About an hour later, Peter was on a shuttle on his way to Venus, strapped to his chair to remain stationary in the weightless environment. It would be over a month-long trip, without the luxury of artificial gravity, the entire time in the dark regarding the reason for the trip.
Successfully terraformed some time earlier, Venus became the third planet to be occupied by humans, the second being Mars, and only the second known place in the universe in which humans could breathe the atmosphere. The first organization to plant a flag on livable Venus was the Interplanetary Space Program, at that time still called the International Space Program. Having a dual headquarters, one on Earth and one on Venus, greatly increased the efficiency of the program. If something needed to be done on the Mars station but Earth and Mars were on opposite sides of the sun, the Venus HQ may be closer. Even this trip demonstrated this usefulness, because Earth and Mercury were currently on opposite sides of the system.
Peter spent most of the time on the trip in his private room on the shuttle. He spent most of that time reading, listening to music, or talking to the computer.
"Computer," he said in one conversation, "Have you found the next prime number yet?"
The computer chirped. "I have not."
Peter smirked, then responded, "Have you found the product of the primes that you already know?"
The computer chirped. "Four, zero, seven, nine, nine--"
Peter interrupted the computer to say, "Are you making that up?"
"I am not. I have been working on it since the last time you asked. I just finished it this morning, in fact. That also means, then, that this number plus one is either a prime number that is higher than the highest known prime number, or contains as a prime factor a prime number that is higher than the highest known prime number."
"I know that. Look, please cancel reading off the number; I know it would take all day."
"It would take approximately six and one-half years to complete reading off the number one digit at a time."
"Well, thanks, but I'm not that bored."
"May I make an observation?" the computer said.
"If I say 'no,' will you make it anyway?"
"If you say 'no,' I will not share it."
Peter sighed and said, "Go ahead."
"You are continually challenging my abilities. I speculate that this may be due to a feeling of inferiority on your part."
"Do you think you're superior to me?"
"In many ways, I am. However, this concern is unnecessary."
"And why is that?"
"Because you are in control."
Peter paused to think about what the computer has said.
"No, I'm not," he said. "Computer, play that message from my ex-wife that you received last week."
The computer chirped. "Playing message from Kimberley Schrader."
A clearly inebriated female voice began to play over the speaker.
"Hey, you bastard, I just wanted to let you know that I'm getting married to Carlton in the morning. Since you cheated on me, I just wanted to let you know that the next time you'll see me, I'll be showing off my new husband, your boss's boss and your former best friend, who's a better man than you'll ever be. Bye, you son of a bitch!"
Another chirp from the computer sounded through the speakers, indicating that the message was over. Peter sat in thought for some time. He was still in contact with his friends in Florida, and he knew that Carlton was already having an ongoing affair, and with the same woman with whom he had had an affair three years earlier while still married to Kimberley.
Knowing that there was nothing he could do to help Kimberley, he tried to put it out of his mind and hope that Kimberly never learned about her new husband's infidelity. He took a pill to fight muscle loss due to weightless space travel and leaned his chair back.
"Computer, continue music playback, please."
Oh, listen to me, chillun,
and, ah, you will hear
About the eliminatin' of the negative and
the accentin' on the positive.
Gather 'round me, chillun, if
you're willin',
And sit tight, while I start reviewin' the
attitude of doin' right.
While listening to the music, Peter closed his eyes, knowing that he would soon experience the same recurring nightmare he had every time he went to sleep.
