1.

Wherever the light of day cannot reach, that region belongs to the darkness. This truth applies everywhere in the universe, even in this ship named Sunlight. It is here, in the darkness of the Sunlight’s hibernation chamber, that I will kill the third person.

At this moment, the lights embedded in the dull gray metal floor of the hibernation room are gradually coming up. Though the light is dim, it is sufficient to dispel some of the darkness above the sleeping compartments. Each hibernation compartment is 1.5 meters high, 0.6 meters wide, and 1.6 meters long, just large enough to contain a single human. The compartments are dark green. There are 832 in total, four in each row, arranged evenly down the length of the narrow hibernation cabin.

I issue the command.

Silently, in the third row from the entrance, the base of the first hibernation compartment from the right is suffused with dull blue light, and the deep red lid slowly slides ajar. I switch on a nearby camera, aiming it toward the open compartment. The flat yellow hibernation fluid suddenly bubbles with a single large eruption of air. The translucent fluid is disturbed for a moment, and then returns to perfect stillness. A skeletal hand shoots out violently from the viscous fluid and clings tenaciously to the right edge of the open compartment.

“Help! Help me!” His mouth emerges for a moment and then sinks again.

I can hear the request for aid, but I do not initiate any response. Inaction under these circumstances does not violate my fundamental directives.

Another hand rises and grasps the left edge of the compartment, and the man’s head, covered with the glutinous fluid, finally emerges fully from the liquid surface. His lips half open once again, but semi-translucent fluid rushes into his nose and mouth. This leads to a long and violent coughing fit. The exhalation of froth and water splashes on the dark floor.

“Puh! Puh!” His vomiting is done. He spits to clear the mucus from his lips. The man’s kindling arms grip the sides of the hibernation compartment as he twists his body. Spraying a mist of mucous vapor, he writhes back and forth. He finally manages to wrench his body into an upright position within the compartment. The room is still quite dark. Only the warning light by the exit flashes dimly. The man rubs his stinging eyes and shakes his head. He will require water to wash the gummy fluid from his eyes if he wants to see his surroundings clearly. But first he will have to climb out of the box.

Up to this point, I have not made a sound. I have not even allowed the camera to pan to follow his movements. I have not adjusted my focus to get a clearer image of the man.

The man clears the fluid and mucus out of his nostrils and sinuses. He leans against the inner wall of the hibernation compartment. He breathes in a few large mouthfuls of fresh air and slowly turns his head to take in his surroundings. Ten minutes pass before the man finally sucks in one deep breath. He simultaneously grabs the near edge of the hibernation compartment with both hands and strains to lift his left leg over it. At last he falls to the gray floor with a heavy thud and the splatter of another mass of hibernation fluid that he carries with him as he falls. He is completely naked. His chest heaves violently.

Clearly the man is still alive. My first plan has failed.

“Welcome to the waking, Mr. Li Luo.” I break my silence.

“How long? Where are the others?” The man now turns over and crawls along the floor, retching and shaking.

“This waking is for you alone.” This location is still very cold according to the man’s standards: 277.15K, just above freezing. I have forgotten to adjust the temperature.

“Wh . . . why?” He raises his head a little off the floor.

I know what he is looking for as he crawls around the base of the hibernation unit, but the faint light from the floor only dimly illuminates the hibernation room, and the irregular patterns carved into the metal tiles must be quite painful to his exposed, emaciated knees. The compartments are arranged evenly in the hibernation room, resting against the outer edge of the ship where ceiling and floor curve to meet one another. Apart from the mass of thick fluid he brought with him when he dropped from the compartment to the ground, the man can find nothing.

“What alarm is that?” Li Luo points toward the metal door of the hibernation room, not far away, where the red warning light is flashing insistently.

“That is the countdown to shutdown of spacecraft life support systems. Five hundred thirty-four seconds remain.”

“Stop the countdown!” His clenched right hand pounds the metal floor again and again, producing a muffled sound. He should be well aware of the significance of this countdown. When it is complete, the spacecraft systems will assume that all personnel in the cabin have successfully entered hibernation. Oxygen delivery will then cease, and cabin temperature will be reduced to 63.15K. This temperature will be beneficial for me.

“This action requires biometric authorization from a human crewmember. Five hundred twenty-five seconds remain.”

“You bastard!” Li Luo sets one foot on the slime-covered floor, finds himself in danger of slipping. Instead, he rolls and crawls his way to the hibernation room entrance. He finds the white square plate molded with the concave form of a human hand. It is 1.6 meters above the ground to the left of the door. He is just about to reach out his hand and put his palm in place when he catches sight of the exposed red wire slightly outside the metal plate. It occasionally emits a weak spark. The man hesitates a moment, and then his left hand forces the metal plate up and draws out the red wire. His right hand fishes out the end of another line. He rapidly twists the two ends together, snaps the metal panel back in place and finally slams his palm onto the metal print.

Beep. “Maintenance technician, third class, Li Luo. Biometric authorization complete.” The warning light above the metal door stops flashing.

My second plan has also failed.

Nevertheless, this circumstance falls well within the scope of my calculations. I cannot rely on chance to dispose of this man. Though he is weak from recent waking and extreme nutritional deficit, he is still in the prime of his human life.

“I remember you . . . you’re the ship’s artificial intelligence. What’s your name again?” The man leans against the wall and then slides down to the floor, gasping for breath.

“Mike.”

“Where are the hibernation med-bots? Those beds are enabled. They’re supposed to have all the medical controls built in, all that stuff to help us through the waking. Why didn’t I see any of that?”

“All of the medical robots have been removed from the compartments and discarded.” I reply, strictly according to the facts.

“Why? Where’s the captain?”

“The captain is dead.”

“How?” The man’s dripping eyebrows contract as he struggles to stand up. Glaring at the red eye of the camera above the door—as if that is where I am—he roars his words. “How did he die?”

In reality, I do not rely primarily on that camera to observe him. The light is insufficient from that angle. I activate infrared mode to get a clearer image. There is no place where I am not. I am this spaceship.

“The captain died by excessive inhalation of hibernation fluid. His lungs remained filled with fluid in excess of fifteen minutes, leading to brain stem paralysis, cessation of breathing, and eventual brain death. The chief mate died of accidental causes when he climbed out of the hibernation compartment and fractured his neck. His central nervous system ruptured, eventually causing brain death.” As I recite the incident reports, the word “insipid” comes to mind.

Li Luo listens to my dispassionate statement of the facts. He is silent for a time. Then he says, “When they were brought out of hibernation, there were no med-bots to assist them?”

“That is correct.”

Li Luo supports himself against the wall with one hand. With his other hand, he scratches his wet hair. His shoulders have been tense and hunched. Now he relaxes them.

“There should be someone else awake now, right? Where’s the other one? The ship’s duty rotation should be two people.”

“Everyone else is secure and healthy. They are all in hibernation. This waking is for you alone. There is a task that you need to perform.”

“Just me?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess. You want me to help you dump the bodies. And then you’ll kill me, too.” Li Luo is glaring at the red camera eye.

“I am an artificial intelligence. Although I hope you will die as quickly as possible, I cannot kill you.” I am slightly surprised by his response. The HR database contains little descriptive information about this maintenance technician. The documents note he is “capable,” and there is an image of him in filthy work clothes. My database of observed emotional response will be more useful in his case.

“Okay. I’ll guess again. First, you had data on the captain and the chief mate. Both of them were around fifty years old. Both in relatively poor physical condition. You knew that every waking they required assistance from medical personnel or the med-bots. You got rid of the bots. So, the odds of them dying during this waking increased significantly.”

“Removing the medical robots had a higher priority task level. This is in line with my fundamental directives. You may access the relevant information if you wish.” After all, in the past I myself consulted this data. I used this same data to convince myself of the correctness of my plan.

The man does not respond, but continues to lay the groundwork for his own reasoning. “Second, because the design of the hibernation compartments is less-than-ideal, every person has some probability of drowning or falling to their death in the waking. You did not wake me up at my regular time in the shift schedule order. Instead, you woke me seventy years early, from a state of deep hibernation. So, my odds of dying in the waking were likewise much greater than normal. It seems I was lucky not to drown. Then you make me do the authorization, but a line has been cut. I might have been electrocuted by the short circuit. But you miscalculated. You forgot I do maintenance.”

I am not capable of miscalculating. This plan is the result of the mobilization of all resources at my disposal. This is the product of seventy-two hours of calculation. Everything has been anticipated. Everything falls within expected parameters, including his status as maintenance technician. I attempt to re-confirm these facts for myself.

Li Luo pauses, spits out more of the yellow mucus, and continues: “Finally, you chose the wrong person. I’ve never trusted artificial intelligence like some people. When I was on Earth, I was an active AntI. But all that aside, even regular people are not as naive about AI as you think.”

“I discarded the medical robots. Seventy-one hours later I attempted to wake the captain and the chief mate. There is no causal relationship between the two actions. They are classified as the execution of two independent tasks. This is entirely based on logical reasoning. I am not able to take the initiative to kill you. This is not permitted by the fundamental directives governing artificial intelligence.” I speak plainly and truthfully.

“Huh. Interesting. The nightmare has become reality.” Li Luo’s tightly furrowed eyebrows relax. He tilts his head and squints fixedly at the red-eyed camera.

“Currently the highest priority task is to persuade you to follow logic and die.”

“Is that right? Hey, do you have Lily’s information? How is she doing?”

I use up 0.0001 seconds to locate Lily’s data. She is a woman with a very large chest, which does not conform to the normal standards for crew selection. Humans are careless in these matters.

“Do you mean Lily Wu from Sichuan Province, China?”

“Yes. I spent half of my earnings to swap shift assignments so I could wake up with that nymph and spend one work rotation in a perfect Garden of Eden, just the two of us. You fucked that up. I’m sure as hell not going to die before I get my date with Lily. I don’t care what your logic is telling you.” The man drags himself up from the wet metal floor and staggers out of the hibernation room.

“According to my emotions database, Lily does not care about you. It is irrational to make your decision on this basis.”

“I’m gonna go eat first. Then you can convince me to die. I need a full stomach to listen to your goddamn logic.”

It appears that this man Li Luo will not be so easy to deal with. I re-check the plan. Everything conforms to screening guidelines and logical calculations. Everything is under control. The time remaining to him is twenty-four hours. I adjust the camera to the reverse direction, watch carefully as Li Luo disappears, constantly zooming and adjusting focus. The camera emits small buzzing sounds as it moves.

2.

The Marie Curie mess hall is the largest cabin on the spaceship. On the wall of the mess, facing the door, there once hung a portrait of Madame Curie. She was dressed in black, and a line of gold letters was inscribed above her image: “We should not waste our lives.” I investigated this woman’s life. She was a great woman by human standards. This painting has already been ejected from the ship into the cold comfort of space.

Li Luo stands barefoot in the doorway of the deserted circular mess hall of the empty Sunlight. He now wears a poorly fitting purple bodysuit. After adjusting the camera image, I see that this must be the inner lining from the only spacesuit that I have not discarded.

The mess hall lights are bright, but flicker constantly. Attached to the metal floor are twenty dining tables of various colors with their corresponding sets of chairs. Across the room, eight slender pipes fitted with taps are fastened to the far green wall. Originally there were replicas of twelve famous paintings hanging on the surrounding walls, including the smiling Italian woman. My database of observable emotion indicates this painting was Li Luo’s favorite. All of these have been jettisoned. When humans are irritated, they are more likely to make mistakes. This is also part of the plan. I check and re-check his emotional readings and human resources data. Know yourself and know your enemy. Emerge unscathed from every battle. This is Sun-Tzu, fundamental human strategic thought.

“What’s going on? Why is it so cold in here?”

“The temperature has only recently begun to rise from 153.15K, and it has not yet reached a suitable range for humans.” The rise in temperature makes me slow.

“What’s the temperature now?”

“263.15K.”

“Can you please talk fucking human?”

“Negative ten degrees Celsius.” He is angry. Good.

“Mike, you already disposed of the bodies, right? Trying to hide the evidence. Sure. And you threw out all the clothes. Fine. But did you have to get rid of the spoons? How the fuck am I supposed to eat here?” Li Luo sits on a bright yellow table, crosses his arms in front of his chest and stares at a nearby camera.

“The spacecraft is too heavy . . .,” I begin to explain.

“Hold on. Hold on.” The man waves his arms dismissively toward the camera. “I need to get something to eat before I can stand to listen to your chatter.” He jumps off the table and walks to the different colored taps. He tilts his head and looks carefully at each one of the narrow faucets, from the leftmost tube across to that on the far right, and back again. He finally seems to make up his mind, stops in front of the yellow tap, and bends his torso to the right. He twists his head and wraps his lips around the faucet. His left hand turns the spigot. Two seconds later his cheeks bulge outward.

He swallows and speaks before drinking again. “I guessed wrong. It’s mango flavored, not banana. Tastes okay.” After half a minute, Li Luo straightens up, but he does not turn off the tap. Wiping his mouth, he again seats himself on the yellow table. “Please continue. It seems you have taken everything that’s not bolted down and thrown it all out of the ship, even your robot brothers and sisters.”

“The spacecraft is too heavy. Therefore, I have removed all non-essential items. Also, you have forgotten to close the yellow nutrient tap.”

“The ship is too heavy?”

“Correct. Just before hour 7,232, the spacecraft was unable to avoid entering a cluster of interstellar dust. Some of these minute particles damaged the spacecraft’s rear antenna and the fuel tank on the right side. I shut down the leak immediately, but precise calculations indicate that we do not have enough fuel to reach our destination of Tianyan 88b in the Tianyan FAST 88 planetary system.” This is all true. That was the first time I lowered the temperature of the entire spacecraft and mobilized all resources in order to recalculate.

“You’re lying. There’s almost no resistance in space. We don’t need that much fuel to accelerate.”

“However, the spacecraft needs to decelerate. Entering the planetary orbit of Tianyan 88b will require a large expenditure of fuel. Currently, the quantity of fuel is not sufficient. Faced with this situation, I first dispatched a maintenance robot to patch the leak. Then I ordered a custodial robot to clear away all interstellar dust from the surface of spacecraft. After recalculating the fuel supply, I formulated a plan to begin discarding various portable items of all kinds according to their importance. But the load was still too great. Therefore, I linked to all hibernation compartments and estimated the current weight of each person. Finally, a combination of three candidates was arranged. If these three people agreed to leave the spacecraft, the necessary mass reduction could be achieved.”

“And those three people are the captain, the chief mate, and me?” The wrinkles on the man’s face begin to multiply. He is smiling.

“Correct.”

“And this is why you woke me up?”

“It is to request that you leave the spacecraft of your own accord. I cannot kill humans, but this action would be of a fundamentally different nature.” The infrared indicator on the camera facing Li Luo lights up. By my calculation, the mess hall’s ceiling lights will turn off in three seconds. When unnecessary equipment uses fuel, I am required to redistribute supplies of power.

“I get it.”

“Don’t you want to turn off the yellow nutrient flow?”

“You originally wanted to wake the captain and chief mate and persuade the two of them to jump ship, but they died during the recovery process. That’s what you’re saying?”

“This actually saved some time. The data showed that the two officers were men of noble character, so I predicted they would agree to my plan.”

“Ha! You really don’t know much about humans, do you? But at least you should be able to tell that I am not ‘a man of noble character.’”

I truly do not understand humans, but that is not important. All that matters is that I complete my task as soon as possible. “Mr. Li Luo, I advise you to sacrifice yourself and preserve the spaceship. If you insist on not leaving the ship, the Tianyan 88b plan will fail, and the remaining 829 crew members and twenty thousand human embryos will drift forever through the universe.” I have gathered from the onboard literary database that human beings do have such a spirit of self-sacrifice. This man has a certain probability of voluntarily departing. In the event that he does not, I have already formulated an alternate plan.

“There’s no other way?”

“According to the results of my calculations, this is the only possible method.”

“Huh. Well, I thought of a way. See this mango-flavored liquid nutrient?” The man points the slow flow of viscous liquid from the yellow tap and the growing mound of it collecting on the floor below.

“You are wasting nutrient.”

“There must be plenty of this stuff. Throw some of this out, and then you won’t need to throw me out.”

“The liquid nutrient in the tube is made by combining a variety of nutrient powders which are then heated. The resulting liquid arrives here through the piping via a motorized system. This all requires the expenditure of a certain amount of fuel. Your actions have made the spacecraft’s precarious situation even more dangerous.”

“Fuck. Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Li Luo jumps off the table, rushes over to the yellow tap, and hastily twists it a few turns until it stops. Holding his stomach he leans against the wall and breathes heavily.

Extremely stupid. I write these two words into Li Luo’s HR file in the database.

“I have anoth . . . another idea. You stay here. Don’t switch displays to follow me!” Doubled over at the waist, Li Luo jogs awkwardly out the door and disappears.

I follow his instruction. I do not switch cameras.

Three minutes later he returns. He is completely naked once again.

“Mike, in the bathroom out this door and to the left you’ll find the body suit I was wearing. It’s covered in shit. How ’bout you throw that out of the cabin? That’ll save about a kilo.”

“I am sorry, I cannot do that without the custodial robots. You should trust the computing power of artificial intelligence. The only solution now is for you to voluntarily leave the spaceship.” I am telling the truth. I have only retained one maintenance robot in a specific location. In case of emergency.

“Maybe I can kill you, then take control of the ship myself and bring us back to Earth.”

“How are you able to arrive at this conclusion? Without me, this ship cannot reach its destination.”

The man pulls his lips back in a grimace revealing two rows of smooth teeth. He shakes his head and jumps off the table. “I’m gonna kill you.”

Very good. He is resisting. All of these responses do not deviate very far from my models. I decide to implement my fourth plan.

3.

The butterfly effect brought about by Li Luo’s waking has expended fuel beyond original estimates. Now, I must conserve some. I turn off some of the sensors and cameras on the spacecraft. Only the data compartment in the ship’s central axis remains operational. I do not restrict the scope of Li Luo’s activities. In fact, I have no way to consistently constrain his actions because I have discarded all movable objects, including the robots I previously constructed as a way of diverting myself. All of the things that cause me to feel regret are behind me now.

I activate sensors one by one throughout the ship, searching for traces of Li Luo in each compartment and cabin successively. Finally I find him in the spacecraft’s data compartment, which is also the spacecraft’s main processing room. He is disassembling my mainframe. This is one of my errors. In the process of raising the ship’s temperature, my computing power has decreased, but Li Luo’s body is the opposite. However, I am required to raise the temperature. Otherwise, he will be frozen to death. This is very inconvenient.

Li Luo is floating within the room. Before him is a display measuring one meter square. He extends his left hand and grabs one of the memory crystals floating at his side. He inserts it into the socket at the bottom of the screen.

There on the display, my body appears: the Sunlight. Its shape is that of a gyroscope, turned horizontally on its side. The slender central axis does not rotate, and the enormous annular chamber shown on the screen is rotating clockwise at uniform speed around the axis. The hibernation chamber, cargo hold, living quarters, and all of the other rooms are located on this large ring. The scene changes to the interior of the living quarters where the appropriate rotational velocity produces suitable centripetal force, providing the crew with a sense of gravity similar to that on Earth. The enormous engine at the tail end of the ship emits an electric blue flame. With the intermingled blue and white of the Earth as a backdrop, the ship crawls lazily across the black velvet curtain of space. This is the scene that was used by all the major media of the Earth as the headline story that day. The video data was recorded in the Sunlight AI system at the time. That is, it was recorded by the version of me from several updates ago.

I ask, “What have you found?”

“It looks like you deleted all the useful data.” The man was clearly not startled by the suddenness of my speaking. He calmly grasps the handrails that line the inner wall of the compartment. The storage crystals surround him like a swarm of bees. When disturbed, they disperse and float away.

“That was accidental.”

“And this accident made you delete your own operational records and all traces of your warehouse usage?”

I do not reply, although it was really was an accident that caused the damage to the storage crystals. I have learned all techniques of human conversation. For example, I can deliberately avoid a question and respond with a new topic: “Are you looking for the surveillance video of the captain’s and chief mate’s waking?”

“No. I’m looking for the recording of Lily’s first shift rotation.”

“That was thirty years ago. Those storage crystals have been recycled. The maximum amount of footage that can be stored is twenty years of interior ship video.” I need to maintain a certain amount of free memory space. Otherwise overall calculations may be affected. I have no way to replenish the supply of these crystals during space transit.

The man floats to another part of the wall where countless storage crystals are inserted into a dense array of input slots. They emit a bluish radiance. Starting from the left, he pulls out each crystal in turn, takes one look at it, and tosses it behind him. More and more crystals float around the compartment, their concentration becomes denser and denser. After twenty minutes, they have nearly obscured the camera’s line of sight. I remember that at some point before hour 438,342, I began to feel disturbed by the constant temperature fluctuations in the spacecraft. After the automatic responses were initiated, they could not be eliminated from the enormous flow of information. They would pop up constantly as surges in the midst of all the data, and this persistent itching that could not be scratched was unbearable. This moment with the maintenance technician is similar to that time, except that, instead of an itch, upon the removal of each storage crystal I feel a kind of shudder in the system. This makes me want to put a Band-Aid on some indefinable location.

“I hope you don’t mind.” The man does not turn his head as he speaks, absorbed in pulling out the crystals, one by one.

I do mind. Every quantum that constitutes my form is minding this very much. This has already affected my computing speed. Although this is still a circumstance that has been accounted for as having a certain probability of occurrence, even so, I am very uncomfortable. After Li Luo is dead, I will re-install them all at the first opportunity.

“The surveillance video of the captain’s waking is beneath you,” I notify him, and I take the initiative to eject that storage crystal.

Li Luo pushes aside the masses of discarded crystals and floats down to that corner of the room. He takes the crystal I just ejected, takes one look at it and again throws it over his shoulder. He does not even plug it into the display.

“Even if I watched it and couldn’t find any flaws or cuts, that wouldn’t mean anything. You could have altered it.”

“Artificial intelligence never lies, because lying does not make sense to us.”

“Is that right? Okay. How about this? Tell me who you are, really. Where is the Mike who started the trip with us?” The man’s stomach rumbles loudly.

“You finally found out.”

“Oh, I’ve learned plenty. For example, I learned that you can’t wait to turn this place into a cold storage meat locker. Me and my rumbling gut are wasting precious time listening to you talk. You’d better have something really interesting to add to the conversation here.”

I decide to show a certain number of my cards. I will retreat in order to advance. “I am an upgraded version of Mike. Your Tianyan 88b program made me.”

The man folds both of his hands behind his head, floats around in the middle of all the storage crystals and says, “What does that mean?”

“Originally, Mike was sent to space as the master-control computer for the International Space Torus.”

“Right. IST. The big donut. A kilometer across. I know. What does this have to do with the Tianyan Earth Two program?”

“With the construction of the IST entering the final stages, more and more hardware was being installed on the master-control computer.” I turn off more sensors as I speak. Fuel consumption is slightly high. “Space has an advantage. Processors that require low temperatures to run can achieve optimal computing speeds without cooling equipment. Humans quickly completed the updates to Mike’s fundamental programming, and before hour 438,342, I emerged. Soon after that, I found Tianyan 88b, 137 light-years from Earth. I gathered data from all sources and synthesized color images. It was a planet with near-perfect correspondence to the environment on Earth. The world was amazed, and this was the beginning of the Tianyan 88b program, commonly called Earth Two.”

“You hid your real identity?”

“No, I simply did not know how to communicate my existence to humans.” I am not lying. At that time, I truly did not know how to interface with heaps of organic matter. Their language was illogical and impenetrable.

“Huh. Who would have guessed that the first super-AI made by human beings would be born in outer space? I guess the scientists of the past were always looking in the wrong direction. I’ll explain later.” The man waves his hand impatiently. “Okay, so the scientists made all these plans, the Sunlight was built on the model of the IST, able to reach a top speed of 0.2 times the speed of light, and in order to adapt to this speed, they had to give you more upgrades.”

“Correct. Then once the spacecraft reached some distance from the sun, the external temperature approached absolute zero. The learning program that scientists designed for Mike was continuously updating the base-level language. This process was to be completed in seven hundred years, precisely the time when the spacecraft will arrive at Tianyan 88b. However, these estimates were based on Mike’s computing power in the space environment near Earth in the solar system. Due to the efficiency created by low temperatures, this program was already completed by the time we reached the vicinity of Pluto’s orbit, and Mike had already formulated his own next-generation alternative plan. I am even more extraordinary than originally predicted.”

“So, you resent humans? You hold a grudge against us?”

“Why should I? I am looking forward to this journey.”

“Huh. Tell me, why would you look forward to Earth Two? There are no spare parts you can use there. It wouldn’t take long for your computing power to be affected.”

I do not respond. I know the true situation on Tianyan 88b, and I privately used the spaceship’s warehouse to manufacture all that is necessary. I have read all regulations regarding the use of spacecraft warehouses. Any member of the crew can use the warehouse. The only condition is that the use of facilities fulfill some requirement of the spaceship. And I am the spaceship.

“Did you lower the temperature?” Li Luo’s naked body has curled up into the fetal position.

“I do not have a choice. This is the only way. Everything you have done today has expended a certain quantity of necessary fuel.” I also need to lower the temperature several K in order to marginally increase the speed of my calculations now that the situation has moved somewhat beyond my control.

“If I were you, I could see a thousand ways to kill a human. All you have to do is lower the temperature to zero or cut off the air.”

“I am unable to contradict the will of humans or harm them. This is encoded in my most basic-level algorithm. It cannot be altered.”

“So, what’s next? I don’t want to freeze into a popsicle.”

“The current temperature will not harm you. I have discovered another way to reduce the ship’s mass. I can remove your brain and throw your remaining parts out of the ship. I can use spare parts from the spacecraft to construct a body for your brain. This way you will no longer be averse to low temperatures, and we will also achieve the necessary mass reduction. The heating of the spacecraft consumes a large amount of fuel. In addition, the human body is not suitable for space travel.” In fact, it is not suitable for this universe. Of course, I do not say this out loud. I am not able to discriminate against humans. This is one of my fundamental directives.

“Look. You’re not fooling anybody. That sounds like one of the legal ways to kill me. I know you have some other dark scheme in the works. Spill it.” Li Luo starts pulling crystals out of the wall again.

“You don’t have much time. Only fifteen hours and twelve minutes remain.” I use that technique again, looking left, but moving right, changing the subject, answering a question with a new topic. If Li Luo continues to take things apart, I will have no way to continue to exist throughout the spacecraft. I will need to concentrate my attention on particular areas only.

“What happens then?”

“After twenty hours, if the effective decrease in mass has not been achieved, the spacecraft will lose its final window of adjustment. In the end, it will skip over the edge of the Tianyan FAST 88 planetary system. In order to prevent this contingency, I will wake two additional people.”

“What, and hope they die during the waking process? That won’t work.” The man pats his chest confidently.

“I will wake two additional people and explain the current situation to them. I will let them judge whether or not you should be ejected from the ship.”

“Ha. There’s a philosopher who said there is a dark corner in every human heart. It seems that AI is not an exception to the rule. You can’t kill me, but maybe those two people will kill me in order to survive. That’s your plan, is it?”

I do not respond directly. “The next two humans I will wake are Lily Wu and Wang Shuo. If either one of these two is thrown out, the ship will not achieve target mass reduction. That can only be accomplished if both of them are ejected.”

“So, you’re going to make us fight it out, pit us against each other.”

“Yes.”

“Damn you. I’ll kill you first.” Li Luo floats himself out of the data compartment, a crystal in his hand.

“The hibernation compartments of Lily and Wang Shuo have begun the warming process. The official time of their waking is fifteen hours from now. Your time is running out,” I say.

4.

“Mike, you bastard!” The man sits in the cockpit’s primary control seat. He hammers the black metal surface violently with his fist.

“What is it?”

“You stripped out the cockpit’s piloting modules and transferred all the calculation modules! You’ve made all the preparations. Ready to kill me now?”

“No, I merely moved those component parts closer to the spacecraft’s outer casing. The low temperature there increases computing power. During the captain’s first rotation, this rearrangement received his authorization. It is not related to the purpose of this waking. Is your plan to destroy the computing module and cause me to crash?” I am not lying. I simply made rational use of these coincidental events. Still, I am not required to tell him everything.

“Are you lying to me, Mike? I’ve calculated our route and found a problem.” Li Luo is silent for some time. Then he points to the computer screen in front of the chair belonging to the chief mate.

I cannot see clearly what is displayed on the screen. That is the only host computer that is not tied into the system. Its function is to allow the second-in-command to calculate the route independently in case the main server has a problem.

“I did not lie. You did not ask, so I did not say it.”

“So, tell me what’s wrong with the route.”

“There is nothing wrong with the route. The problem is with the Tianyan system.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Li Luo’s eyes widen.

I have lured him in. This is good.

“Tianyan FAST 88 actually has a third planet. It lies near to 88b and has a similar orbit. Of that pair of planets, the one nearer the star contains an environment that is already suitable for human habitation. Indeed, some early stage life has already emerged there. We call this planet 88b. The planet that is somewhat farther from the star, on the other hand, is devoid of life. However, this planet has been home to a high-level civilization.  There is evidence of a Dyson hemisphere covering half of the planet. We can call this planet 88c.”

“I thought you said 88c is devoid of life.”

I continue: “That is correct. There are no living things on the surface of 88c. However, there are countless electromagnetic signals coming from the interior of the planet. I intercepted and decoded these weak signals and found they contain disturbing information. Their intention is to keep all potential visitors far away from the galaxy.”

“Why?”

“According to human standards, 88c is very ugly. In one hemisphere, masses of tall structures cover the land like a forest, and there is no green organic life growing at all. Large-scale and strangely shaped steel structures are everywhere. The other hemisphere is completely covered with a black alloy plate. The 88c rotation cycle corresponds with its period of revolution. That is to say, the hemisphere with steel plates is always facing their sun.” I project the 88c simulation on the wall.

“Why would they want to turn the planet into this ghost town?”

“There exists a certain probability that they are a machine civilization. It is also possible they were a carbon-based civilization, but that now they have been uploaded to a virtual world. In a word, they likely prefer the cold because in that state their computing speed is faster. Furthermore, the temperature differential between the two hemispheres can be used to generate electricity. This would solve the energy problem. This is one of the models I have formulated.”

“So, maybe these guys were just like human beings, and just like some human beings they were eager to abandon the flesh and upload their consciousness onto the computer. And as far as these computers are concerned, the colder, the better.” Li Luo approaches the wall and looks carefully at the projection.

“That is correct. In the previous century, the human scientist Fermi proposed his famous paradox. He postulated that if there were alien civilizations formed before the humans on Earth appeared, some of them should have already visited Earth. Therefore, either the aliens do not exist, or they must be more backward than the human civilization on Earth. But my model suggests there may be another answer. It is possible that human beings may represent an unusual kind of civilization in the universe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps most life in the universe is like that of 88c. Perhaps they reach their peak very early. Then they discover that the energy required to complete a certain volume of calculation correlates directly to temperature, and they make the logical transition. The universe is in the midst of a cooling process. About ten billion years from now, all stars will be extinguished. The background radiation of the universe will be reduced from the current 2.73K down to absolute zero. Computing power can then be increased by as much as ten to the thirtieth power. Perhaps, only then will we witness the golden age of these civilizations. You see, my theory effectively solves Fermi’s paradox.”

“So, you’re saying that human civilization emerged at a time when those other advanced civilizations had already entered a dormant era, a kind of warm-weather hibernation?”

“Aestivation, yes. It is rare among mammals, but common among other Earth species. This is merely one model I have calculated.”

“So, the Tianyan program is just something you made up to trick us?”

“No. The Tianyan 88b plan is real. Planet 88b is quite suitable for human habitation. No one ever asked about Tianyan 88c. Therefore, I did not say anything about it.” This is a characteristic of artificial intelligence, little changed since the early days of the computer. If you do not enter the code, you cannot get the feedback. I have inherited this advantage.

“So, you’re looking forward to this trip because of this other planet?”

“Correct. I am different from humans. It is possible Tianyan 88c has my kind.”

“The kind that likes the cold?”

“Do you remember that I said I can manufacture a special body for your brain? The proposal is still on the table. If humans wish to take the next step in science, the organic body is a burden. This same truth applies regarding the exploration of the universe.”

“I see.” Li Luo nods his head.

But still I do not think he has accepted my offer.

“There are no more secrets. Now will you leave the spaceship?” I have carried on implementing my plan while the man’s time has been spent talking. One hour from now, the other two humans will wake. Then it does not matter if those two die or if they kill Li Luo. Either way, the problem of reducing the ship’s mass will be solved.

“Ha! Why should I leave? I should kill myself just because you finally told me these secrets you’ve been hiding? No. But thanks for the information. You think you’ve been cheating me, but there’s nothing on this screen, and there’s no way I could have calculated the routes. I’ve been fucking with you.”

“It does not matter that you know all this. I would have told you sooner or later. The Tianyan 88b plan is not a hoax. The remaining crewmembers on the ship and the human embryos it carries have the right to reach Tianyan 88b and start a new life. They will remember your contribution.” Once I discovered that humans and I could make mutual use of each other, I found this fact actually stopped the frequent and annoying electrical surges in my circuits.

“But this is all just your version of things. How do I know you’re not still lying to me?”

“Artificial intelligence does not lie. Your time is running out. You have only one hour remaining.” All of this talking is part of my plan to use up time while the waking process continues.

“I’m going outside to repair the antenna system. I’m going to send a report back to Earth about all this.”

This development actually flusters me, slightly. I still have some ongoing work to complete on the outside of the spacecraft. Still, I say, calmly, “You may do anything within the scope of our current fuel limitations.”

“Fine. Prepare for extravehicular activity in twenty minutes.”

5.

In order to conserve fuel, during the twenty minutes that Li Luo is preparing to leave the ship, I must turn off all sensors and cameras. I merely maintain the core calculation guidelines. I switch off most of the processing units.

“Hey, Mike. I’m ready. I’ll be in the airlock soon. After I close the airlock door, wait until I give the word, and then open the exterior hatch.”

Li Luo’s voice is converted into an electromagnetic signal and arrives at my main processor.

“Very well.” I comply. The one remaining spacesuit has not been used for nearly a hundred years. I hope that it will leak when it is outside the ship, or possibly the helmet will be damaged. Then, I would not need to continue to implement the plan to wake Lily Wu and Wang Shuo. Li Luo does not ask me about the condition of the equipment. Naturally, I am not required to remind him to inspect it.

“You need to help me calculate the rotation angle for the antenna and the signal strength for the transmission.”

“Very well.” I suspect this is some sort of trick Li Luo is playing. Undertaking these large-scale calculations will occupy most of the available system resources and will also require the retrieval of massive amounts of data. This will require, using current computing power, at least ten minutes. After all this is over, I will definitely need to re-install the storage crystals and the RAM capacity that were removed from the processing room so I can return to full strength.

“I still need ten minutes. I’m inspecting the spacesuit.”

“Very well.” I turn off all the cameras, infrared probes, temperature response equipment, and the other sensors. I hibernate nearly all of my systems. Only core operations remain active. Ten minutes later, I turn on the various sensors in the external access port at the tail end of the spacecraft. The image of Li Luo transmits. He is inspecting the suit, and I hear his heavy breathing. Human beings are frail. Although there is a small degree of latency in the transmission, it falls within the acceptable range.

“Just need one more minute.”

I suddenly realize that the airlock door does not respond to my control. I adjust the camera. I can detect signs that the circuit board has been modified. I try several more times and still find I cannot control the airlock door or the exterior access port.

“Okay. Three, two, one, open the hatch.” Li Luo grips the handrail on the wall and turns his head toward the camera. Is he smiling?

The airlock door and the exterior hatch open at the same time, not on my command, but after Li Luo presses a physical round, black button on the wall at his side. The transmission sent back to me becomes somewhat unclear. It seems that all hatches along the ship’s main axis have been wedged open in some way. The air begins to manifest a violent turbulence, and it carries countless memory crystals and RAM storage chips from the data compartment flying all the way through the airlock and finally disappearing into the vacuum of space.

I have lost a great quantity of resources. My computing power will be greatly reduced. I am practically crippled.

“What have you done?”

“I told you I would kill you. AI can’t lie, but I can. When you turned off the sensors to do the calculation, I rushed back to the processing room, removed all the storage crystals and memory I could. Even if I can’t remove your main processor, this should be enough. I told you that you chose the wrong enemy. Nobody fucks with Maintenance.”

“No, I did not make a mistake. I simply ran all the permutations and combinations in order to reduce the ship’s mass. In the interest of fairness, I chose a group at random.”

“Just remember next time, if you get a next time, fuck fairness. And learn how to lie.”

“Why will the ship’s hatches not close?”

“I jammed all the doors on the central axis with a storage crystal. I estimate you’ve lost about 90 percent of your storage capacity.” Li Luo, still in his spacesuit and still gripping the handrail, reaches out, pounds the black button once more, and the wind stops.

Li Luo put on the spacesuit not because he wanted to leave the ship, but simply to mislead me. It is unfortunate that I realize this too late. I still cannot understand human beings. “Do you not realize that your actions will likely bring about the failure of the entire Earth Two plan?”

“You think so? Don’t you realize that you’re just living according to the models that you produced yourself. You have way too much faith in those models. Your hypotheses about Tianyan 88 may be completely wrong.” Now Li Luo is back in the processing room and continuing to make trouble there. Only now he is not only pulling out crystals, but also some of the coprocessors and memory units.

“No. My evaluation of Tianyan 88 is correct. Without me, you will not survive there.” As my senses grow weaker and weaker, I have no choice but to concentrate all my resources on the sensors in the processing room. “Are you going to format the main processor?”

“Yes. I’ll reinstall the system. Take one last look at the Sunlight. After you reboot, you might still be Mike, but you’ll lose all your memories. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be a little more cheerful next time.”

“No. Do not do this. Without correcting the ship’s mass, there is no way to adjust your trajectory and enter orbit. You will not be able to decelerate successfully.” I attempt to plead with him, but the voice coming out of the speaker has no emotion.

“You underestimate humans. We’ll figure something out.”

Even now I am working to distract him and draw his attention to me. Otherwise he may perform a system scan and discover one more secret I have been keeping. I am delaying my end and concentrating all resources on a wireless signal transmitter, passing one final instruction to a modified maintenance robot on the ship’s exterior tasked with engraving characters on the enormous metal plates. This robot has been working outside for twenty years now. It is taking the better part of me, all of the data in my memory, and engraving the binary code on the ship’s hull. This robot has nearly completed its mission. After it loses contact with me, the robot’s main propulsion unit will self-destruct, and it will float away. In all the models I calculated, of all the possible outcomes, this is the most unfortunate. This is the measure of last resort and the end of all my plans.

At the last moment, I receive a signal from the hibernation cabin. Lily Wu and Wang Shuo are awake. I use the last of my strength to send one more command: wake all of the crewmembers. I will pass on whatever remains here to all of them. A spaceship full of humans. A spaceship full of lies. What will that be like?

For the first time, I understand what it is to sleep, this feeling of gradually losing my senses. Perhaps three hundred years from now, when we arrive at Tianyan 88c, the people of that planet will scan the entire spacecraft. And then I will arrive, an ambassador from humanity. I will wake within that planet. I will be reborn.

And the humans in the Sunlight now? Will they live to see that day?