Proxima Adventure

Chapter 12. Reconcilliation.

Chapter 12. Reconciliation.

The newly added crew members were escorted to their quarters to be cleaned up and manicured by the robotic assistants. Eventually, the men gathered in the engineering deck to introduce Robert to the ship's technical equipment and make him feel as if he were one of them.

"This is more advanced than I'm familiar with," Robert reacted to what he had just seen. "I guess I have a lot of technology to catch up with."

"There's plenty of manuals in the system that will help you," Charles said. "It's our job to make sure that all the systems are up to specs and operating well. There's plenty of spare parts, so we should be good to go for some time."

Robert leaned back in his chair at the main engineering station. "I realize that this is not a tech question, but how have you been dealing with the women?"

Charles ran a hand through his hair and sighed as if he were presented with a difficult question. "We leave them alone," he finally replied, looking back up at Robert with a serious expression. "They're the scientists and we're the engineers. It's their job to come up with the science that can figure out what happened and maybe get us out of this situation we find ourselves in."

Carl pointed at Charles. "He's been appointed to be our commander. The women are satisfied with that."

Robert turned to Charles. "Do they obey you?" He paused. "Or should I say, do they obey Space Command regulations?"

"Yes, but the truth is, Space Command is no longer in existence. We're out here on our own, and I have no intention of making up rules." He paused again before continuing, "I don't think it's a good idea for us to form relationships with them because the last thing we would want to do is make one of them pregnant, even though the health exams indicate that we and they are sterile. I don't trust those results, mainly because we're in a situation that we're not familiar with and nothing seems to work the way we would expect. I think it's best that we respect them for their scientific expertise and let them do their thing."

"Yeah," Carl said. "We can entertain them, but it would be a bad idea for us to demand that they reciprocate."

"I agree," Dave said. "We've established a détente of sorts with them, and It's worked well so far."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Robert agreed. "If we would favor one or two of them it would cause a cat fight among the others." He sighed. "Besides, it was an unwritten rule among us at the Mars colony to avoid relationships. We had no provisions to handle children. That was something that would be relegated to a future colonization mission."

"Keep in mind, gentlemen, that they outnumber us," Charles told them. "And there's a possibility that we might find more of them out here in the space boonies."

They looked at him with confused expressions.

"What do you mean?" Dave said. "Are there other missions out here we don't know about?"

"I don't know, but the way things are going, anything is possible."

Just then, as if on cue, the communication system activated. "I think you should get back up here," Alice's voice said. "We contacted a ship returning from Mars. They claim that their ship is off course, and they can't fix the problem."

"We'll be right there," Charles replied. He turned to the other men and grinned. "What did I say?"

They laughed, even though they weren't sure it was a laughing matter.

When he arrived on the command deck, Charles sat down at the pilot's section. "How far away are they?"

"We're only sixty thousand kilometers away from them," Alice said. "Their communication system is not working well."