L is for Lars...and Larry #AtoZChallenge

Two-for One: L is for Lars and Larry

Today it's one from my stories, one from Jemima Pett. 

Lars Nilsson

In a nutshell: Asteroid miner with a murky past and uncertain temper, trying to get through life with as much leisure to enjoy women as possible

Biggest secret: His motto may be 'if you can't beat them, join them'

Lars is one of the central characters in the Viridian System books by Jemima Pett.

The second character is mine: Larry the disembodied eyeballs.

In a nutshell: Larry is the manifestation of the AI/onboard computer of the good ship Wanderlust, home of Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer. Being an AI, he thinks fast and knows everything, but has a little trouble with things that require hands.

Biggest Secret: Larry is trying hard to develop a sense of humor and other human attributes.

Xavier, Larry, and the Wanderlust (and the ship's cat, Kitty Comet), feature in a series of flash fiction on this blog. Stories about the intrepid space explorers appear at random intervals when I'm inspired. Xavier had his inception when I needed a flash fiction for "X" during the 2013 A to Z Challenge. Check out the first story here. And because this is Friday, which is my customary Flash Fiction day, the crew gets another outing, a bit shorter than my usual flash fiction, at just under 600 words.

With the End in Sight

Larry was bored. Maybe a computer can’t get bored, but the AI system of Wanderlust had plenty of cause, and maybe more motivation than most. There wasn’t much to keep even a mid-quality AI busy in a one-man ship on a long journey across mostly empty space. Larry had to find his own entertainment.

Creating his physical manifestation had been fun for a while. Certainly the shock those glowing eyeballs gave Xavier Xanthum had been fun, and Xavier’s reaction gave Larry the incentive to go on with the impossible project he had in mind. But that had been ages ago. Xavier had long since ceased to think of Larry as anything odd, taking both his conversation and his eyeballs for granted. Maybe that proved he was succeeding.

Did Xavier, in fact, think Larry was human?

“Xavier, what am I?”

Xavier Xanthum, space explorer and at the moment, napper extraordinaire, jolted awake. He’d been dozing in the nav chair with Kitty Comet. They were nearing the end of the current crossing, and Xavier liked to be on hand in case Larry needed him for any tricky bits, though the computer hadn’t needed him so far.

Larry’s question had nothing to do with navigation, and Xavier was grumpy at being wakened.

“What are you talking about?”

“What am I?” Larry repeated. He had, quite literally, infinite patience.

“You’re Larry.”

The AI dared to hope. His eyeballs glowed.

“You’re the Wanderlust’s AI,” Xavier finished, dashing Larry’s hopes. Still…

“Can an AI hope?” Larry asked the question aloud as it occurred to him.

“Say, what’s this all about, anyway?” Xavier was more awake now. “Is there something wrong with your processor?”

“No, Xavier,” Larry replied with dignity. “I was merely…wondering.”

“Wondering what? Are you looking for some systems upgrades?” Now Xavier sounded worried. Changes to the ship’s computer were expensive. “We didn’t do all that well this trip, you know. But if there’s anything left after fuel and resupply, I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“I don’t believe I require any upgrades,” Larry said. “I merely wondered…”

“What? Come on, spit it out, Larry. What’s eating you?”

The eyes floating near Xavier’s left hand blinked. “Eating? I don’t—oh!” He had scanned his data banks and come up with the relevant references for the expression. “You are asking what I am worried about.”

“Yeah, that. What’s eating you?” Xavier drummed his fingers on his armrest and waited for the bad news.

“I just wondered,” Larry began for the third time. The sentence seemed to be giving him a lot of trouble, which was odd for something that could think as fast as the computer did. Comet looked up from her perch on Xavier’s lap, spotted Larry’s eyeballs, and reached out a paw to bat at them. “Hey, watch it, Kitty!” Larry actually sounded a little panicked.

Xavier laughed. “Relax, Larry! She can’t hurt you. Geez, you sound like you think you’re alive or something. Like those eyeballs have substance.” He laughed, then checked the nav screens, dismissing Larry’s odd behavior. “Well, trip’s nearly over. Looks like time to get to work.” He pulled the keyboard toward his lap, displacing the cat.

The eyeballs blinked and vanished.

The trip might be over, but it looked to Larry like he had farther to go. Xavier might treat him like a partner, but it seemed he still considered Larry a machine. As he retreated into his computations, Larry took comfort in that moment when he’d flinched. It was such a human reaction.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2017
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Middle Grade Review: The One and Only Ivan

 

Title: The One and Only Ivan 

Author:  Katherine Applegate

Publisher:  Harper, 2012. 305 pages.

Source: Library

Summary: 

Ivan the gorilla lives at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall, a sort of odd cross between a zoo and a mall, and he's lived there so long he almost thinks it's normal. Until, that is, Ruby the baby elephant arrives and reminds him of all he's tried to forget.

Review:

Okay, there's no denying this is a good book. It won the Newbery Medal in 2013. It's moving, and brilliantly done, and makes us see and feel what Ivan sees and feels. I think the style of writing and the format (it's laid out with each page a separate chapter, almost like a journal entry, and each sentence it's own paragraph) gives it a bit of a feeling of otherness, or the recording of thoughts. 

And yet (I'd better prepare to duck here): it didn't really move me that much, and I kept wondering what the point was, besides a lesson about cruelty to animals. I'm almost wondering if I should read it again to see what I missed, but I don't think so. I get the message, and I'll even go so far as to say we could extrapolate to thinking about man's inhumanity to man. But as a story, it felt thin. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for something with more poetry than plot. I also had a problem with a book that is both trying to be realistic on one level and yet depicts decidedly anthropomorphic animals. I get it: we are being reminded that the animals, especially ones like gorillas and elephants, in fact have feelings, and I don't doubt that they do. But I was put off by their conversations, and for some reason especially by the cynical speech of Bob the stray dog. It was just a little to human and knowing.

Recommendation:

In spite of my reaction, I think this is a good book, and worth reading. Its message is important and clear, without totally beating us over the head with it. I suspect it would make a very good read-aloud, though it might be hard for younger children to cope with the cruel realities it depicts in places.

Full Disclosure: I checked  The One and Only Ivan  out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Flash Fiction Friday: We're all Human, even when we're not.

This week Chuck Wendig gave us a theme for our flash fiction challenge.  It's a theme that definitely lends itself to the fantasy/SF genres, and I decided not to fight it this week.  So it's back to my man Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, and his sidekick Larry the glowing eyeballs (read about their first appearance here).  The theme, as indicated in the post title, is "We're all human, even when we're not."  I immediately thought of Larry.

It's Only Human

Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer, gazed at the communications console.

“Larry, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“You will figure it out, Xavier.  You have to.”  Larry’s voice came from the speakers embedded in every wall of the command pod, but his eyeballs were right at Xavier’s shoulder.

“Can’t you just fix it?”

“The error lies outside the parameters of my programming.”

Xavier narrowed his own eyes.  When Larry started to sound like a computer, Xavier always suspected he was up to something.  It was hard to read a pair of glowing eyeballs that may or may not have existed outside Xavier’s own head.

“I see.”  Xavier was pretty sure he did see.  Larry must want him to push himself to solve the problem and be less dependent on the ship’s computer.  Larry got that way at times, like a fussy parent who periodically decided he’d been too protective. Fine.  He’d play along.  The glitch in in the Translator Module wouldn’t be life-threatening unless they encountered hostile aliens.  Since that had only happened a few times in Xavier’s extensive travels, he wasn’t worried.  And a problem to solve would keep him from boredom, the biggest threat on long trips.

Two days later Xavier was less sanguine.  Nothing seemed to fix the glitch in the Translator.  It worked, in the most basic sense, which seemed to be why Larry couldn’t fix it.

It was just that when they ran tests, it translated everything using the foulest possible language.  Xavier had spent time in the dive bars of a hundred spaceports, where people who had spent too much time alone congregated.  He knew how to curse in several interstellar languages, but the Translator Mod was making him blush, no matter what language it translated to or from.

And then, about the time he’d decided to leave it for the techs on Zebulon Five, the failure of the TM mattered after all.  Larry noticed first, of course, since he was the senses and sensors of the Wanderlust.  “Vessel approaching in Sector 7.”  Larry’s voice was calm.  Too calm?

“What registration?”  Xavier stood up from the console and stretched.  He was on the 352nd possible fix for the Translator Mod, and it still had the worst potty-mouth he’d ever heard.

“None recognized.  Ship design is uncataloged.”

 “Then you’d better step in and fix this thing, because if we’re going to make first contact—”  He didn’t finish the sentence.

“It is possible that the choice of vocabulary will not matter to the aliens.”

“Do you want to bet on it?  That kind of language always matters, one way or another, Larry.  Even to the sorts who use it themselves.  Meeting a stranger with the suggestion that they—well, never mind.  It wouldn’t go over well.  It’s only human to resent that sort of thing.”

“The vessel does not contain humans,” Larry pointed out.

“I don’t think that matters.  We’re all human about some things.  And I don’t want to experiment.”

“I take your point.  I will attempt fix on the TM, though as I have told you, the problem is outside the parameters of my programming.”

“I thought you were just pretending!”

“No, Xavier.  But perhaps I can learn.”

“Necessity is the mother of invention, they say.  How long until we are in radio range?”

“Approximately 3 hours and 22 minutes, at the current speed and trajectory.  Do you wish to change course?”

Xavier thought about it.  “No.  But we might slow a bit.  Buy a little extra time.  If we run, they might take that the wrong way.”  Dealing with uncontacted aliens was always tricky.

Larry adjusted the thrusters, then fell to work on the TM’s diagnostics.

This left Xavier with nothing to do but worry.  So he hunted up the ship’s cat, a young tabby he’d named Kringle after it appeared on Christmas, and took a nap, soothed by the purring feline.

“Xavier, I require your assistance for testing.”  Larry’s voice awakened him.  Testing sounded promising.  Xavier made his way back to the command pod, and glanced at the monitor screens.  The alien ship was much closer.

“Shouldn’t they be farther off than that?”

“They seem to have increased their speed.”

“Are we ready for an attack?”  It was a sort of silly question.  The Wanderlust was an explorer’s ship, armed only against trivial attacks.  He was too broke for any serious photon cannons or the like.

“Test the TM,” Larry said, which was an answer of sorts.

Xavier fiddled with the settings and spoke a greeting in the language of Gamma Three.  It came out mostly okay, though he thought the word choice could have been more diplomatic.  “Better.  Set to maximum tact.”  He tested it again, translating a greeting from English to the three other languages he knew.  “I think it will do.”  He relaxed a bit.

“Assuming that their intentions are peaceful,” Larry commented.  Xavier sat up again. 

“What?”

“A peaceful greeting does little good if those contacted are looking for prey.  I fear I tested the TM with them.  They seem to have reacted badly.”

Xavier sat very still. 

“I am sorry, Xavier.”

“To err is human, Larry.”

“I'm not human.”

“Close enough, I guess.  What do we do now?”

“I have experimented with course changes, and they match our moves.”

“Hyperspace jump?”

“We are too close to the gravity well.”

“Then we’d better hope that the Translator can work miracles,” Xavier muttered.

“It is my hope also.”  Larry was at his least computer-like now.  “It was to that end that I worked.”

“You want to live.”  Xavier said it flatly.

“It’s only human,” Larry agreed.

###

 ©Rebecca M. Douglass 2014

Continued here.