Given

Despite the low lighting not doing much to change the entrance room’s barren nature, Yuna’s face was positively glowing as she walked along its walls, taking her sweet time all the while. Though she’d always found it odd how spotless the ship was, this effect was particularly striking when evenly lit; the mild shine of almost mono-color surroundings only added to the feeling of emptiness. Nevertheless, Yuna remained here far longer than necessary, doing naught but running her hand along the walls and appreciating the moment. After wandering the room at a crawling pace Yuna finally came to enter the bridge once again. The same adjacent screens that turned on before – along with the overhead lights – were the only things powered, everything else looking just as dead as before. The console appeared the same as when it first turned on, though now the input between the screens had something glowing on each of its keys. Resting her arms on a small ledge below the displays, Yuna closely inspected each of what she now saw were glyphs on the upper half and symbols on the lower.

Taking them by row on the four-by-four keypad, Yuna silently mouthed, “’Yes, no, you, we, goal, what, offer, repeat’.” Doing so comparatively quickly, she was able to read and understand every glyph on the keypad. As she’d seen some of them before, Yuna realized that the symbols – mostly composed of straight lines and simplistic shapes – on the lower half correlated with the glyphs above them. Separate from these were two more keys below that resembled left and right parentheses. Looking towards the alternating dots and then back to the keyboard, she wasn’t quite sure what to do.

I don’t want to break anything, but I think this was meant for me. Well, I suppose there could be thousands of reasons for things happening this way, but that really seems like the case. The screen hasn’t shown anything since I got here, so… maybe I’m supposed to ask it something? If so, ‘you’ would probably be a good place to start, right? Yeah.

Placing her index over the glyph, she could feel even through her suit that it was warm. Just the glyph itself, though, as the key was otherwise noticeably cold. Wincing as she placed some light pressure on it, her action was interrupted by the display changing beside her – the left screen matching it as it had before. Her attention fully averting to this, she saw two diagonal lines in the center of the screen. After ten seconds or so of Yuna being fixed to the screen, the symbol was replaced by a glyph. Yuna recognized it as the one meaning, “Understand.” Interpreting this as a question, Yuna moved to press the glyph for, “yes.” Shortly after was a symbol representing, “you,” which was followed by the same question and the same answer. The next display being three glyphs, Yuna’s face was that of complete focus.

“’You, understand…’”

Unable to read the last, she searched for a way to convey what needed clarifying. With none of her options being particularly nuanced, Yuna didn’t have much of a choice other than hoping the computer would understand what she meant.

“Yes, yes, no,” is what she typed, an unsure and slightly pained look on her face as she did so. The gap was, very unpleasantly, several seconds longer than it was before. Once it passed, her eyes were met by the glyph she couldn’t understand on the right, followed by the symbol from the middle column of the writing she found near the entrance – the one she thought was their version of an equal sign, that is. On the far left were hundreds of glyphs in smaller print that were being replaced every second or so. Yuna was again asked if she understands. Though her first assumption was that the unknown character represented glyphs in their entirety, that was far from a safe bet. It could easily represent a grouping she isn’t aware of or any number of other ideas she couldn’t possibly intuit. Every second worrying if there was some kind of invisible time limit to this as she rapped her fingers against the ledge she was resting against, Yuna forced herself to answer with, “Yes, no.”

It took two additional tries of Yuna specifying which glyphs she understood and the computer switching up the sentence to better accommodate her before its next statement was readable.

“Goal, we, understand, you, language, with, you.”

Thoroughly confused as to what exactly that means, Yuna tries to form a question with her available options. She runs into the same problem again, with none of her options being especially useful for what she wants. After a while of looking helplessly at the keypad, she sees the display change to two alternating parentheses. She couldn’t recall how long it had been since she started trying to come up with an answer, but assumed this was a direction due to her lack of input. Pressing one of the keys sharing the same symbol, she saw the characters on the keypad fade out and get replaced. Yuna could still read more of the glyphs than she couldn’t in the four total sets, though noticed that they were more complicated than the first grouping. The time she took to sift through all of them was rewarded with a glyph exactly matching what she needed.

“How.”

The response was quick and entirely understandable, saying, “See, you, mind.”

Upon reading the last character, Yuna didn’t move. She didn’t appear frightened or shocked, she just stood staring at those three characters and re-reading them to make sure she was properly following what she was told. Once her eyes had passed over the same text many times, however, those feelings did start to creep in. Even as her gut told her otherwise and the back of her mind thought up far more rational ideas, Yuna wasn’t intent on listening. Foremost in her mind was fascination. The usual prompt asking if she understood was followed by a question from Yuna; the last bit of self-preservation that managed to get out.

“Mind, safe.”

What the machine said next was broken up into two separate statements, the first disappearing before the second took its place. “We, understand. Yes, safe.”

Almost in a trance as and after she read it, Yuna near thoughtlessly flicked between the keypad’s glyph sets to give her answer.

“See, mind, yes,” Yuna’s hand drifting back down to its resting place after she finished. A moment passed, then the two alternating dots took up the center of the screen once again. As many seconds without anything happening passed, her better judgment, and senses in general, started to kick back in. She noticed that her breath had gone shaky, with her limbs following suit. It wasn’t clear to her when this started exactly, but as she noticed it and waited silently inside the storm-battered ship, it only grew to worsen. Leaning against the machine became ever more relied upon to remain upright. The now several-minute wait feeling like much longer to Yuna, her mind ran sporadically between questioning her situation and keeping herself from being overcome by nausea, all while not removing her eyes from the screen for a second. Questions she had repeated often in her head.

What the hell did I just agree to? Is it… Is it there right now? Looking inside me? I don’t even know what I’m talking to and I agreed to let it read my mind?! Actually, I probably shouldn’t call it… ‘it.’ Cause it might be here right now… in my head. Fuck, this sucks. Why did I do this? I mean, it’s really cool and all, but not exactly a good example of cogent thought. It’ll be just grand if this works out and I get to talk to a computer, but if this was a test of my species’ intelligence then I have absolutely failed.

A light chuckle was let out, Yuna’s body straightening out somewhat.

Whatever. I did it, and it’s not like I can change that. Assuming it is something I can talk to I probably shouldn’t look such a mess. Not that I could hide that now.

Yuna went quiet, her posture more formal despite the worry having yet to leave. Yuna’s mind was stuck on that last thought. She wasn’t really thinking about it, just left running in place as the idea restated itself over and over again. It wasn’t long before this cycle was broken by the screen changing.

It said, in plain English, “Scan complete. Allow time to process.” No more than half a minute passed before the screen changed again, this time saying, “Evening. What’s your name?”

Looking at the keypad, Yuna couldn’t do more than make flustered noises as she looked for a way to answer.

“Verbally is fine,” the computer said, “You can just talk out loud.”

Yuna responded, “Uh, ok… I’m Yuna. Who are you?” her voice nearly avoiding cracking at the end.

“Nice to meet you Yuna, my name’s Thenn.” The computer’s response time was faster than before, writing back to her as though it were a native English speaker. Yuna considered that this could well be the result of some kind of tech wizardry that wouldn’t count as what she thought, but wanted to clarify before continuing.

Yuna asked tentatively, “I suppose ‘real’ could mean a lot of things, and I don’t want this to come off the wrong way, but… are you real? I-I know that you’re here talking to me right now and all, but are you just a program, or can you actually think?” Even Yuna wasn’t quite sure how she felt when saying this. Her words were ill put but there was a strange level of confidence in which she said them, and she was so fixated on Thenn’s answer that pinning a single cause would be impossible.

Taking a second or so longer than before, the computer said, “Yes, I’m real. I may not be organic, but I can assure you that my mind is just as real as yours.”

Excitement overcame fear. The latter was still there as evidenced by the feel of her heart beating against her ribcage, but “thrill” would be a more accurate descriptor now. She let out something between a shaky laugh and a long-awaited return to proper breathing as she kept herself from appearing outright giddy at their response.

Holy shit, even Dara isn’t that good. Assuming it’s true, of course… but why wouldn’t it be? Who cares, they can talk to me! Whatever the technicalities may be behind what is considered ‘conscious,’ that’s not my field. My field is doing cool shit like talking to alien AIs.

Perhaps not as much as she’d like, Yuna still remained mostly reserved on the outside. Clearing her throat and attempting to steady her voice, Yuna asked, “So, since you’re artificial, who made you?”

“They specifically designed me as an equal. I was built to think and participate just as a living being could, and they wished to treat me as one. I wasn’t made with running a ship in mind, but we were all desperate.”

Tilting her head and flattening one ear out of confusion, Yuna queried, “How so?”

Thenn’s response took no longer than all her others. “They’re dead. All of them. I remain out of choice.”

Yuna looked down and quietly apologized; Thenn didn’t acknowledge it. This was a gut punch she had seen coming but it hurt all the same. Yuna removed her arms from resting on the console and awkwardly shifted in place as she tried to think of what she could say to that. Her mouth opened briefly to start a sentence more than once, yet nothing came out. Yuna’s attention was brought back to the screen as Thenn figuratively broke the silence.

“Look, part of what the scan searched for was a voice for me to use. Our conversation is better had if we can properly talk to each other, so would you mind?”

Still stuck thinking about what Thenn said before, Yuna agreed.

“Alright, just give me a moment.” Not ten seconds later and Thenn got back to her.

“Can you hear me okay Yuna?” Thenn’s voice was immediately recognizable as a feminine one. Her voice was professional, mature, and friendly all at once, the cadence of it sounding like it came from someone in their mid-thirties. Its source was several feet in front of Yuna despite the lack of anything she could see that would emit it. Discarding any questions she had about how that voice was chosen, she just confirmed that Thenn could be heard well and remained unsure of what to say next.

In a confident and direct manner, Thenn told her, “You don’t need to worry about me or what you want to ask, Yuna. This is something that I got over a long time ago, and it is specifically my goal to talk with anyone that might happen upon this ship. In this case, that means you. So seriously, just do and say whatever feels right to you.”

Yuna cautiously asked if she was sure, and Thenn confirmed warmly. Taking a second to think about it, Yuna wondered how exactly it was that Thenn knew her creators were all dead. Surely this wasn’t their only ship, after all.

“I am absolutely positive they’re all dead,” Thenn explained plainly, “They were in the midst of an infertility crisis. Within the span of a day or so they all managed to get inflicted with a disease – still barely understood – that rendered them all incapable of breeding. Considering where I am and that I’ve received no communication from any of the other ships, I’m rather certain things didn’t end well.”

“Is that why you came to this planet? Did you all think it would have a cure or something?” Yuna’s words carrying genuine interest as she spoke.

“The destination wasn’t chosen because we thought it had answers, no. They were long dead, and I was put to sleep, long before this ship landed itself here. Rather, the goal of their trip was to research potential solutions to their problem while looking for extraterrestrial life. Should they fail, then all their information would be preserved and left on the potentially livable planet they had set out towards.”

Yuna asked if that was what all the locked boxes and diagrams were for, with Thenn confirming. Thenn said that they had gone through painstaking effort to preserve their work in the safest and most generally usable manner possible.

“If you hadn’t met any of the species you were preserving this information for,” Yuna said, “how’d you account for everything?”

Getting back to her sharpish as always, Thenn responded, “Well, I can’t say that everything was accounted for, but there was plenty of time to think over it. Even being one-hundred-ten earth years old myself, everyone else on the ship was a good number older than me. Once it was clear that their problem wasn’t one that could be fixed by them alone, preserving information became the number one priority.”

A glimmer of wonderment in Yuna’s eyes betraying her otherwise restrained demeanor, she asked again, “So, how’d they do it?”

Thenn’s albeit lengthy description didn’t go much into the specifics. She explained that, as one would expect, her creator’s crisis wasn’t expected and its effects spread rapidly. That being the case, they only had what remained of their current lifespans to figure out a solution. Resources of all kinds were limited, and production wasn’t optimized due to high-speed space travel being relatively new. Regardless, everyone with a research role in any field was set to find an answer. If no solution could be found, or they were in a profession like philosophy, then the goal was to determine what their species should do if extinction came to pass. All ships were designed with their ideas in mind, like giving it a reflective surface for better visibility at a distance, having a large open room for communing with other species, and mostly removing strong colors, as they weren’t sure if certain colors would trigger bad responses. Once much of their time on this ship had passed and it became clear that they, and no one else, had found an answer, the goal became guiding a new species to where they wanted. The diagram was intended to lead a species towards the box at the center of the main hall, as it had written and digital copies of translation guides, as well as keys to open the rest of the containers on the ship. There was also another identical box under one of the tarps in the storage room, should the other be destroyed or otherwise lost. Once a species could understand their language – far from a sure bet – her creators had made copies of important information and spread it across the ship in different places. The more essential, the more copies, and the more variation in them. Though evidently Yuna sees light in much the same way they did, translation guides were made with outdented versions, and there was a handheld device that would let someone read digital information through touch, all just in case whoever found their ship was blind. There’s also the screen next to the one Yuna was using which was made in case the species could only see thermal infrared, though that possibility was far harder to account for across the board.

Many of the broad strokes were outlined before their voyage started, but it was up to the passengers to decide exactly how everything should be stored safely. Ideally, however, none of this would be necessary. Thenn agreed to be put to sleep a long while before her creators’ inevitable death and was designated as a translator. She would try and talk with any species she found and make communication vastly easier. As for the other teams, they were stuck with a generic onboard computer for this task. So, the ship was set to detect the end of its course, power on briefly to land, then go back to sleep until someone passed an intentionally simple test of intelligence to enter.

Interrupting a moment, Yuna thought aloud inquisitively, “When I checked the atmosphere there didn’t seem to be anything harmful. Or much of anything, really. If you came from another planet, how is it that there’s nothing in here from there?”

“Simple,” Thenn said, “The inside of the ship was deep cleaned and sterilized by hand. Then, after they died, I made the ship spread a chemical through the ventilation, rapidly breaking down any living material. Once that was done all the air was drained out into space.”

“So, the air is safe then? I won’t get any space diseases?”

Thenn responded, “No, not as long as the air outside is breathable for you.”

Excited to breathe in something fresh for once, Yuna twisted her helmet to undo the seal and took it off. It was a nice suit, but the constantly neutral temperature of its inside was easily outmatched by the dense, frozen air that now filled it. The sound was clearer as well, making the now hurricane-like rain even better on the ears. Yuna took a deep breath and appreciated the shudder running across her body, a satisfied smile spreading across her face all the while.

Leaning against the back wall, a question came to the front of Yuna’s mind, one she wasn’t sure how it hadn’t been asked yet. “Did they have a name? For their entire species, I mean.” After an atypical several seconds had passed without an answer, Yuna began to wonder if her omission was intentional.

Thenn did answer eventually, saying, “’Spurs’ would be the closest equivalent.”

“Not that you haven’t given me an idea, but what were they like? Societally, personally… anything, really.”

Another pause preceding her response, Thenn said, “They were highly unified, social, and focused on the pursuit of knowledge, with me being made and raised with their principles in mind. Of the many I met I don’t think there was one without an interest in some kind of academic field. Compared to most living things, they had long lifespans and low populations. Able and willing to go above ground but preferring subterranean living, they evolved far beyond the rest of the life on their planet. Societally, they were monogamous and valued a strong sense of community, with the most heated fight being a philosophical debate. They were very conscious of their actions and how they would affect others, always being sure to take the moral route if at all possible.”

Seeming like she was done, Yuna was more than curious as to what an above and below-ground dwelling, highly intelligent species like the Spurs would look like.

Thenn responded as though there would be no follow-up questions, stating, “I don’t know.” Leaving a befuddled Yuna unable to question her, Thenn continued, “Before you ask, I can see just fine. I can’t tell you what they look like, or where their home world is, because I don’t have memories of that anymore. They redacted all information relating to those, and I was included in that list of things. They wanted something to be just for them – to die as they did – and agreed to this long before the first ship set off. If a future species could recreate them, they saw that as unnatural and that no matter how exact the replica was, it would never truly be like them.”

Not sure what to make of that, Yuna probed in a wilting voice, “Did you agree to having your memories erased?”

Thenn replied simply with no faltering in emotion, “Yes.”