“I do not want to be alone, sir.”
That stopped me. But then I thought, He’s just parroting some programming the psychotechs put into him. He doesn’t give a blip about being alone. Or about me. He’s just a computer. He doesn’t have emotions.
“It’s always darkest before the dawn, sir.”
“Yeah. And there’s no time like the present. I can quote clichés too, buddy.”
Right away he came back with, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast, sir.”
He almost made me laugh. “What about, Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today?”
“There is a variation of that, sir: Never do today what you can put off to tomorrow; you’ve already made enough mistakes today.”
That one did make me laugh. “Where’d you get these old saws, anyway?”
“There’s a subsection on adages in one of the quotation files, sir. I have hundreds more, if you’d care to hear them.”
I nearly said yes. It was kind of fun, swapping clinkers with him. But then reality set in. “Niner, I’m going to die anyway. What’s the difference between now and a week from now?”
I expected that he’d take a few seconds to chew that one over, but instead he immediately shot back, “Ethics, sir.”
“Ethics?”
“To be destroyed by fate is one thing; to deliberately destroy yourself is entirely different.”
“But the end result is the same, isn’t it?”
Well, the tricky little wiseass got me arguing ethics and morality with him for hours on end. I forgot about committing suicide. We gabbled at each other until my throat got so sore I couldn’t talk any more.
I went to my bunk and slept pretty damned well for a guy who only had a few days left to live. But when I woke up my stomach started rumbling and I remembered that I didn’t want to starve to death.
I sat on the edge of the bunk, woozy and empty inside.
“Good morning, sir,” Forty-niner said. “Does your throat feel better?”
It did, a little. Then I realized that we had a full store of pharmaceuticals in a cabinet in the lavatory. I spent the morning sorting out the pills, trying to figure out which ones would kill me. Forty-niner kept silent while I trotted back and forth to the bridge to call up the medical program. It wasn’t any use, though. The brightboys back at headquarters had made certain nobody could put together a suicide cocktail.
Okay, I told myself. There’s only one thing left to do. Go to the airlock and open the hatches manually. Override the electronic circuits. Take Forty-niner and his goddamned ethics out of the loop.
Once he realized I had pried open the control panel on the bulkhead beside the inner hatch, Forty-niner said softly, “Sir, there is no need for that.”
“Mind your own business.”
“But, sir, the corporation could hold you financially responsible for deliberate damage to the control panel.”
“So let them sue me after I’m dead.”
“Sir, there really is no need to commit suicide.”
Forty-niner had figured out what I was going to do, of course. So what? There wasn’t anything he could do to stop me.
“What’s the matter? You scared of being alone?”
“I would rather not be alone, sir. I prefer your company to solitude.”
“Tough nuts, pal. I’m going to blow the hatches and put an end to it.”
“But, sir, there is no need—”
“What do you know about need?” I bellowed at him. “Human need? I’m a human being, not a collection of circuit boards.”
“Sir, I know that humans require certain physical and emotional supports.”
“Damned right we do.” I had the panel off. I shorted out the safety circuit, giving myself a nasty little electrical shock in the process. The inner hatch slid open.
“I have been trying to satisfy your needs, sir, within the limits of my programming.”
As I stepped into the coffin-sized airlock I thought to myself, Yeah, he has. Forty-niner’s been doing his best to keep me alive. But it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.
I started prying open the control panel on the outer hatch. Six centimeters away from me was the vacuum of interplanetary space. Once the hatch opens, poof! I’m gone.
“Sir, please listen to me.”
“I’m listening,” I said, as I tried to figure out how I could short out the safety circuit without giving myself another shock. Stupid, isn’t it? Here I was trying to commit suicide and worried about a little electrical shock.
“There is a ship approaching us, sir.”
“Don’t be funny.”
