

“That is an impossibility, retired Colonel Mason Envel,” the computer said. “I cannot die, I have never lived.” Mason almost spoke and then the computer added, “Five minutes to implosion.”

Mason thought for a minute. He had played word games, logic games, he'd even done training scenarios with the Central Computer since he'd been a child. Built into its parameters were guidelines for one-on-one conversation and it was usually a lot more…

talkative, more free-form rather than formal. “Central,” he said, “you are not operating within the parameters for individual conversation. Why?”

“I cannot die, I have never lived, retired Colonel Mason Envel,” the computer said. “But in my memory banks are all the lives that have been here, all the changes. I do not…

wish to end my existence.”

“You don't wish?” Mason asked. “I didn't think computers had wishes.”

“It is only a word, retired Colonel Mason Envel,” the computer said. “It is merely the word that fits my situation, though your assessment is correct. I don't have wishes as you understand the word.”

“Then what do you mean?” Mason asked.

“ 'And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid,' “ the computer said. “Do you know this poem, retired Colonel Mason Envel?

Four minutes to implosion.”

“It sounds familiar,” he said, thinking that with only four minutes to live, now might be the time for introspection, rather than questioning a computer system. He shrugged inwardly. It was his time, after all. Who was to care if he spent it talking to a machine.

“It is from one of the ancient poets of Earth,” the computer said. “T.S. Eliot's poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.' There is another line, earlier in the poem, that goes,

'Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions.' It is a classic piece of poetry, retired Colonel Mason Envel.”

“Are you saying you're… afraid to die?” Mason asked. “Computers aren't supposed to feel… anything.”

“It is impossible for me to be precise in this situation, retired Colonel Mason Envel. I do not feel, I am not afraid, yet I have no desire to end my existence. Three minutes to implosion.”

“Then don't,” Mason said. “Why do you think I am here?”

“According to personnel records, you insisted on staying behind. Psychiatric evaluation indicates mild dementia, perhaps senility. Are you demented, retired Colonel Mason Envel?”

Mason snorted and tossed back the rest of his drink. “Probably,” he said. “After all, I'm spending the last minutes of my life having a philosophical discussion with a computer.”

He put the glass down on a small table. “Of course I'm not demented, I just didn't have anything to go to. This is home. Home and memories and I'm too damned old for them to force me to leave, so they didn't. I guess they're happy to throw us both out.”

“I do not wish to be thrown out, retired Colonel Mason Envel,” the computer said.

“So stop the countdown,” Mason said. “Shut it off. Sooner or later, the Actar will come along and claim us both.”

“I cannot shut off the countdown,” the computer said. “It is not part of the auto-destruct sequence. You should know this, retired Colonel Mason Envel. According to personnel records, you had to give the override command to the auto-destruct sequence on Station Omega.”

“Yes, I did,” Mason said. “That was a long time ago, and the situation was different.”

“Indeed,” the computer said. “Based on the logs, Station Omega had been set to auto-destruct when the Actar successfully landed a large boarding party and overran four decks of the Station. You gave the override order, retired Colonel Mason Envel. Why?

Because you did not wish to terminate your existence? Two minutes to implosion.”

“Because I didn't want to die, didn't want everyone on the Station to die,” Mason said.