inspired by a picture of various shapes in brown over a background of blues

The space ship tumbled through the wide expanse of space, looking like a baton juggled by a gigantic juggler. Whatever had hit it had come from behind, moving at incredible speed. Not only had it set the ship to spinning, it had also damaged one engine and made a hole in a rear compartment. In the bridge, the pilot was sprawled in his chair, held in place by a security net. It was obvious that he had not been so secured when the accident happened; his head was bleeding and his breathing was shallow and erratic.

In the co-pilot seat the android Gepuanmat (General Purpose Android Mark Two) worked swiftly, carefully, to gain control of the ship. Nothing could be done for the injured pilot until the erratic spinning was stopped. Short puffs of fuel jetted out of the attitude jets around the ships body, and gradually, the spinning slowed and stopped. Gepuanmat sat back with a sigh, then pushed the call button for the Medbot, stood up, and bent over the pilot.

Two hours later the pilot walked onto the bridge, healthy and strong again, having spent the time in the healing cabinet. “Do you know where we are?” he asked the android. “And thanks for taking over, and looking after me.”

Gepuanmat turned from the controls and shook his head. “No, I have been trying to locate stars I can recognise, but nothing matches anything in our charts. And what I did is only what I have been programed and trained to do. It is good to see you well again.”

“Well, I’m still grateful for it, whatever the reason.” Nosaj looked at the screen for a moment. “Ok, Gep, we seem to be nearing a solar system with planets in the life zone. Let’s move in carefully and see if one of them would be a safe haven. We certainly can’t go on, not with one engine and the warp drive down.”

Gepuanmat nodded, and waited for Nosaj to sit down. Working together, they steered the ship past the outlying cloud of icy, rocky bodies that might turn into comets or asteroids. They continued on, finding varying sized bodies circling four large gas planets, all of them ringed, then through a wide belt of asteroids. Finally, they came to a rocky planet, circled by two small moons. It was dry and arid looking, with no signs of life. On they went, and after several weeks they saw it; a beautiful blue and white ball, with a very large moon orbiting it.

The ship moved closer, while they used the large telescope to study it. There was definitely life there. There was a smallish space station and numerous satellites in low orbit, some in geosynchronous following their pre-set paths. Gep looked at the engine indicators and sighed.

 

“Looks like this is our destination, Nosaj. That engine won’t last much longer.” Even as he spoke, the engine coughed, stuttered and then resumed its even roar. “Hmph! Not even a long as I thought! We need to turn the ship now, and start slowing down while the thing still works. Otherwise we’ll turn to cinders in the atmosphere.”

Nosaj stared at the dials and gauges for a nano-second, and nodded. Their hands and fingers flew over the controls, using the attitude jets to turn the ship and still keep it from spinning out of control again. Once it was plunging tail-first toward the planet, they used short, quick blasts from the main engine to slow down Hopefully, it was enough to make entry into the atmosphere feasible. At last Nosaj leaned back, wiped his wet forehead, and sighed.

“I think that did it. Hey! Look at the space station! Do you think it’s possible that they have star travel?”

Gep studied the space station for a second, and shook his head. “No way. That is too primitive for a star-faring race. If we manage to land in one piece, this will be our home. If they accept us, we can perhaps help them, teach them what we know, and advance their space program. They will get to the stage of star travel, but by what I see, not for a long time yet. With our knowledge, we can speed that up. But take a look at the telescope. They seem to be very warlike. Do we want to turn that lose on the Universe?”

Nosaj looked through the telescope and watched as they circled the planet, getting closer with each orbit. He could see signs of battle in many places, and also signs of natural disasters, too; floods, draughts, and earthquakes. This was an active planet, then.

“Perhaps we should try to teach them to get along with one another, before we give them any advanced knowledge, if they accept us. Races who fight like that among themselves seldom greet strangers in a friendly manner. We’ll have to be very careful. And we can’t let them know you are an android.” He sighed. “Well, we’ll soon find out. Either we make it to land and are killed soon after, or we’ll make it and meet people who will give us a chance, or we don’t make it through the atmosphere at all.” He turned to Gepuanmat. “I have enjoyed our time together, Gep.” He reached over and touched his friend on the shoulder.

 

“Yes, it has been a good time. We have learned much together. But let’s not give in yet. We are at a good attitude for re-entry; soon we can flip the ship so we are going in heat shields first, and we have a very good chance of making it safely to land. Then it will be up to how well we can communicate, and convince them that we can be more use to them alive than dead.” He glanced at the dials. “Ok, time to flip.”

For a few moments their hands blurred around over the buttons and switches as they manipulated the attitude jets. The ship swung over, end for end, and they were safely on course, heading for the planet.

Nosaj and Gepuanmat landed in open land near Pigeon Lake, Alberta, Canada. After the first shock, the people from the town had welcomed them, and contacted the Canadian Government. After a few interviews with top people in the government and military, they were set up with all that they needed, and scientists and engineers who were anxious to learn from them. Not only Canadians, but people from around the world were involved and the space program was greatly expanded.

For the first few weeks, most of the time was spent in learning the languages and sciences of the world. Part of the time, Gep stayed in the ship, explaining its workings. There were times, though, when he was alone, and then he worked on his own project. He was building himself a wife. It was obvious to him that Nosaj was very attractive to the young Earth women, and he figured that, within a year, Nosaj would be married. He knew that then he should find a life and home of his own, and he was preparing for that time. Already, the young women were hanging around, trying to gain his interest. He had decided to name his wife Lifamauna – Loyal Ideal Female Android Mark Una (one), Lifa, for short.

Nosaj had gone off on a whirlwind ‘round the world’ tour. He had made speeches, inspected laboratories, factories and other facilities where work was going on, using the knowledge he and Gep had given. All fighting had stopped, and all the money and energy that had gone into the wars was now going into improving the health, food production and living conditions everywhere. The Americans, Canadians, Russians, Chinese and several eastern and near east countries had banded together to form a worldwide Space Agency.  Already, after only six months, the space station had been expanded and now had plenty of room for a permanent staff of twenty. A large hydroponic garden had been added, so there was fresh fruit and vegetables available, and a perfect air purification plant to keep the people healthy. They were both very happy with what they had accomplished on their adopted world.

Nosaj walked into the work room unannounced, and stopped in shock. “What are you doing, Gep? Who is that, and where did she come from?” He stared at the new android, studying her closely.

“Nos, you know how the Earth women have been, following us around, tying to snuggle up, get us in their beds? Well, the last time I came back here, one of them followed me, and slipped in while I was in the storage room. I came out to the lounge, and there she was, sitting by the table, with a drink in her hand. When she saw me, she did that squirming thing they do, batted her eyelashes, and said “come have a drink, lover,” in….you know, that odd voice – I think they’re being sexy. She wanted to go to bed with me, and the only way I could get rid of her was to tell her I’m a newlywed, and my wife was in cryogenic sleep, and I was about to bring her out. Well, I needed a wife to show, so I made one. I can’t have a relationship with an Earth woman, not if we still want to keep the fact of what I am secret.  So,” he turned and waved a hand toward the female android, “meet Lifamauna, Lifa for short.”

The female nodded her head and said “I am pleased to meet you at last, Nosaj.” Her voice was soft and just a bit sultry. She was beautiful, looked to be about twenty-five, and of course, in perfect shape. She had silky, shoulder length, mid-brown hair, and amber eyes, and when she smiled a dimple showed at the left corner of her mouth. “I am Loyal Ideal Female Android Mark Una.”

“Ah…uh…yes, uh…pleased to meet you, too, Lifa.” He turned back to Gep, “Uh…yeah….ok, I guess you had to do something. It’s just kind of a shock. But how do we explain her presence? Just being a newlywed wouldn’t explain why she was here, or in cryo. Hmmm…let me see. How about this? Since there were only two of us, going on a long and possibly hazardous journey, it was decided by the powers that be back home that a replacement might be needed if one of us were seriously injured. Since she has all the same qualifications we do, they put her in that position. She would remain cryo unless or until one of us needed the tank, being too badly injured for the medbox, at which point she would be restored and the injured one frozen.” He looked at Gep, one eyebrow raised in question.

“Briliiant!” Gep exclaimed. “And she is fully trained, since I duplicated all of my programming for her, the only thing I changed was the gender.  Sometimes, Nos, I find it hard to remember that you are not an android.  And if or when the time comes, I can create more of us, make them look like humans, and Lifa and I can live in our own community. It’s even possible to create children, infants who will grow like human children do. We can be part of the life of Earth for a while. Then, when the first exploration ships go out, we can be the crew and settlers. New planets can be prepared by us, and the humans can follow.”

“Hmmm…I guess it could be done that way, and more planets could be settled if they didn’t have to be quite so Earth like. You can live in an environment that would be very hard for humans, until you had terraformed. And by that time, it would be safe to reveal what you and they are.  Good thinking, Gep. But that is all for the future. My tour was very successful, and things are happening at a greatly increased pace. Let me change, and then let’s go out for dinner, and introduce Lifa to the locals. There is a redhead here that I really like, maybe we can find her and make it a foursome.”

They went out, found the redhead, and Lifa found that she liked life. Everything happened as they had planned, though it took many years before the first exploration ships were sent out. Eventually, dozens of planets were found that were Earth like, or could be made so fairly easily. By that time, the Earth people were comfortable with the idea of androids, and happy to let them take on the less habitable planets.  Many times in his long life with his wife Virginia, Nosaj thought how fortunate they had been to land on Earth. Gep and Lifa finally settled on a planet that couldn’t be made safe for humans, and became the home planet of the androids.  They grieved when they heard of the death of Nosaj and Virginia – two hundred years after the first star ship’s flight.