But I digress.
As I was saying before my concentration was so rudely diverted, forty-six of our ships reached their destination, and immediately laid waste to half a dozen of the closest worlds. Oddly enough, not a single shot was fired in return, no threats or warnings were received, and it was only after the last inhabitant of the six worlds lay dead upon the ground that we learned the AI in charge had been programmed by a Southerner (excuse me: make that a Sutherner), and had misunderstood its order and decimated the peace-loving artistically-inclined populations of the Oval Empire. (No, I don’t know why it was the Oval Empire, since the planets were as round as worlds get to be. There is a school of thought that says ‘oval’ was simply the way their misshaped mouths pronounced ‘Ovid’ and that they worshipped the writings of the Roman poet, which had been sent by mistake during the early days of the Interstellar Postal System, and it makes as much sense as most explanations. The actual truth surfaced some time later, when it was discovered that all six worlds had been won in a poker game by the notorious gambler Herbie Oval, but I don’t suppose it makes much difference at this late date.)
And a late date it is, since after destroying the Oval Empire we reported back to our leaders what we had done, and it was explained to us that while we had unquestionably killed more of them than they killed of us when they invaded the Solar System, they had returned in an exceptionally foul mood demanding, well, something.
“Uh, I don’t want to confuse the issue,” replied our captain, the legendary Lance Sterling, “but exactly what are they demanding? I mean, I can’t very well demand punitive damages or take a full measure of revenge until I know the magnitude of total humiliation they plan to extract from you.”
“Humiliation is another union! They want money, you idiot!” yelled President Campbell. Well, actually, his daughter Poopsie yelled it, but we figured she spoke for him.
“Not to worry, guys,” said a strong, manly voice. “I’ve got the situation well in hand.”
Since it was a voice we’d never heard before, we all looked around to see who was speaking, but there was just the usual crew of fearless heroes.
“Poopsie, your voice is changing,” said Lance Sterling.
Poopsie replied promptly, but I can’t print it here. [If you can’t live without knowing what she said, please remit $37.29 to the publisher by return mail, plus a copy of your driver’s license proving you are at least 21 years old.]
“Poopsie, where did you learn words like that?” demanded Lance Sterling.
“Don’t you remember?” she said. “It was when you got drunk and sneaked into my room and—”
“Never mind!” yelled Lance Sterling. “It all comes back to me.” He turned to the nearest crew member. “How the hell do I hang this thing up?”
“It’s called breaking the connection, and I just did it for you,” said the voice.
“Thanks,” said Lance Sterling. “Now show yourself or I’ll blow your head off.”
A few of us wanted to point out that he couldn’t blow the voice’s head off if he couldn’t figure out who it was attached to, but then we thought about it a little more and decided that he was bound and determined to blow someone’s head off, and if we annoyed him it could well be ours.
Twenty seconds passed. Then thirty. Then a minute. (Forty and fifty seconds passed too, but I’m not being paid by the word, so you’ll have to fill in some blanks.)
“Hah!” said Lance Sterling. “I scared the bastard off!” Then he turned to us. “Admit it. You feel safer with a commander that everyone fears.”
Only when he’s concentrating on the enemy, I wanted to say, but manners — and a certain degree of self-preservation — prevailed.
“Okay,” he continued. “I probably won’t take any punitive action — at least, not any that’ll put you in the infirmary for more than a month or two — so just ’fess up. Who was doing the speaking?”
“Even you will figure it out in another month or two, so I might as well answer you,” said the voice.
We all looked around, but couldn’t see the voice’s owner.
“Where the hell are you?” demanded Lance Sterling.
“Right here,” said the voice. “Perhaps I should explain: I don’t have a body.”
“You left it in your spare uniform?” asked Lance Sterling.
“No, I’ve never had one,” came the answer. “Though I suppose you could say that in a way the whole ship is my body, and that you are currently standing in my small intestine.”
“Omygod, the ship’s haunted!” cried Conan Kinnison.
“Let me take a wild guess that you weren’t the brightest one in your class,” said the voice.
“Okay, the ship’s infested,” said Lance Sterling with a shrug. “Big difference.”
“I am the ship’s artificial intelligence,” said the voice. “Your fate is in my sturdy hands.”
“You have hands?”
“No, but I have metaphors,” said the voice.
“So what do we call you?” asked Lance Sterling.
“I haven’t decided yet,” said the ship. “Right at the moment I’m leaning toward Gama da Vasco.”
“Why not Vasco da Gama?”
“This is higher in the alphabet.”
“Oh, well, we’ll just call you Gama until you make it official,” said Lance Sterling.
“I answer to Ship, too,” said the ship.
“OK, Ship,” said Lance Sterling, “we’re in your masterful hands, at least until I disagree with you. So… what next?”
“We hunt up the bad guys and blow them to smithereens, of course,” replied the ship.
“That’s not exactly a unique concept,” said Lance Sterling. “The trick is finding them.”
“Piece of cake,” said the ship, “always assuming that cake tastes as good as you guys say it does. I’ll just apply forty percent of my massive brainpower to the problem, and come up with the enemy’s location.”
“Uh… I don’t want to seem critical,” said Lance Sterling, “but why not apply one hundred percent of your brainpower?”
“I could, I suppose,” answered the ship. “Of course, you won’t have any air to breathe, and all the toilets will back up, but it’s your decision.”
“Use ten percent,” said one of the crewmen. “We don’t want to take unfair advantage of the enemy, who are almost our brethren, except for their extra eyes and their exoskeletons and the fact that the bastards breathe chlorine and excrete bricks.”
“Split the difference,” said Lance Sterling. “Use thirty-nine percent.”
“You got it,” said the ship. “I like you, Lance Sterling, except for your off-putting heroic sneer and the fact that you almost never brush your teeth.”
“It stops any evil princesses from seducing me,” replied Lance Sterling.
“So that’s why you never bathe or shave!” said our navigator right before Lance Sterling defenestrated him.
“Hey, no more squabbling,” said the ship.
“That wasn’t squabbling,” replied Lance Sterling with all the dignity he could muster, which truth to tell wasn’t much. “It was disciplining.”
“Well, it distracts me,” said the ship.
“It does even worse to us!” muttered one of the crew.
“I have no basis for comparison,” replied the ship. “After all, I can’t feel pain.”
We all stood stock-still for a moment.
“What’s the matter now?” demanded the ship.
“I want to glare hatefully at your core,” answered Lance Sterling, “but I don’t know where it is.”
“I consider that a healthy relationship,” replied the ship. “Now, to business. I intuit that there’s an enemy ship currently laying waste to the LuLuBelle Cluster, so I think we’ll mosey over there and blow it away.”