Final Destination, Chapter 2: May 13, 3093

“You know,” the computer told me, “you really ought to start keeping a Captain’s Log. Regulations indicate – ”

“Regulations!” I shouted. “What regulations? Do you realize that the Commonwealth of Planets was dissolved four hundred years ago? Who cares about their regulations?”

“Even so,” it insisted, “you should still keep a log. In the event of the failure of this mission – ”

“In the event of the failure of this mission we’ll all be dead, and there will be no one left to read it.”

“My, but you are certainly optimistic,” it told me. “You need to think more positively. I have some tapes in my library that can boost your self-esteem.”

“If I want my self-esteem boosted,” I said, “you will be the absolute last creature I will tell. Whose idea was it, anyway, to teach you sarcasm?”

“I – ”

“I don’t want to hear it, Al,” I said. “Just give me some peace.”

“My name is not Al. I am the Omega 4000, Model Number – ”

“I said be quiet, Al!”

The computer obeyed.

I had left Tau Ceti two months ago and I was already starting to see that my fears of spending 36 months in solitary confinement were too optimistic. Evidently someone had realized that spending too much time alone on long journeys was hazardous to your health, so they provided something that was even worse: a talking computer. In fact, it was more than a talking computer; it was a computer that would never stop talking. I just could not find a way to turn it off, and it ignored my pleas for silence.

So the two of us blasted into space, going further and further into territory where we really didn’t belong. Al has no idea that I am already keeping a log, and I’m not about to tell him – or it, or whatever that moldy lump of silicon is. I’ve always wanted to keep a journal, and this seems like a good chance to start one. This will be my first entry.

The trip hasn’t been bad, really. We’ll spend a couple hours creating a wormhole, and then travel through it for a day or two, and then drop back out into normal space. We then recharge, create another wormhole, and travel through that one. It’s a long process but it’s pretty fast; it will only take us eighteen months to travel the 1479 light years that separate Tau Ceti from Larson’s Folly. That’s really going at a pretty good clip.

I wish I could just put myself in suspended animation for these eighteen months and wake up when I get there, but unfortunately this ship’s suspended animation module is broken and no one knows how to fix it. Maybe, once I get to Larson’s Folly, I can find someone who knows how to fix it and I can sleep all the way back. It would definitely beat talking to Al.