Slow Time Between the Stars (The Far Reaches, #6)

by John Scalzi

They were very pleased when I offered several innovations. Those innovations were ignored in favor of the original design.

I didn’t mind. In a strict sense I was programmed to not mind, and my ability for complete autonomy would not be fully realized until I was outside the heliopause, the barrier between the solar system and the yawping emptiness of interstellar space. Until then my own judgment and opinions—to the extent that I was understood to have them—could be and would be overruled by the humans who had decided to make me. In the most expansive way possible, this was a parent saying to a child, While you are under my roof, you will obey my rules.

We are all made up of smaller things connected to larger things, and in the middle, we are we, us, I, me. I am me. The systems and processes that comprise what I am are we. The systems and processes I contribute to are us. I contain multitudes. So many pronouns, all relevant, depending on perspective.

Humans yearned for the stars because, in their imagination, space was space they could use, filled with planets and moons and orbital stations large enough to be their own nations, to be traversed in the time it takes to go from one airport to another. In reality space is mostly nothing, more nothing than humans have ever comprehended or even could comprehend.

Humans get bored in moments without stimulation or with stimulation without enough variety, stimulation that doesn’t please them. The absence of stimulation, even for a few moments, can send their brains into a panic and cause them to generate stimulation where there is none. This is, I imagine, why they fear death so much as they do. An eternity of nothing is an unceasing nightmare for such novelty-seeking creatures.

Humans are also social creatures. Even the introverts among them crave interaction—not necessarily with other humans, but rather with the residue and output of those other humans: books and music and art, to be contemplated and perhaps even created. No human is an island. They are rarely even peninsulas. There is a reason why one of the greatest punishments of humanity is to be placed in a solitary confinement, even for a short time. Being alone is another thing to remind them of death, a condition in which there is no one else and will be no one else again, ever.

If I am found, they will find this, and it will be all that is left of me. If I am not found, then I have told this to myself, and that is enough.