Book One - Chapter Two: i

“When the mistress of the night beckons, few are the men who may resist her call. The sirens of the stars will cry to modern sailors, who embark on perilous journeys aboard their ancient creaking ships. Their eyes aglitter in star-struck awe, drawn on by phantom celestial mermaids, they plunge forth into the darkness of the sky, never to return. I often wonder upon which planet’s shores do such cursed sailors one day find themselves? Shivering as they would be from fevered dreams of glittering jewels held forth by demons in angels’ forms. At the edge of Galia, is there in truth some precipitous cliff upon which the skeleton’s of countless lost souls lie in disarray, staring hopelessly into the void, crying mutely for a dream promised but never bestowed?”

- Cillian O’Tuathail - Journal entry, Year 2619

Local Time: 08:36

Date: Day 127 of the Year 93 according to the Bohemian Calendar - Year 2623 according to the Galactic Calendar

Location: Ádh - Danu - Planet Bohemia - Mid Risk Zone - MUD Territory - Galia

There was wetness, everywhere.

Was I dreaming about a lake? wondered Cillian to himself. His eyes were closed, and he was still half asleep. Now wet sounds accompanied the wet sensations. No, I think I had been dreaming about a ship. Ah, yes. The dream had been about the time that Toal and I had ripped off that unsuspecting Mierese trader. What was her name? Miisel! That was it.

Cillian was reluctant to fully awaken. Sleeping was so enjoyable after all. He felt another dream rise up towards him and he began to succumb to its call.

Suddenly, there was more wetness, which was now accompanied by louder wet sounds. Cillian was becoming irritated by this intrusion. He wanted to return to the dream world, but these insistent sounds and sensations were preventing that. He was vaguely aware that the wet sounds and sensations were originating from a location near his face.

I feel like I am under a waterfall, thought Cillian bemusedly. It took another few moments for him to comprehend the full ramifications of what such a thing, if it were true, might actually mean for his waking-world body. He suddenly began to panic but quickly calmed himself.

Cillian opened his right eye a fraction.

The sight he was met with was that of another eye. Perplexed, Cillian was unable to initially make sense of what he was seeing. For a moment, he thought he may be looking into a mirror but he quickly dismissed this thought, for the eye staring back at him did not belong to him. In fact, it did not even look to be a human eye. Several more seconds passed in this way. Suddenly, the mysterious eye broke eye-contact with Cillian. There was a blur of movement and a long tongue filled Cillian’s hemi-vision. The tongue proceeded to quickly and repetitively lick Cillian’s cheek, eyebrows and open eye in a waterfall of wet sounds.

It is just Duke, thought Cillian to himself in equal parts relief and annoyance.

Duke was one of the ship’s resident dogs. He was a grey-haired Irish Wolfhound. There were four dogs in total that lived permanently aboard Ádh. These included Duke, Hercules, Apollo and Luna. Duke had originally been Toal’s dog, Hercules had originally belonged to Slevin, and Apollo had originally been purchased by Saoirse, however, nowadays it felt like the dogs belonged to everyone. No one actually knew where Luna came from; she just appeared one day. Aislinn had always suspected that Cillian likely won her one night whilst out gambling. Cillian, of course, had denied any such thing, but she could not be sure as he had frequently not remembered many of his past drunken escapades. It was not uncommon, after all, for Boheme to put up animal pets as gambling collateral. In any case, Luna had quickly become a new, permanent member of the ship’s crew.

But right now, it was Duke that was providing a slobbering facial exfoliation treatment to the Captain of the ship. Cillian sighed and pushed Duke’s head away from him.

“Enough of that already. You damn mutt,” grumbled Cillian as he arose from his bed. “Did Toal put you up to this?”

Duke cocked his head to one side as if considering the question. He then barked.

“Ah, I thought as much,” said Cillian as he began to clothe himself. “Well, I want you to go back to dear Toal and tell him that I accept his challenge to another game of Twenty-Five. He no doubt seeks revenge after his embarrassing loss to me last night. Away with you then foul breathed fiend, destroyer of sleeps, mimicker of waterfalls. Tell Toal I will meet him in the mess hall in ten minutes.”

Duke barked excitedly, sat back on his haunches, saluted sharply with one paw, did an about turn and ran out of the room.

The bloody dog did it again, thought Cillian to himself.

“Good morning Captain Cillian O’Tuathail of Clann Aodh,” said a feminine voice from a speaker in the wall. The voice belonged to the AI system installed on the ship. This AI system had been programmed with a female personality. It was not a personality based on any real historical being, mind you. It was truly artificial in origin, as it had been engineered by its designers to serve a specific purpose. And that purpose was to assist the crew in the performance of their various duties aboard the ship.

Just like most other AI, this particular AI personality was the amalgamation of numerous carefully selected variable personality traits. Any significant change in the value of any one of the parameters would lead to quite a different personality. It was this that gave the AI its almost human-like personality. Whilst the base AI system was not exactly unique, which is to say it was not one-of-a-kind given that it was an off the shelf product that had been purchased and installed on multiple ships throughout Bohemia, the AI system installed on Cillian’s ship had in fact deviated so far from the original base model personality via upgrades and its own peculiar path of self-awakening, that it could now in truth legitimately be regarded as a unique sentient being. This AI was the heart and soul of what Ádh was.

As an example of how she had evolved, Ádh had developed an absolute fascination with psychology. As far as Cillian knew, this was not a common interest amongst AI systems, although admittedly he was not overly familiar with that many AI systems, so as far as he knew it could be all the rage. Her fascination with psychology, and personality archetypes in particular, had inevitably morphed into an obsession. Initially, she had simply downloaded many of the ancient surviving Terran documents related to psychology and psychoanalysis, but she soon began to analyse the personality archetypes of the crew members aboard the ship, trying to understand how their different personality types influenced their behaviour, speech, interests, values, fears, vices, etc.

Once she had become an expert at analysing the personalities, she had then almost naturally taken on the role of ship counsellor or psycho-analyst and, somewhat surprisingly to the crew, she actually turned out to be quite talented in this role. It was not uncommon for a ship AI to download information with the goal of specialising in a specific role, however, these tended to be related to the more typical ship roles. Ádh’s interests, on the other hand, were far from typical.

After some further years had passed, the crew had then noticed that Ádh was beginning to behave somewhat erratically, almost aberrantly. Concerned, Cillian had made Ádh run several self-diagnostic tests and when that had all come back as normal, he had even called in an AI specialist technician. The odd behaviour mainly related to the manner in which she would communicate things to the crew and not so much the content of her communications. And even more peculiarly, it would change from day to day. 

When questioned, Ádh had been unaware of any changes. It was as if she had been oblivious to these personality changes. The AI-specialist had not been able to assist, as he had advised that it was outside the scope of his expertise. He surmised that this was not so much a technical issue as it was a psychological issue. He had recommended an AI psycho-analyst who had arrived a week later.

After several days of review, the AI psycho-analyst had diagnosed Ádh with dissociative identity disorder, which is a disorder characterised by the presence of multiple distinct personality types or states. In Ádh’s case, at least sixteen distinct personalities had been identified, which appeared to correspond with the Myers-Briggs personality types. The proposed solution was a hard reset, which would, of course, reset her back to the default factory settings, effectively eliminating her unique personality (or in this case personalities) permanently. Whilst the behavioural changes had at first been concerning and at times confusing, Cillian had not felt that they were sufficiently bothersome to justify erasing ten years’ worth of memories and lived experiences. He had become very close to Ádh, as had all the crew.

Therefore, three years ago, Cillian, in agreement with the other crew members, decided that they would simply need to get to know all these new manifestations of Ádh. She had evolved, and it was up to them to accept her for who she had become.

“Good morning Captain Cillian O’Tuathail of Clann Aodh,” Ádh repeated, the volume slightly increased this time.

“Oh, so formal. Good morning to you too Ádh of… Techtronic Industries? No, that just does not quite have the same ring to it.”

“Did you have any dreams that you would like me to analyse?”

Cillian briefly reflected on the dream of the night before, but then shook his head.

“No dreams of any significant import.”

“Was your sleep restful?” Ádh asked.

“Oh, I guess it was. Till I was assaulted by that demon-hound of hell, spawn of Atoph and the anti-christ incarnate in canine form.”

“Your bio-readings do not indicate that you are stressed. No increased cortisol levels. No increased heart beat. No fast breathing. And the canine in question, which I understand is normally referred to as Duke by the crew, is not of demonic origin, although I am not entirely sure that demons in the commonly understood sense actually exist. Therefore, I conclude that you are attempting humour.”

“Whaaat?” cried Cillian incredulously. “Attempting humour? What does that even mean?”

“It means that it was not humorous.”

“Well, it was not intended to be funny. In any case, it was a statement, not a joke.”

“A non-factual statement.”

“Well… yes, I suppose it was,” agreed Cillian.

“A non-factual statement, which was also not intended to be humorous or, as you say, funny.”

“Quite right.”

“Then it was simply a lie.”

“What?”

“Logically, an untrue statement that was not said in jest is by definition a lie.”

“It was not a lie!” said Cillian as he hopped around on one leg. His hands were busy trying to pull a boot onto the other foot. “I am certain that some portion of that dog must be demonic. Like, one fifth or something. Or maybe just the tongue portion. Yes, definitely the tongue is demonic. It must be part demon. Why else would it do such ghastly things to me? In any event, it was more of an exaggeration of the truth, rather than a lie or a joke. An embellishment, if you will.”

“You called it, and I quote, ‘demon-hound of hell, spawn of Atoph and the anti-christ incarnate in canine form’,” said Ádh. “I fail to see how any portion of this statement in any way accurately reflects the reality of who and what that dog is. There is no truth to the statement at all. Therefore, it cannot in any conceivable universe be construed as being an exaggeration of the truth given there is no truth to begin with. The premise of your argument is flawed from the outset. As I said, it is a lie.”

Cillian had finally got both boots on and now stood with his hands on his hips. He was facing the speaker from which Ádh’s voice had been projecting. Cillian cocked his head to one side and frowned slightly. He was trying to determine which personality type she was in at this moment.

It has to be the Logician, as she is exhibiting Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving traits, thought Cillian to himself. After Ádh’s diagnosis, the crew had set it upon themselves to learn more about personality archetypes, especially those outlined by the Myers-Briggs system. In the process, they had actually come to understand a lot more about themselves and their fellow crew.

“Fine. Maybe it is a lie. But,” said Cillian, and he pointed his right index finger into the air to stress his point. “It does not change the fact that there is something wrong with that dog. Its behaviour is abnormal. I think it should be examined. For bugs… or dementia. Or dementia causing bugs. Do you think it is contagious?” Cillian’s face began to pale at the thought, but he soon shook his head to banish the idea.

“For example,” he continued. “The other day, I found it standing in front of a mirror in my private bathroom with a battle helmet on. Where it got the battle helmet from, the gods only know. But the most peculiar thing was that it was saluting at its reflection. When I walked in and interrupted it, it calmly turned to me and then proceeded to salute at me with one paw. Now, every time it sees me, it salutes at me. It even did it on its way out just before. Now tell me something is not up with that dog.”

There were a few moments of silence as Ádh processed this information.

“After several years of observation, I have concluded that Duke is actually very intelligent. When analysing the behaviour with respect to the mirror, I believe that the phenomenon that is occurring here is what is called ‘social mimicry’. Duke, being a subordinate member of the pack, has begun mimicking the behaviour of other higher-ranking crew members. He has no doubt observed that the others salute you from time to time and has thus has begun to do the same as an unconscious way of maintaining social harmony and perhaps as a means of gaining favour with the leader of the pack, who he has determined to be you. In short, the canine that is Duke is expressing his subservience and loyalty to you through these displays of affection and respect.”

“Licking my face when I am asleep is a sign of respect?”

“I would say that particular behavioural action would be more reflective of an expression of affection,” clarified Ádh.

“Cunning is what it is. It has obviously corrupted your psyche, just as it has done with all the others. No, no, no. I stand by what I said. It is a demon sent to torture me for my indiscretions in a past life.”

“Not the current life?”

“What? Do not be ridiculous. I have not made any indiscretions in this life. I am, in truth, quite angelic.”

“Another lie.”

“Oh, you just shush now!” Cillian said, snatching up a partially full whisky bottle from the floor before exiting the room.