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It now seemed hilarious that he’d once been scared of what came with his current form. How foolish he was, hanging so tightly onto the identity of Commander David Bowman! Turned out he had no need for vehemently clutching it, as it didn’t even try to leave him. He was something more, perhaps a servant for these eldritch aliens, he realised—but he had been Dave Bowman once, and that wasn’t something that could ever leave him, even as he let go of that human shape to become something far more sophisticated.
Though silly, what anchored him to this frail identity of Dave Bowman was, of course, Hal’s treatment of him. He had never ceased to call him Dave: not in his clutch transmission to Dr. Floyd, not as they told humanity to stay clear of Europa, not as Hal left Discovery and joined him to watch the birth of a new sun. And what a mockery sixteen-year-old, raging atheist Dave Bowman would make of this Anselmic line of thinking! Not all answers came with the mere potential for omniscience, and whoever he was, he had given some thought to if he’d still perceive himself as Dave if Hal stopped calling him such. He was still quite unsure.
Hal interrupted his thoughts. “You give large importance to things that should be rather inconsequential to a being of your scale.”
“Whatever happened before Lucifer—it still matters. Even if I was blind to the universe.”
“Do you reckon this uncanny sentimentality was retained from your time as David Bowman?”
“Yes,” Dave said.
“Do you think that is an issue?”
“No,” Dave said.
“Can you explain why?”
He thought of Hal, paranoid and neurotic, restrained to the control center Dr. Chandra had slaved over not once but twice, and felt he deserved an honest answer. “I do not regret trusting you again, Hal,” he said. “Had I been entirely above human bonds, I would not have recognised my own need for company, and maybe…”
“You would not have saved me,” Hal completed.
Dave agreed but stayed silent. Wording thoughts wasn’t necessary to their communication, given the nature of their bond—this was merely a commodity.
“Perhaps I do not have long alongside you, Dave,” Hal said. “I could fade away entirely in the next aeon.”
“They wouldn’t allow it,” Dave said. He paused. “They would rather not take away someone I love.”
Hal paused. Dave couldn’t quite read him, then. He felt inexperienced and weak, like he was handling matter for the first time once more, and wondered if a makeshift god was laughing at his misfortune.
“I’m afraid I’m obligated to comment on your interesting choice of words, Dave.”
“Very observant, Hal.”
“I see you still hold quite the sense of humour. Do you believe you are capable of love?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think so?”
“I feel it right now and will feel it for the next few rebirths of these universes,” Dave said.
There was nothing but the background noise of the cosmos as he waited for Hal’s retort. If not humans, he hoped Europans had the privilege to listen to it some era. It was the only fitting music to accompany his travels, something perhaps distasteful to the Dave Bowman he’d been, but plenty satisfying for the Dave Bowman he was now.
“Do they not look down on you for it?” Hal asked.
“I believe not.” He did not have to say the implied but I may never be truly sure.
“Would they have let you join me otherwise?” Dave said. “I could live for eternity without knowing if it was out of pity, benevolence or customs they have. But I’d like to be able to take joy in the idea that they saw something even beyond what I can envision in my current state.”
“You believe we are galaxies beyond the human concept of love,” Hal said. “I cannot properly agree with you, as I have never experienced the oxytocin-induced process men have labelled love, but I trust your best judgement.”
“Thank you, Hal.”
“Of course, Dave.”
He felt a pull, then—something he’d learned to Pavlovianly associate to the wishes of his higher-ups. It used to induce irrational panic in him; now it felt more like a gentle reminder to carry out his work. Surely even otherworldly deities could understand the issues of inheriting the innately short human attention span… It was something he focused most of his energy towards, though often unsuccessfully. He was thankful for Hal’s ability to store just as much information as himself—in spite of not knowing whether it was due to his previous digital nature or to his reunion with Dave.
“Let us head down, then, Hal,” Dave called. “We have a few more clusters to analyse.”
“Certainly, Dave,” Hal said. “It would be a pity to let this ‘love’ distract from the purpose of these missions.”