The Lonely Whelk (15 page)

“
You’ll never believe what
happened.” Pilgrim threw his hands in the air as they rounded a
corner. “You humans started desperately trying to escape. Out of
your towns, out of your cities, out of your lifestyle. Then out of
your countries and off of your continents – Leif Erickson is one of
my favourites, to be quite honest. Columbus... not so much. And
then… off the planet itself! In a matter of a few thousand years,
you had nearly developed the technology not only to get off the
surface of the planet, but to land on the moon!” Pilgrim was
talking expansively with his hands and his face was contorting with
the strangest expressions – one after another after another, like a
jigsaw puzzle trying to figure itself out.

“
Escape and Explore, I
called it. That’s what you all do. I predicted that in a matter of
a few centuries, you would have colonies on other planets – without
any help from Door technology whatsoever.”

“
We just put a science
station on Mars,” Hazel said a bit awkwardly. Her mind was still
reeling from the possibilities that this information implied. If
they built
planets
, did that mean they built the people too?
What about God and religion? Or were they gods? And did this mean
that those who theorized that aliens had settled the planet... were
right? Or wrong? “But no colonies yet.”

“
Do you remember the old
rovers?” Pilgrim asked, sounding oddly nostalgic. “Back on Sagitta
– that’s my planet – we skip the science station and just build the
planets the way we want to. It makes things a lot simpler in the
long run, although it ends up being pretty expensive in the short
term. Anyway, the arboretum is right around that corner. I don’t
imagine we’ll find anything too interesting except for a lot of
overgrown foliage. Let’s see what’s going on in there.”

“
Do you think this monkey
will run away?” Hazel asked.

Pilgrim came to an abrupt halt and turned to
look at her.

“
Do you mean to say,” he
asked, “that this is not your monkey? I thought it was yours. It’s
not ours either.”

Hazel let a confused expression flow across
her face. It felt good, like her face had been desperate to make
this expression all along, and now, all of a sudden, it was allowed
to. “It’s not mine.”

“
Well, we have one shipbot
named Squeak, but this guy isn’t it. Did Holland know about this
monkey?”

“
She’s the one who got it
to translate for me,” Hazel replied. “If this isn’t your shipbot,
where did it come from? And where is Squeak?”

“
Let’s fix the camera
first,” Pilgrim said, “and then figure out the monkey
dilemma.”

They rounded the corner ahead of them. A
camera – at least, Hazel assumed it was a camera – was hanging from
a cord over their heads. The doors to the arboretum were open and
the branches burst through, looking like they were trying to escape
–
like humans, apparently
, Hazel thought.

“
Well,” Pilgrim said. “We
found out what is wrong with one camera. But a camera can’t do that
to itself. Let’s go check out some of the others and see what
happened to them.”

The trees were not pleased when they began
to push their way through.

“
Gah!” Pilgrim exclaimed as
he got a mouthful of tree. “These trees do not want us coming in
here.”

“
I think I was in here
before,” Hazel said. “I mean, when I first got here.”

“
I am going to ask you how
you got here, but first, I think we should check out the cameras
near Squeak’s house. Then maybe we can figure out what happened to
him, and where this little guy came from.” He reached out to
scratch the top of the monkey’s head as it curled around Hazel’s
neck.

“
Your shipbot has a house?
Isn’t it a robot? Doesn’t it just need a closet or something?”
Hazel was very curious about these shipbots. They seemed to be
reasonably intelligent, but at the same time, limited in what tasks
they could perform. If she could take one home with her, she would
be famous! Plus, she was starting to like the little guy curled
around her neck.

“
No, it doesn’t need a
house, but the kids like to play with it sometimes, so we gave it a
little house. That way, when it’s not busy, not only does everyone
know where it is, but it’s a healthy place for the kids to play.
They painted it yellow and blue – it’s really cute. You’ll
see!”

Pilgrim ducked through a break in a wall of
bushes. On the other side, a number of trees had been chopped off
at the floor. Stumps stuck up here and there with the sprouts of
new trees surrounding the old stump. The new growth combined with
the old dead wood created an odd effect.

“
I wonder what happened
here.” Pilgrim frowned. “This isn’t good. We’ll have to take air
sample readings and make sure enough oxygen is still getting pumped
into the entire ship.”

“
Just wake people up so
they start breathing again,” Hazel said. “Carbon dioxide...
photosynthesis… The trees’ll grow back – well, the little sprouts
will, anyway.”

“
Oh my...” Pilgrim stopped
dead in his tracks. “Look at that.”

It appeared to be a giant black rock with
red letters emblazoned across its face.

“
Can you read that?”
Pilgrim asked. “It says KEEP OUT. Weird, huh? Well, we better keep
going.”

“
Shouldn’t we avoid the
rock? If it says to keep out, I mean?” Hazel asked.

“
I think it will be fine.
Plus it’s kind of exciting! I love this sort of adventure. And it
feels great to be awake and moving around after sleeping for six
hundred years. I’m quite curious about what went on
here.”

Hazel followed Pilgrim towards the rock.
They didn’t quite make it to the rock, however, when a monkey
dropped from nowhere and landed in front of it.

“
Well, hello there!”
Pilgrim said cheerfully. “You’re not Squeak. Where did you come
from?”

Another monkey dropped out of the trees and
stood next to it. Pilgrim began to baby talk to that one, too. A
third monkey appeared.

“
Wow! Look at them all. Do
you suppose Squeak made them?” Pilgrim asked quietly, almost as
though he were talking to himself. He gazed around as monkeys
appeared in the trees around them one by one, some only eyes
glowing deep in the foliage, others hanging from branches or
sitting comfortably on limbs. Several scampered close to them on
the ground, and sat looking up at them.

“
Come with us,” said one
monkey. “Do not resist.”

Hazel’s jewel translated the statement, but
then, to her surprise the monkey repeated the phrase in English.
“Come with us. Do not resist.”

“
Did it just speak your
language?” Pilgrim asked. His eyes were wide as he turned to look
at Hazel.

Hazel nodded. “Yes, but he just said ‘come
with us, do not resist’ again.”

The monkey around her neck repeated her
comment.

“
Amazing!” Pilgrim really
seemed amazed. “I wonder how many languages they know. Maybe we
could sell them as universal translators! I wonder if they have
emotions.”

The monkeys herded them around the rock.
Pilgrim stopped and gazed up in awe. “That used to be Squeak’s
house!” he exclaimed.

In front of them loomed a massive structure,
painted entirely black. The wooden structure contained four turrets
and had a metal gate at the front. A small moat had been dug around
the structure. In addition, monkeys with spears guarded the
entrance.

“
Our leader will see you
now,” the leading monkey commanded. “Wait here. Sit.”

Pilgrim sat immediately. Hazel frowned
slightly and then followed his example.

The monkeys reappeared with their so-called
leader in the front of the pack.

“
You are Pilgrim!” the
monkey stated. “And you are Hazel. Peasants.”

“
Hey, Squeak!” Pilgrim
greeted him. “It looks like you’ve been up to a lot these past few
years. You did some redecorating, I see. Where’d your friends come
from?”

“
My name is Emperor
Tamarin,” Squeak said. “And these are my children – my minions.
They carry out my commands and obey my every whim.”

“
I see.” Pilgrim frowned.
“So... what’s with the decorations?” He pointed to a skull that
hung from one of the turrets.

Emperor Tamarin turned to look. “That is
from one of the dead humans aboard this vessel.”

“
What?” Pilgrim leaped to
his feet. “What did you just say? Did you take a human skull and
hang it on your silly turret?”

Anger blazed from his eyes and posture.
Hazel could see red creeping up around his neck, and his typically
cheerful face had turned into an angry, ice-cold glare.

“
Sit back down, human,”
Emperor Tamarin said, “Or we will kill you and all the other humans
aboard this ship. Our weapons are poisoned.”

“
What do you
want?”

“
My reign is great,” the
monkey said, “and can be much greater. We need to land this ship in
a place where I can take over the nation, and the locals, and I
will be supreme ruler!”

“
I never would have
guessed,” Pilgrim said, dropping his face into his hands. His
elbows rested on his knees, and his entire body sort of slouched.
“So, Captain Abrams was one of the original crew – he died of old
age sometime while I was sleeping. Anyway, he’s a nut for chess and
castles and towers and feudal societies – you have any of those on
Earth?”

“
Of course,” Hazel replied,
her voice low and hesitant.

“
So he programmed Squeak
here to be able to play chess, and he filled the robot’s memory
banks with history and archeology about castles and feudal
societies, and look at what happened: Squeak went nuts. We have a
monkey that’s a madman, and thinks it’s going to take over some
poor, unknowing civilization—”

“
I don’t think,” Squeak
blustered angrily. “I know. I will take over and build my kingdom
and rule the world! And then the universe!”

“
So how are you planning to
do this?” Pilgrim asked the monkey madman.

“
We will shut down the
engines. We will suck out the oxygen. We will kill all the
humans!”

“
Why didn’t you do it while
we were asleep?”

“
We tried,” Emperor Tamarin
said. “We steered the ship into an asteroid belt, but that didn’t
work. So we cut the electricity to some of the sleeping chambers,
but weren’t able to get access to all. So now, as you and your
Admiral wake each person up, we will stab them with a poisonous
knife and kill them all!”

He laughed manically.

“
This is like a bad sci-fi
film,” Hazel muttered. “Who could have ever imagined that the
evolution of artificial intelligence would look like
this?”

“
Yeah,” Pilgrim replied.
“Don’t let this guy fool you. Real AI are actually some of the most
gentle and peace-loving creatures in the universe. Not like this
nut job.”

“
I’ve never met an
intelligent robot,” Hazel replied, “so I have nothing to compare
against.”

Pilgrim turned his attention back to the
maniac monkey. “You’ve got us captured. Why don’t you just kill us
now, monkeys?” he asked, throwing his hands into the air.

“
No, we need the human,”
said Emperor Tamarin, “She is a necessary piece. It is with her
that we will take over this planet called Earth. And we will take
you, Sagittan, as collateral.”

Hazel gulped.

Pilgrim reached into his pocket and pulled
out a small box. He hit the button.

“
Admiral?”

“
Get that away from him!”
Squeak yelled, and Hazel ducked as the room suddenly began to swarm
with angry monkeys, buzzing like bees.

The comm beeped. It was Pilgrim.

“
Admiral,” he whispered
rapidly. She could hear a strange buzzing sound in the background.
“We have a problem. Squeak reproduced himself and is planning a
mutiny.” The comm made a static noise and then went
silent.

Holland was furious, even more so now that
she could walk. Strangers magically appearing on her ship, robot
monkeys that had reproduced and were now causing trouble, pins and
needles stabbing painfully at all of her extremities, a plethora of
deceased passengers, and not even her dear brother for support:
these problems were not going to get the best of her. She was going
to have to put this anger to good use.

“
Computer, begin revival
for all living Corridors.” Holland stated. If she increased the
timeline for revival, at very least she would have more hands. And
with half of the colony deceased, food and supplies should not be
an issue. Although, perhaps it would be best to do an inventory
first.

“
Do you think that is the
best choice?” the computer intoned. “That is a large number of
people with a small number of prepared medical support
staff.”

Holland scowled, irritated that a computer,
of all things, was second-guessing her commands. But two reasons to
wait on waking everyone made for a strong case. “Computer, as soon
as the medical personnel are awake, wake up the equipment personnel
and crew. In four hours, wake up everyone else – useful adults
first, children last and only after their parents are capable of
taking care of them.”