The Falling Bird. Виктор Иванович Зуев

after getting full, and after they woke up they ate, ate, and ate again, oblivious to anything else around, except for food.

      All survivors from the prolonged sleep – and of those were only just half of the crew – were staring with curiosity at a boy, who appeared out of nowhere and was running around in the ship, like a master, with all doors (including those that were off limits to everyone else) opening for him on command from a remote Arcad had in his pocket. He began being regarded as the big boss of the ship, along with GAS, and the executor of its will. And Arcad behaved accordingly, talking to everybody with a commanding voice and tolerating no objection.

      On the tenth morning after the crew had been roused from their slumber, Arcad, as he usually would after breakfast, was running along the hallway to continue observing life of the strange – in his opinion – people. From the opposite direction in the middle of the hallway a large man was unhurriedly walking, with no intention of yielding to anyone in his path. Arcad had become so used to the fact that everybody on the ship would give him way that he ran into the stranger without slowing down.

      “You little shit, ain’t you looking where you runnin’? You blind?” the big guy yelled at Arcad and brushed him aside with such a great force that Arcad hit his shoulder against the wall with a hard impact.

      “I am Arcad, you idiot!” he shouted back, rubbing his hurt shoulder.

      “This is how you talk to your elders, tyke? How ‘bout I tear your ears off!” said the stranger to Arcad and harshly pulled on his ear.

      “Ouch! Let it go, it hurts!” screamed Arcad and added, “GAS, help!”

      “Let the child go, Peter,” right away sounded GAS’ metallic voice through the ship’s PA system, and the man let Arcad’s ear go.

      All over the ship, every cabin and corner were bugged with the “eyes” and “ears” of the mighty GAS, enabling it to incessantly observe everything that was happening on the ship and make decisions without delay and, if needed, to rectify any problems with assistance from its beast-like helpers. The robots had little patience for humans, and on GAS’ command they could tear a person apart. All crew members knew this and as such carried out the board computer’s demands without questions and complaints.

      Freed from Peter, Arcad ran back to his room sobbing from the insult. It was the first time in his life that he was hurt and humiliated by another person – he had never experienced that before – and it felt terrible. Arcad wished to destroy this assailant immediately and accustomed to all his whims being fulfilled on requested, he barked orders to GAS.

      “GAS, this savage sadist must be thrown off the ship, like you have disposed of other people you no longer needed.”

      The board computer was not programmed to recognize human emotions and it was just at the very beginning of getting to know them on its own, via its automatic learning mode. And at that moment its thinking was based on a pragmatic perspective, centered on its main objective – to deliver the cargo to Earth – so it decided not to carry out the request of the slighted boy.

      The thing was that Peter was a space pilot by profession, and GAS knew this from the personal files of the crew members. But he joined this flight as a regular laborer out of despair, because he had been placed into the special “health resort” barracks for a “well-deserved exhale” after his return to Earth, delivering lichen harvested on Proxima. The Admission Investigation Unit became suspicious that he had the garlicky aroma and put him into quarantine until he had “breathed out” everything criminally eaten. But Peter was sure that he had been thrown to the barracks for his comments about the ruling elite. And for that reason there was no chance he would be released from quarantine in the foreseeable future, except if he signed for this insane mission as a volunteer.

      The ship’s PIC (pilot in command) had been unable to come to his senses after the lengthy sleep, and GAS had to dispose of him. As a result GAS had been left without a professional pilot for the return journey, as well as to maneuver around the planet Hopus, and here the pilot Peter would come in really handy.

      “Hold on for a little while, my boy. For now we need this man,” GAS placated Arcad. “As soon as we can do without him, I’ll push him into the airlock chamber, all right?”

      “Well, all right,” agreed Arcad and the conflict was resolved.

      Peter was an experienced pilot, and after he had heard that the PIC perished, he realized that he was indispensable for GAS to approach and maneuver the ship around the planet Hopus. That was why he began acting brazenly and aggressively, unlike the other survivors. Soon after coming to, Peter started paying visits to the cabin where the survived girls lived, just four out of twelve remaining. He would pick up the most attractive girl or the first one available (depending on his mood) and take her back to his cabin to have sex. None of the girls would decline his invitations for several reasons. Firstly, Peter was a tall and handsome young man, and, second, there was more than enough food in his cabin – meal packs were being rationed for cabins of four, and he was all alone in his quarters after his three roommates had died. The girls were happy to get their hands on the extra food, as GAS was starving them, thinking of them as useless eaters. Peter perfectly understood that after returning to Earth he would be thrown back to the special barracks under any pretext, and was secretly hoping to stay on the planet Hopus if such an opportunity would arise, with one of the girls who would accept his offer. And he was trying to choose the best one of the four.

      Following GAS’ orders, Peter spent every day in the ship’s cockpit, checking the operations of all systems. He was quite savvy in electronics, having a background in engineering and machine programming. And because the ship had been assembled in a hurry and had been flown in automated mode twice as long as had been planned, many manual control units just didn’t respond to his commands – red lights kept turning on to report a problem. Peter was taking them apart, pinging back and forth, pinpointing the damaged parts and faulty electronic boards, and replacing them with the new ones – luckily, spare microchips, diodes, and capacitors were all in plentiful supply on the ship.

      The designers and contractors foresaw that the huge rush the spaceship was being built in, breakdowns during the flight would be unavoidable, and prudently loaded the ship with several boxes of all kinds of parts.

      Peter had to work quickly as the ship was finishing its slowdown – very soon, when Hopus’ orbit was reached, he was supposed to switch to manual control. Sometimes he even was sleeping in the cockpit, leaving it only to have a bite in his cabin. It was during those routine trips through the hallway between the two spaces when he ran into the little boss. His fellow crew members had told him about some child, who appeared out of nowhere and was running back and forth, poking his nose into everything and trying to give orders on GAS’ behalf. But Peter was ignoring what others were saying, assuming that it was some new advanced robotic assistant of GAS, and after colliding with the buster in the hallway immediately forgot about him.