Eye Robot
This story is set in the same universe as that of Lyra Starfire. Basically it’s about 200 or so years from now and humans have colonised other planets, for instance the farming world “McKenzie” that my alter-ego below owns a farm on. Unfortunately the Xarans, a bunch of particularly unpleasant, slimy aliens keep attacking us from space.
- Xaran Attack
I picked myself up, dusted myself down, then began the unhappy task of surveying the wreckage of my farm: in some ways it wasn’t so bad, being as the crops I had in were not particularly vulnerable to energy weapons fire from the Xaran cruisers that had just hit us, but the buildings around me had fared much less well. I had a good look around, assessing the damage: I still had somewhere to live, but some of the valuable farm machinery had been destroyed or was too badly damaged to be useful without repair. How I could get spares for them was anyone’s guess, because in these uncertain times, on the edge of human-occupied space, there was little trade traffic in the face of the Xaran attacks.
I went around the corner, calling out ‘Mike! Mike!’ Mike was the name of my farm hand. My farm, like most others here was highly mechanized, but I did need a farm hand to help me. I saw the tractor unit he’d been driving: it was lying on its side, having obviously been hit by an energy blast from the skies above. I swore to myself “damn those slimy Xarans! Damn their ugly black ships! Where’s our fleet when it’s needed?” I ran over calling Mike’s name, and found him inside. His head was lolling on his shoulder, and blood ran from the corner of his mouth. I felt for a pulse and found none. Dead. I cursed the Xarans again.
Over the next few days I did my best to put the farm back together again, and of course took Mike to his family home so that he could be buried. It pretty soon became clear to me that I couldn’t run my farm alone, let alone get in the harvest. I needed a replacement for Mike, and quick, but alas the war had taken its fair share of victims both in terms of civilians and those called upon to serve in the battlefleet. I went into the nearest main town, or what passed for such: a collection of unsightly and damaged buildings a few miles away. I didn’t think I’d find anyone, but I thought I had to make the attempt just in case.
- Used Robots for Sale
After half a day wandering, searching and asking around, I came to the conclusion that I was wasting my time here. I wandered back to where my hovercar was parked, then noticed a building with a notice saying “Berts Bots”. I went to have a closer look. It was just an office, and the man inside, whom I took to be “Bert” saw me through the open door. He said to me hopefully, ‘hello. Can I help?’ Half an idea was forming in my head: perhaps I could get a robot to replace Mike. So I went in and said, ‘yes, I’m looking for someone - or something - to replace my farmhand who got killed in the raids last week.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Those Xarans - curse them. We’ll get the better of them, you’ll see. Now, is it some kind of robot you are looking for? I understand human farmhands are hard to come by at the moment?’ I cringed slightly at that. He was looking to get money out of me, that was certain. I nodded, and he said, ‘follow me. I might have just what you are looking for.’
He took me into the back room: a large warehouse building, within which were rows and rows of deactivated robots, about twenty or thirty altogether, some new, some nearly so. At the back was a large work bench with what was obviously bits of robots lying on it, and beside it, what I supposed to be some of his spare parts. He started by asking me what I wanted, then started showing me around. I soon became increasingly pessimistic about this idea: the sort of robot I needed was rather complicated, being as it had to be able to deal with all the things that needed to be done, and hence would be expensive to buy. Too expensive for me, especially as I needed to fix some of the machinery too, and also needed cash for that. I had to tell him that I couldn’t afford any of the robots that would even be marginally suitable. I tried to beat him down on price on one, but he wasn’t interested.
As I walked past the bench, I nearly tripped over a leg sticking out. There was another one next to it. I looked down and saw that they belonged to a very human-looking robot, in a female form. I almost took it to be human, but something about her eerie stillness gave it away. Robots often tended to be human-like in basic form, but very seldom as convincing as this, certainly not out here in these parts of the galaxy. I looked down at the features, and realised that I found “her” strangely attractive, with blonde hair cascading down from the head and over the shoulders, perfectly formed facial features and trim figure; “she” was dressed in a tight blue top and dark trousers. I had to stop and tell myself that this was a machine, not a real human woman. I asked, ‘how much for this one? Is it for sale?’ Bert laughed, then said, ‘well - that depends.’ ‘On what?’ ‘She’s damaged.’ ‘Really?’ I couldn’t see much wrong with it, after checking “her” over. Bert put me out of my misery, giving me an outline of the problem, ‘she was owned by some guy out to the east, they got hit last week too, you know. Her owner was killed, and she got an almighty whack on the head when the house got wrecked. It’s the visual focus stabiliser, it’s too damaged to work properly, all burnt out, and without it, she’s virtually blind.’ I gulped, and asked, before realising it was a particularly stupid question, ‘can’t you get spares?’ He pretended that question wasn’t stupid, thus after shaking his head rather sadly, he replied, ’this is a Teleron model CRL. I think this is the only one on the planet, and the nearest spares - well put it this way, sir, there might as well not be any spares anywhere, that’s the whole truth. Are you really interested in buying her? I was seriously considering junking her myself.' I thought for a moment. Then I asked, ‘Yeah, OK. Tell me how much, and give me a demo, and if I like what I see, I’ll buy her.’
He reached behind her back and touched something, and thus the robot twitched to life. I’d seen human-like robots before, so it didn’t bother me at all. “She” opened her eyes, and spoke softly, ‘glasses?’ I crouched down in front of her: her clear blue eyes seemed to follow me as I moved. I held my hand up front of her face about eighteen inches away, and asked, ‘how many fingers do you see?’ ‘I see no fingers… who are you? I am Teleron serial number CRL10N… my vision is impaired…. I am willing to serve you… I need my glasses… Can you assist me?’
Bert said, ‘yeah. Just a minute.’ He rummaged in one of the drawers in the workbench, and found a small metal box about six inches long and two wide, and about an inch deep. He opened it, saying ‘I got these made for her, just in case anyone might be interested. They do help, after a fashion.’ He stood there holding a pair of glasses: yes, these things did exist in our times, luckily most people who would have needed them years ago now had other means of visual correction. Unfortunately for CRL10N, none of them would work on her artificial eyes. And this particular specimen of glasses looked appallingly thick, something like 22mm at the edge, spilling over each side of the wide metal frames holding them in place. And then there was the headstrap, dangling underneath.
‘I normally leave them off, she looks very pretty like this, doesn’t she?’ ‘Mmmm.’ I was trying to sound unconvinced either way. He crouched down and put them onto her face, and then fastened on the headstrap. It ruined her hairstyle, to be honest. Her eyes seemed to all but vanish behind the thick myodisk lenses, and the light reflecting on the perfectly flat fronts didn’t help; but they seemed to help her. She turned her head, this way and that. I then held my hand up again, and asked “how many fingers” again.
This time she leant forward to look, squinting feebly, and less than a foot away, said, ’three.' I exhaled loudly: surely with all that lens, she ought to see better than that? Bert commented, ‘well, that’s the best that can be done at the moment. She does not see very well, even with them.’ ‘How much did you say you wanted for her?’ He told me, and I said, ’no way. Not for a blind robot, no.' ‘Look, she’s a CRL, a highly advanced robot.’ ‘That can’t see shit. Come on, be realistic. You did say you were going to junk her.’
He thought for a moment, clearly wishing he’d never said that. Perhaps he thought I was joking when I started to show interest: I was at first, but then I was curious too, and now, well, I suppose those thick glasses really did take my fancy. He then said ‘OK. A third off, and you’re robbing me.’ ‘Half.’ ‘Now you’re joking!’ I made to leave, and he stopped me at the door with, ‘hold on. Hold it. Half price it is. How I make a living is anyone’s guess!’
We sat down and did the paperwork in the office: while there I wrote out a money order for him, and that was that, CRL10N was mine. Bert asked her to come in: it was rather comical, and pitiful. She had great difficultly seeing things beyond a couple of feet, so without regular guidance, she just either blundered into something, and was thus obliged to feel her way around it, or else just stood there saying something along the lines of “what is that? Can you assist me?” She came to a halt by the desk, then looked down at me in my chair from her height of around five feet six. She was certainly an attractive thing, shapely with perfect curves, with irrelevant details like her fingernails perfectly rendered. She smiled at me - and then said ‘I cannot ascertain if you are smiling back at me.’
I wasn’t. I was too busy wondering why I’d just spent all that money on a half-blind robot. Then I realised why: I was desperate. I got up, and asked her, ‘can you see me? Can you follow me?’ She seemed to think for a moment, then said, ‘yes. If you don’t run away suddenly. Please stay with me. I cannot see well. But I can hear perfectly. I can follow your footsteps.’ I went over to the door, and Bert vanished. CRL10N walked past me, heading for the door: I hadn’t a clue what she was doing. Before she could get to it, she stumbled on a chair leg. I went over to her, and saw that her face looked so human in its sadness. I asked her, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘I was going to open the door for you.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry about that.’ She appeared to accept that, then nodded in a disturbingly human fashion, light flashing off her plano fronted lenses.
I opened the door and we left, and I said, ’this way.' She followed me, saying in her usual, soft, level voice, ‘I can see somewhat better in daylight.’ She didn’t really get to grips visually with the hovercar, needing some guidance and a bit of groping and feeling on her part to find the restraining belts. And so I set off home with my new robot: a half-blind female mimic called CRL10N.
- Fuzzy Logic
I drove my hovercar back to my farm, with my new robot looking around with her terrible vision as we travelled. We stopped, at which point she immediately asked, ‘are we at our destination? Your farm?’ ‘Yes, this is my farm. You are going to help me run it.’ She looked blankly at me, which wasn’t a great achievement for her. ‘I am not convinced I can do that my state, I need my Visual Focus Stabiliser replaced.’ ‘I know, I know. But you’re the only robot I can afford, so I’m stuck with you.’ She went into a brief silence, as if what I’d said had hurt her. Then I realised I was being silly: she had no feelings to hurt, or so I assumed.
I got out, then helped her out by means of briefly taking her hand. It was warm and soft, not the cold, lifeless thing I’d expected. These robot manufacturers sure knew what they were about when they built this one. I started showing her around. After a while, she commented dispassionately, ‘all these buildings look the same to me.’ Which was the truth, for her. Apart from the repairs, to me they did look similar, even with my perfect eyesight. I asked, ‘can you find your way around here?’ ‘Yes. But at night things will be harder.’
I took her into the machinery shed. I said, ’this is the machinery shed. That’s the only tractor unit I have left now, the other was damaged in the last attack.' CRL10N walked over to look more closely, and immediately tripped over some bit of machinery left over from when I’d fixed something else. She got up and continued walking to it, with me following. It didn’t seem to bother her much that she couldn’t see it very well. She peered closely at it for a moment; I asked, ‘have you ever driven any kind of farm machinery?’ She replied, ’no. I was simply my last owner’s companion. He was lonely, so he brought me out here.'
This was where I was hoping, really hoping that she could see well enough to drive a tractor. I asked, bluntly, ‘so, do you think you can see well enough to drive this?’ She looked dubious, and replied ‘I don’t think so. My vision is very poor at the moment. What is the distance visual acuity requirement?’ ‘Mmm…’ That was a good question: if she were trying to drive a hovercar on some busy coreworld expressway she’d have no chance of getting a permit. But out here, things were a lot different. Out on the farms here, there were no roadsigns to read, no other traffic to hit and almost certainly nobody around to run down: the visual requirement could be a little more accommodating. I walked off, saying, ‘just a moment.’
I went to some of the drawers and cupboards that held tools, spares and loads of other stuff that varied from near junk to near useful. In one drawer were papers of all sorts, technical manuals for the equipment I had here. I’d needed some of it while attempting to fix the damaged farm machinery, or to make me realise in some cases that perhaps I couldn’t. She came after me and stood peering over my shoulder, her eyes narrowed a little. She looked up at me, and smiled warmly. My, she looked just perfect; well, apart from the glasses. I moved away a little, and she said, ‘sorry, sir.’ I looked up in surprise, and asked, ‘sir?’ ‘I was just being polite.’ ‘Don’t call me “sir”. Call me “Puffin”. It’s my name - well sort of… Anyway, haven’t you got a name?’ ‘My designation is CRL10N. I don’t have a name.’ I rolled my eyes skyward a little. Then I had an inspiration. I told her ‘OK. I’m giving you a name. I’ll call you “Caroline” from now on, and if you don’t like it, well, I’ll have to think of another.’ ‘I do not dislike it.’ That was her fuzzy logic.
‘OK, back to what we’re doing. It says here the visual acuity for agricultural drivers is 6/18. There’s this line of letters printed on a page here, and it has to be held twenty meters away, and then you have a go at reading it. Come on, lets give it a try.’ I found a tape measure and went outside, and told Caroline to stand next to one end of the machinery shed, holding it. Once I got to six meters, I made a mark in the sand, then went to get the booklet that I’d found. I held it open, in front of my chest. I shook my head in disbelief when I again saw how small the letters seemed: for me they weren’t, but for Caroline, well I thought she’d have little or no chance.
She stood there, squinting and looking for a long moment, and then my fears were realised. After what seemed like ages, she asked, ’there is something I am supposed to be able to read?' ‘You can’t even…?’ That she couldn’t read the test letters was expected, almost certain as far as I was concerned: but what she just said meant that she couldn’t even begin to see them. I hoped that perhaps she could get “near enough” the vision requirement. I shrugged, and told her ‘Caroline, walk forward slowly until you can read what’s on here.’ Maybe her vision might be near enough, but I doubted it.
Caroline obediently walked forward, stopped, then walked forward some more. She got within three-quarters, and then half of the distance measured, at which point I was almost ready to ask, ‘well? Can’t you see it yet?’ Finally she stopped. The distance was appallingly close, much closer than I’d dared hope for: almost down to a third of the original distance. She said ‘I can read it.’ ‘About time too… Oh my, you really do have crud vision, don’t you?’ My hopes for her being able to drive the Tractor Unit were evaporating fast. I looked at the distance where her toes were. It was 2.25 meters. I asked her, ‘what does that mean in terms of visual acuity?’ I was too annoyed to get a calculator, so I hoped she was able to add up better than she could see. She replied, looking and sounding apologetic, ‘it means my visual acuity is around 6/48. I don’t think I can safely drive the Tractor Unit.’ That was about the size of it, I thought. I muttered, ‘oh well, if the Xarans come back and wreck my farm again, I won’t have to worry about it anymore anyway.’
Happy I was not, but there was nothing I could do about the situation; but I did hope that Caroline would be some use around the farm, and indeed she was. If I gave her some task which she could do close up, or didn’t need detailed distance vision she was fine, like fixing some of the storage barns. I began to be rather more impressed with her, being as she never got tired or bored, never complained at having to do something she didn’t feel like doing, and was always willing to try her best, but often needed so much help. Work on sorting out my farm didn’t really go much faster overall than if I’d been alone, but she was a lot prettier to look at than Mike was, even with the thick glasses.
That evening was a revelation. I sat watching her prepare a meal for me on the replicator: she needed to peer closely at it, and be shown a few more things, but oh, this was much better than before. She served it up and stood there after I’d thanked her, and after a few bites I asked, ‘don’t you want to sit?’ She shrugged, and said in her calm voice ‘I don’t need to sit, but if you want me to, I will do so.’ ‘Sit down then.’ So I ate facing Caroline, during which she watched me with her fuzzy vision, her glasses glinting and the flat fronts of her lenses flashing in the artificial light. It all seemed quite appealing to me, with her blond hair flowing down the back of her neck and over her shoulders. My, it even felt like hair: she was indeed a highly advanced robot. Every so often I had to keep reminding myself exactly what she was.
- Refugees
That sort of thing went on for almost a month, by then I was getting on very well with my new friend and helper: she sure made the long nights shoot by. Her poor vision didn’t help, but after a while I had a good picture of what she could and couldn’t see, do or not do. She wasn’t any stronger or tougher than a female of her size and shape, but was quite willing and able to carry on doing stuff long after I was well worn out and fed up. By this time I was almost beginning to dare hope that I could get the farm back together and produce some sort of harvest: it would be tough, because I’d have to work the harvesters myself, but I had to prepare myself to do it in a few weeks, or else just give up. There was a thin trail of hope.
Alas, my dreams were about to be abruptly shattered. The Xarans hadn’t gone away, they just had been harrassing some other frontier planets during the last few weeks. One afternoon I heard the chilling hum of ground attack bombers coming from the town I’d bought Caroline from, followed by a dark plume of smoke: quite obviously they’d pounded the town into a chaotic, smoking ruin, and it was my turn next. I found Caroline, and told her to come with me and hide. The main house had an underground storage cellar that was made just for the purpose we put it to now: stopping ourselves being blasted and fried by plasma bombs.
This attack went on for far longer than the last one; at least half an hour of gratuitous and needless violence. Slowly it seemed the explosions were dying away, and then I realised I had Caroline in my embrace, in a seemingly unnecessary display of comfort and reassurance. I blinked, and realised in all the commotion that I’d not heard her crying: that’s right, her soft pretty little plastic-polymer face was streaked with what looked like tears. One last terrific explosion rocked the ground, and she shook in sympathy, crying out in something like fear. Not knowing what to do, I hugged her all the closer and waited a while longer. When there were no more explosions for a good ten minutes, I climbed up the ladder from the cellar and pushed open the trapdoor.
The main farm house was still in one piece, but only just. I could see a big hole in the far wall, and through it, I could see that my dreams of a harvest this year were dashed. I got out into the yard, and saw that most of the buildings were either on fire or smashed to ruin, including the machine shed. I heard a little cry behind me, and a soft voice, tinged with worry asked ‘Puffin… Where are you?’ Caroline had climbed out of the cellar, and was now groping her way through the wreckage of the farmhouse. I called out to her, ‘over here!’ At least she heard me, so came over to me, a little oddly and uncertainly - she was often like this: uncertain as to where I was when I was too far away, calling out and needing me to help her.
When she came up to me she asked, ‘is it bad? How much is damaged?’ I choked, and said, ‘damn near all of it…’ We spent a few minutes wandering around, but that few minutes confirmed what I’d assumed: that with my resources, I could not begin to harvest the crops this year. And then we went to edge of the fields, and I stopped. Caroline asked me again, ‘what is it?’ She couldn’t see what I saw, and I briefly wished I couldn’t either: all the crops in the nearest field were burned, hit by some incendiary bomb or something. I commented, ’there’s nothing worth harvesting here. If the rest of the farm’s like this, well… I might as well give up.' I barely registered her hand on my arm, lightly touching, trying to comfort me in my distress.
I wanted to check the rest of the farm, although in all probability I was right. But I had no transport: the machinery shed had been turned into a burned out shambles, with nothing recognisable as a tractor unit or anything else, let alone anything driveable. A few slightly melted spares were strewn around in mockery of my earlier efforts to run the farm. I went to check the hovercar: it, too, had been hit, but instead of being wrecked, it was merely flipped over. I got Caroline to help me tip it over onto its normal position, then found that the hovertracks did not work. As I started hunting for spares and tools to try fixing it, I heard a loud explosion to the northeast, which I reckoned to be one of my neighbours taking the same punishment I’d recently received.
A few hours later I was still toiling over the hovercar, with Caroline hunting around for anything that might be useful to me. Of course she was probably not the best at finding specific things, but what else was there to do? As she came back along the gap between two wrecked buildings toward me, I saw another hovercar come toward me. This one contained just a driver: he was dressed formally, in a sort of dark and slightly shiny suit that had something of the look of a uniform to it without being overly formal. He stopped and introduced himself: he was some minor government employee looking for survivors. He said that it would be best if we came to the capital as soon as possible: the whole planet had been heavily bombed and it looked as if there was an invasion in the offing. He didn’t offer to take us, however: he had to deliver this message to many others over a wide area. He ended by saying, ‘if you do come, there will be a transport sometime tomorrow… I can’t guarantee what time, though. Bring yourself and absolute essentials only. And no robots either. We haven’t room for them.’ With that he sped off.
I was heartily glad Caroline hadn’t heard that, but I had to break the bad news to her at some point, but not quite yet. She was so helpful it hurt; bless her, she had brought some spares that she thought might be useful. One of them was, but needed a little “forceful modification”, otherwise known as a good hit with a hammer before it would fit. After little more tinkering, I pushed the start button, and it rose into the air, a little rockily perhaps, but it seemed to work. Caroline cried out, in a distinctly unrobotish fashion, ‘yeah!!’ I felt a pang of something like guilt as I walked over to her and prepared to tell her the bad news. Shakily, I began ‘Caroline… That was some government man… He was scouting around looking for survivors. I think we’re going to evacuate.’ I bit my lip hard: “we” wasn’t quite accurate. I continued ‘I’m… Sorry. I can’t take you with me.’ She stood facing me for a long moment, her little shrunken eyes blinking innocently, uncomprehendingly at me from behind her thick lenses. Then a tear rolled out from underneath one of them. In a moment she was sobbing. She gasped out between sobs, ‘ohh… Please… I love you…’ I was completely taken aback: Caroline was a robot, not the human female she appeared to be. She had an emotional range just like the human she imitated, but those emotions were the result of machine logic not real feeling. She was a little like an actress, inventing emotions she could never really feel. Or was that not quite the whole truth of the matter? Had these guys at Teleron made some mistake, or some advance in logic circuits that really allowed her to begin to feel love and companionship? I felt gloomy and guilty all afternoon and night, wishing there was another way.
The next morning I woke in what remained of the farm. Caroline had stood where I’d left her, since I’d told her not to bother trying to clear up. She spoke only occasionally as she helped me collect a few personal effects that hadn’t been broken by the attack. She just looked so forlorn, and when during the morning I heard the sound of the hoverbus outside, I knew that the time had come to say goodbye. I looked outside, and there it was. The driver called out, ‘anyone coming?’ ‘Yeah, just me. I’ll be there in a minute.’ I went back in to say goodbye to Caroline. She stood there by the food replicator: I could see she was ready to fall apart. Clumsily I said ‘Caroline, I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. I wish…’ She cried out and ran to me, sobbing. I hugged her. We stood embraced for a couple of minutes. The hoverbus driver hooted his siren once. Caroline did not stop shaking and crying. I had to pull myself from her grasp: it was horrible, sheer agony. She stood there shaking and sobbing, and I felt so sorry for her. I just said, ‘goodbye… and good luck…’ I went outside, and heard Caroline wail. I stopped a few yards from the door: I couldn’t do this. My shoulders slumped, then I turned and walked back in. I collected myself and faced her. She blinked at me again; a shadow of surprise went across her face. ‘Look, I can’t leave you here. You’d best come with me. I know I’d be in really bad straits if they found out - but from now on, you are my wife Caroline, and you are as human as my mother. I just pray they don’t have a bio-scanner around. You’re good, but no way that good.’
Abruptly the tears stopped. She did smile a little, then she embraced me. We went outside, me holding her around her waist. Once at the bus, I had to explain, ‘sorry, she didn’t want to leave. We’ve been here years, and now this happens.’ Caroline added a few convincing sobs as the bus drove off with us both in it. I was heartily glad I’d gone back for Caroline: I was certainly getting well used to her company and presence, and I know that I would have sorely missed her, and also would have found it hard to stop worrying about her. If the Xarans did invade, they would not have thought twice about blasting her to pieces, whether they thought her human or not.
- StarBase
In the next few hours we went around some other farms and villages: we only picked up a few more, partly because they didn’t want to leave but mostly because they’d fled or been killed anyway. The imminent Xaran invasion seemed to have scared them. By midafternoon we were at the town where I’d bought Caroline: the robot shop was a mess of burnt carnage and destruction, not far different from most of the rest of the place. I doubted I saw four walls and a roof to put together in the whole place. There were very few people left to pick up here, all desperate to leave and yet yearning for their homes and livelihoods. Then we left for the capital.
That place was a chaotic mess of people and bombed out buildings. Every so often a cargo ship or transport would leave, but there were so many people here needing to get out before the slimy Xarans got them, surely they could not all go today? Some government flunky took our names, and I explained that our papers had been destroyed in the attacks. That was true for a lot of us, and unfortunately we had to stay behind while they attempted to check our credentials. What was bureaucracy for, other than to waste time?
Around midnight a transport landed near us - just in time, because there were rumours flying around that an enemy fleet had arrived and was preparing to land. Some time later we were told to get on, it would be OK, no time for bureaucracy now. It would be no pleasure cruise: we were packed into cargo holds and the like, with just enough room to lie down together and a few inches around us. Outside I heard the muffled sounds of plasma bombs bursting, that so painfully familiar sound from my experiences on the farm. So they were invading - and we were getting off, just in time.
About twenty minutes later we took off. That old rickety ship had seen better days, but for us and about 400 more refugees it was a lifeline. As the ship got out of the atmosphere, it shuddered as Xaran ships pursued us and shot at us. Caroline asked, looking convincingly scared, ‘what’s happening? Are we safe?’ ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we shall be.’ Abruptly they gave up the chase, evidently concentrating on invading the planet. As it turned out, ours was one of the last transports to leave: if we’d stayed behind another ten minutes, we’d have been stuck there, no good thing for either of us.
The next day we were called into a makeshift canteen area on the ship. Supplies here were meagre and not pleasing to the eye or taste, but I was hungry enough. Caroline sat next to me and performed one of her tricks that helped make her appear human: swallowing food and storing it inside her, to be turned into a bit more power in case she needed it. As I’d never seen her do this, I almost had to stop my eyes popping out. I whispered to her, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘Eating.’ I shrugged, not wishing the people nearby to hear, being as there was little privacy. She could do some incredible things, I mused, in the right situations - and with the right people. As I met her shrunken, much corrected gaze again, I again thought how much she meant to me: she was more than just a friend or companion.
There was little enough to do except sleep and talk to those nearby, in low, hushed tones. They asked about Caroline, of course, and I have to say her glasses really helped her mimicry: I would never had guessed a half-blind robot with glasses could exist, but a human, well that was at least somewhat more likely. The people around did not seem bothered by her at all, and certainly robots did not come into our conversation. During mid-afternoon, if the term was not completely irrelevant on a starship, there was a sudden rumbling. One of my neighbours commented, ‘must be accelerating. I wonder why, it might shake us apart.’ That did not exactly fill me with confidence, but I soon knew why. The ship staggered as it was being shot at by some Xaran ship, a big black ugly thing, even seen through one of the rare portholes in the side. Just then a group of five quite small ships joined us: they chased the big ugly ship away, and then stayed to escort us. Someone commented, ‘fighters. I wonder if Lyra Starfire has stopped by to help us?’ Somehow I couldn’t imagine that: she must have had more important things to do than shepherd some old transport around. Perhaps rather amazingly they stayed with us, or were replaced with others from their carrier, I didn’t know because I left them to it before midnight. They next morning I looked out again, and saw the silver outline of one of our ships, and in the distance, a bright star. I knew that had to be the place we were headed for, Starbase E-14.
A couple of hours later the old but trusty crate docked and we disembarked. This place was huge, at least compared to the transport, and there was plenty of room for us to have our own cabins. Thankfully there was no sign of a bio-scanner: they had more important things to deal with and wanted us settled in as quickly as possible. So Caroline and I went into our little cabin, small, like a hotel room, and cramped after the open spaces of my home planet, but at least we had privacy. I turned on the video screen, and of course, it was all news of the war. As expected, there was the loss of my home planet featured, except it was described as a tactical withdrawal. And then there was a shot of a beautiful, tall woman in a gold and silver suit, with a cascade of blonde-red hair flowing over her shoulders - and thick glasses. It was Lyra Starfire giving her crew a pep-talk: there was a voiceover saying that she’d vowed to help retake the planet. She was undeniably brave, and lovely too, but I had my Caroline with me and was thus as content as I could possibly be under the circumstances. I thought it best not to ask about spare parts for robots: I thought that Caroline would be wearing glasses for quite some time. And I could easily accept that.