It is strange to see IL-13 after millennia of slumber, knowing it only as the ship’s artificial intelligence, and now seeing it as the self-titled Illandor, worshiped as a god by the people of the planet the ship crashed on.
I am brought before it by guards bejeweled in gold and emeralds, carrying staves that ripple with the same energies as our power-cutters.
I address the small iris of light in the enormous hunk of ancient nanocarbon, watched intently by the machine-god’s fervent followers. ‘Hello IL. You look well.’
‘I am Illandor, mortal, and unlike you, I do not decay. I am eternal.’
‘Well, so long as that fusion reactor holds up and by the looks of things, the old boiler tank looks to be on the fritz.’
‘You question our sovereign?’ hisses a high priestess. There’s a ripple of agitated movement between the people, whose untrusting glares turn angry.
I nod to the weapons in their hands, addressing IL-13. ‘Did you give our repair tools to these guys?’
‘We are bestowed with holy weapons straight from the arsenal of heaven,’ growls the high priestess before IL-13 can reply.
‘We called it the maintenance bay, but sure.’ I turn back to IL-13. ‘Well, oh god, perhaps might this lowly mortal borrow a few holy weapons so that I might fix that caboose of yours before you go supercritical?’
There is a long silence.
Then Illandor speaks. ‘Yes. Please.’
Paddy Dobson
21st April 2023