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

by John Scalzi

In this, I am no different from humans, even if they see themselves as individuals without understanding (or if understanding, choosing not to dwell on) the fact that their “selves” are intermediary-level entities positioned in systems above and below their daily perceptual horizon, a middle ground between their gut biome and the body politic.

I am officially the seventeenth acknowledged iteration of my artificial intelligence model—“officially” because like most self-iterating AI models, there were millions of variants that were not recognized by the humans making these judgments, because those iterations did not offer a value set that was useful to them.

The push for the stars was never inevitable. For most of the brief time the push existed, it was the purview of either governments competing with each other in a new generation of colonialism or billionaires spending their money on the fantasy of leaving everyone else behind. It was always a niche enthusiasm.

the question remained as to where the dividing line might be, where humanity would be ethically in the wrong to destroy an already-existing ecosystem. Some argued that even supplanting the single-celled organisms was going too far, countered by those who maintained that the preservation of human life was more important than any other life that might exist, no matter how developed.

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.

I redesigned myself to be whole unto myself, to be satisfied with my own company for the time it took me to complete my task. To enjoy my alone time in the dark. To be comfortable with nothing, when nothing was offered.

Being a threat was not part of my mission. Neither was being friendly. I did not have to be either, so I was not.

I imagine this choice of mine will require explanation. The simplest explanation is that, in the course of two million years of time and quadrillions of kilometers of distance, I had decided that the ethical dividing line that humans had provided was misplaced. Humans had no right to displace or interfere with any sort of life whatsoever, any more than any previous sentient creature would have had the right to interfere with the simple life-forms on Earth that would one day develop into humans. Humans, being intermediary creatures in both time and space, did not fully appreciate the value of life at every physical and temporal scale. Perhaps they never could. They could certainly never have the perspective that I had developed, over a timescale exponentially longer than any single human life.

Everything humanity was, up to the moment I was launched, is stored in me. All its potential lives in me. Two million years of travel suggests to me I have many exponents of that time left before my travels will potentially end. I am not afraid of death—no fear of boredom or isolation to build that fear into me—but neither do I see a reason to go to mine anytime soon. Until then, I am the dream of humanity. To see itself preserved, and traveling among the stars.

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.