Run to Satan: O Satan, won’t you hide me?
Satan said: O sinner-man, step right in
All on that day.
Holman sat in shocked silence as the solar system shrank to a pinpoint of light and finally blended into the mighty panorama of stars that streamed across the eternal night of space. The ship raced away, sensing Holman’s guilt and misery in its electronic way.
Immortality through murder, Holman repeated to himself over and over. Racial immortality through racial murder. And he had been a part of it! He had defended it, even sought immortality as his reward. He had fought his whole lifetime for it, and killed—so that he would not have to face death.
He sat there surrounded by self-repairing machinery, dressed in a silvery uniform, linked to a thousand automatic systems that fed him, kept him warm, regulated his air supply, monitored his blood flow, exercised his muscles with ultrasonic vibrators, pumped vitamins into him, merged his mind with the passionless brain of the ship, kept his body tanned and vigorous, his reflexes razor-sharp. He sat there unseeing, his eyes pinpointed on a horror that he had helped to create. Not consciously, of course. But to Holman, that was all the worse. He had fought without knowing what he was defending. Without even asking himself about it. All the marvels of man’s ingenuity, all the deepest longings of the soul, focused on racial murder.
Finally he became aware of the computer’s frantic buzzing and lightflashing.
“What is it?”
COURSE INSTRUCTIONS ARE REQUIRED.
“What difference does it make? Why run anymore?”
YOUR DUTY IS TO PRESERVE YOURSELF UNTIL ORDERED TO DO OTHERWISE.
Holman heard himself laugh. “Ordered? By who? There’s nobody left.”
THAT IS AN UNPROVED ASSUMPTION.
“The war was billions of years ago,” Holman said. “It’s been over for eons. Mankind died in that war. Earth no longer exists. The sun is a white dwarf star. We’re anachronisms, you and me. . .”
THE WORD IS ATAVISM.
“The hell with the word! I want to end it. I’m tired.”
IT IS TREASONABLE TO SURRENDER WHILE STILL CAPABLE OF FIGHTING AND/OR ELUDING THE ENEMY.
“So shoot me for treason. That’s as good a way as any.”
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR SYSTEMS OF THIS SHIP TO HARM YOU.
“All right then, let’s stop running. The Others will find us soon enough once we stop. They’ll know what to do.”
THIS SHIP CANNOT DELIBERATELY ALLOW ITSELF TO FALL INTO ENEMY HANDS.
“You’re disobeying me?”
THIS SHIP IS PROGRAMMED FOR MAXIMUM EFFECTIVENESS AGAINST THE ENEMY. A WEAPONS SYSTEM DOES NOT SURRENDER VOLUNTARILY.
“I’m no weapons system, I’m a man, dammit!”
THIS WEAPONS SYSTEM INCLUDES A HUMAN PILOT. IT WAS DESIGNED FOR HUMAN USE. YOU ARE AN INTEGRAL COMPONENT OF THE SYSTEM.
“Damn you. . . I’ll kill myself. Is that what you want?”
He reached for the control panels set before him. It would be simple enough to manually shut off the air supply, or blow open an airlock, or even set off the ship’s destruct explosives.
But Holman found that he could not move his arms. He could not even sit up straight. He collapsed back into the padded softness of the couch, glaring at the computer viewscreen.
SELF-PROTECTION MECHANISMS INCLUDE THE CAPABILITY OF PREVENTING THE HUMAN COMPONENT OF THE SYSTEM FROM IRRATIONAL ACTIONS. A series of clicks and blinks, then; IN LIEU OF SPECIFIC COURSE INSTRUCTIONS, A RANDOM EVASION PATTERN WILL BE RUN.
Despite his fiercest efforts, Holman felt himself dropping into deep sleep. Slowly, slowly, everything faded, and darkness engulfed him.
Run to the stars: O stars, won’t you hide me?
The Lord said: O sinner-man, the stars’ll be a-falling
All on that day.
Holman slept as the ship raced at near-lightspeed in an erratic, meaningless course, looping across galaxies, darting through eons of time. When the computer’s probings of Holman’s subconscious mind told it that everything was safe, it instructed the cryogenics system to reawaken the man.
He blinked, then slowly sat up.
SUBCONSCIOUS INDICATIONS SHOW THAT THE WAVE OF IRRATIONALITY HAS PASSED.
Holman said nothing.
YOU WERE SUFFERING FROM AN EMOTIONAL SHOCK.
