“Well, I guess we’ll revive only a few things at a time and be sure to keep adequate reserves for other places if necessary,” said Shana trying not to think about the disaster. “If we decide to launch our seed pods and use our biostock, then we definitely need to stay here at least long enough to mature plants and animals to restock our reservoirs of spores and suspensions, should it prove necessary for us to move again.”
“That means we will have to stay here a minimum of three years no matter what we find, so we’ll have to be fairly certain of things before we even start,” said Elton. “I guess we could start with only a little of our plant seeds before anything else, potted in native soil and not allowed to go to seed outside of the ship. If the few plants prosper then it will be a fairly safe bet that the rest will take.”
“That seems like a reasonable approach,” said Shana, waiting for confirmation from Gemma.
“Mini sub is back on the shoreline,” announced Gemma.
“What about our plan with the plants and all,” asked Shana.
“Your guess is as good as mine in this case, though your caution is well founded,” answered Gemma.
Zak and Pixie headed out to retrieve the sub. They met the newly adapted robot Captain Duncan on his way back with it. The spider-body with the human face startled them both, and Pixie actually screamed.
“So sorry,” said Captain Duncan’s calm voice, incongruous with his strange metallic body.
“That’s going to take some getting used to,” said Pixie breathlessly. Cap said, “For you and me both, kiddo,” and Pixie laughed.
“It’ll really be useful when we begin setting up structures to live in, though,” said Zak practically.
Captain Duncan agreed, “As long as you remember these aren’t service robots, like the miners—they’re Gemma and I.” Zak, abashed, muttered an apology, and then he focused on reviewing the mini-sub’s database.
The robot Gemma was busily wandering through the bushes growing near the river, obviously looking for any kind of wildlife developing there. It was a lot safer than doing it with humans and risking the few lives that were aboard the Wanderer. Any loss of life at all could seriously jeopardize their plans for settling a new world.
“We haven’t even come up with a name for our new world,” said Kelsan in his usual dry tone. “I mean it’s hard to keep referring to it as just this planet.” He smiled at his own joke.
“We need to know a little more about this world so we have something to base it on,” responded Shana, taking his jibe seriously. “If anyone has any suggestions based on the little we know so far, let’s hear it.”
“How about Virgin,” laughed Zak, who had heard over his link. “I mean, it certainly seems to be that.”
“That’s as bad a name as we could pick. I mean, it’s pathetic,” said Elton with a grin. “Imagine meeting new species. Oh yes, we’re Virgins. You know, from Virgin. It’s got quite a ring don’t you think?”
They all had a good laugh and then started with real suggestions, finally coming to the conclusion that they really didn’t know enough about the world to name it yet. “New Earth” got thrown around a few times, but they decided that was too lazy. Evening was setting in and they knew they would have time to kill until daylight to make observations; maybe something would come up.
“Hey,” said Zak. “Has anyone noticed that we can actually see a Nebula not too far away with our naked eyes on this world? That’s something I never imagined possible on any of the worlds we’ve been to. Do you recognize it Gemma?”
“I’m pretty sure we’re on our own side of the Galaxy; if so, I’m almost certain it’s the Crab Nebula, though at this angle I can’t be absolutely certain,” she answered.
“Let’s order in some seafood then,” joked Zak. Everyone groaned at the old joke. “Come on, someone had to say it,” Zak laughed.
The girls gathered firewood, while the guys dug out a small fire pit and lined it with stones. They started a fire as the sun went down, and sat by the crackling orange warmth, staring up at the stars and talking together, almost as if they were home on the Hydrop. The night would be longer than they were used to, but the world was beautiful even in the dark, and they didn’t mind. The Nebula’s colors were more pronounced through the atmosphere; more reds than anything else but making the night sky very alien.
One by one, the crew drifted off to their sleeping quarters, until Elton and Shana were left, sitting across the fire from one another. Elton’s eyes reflected back the fire, giving him a strange, magical appearance.
“Here we are, alone again,” he smiled at her.
Shana poked the fire with her stick, stirring it up and making the blaze rise higher. “Yes, here we are.”
“Shana,” Elton said. She made a noise of acknowledgement, but when he didn’t answer, she looked up and met his eye. His face was serious now. “I wanted you to know something. I love you.”
Shana felt her heart begin to race. Her mouth went dry.
Elton held up a hand. “You don’t have to say anything, it’s okay; I just had to tell you.”
Shana, almost without thinking, stood up, and walked around the fire to stand next to Elton. He looked genuinely surprised as he stood to meet her. She looked up at him and then took his face in her hands and kissed him. He was only startled for a moment, and then wrapped his arms tightly around her, and kissed her back. He pulled her close, so that there didn’t seem to be any space between them. Elton’s face felt hot from the fire, and he smelled like the cool outdoor air. Shana could not believe it, but she loved him too.
“Marry me,” Elton murmured.
“Alright,” Shana said, and let herself melt into him.
Later, as they were dropping off to sleep, curled in a blanket by the fire, Shana’s mind was traveling in a million different directions. Sleeping on a new world always brought unusual dreams, no matter how many times they’d done it, and sleeping in someone’s arms was an entirely new experience. As the night chill set in they moved into the ship and slept late. Her dreams were vivid, sharp, and strange.
Branching Out
They woke early in the morning. Shana strolled into Wanderer’s control room, stretching, and saw Gemma and Captain Duncan’s robots working silently on something on the far side of the room.
“What are you two working on now?” she asked.
“We’ve begun making the miniature ship for the mapping of non-space,” Gemma answered, appearing in hologram form to converse, although her robot body, unnervingly, continued to work. “We decided we could do this during your sleep time since we don’t sleep.”
“Yeah, I suppose that makes sense,” Shana responded, still trying to wake up and get a grip on the day. “Do you think you can set up the large Synth while we’re outside finding out what it’s like to breathe the air of this world?”
“As a matter of fact, we’ve got it half assembled already but any further work would have wakened you,” Gemma answered with a smile. “We can do that as soon as everyone is out and we can leave the airlock opened so we can move things in and out unobstructed.”
“Excellent,” said Shana feeling like it was going to be a productive day. “Maybe we can have a shelter assembled before dark.”
“Not with anything functioning,” Gemma said with a smile. “It’ll take a day just to get the shell up but you can camp in it if you choose.”
“Hmmm,” she responded as if considering it.
Meanwhile the rest of the crew was getting ready to go out and have a look around. Kelsan and Pixie both gave her a hard look; Kelsan shook his head, as if disappointed, and Pixie said, “Oh!” There must have been something in Shana’s face that gave away her secret. She shot a glance at Elton, but he was grinning back at her, and she realized there was no way their romance would have gone unnoticed. So, she let everyone know they were getting married, and asked Cap to do the honors, which he did almost immediately. The whole thing only took a few minutes, and barely delayed
the start of their day. Everyone, except perhaps Kelsan, seemed pleased with the turn of events, and Shana herself was flush with happiness.
Between new love, a new world, and new work to be done, Shana felt energized. There was an excitement that felt good, and dissipated some of the dread that lingered after the Untra disaster. As soon as they were equipped and armed, as was directed by Shana in spite of the apparent lack of large creatures, the crew exited the ship. They didn’t use the airlock since they had switched to outside air already; it smelled clean.
As they walked they marveled in the newness. The gravity was slightly heavier than Earth norm but not unpleasantly so. It would likely result in a more muscular body in their descendants due to the need to be stronger to sufficiently offset that difference. Suddenly a large creature raced past them on the ground, considerably faster than they could walk. It was, in fact, Gemma with new longer legs than the original mining robots.
“What did you do to your body, Gemma?” asked Shana
”I made myself taller. Cap and I decided it would help us get around faster,” she smiled with that synthetic robot face that was so strange after the utter realism of the holograms. “What do you think?”
The longer legs made her look even more like a spider than the original body had. The speed with which she strode across their path going about her own business was amazing. Shana felt a small tingle at the back of her neck, at the thought of the power Gemma and the Captain now had, in powerful physical bodies to match their impressive intelligence. She loved Gemma, but couldn’t stop a small seed of worry growing in the back of her mind. She pushed it aside, annoyed with herself. Gemma had only ever helped her, and her brother; her thoughts felt disloyal.
Gemma continued, “We decided that with these exoskeletons and long legs, we’d call ourselves Exo-striders.” She gave a little dramatic spin, to show off the robot body, showing an element of humor on the synthetic face, which was turned completely around in a most un-human like manner. Shana supposed she’d get used to that also in time but it was truly bizarre! Their mixed reactions seemed to genuinely amuse Gemma.
A small building to house the new Synth had already been erected. The Captain’s Exostrider passed them carrying a control panel section they were about to install. The robots had truly been busy through the night; it was astounding how much they’d accomplished in such a short time! It would have taken the team of them at least two days to do this much work, whereas Gemma and Cap were having to slow down so as to avoid running into them.
The frame for the mini saucer ship was sitting alongside their full size one; that had also been assembled in the middle of the night. Just how much work could these Striders do in a whole day?
Even if all of the babies they carried in suspension were full grown, they couldn’t have accomplished more in one night. (There were many busy years of raising children ahead of them before that would be a possibility, in any case.) Well, they certainly would be able to put the ‘Striders to work helping with the babysitting, if they got that far.
Gemma and Cap were always in two places at the same time when they were outside the ship, since their programs in the ship’s computer were linked at all times with the computer processors that created the brain of the Striders. The hands doing the assembling were moving almost faster than the eye could see. Shana felt vaguely inferior and useless in the face of such efficiency, and made herself shake off the unpleasant emotion as irrational. Shana said into her Link, “Hey, Gemma, I’m sorry to bother you while you’re busy, but I have a question.”
“Yes?” Gemma’s voice replied instantly. Gemma’s Strider did not pause in its work.
Shana asked, “You can be in more than one place at once, including multiple holographic displays, and now the Exo-Striders. Do you think separately in your various forms, or are you aware of all of yourselves at once?”
“I don’t exactly know how to answer that,” Gemma replied, sounding genuinely thoughtful. “I am aware of what all of my selves are doing, all at once, but each instance of me can do and think things separately at the same time. It’s not something that happened when I was first programmed. It’s something that has grown and changed over time.”
“But the other copies of you, I mean in other ships, those are completely separate?”
“Right, those are different programs. I’m not aware of the Gemma program on Prometheus—the program that was originally on Detrepid, or on the venture craft we are sending to navigate non-space. I mostly think about the copy of me that stayed with Colin. We were identical programs at the moment we departed, but now that version of me is living a separate life. Her program will change and grow differently from mine. She has Colin, and I have you. Isn’t that strange?”
“Sounds like it could drive you crazy,” said Shana.
Gemma laughed softly. “Not any more crazy than regular human second-guessing. How would I be different if I had remained corporeal?”
Shana shook her head. “I think that sort of thing all the time. What if I had made different choices? Like, back on Untra.”
Gemma’s voice was suddenly stern. “Don’t think like that. I need you sharp, and that kind of thinking doesn’t help. I made the decision on Untra, and you cannot dwell on it.”
“Okay, okay,” Shana said, “Sorry!”
“Go do some exploring,” Gemma’s voice said more softly. “That always makes you feel better.”
The human crew wandered off toward the river to get a closer look at how the plants rooted. It looked like they were as conventional as the plants they had in storage. Some of them looked similar to the ferns they had onboard, even down to the shade of green. At least photosynthesis was taking place in the most conventional way and that meant that farming here should pose no unusual problems. This was the most perfect place for humans to live that they had found thus far.
The water was crystal clear. Elton dipped his hand into the water and tasted it. “Good,” he said smiling. “It tastes as clean as it looks.”
“Even though it’s been tested, that’s not a very smart thing to do,” said Pixie. “We know very little about what lives in the water at the microbial level.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he answered with the same smile.
“You’d better hope you’re right!” cracked Shana with a grin.
Kelsan was staring back toward where the Synth was being assembled. “Have you any idea how long before we can use that machine? I mean, to start cranking out materials to build a small set of living quarters?”
“At the rate they’re working, I’d guess about two or three hours at the most,” said Zak with an appraising glance in that direction. “It’s absolutely amazing how fast those two work; makes me feel like a slug.”
“I was thinking about that a few minutes ago,” said Shana. “I’m starting to feel like I’m not needed.”
“Well, before you get too far along feeling that way I urge you to remember that they’re just machines, even if they carry the personality of friends,” chimed in Tanya. Then, as if she realized she sounded critical of their non-corporeal crew members, she changed tactic: “Anyway, don’t begrudge them their chance to be something even after death.”
“She’s right,” said Elton; “though I know what you mean. That’s the reason they made personality transfer illegal all those years ago. A couple of droids decided that humans were unnecessary for the world, doing more harm than good, and went crazy killing everything in sight.”
“No!” Shana exclaimed. “That can’t be it. How did I not know that?”
Elton shrugged. “I’ve talked to Gemma a lot in the evenings the last few weeks; it’s something Captain Duncan tracked down in the historical records—apparently in a pretty obscure source, and he only figured it out from comparing multiple cryptic references. (The benefits of not having to sleep and having unlimited access to data.)” Elton sighed a little wistfully. “Anyway, my point is; I really don’t think we have to worry abou
t that with Gemma and The Captain. They are not like that.”
“No, of course not.” Shana agreed heartily. “But I do feel like they’re getting more and more distant from us. I think they’re anxious to get the small ship finished to go out and attempt mapping the galaxy . . . and more if possible.”
Elton said, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about us. We’ve all agreed that we need to let them get that project off the ground as soon as possible. If they can control where we travel, it will change everything.”
“I think we should save it until after we get the preliminary work of setting up a temporary shelter and the small Synth to provide food. We need to get this place livable before doing anything else,” said Kelsan in his usual practical manner. “I’m all for finding a way to navigate non-space, but a day one way or the other won’t make a huge difference in my opinion.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree with Kelsan’s logic, though I do believe navigation has to be second on our list,” said Pixie. “I for one would like to believe that before we die, we could at least let those we love know where we’ve landed. Not to mention the comfort of knowing whether they’re all still alive and well.”
Pixie always was one to be concerned with the welfare of others and the decision to come on this exploratory trip had been exceptionally hard for her. Her face looked momentarily sad, and then she brightened up and joined Tanya, who was wading in the water’s edge and luxuriating in the new freedom they were starting to experience on what they couldn’t help but start hoping was their new home.
“I want to wait a day or two before we start reviving the plants, and incubating animals and babies, until after we get the report back from the probe we sent to the planet closer to the sun,” said Shana. “We need to know a number of things before declaring this home. That planet is only between twenty and thirty million miles away so we have to verify the stability of its orbit and our own as well as seeing that there are no life forms there that will become a threat later on, if not immediately.”
Starborn Odyssey: Voyage of the Lost (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 3) Page 13