Born again humans

1.7 The awaiting

Previously...

Adam and Eve have been unexpectedly woken up by their settlement ship, the Real Frontier, in order to deal with their anomalous trajectory.

A long time before that, an alien scientist discovered an inhabited exoplanet, which is in fact the Earth.

Back to Adam's space and time, another settlement ship, the Ark, is caught up by an earth envoy, with the mission to avoid that any knowledge fall into alien hands.

***

Adam's ship. 3 days later

Aboard the Real Frontier, Eve was upset and cross-armed, waiting for the pilot to pursue his analysis. 'And so? Does the new sensor say anything?'

'I can confirm there is indeed a ship behind us,' acknowledged the ship. 'At 99.9%, that is. The infrared trace I detect is definitely not natural. By the way, thank you again, Adam, for helping in that matter.'

Eve was deep in her thoughts and Adam still quiet. The ship seemed to realise that the kids needed some time to digest the thought and let them have it their way. They were progressing faster than hoped by the ship, but they were still kids anyway.

It was Adam who broke the silence.

'Ship, we will call you Patricia as of now for all the navigation matters. We'll think about other names for each function you cover. I want a different voice for each as well. And I don't want to hear this particular old voice anymore.'

'Understood,' answered a middle aged male voice.

'But why do you say that?' asked Eve.

'To be more like normal people, you know it's important' shrugged Adam.

'And so, Patricia: Since we have no more need to display our trajectory in 3D in the control room, we'll leave for the greenhouse and think about all this.'

'And that... is a good idea,' she approved.

She realised a bit late that Adam had started a race without warning and she rushed after him in the fear that he would boast forever about a minor and unfair win. She lost him and eventually arrived alone, panting. She quickly scanned the trees in the hope to discover his hiding place but could not spot him.

On her second and deeper round of search, she jumped sideways, scared by the nearby door that slid open. In the doorframe, Adam was smiling with his dog in his arms.

'I introduce you to Marcus.'

Her frown changed into a smile. 'Silly name, but I get your point.'

'Not sure I wanted make a point, but whatever,' he thought and spoke out, 'I really think we should change the way the nurse raise the children. I mean, we grew apart for four years but in all the movies about Earth we've never seen any child isolated.'

'True, but they planned one child per year. There is no way to raise all the children together; there would be no place in the nursery.'

'No, it's not about that, 'scowled Adam. 'It's about how the ship is educating children.'

'Blah blah blah,' commented Eve.

Adam kept on. 'It's supposed to be programmed so that it does not raise us as psychotic morons, but there is no proof that it will work. I'm not saying we are idiots, but I don't think we're normal either.'

'And so, what do you mean, or propose then?' interrogated Eve, with her arms crossed again, her head tilted on one side and a definitely reprobate frown.

He couldn't help but answer shyly and looking at his feet.

'I think we should take care of the babies ourselves as soon as we feel comfortable with.'

'Helllllo!... Waken up... We're almost babies ourselves and the ship hasn't launched any more pregnancies.'

'Actually,' coughed Adam, 'it may be a mistake. We're not supposed to grow alone. Maybe we're not crazy yet, but we could become so.'

Eve blinked several times without a word.

Adam thought, 'that's really good. She's growing up fast and she's been really thinking very rationally. But maybe too much like a robot actually.'

'I mean,' he continued, 'it's better for the kids to be raised by real humans for one thing.' And he searched for his words. 'And on the other side, it may be good for us as well. It should help us not only to be grown-ups but more important to be responsible adults.'

He convinced himself with a nod but then caught her eye again. 'I don't know, we might have to make an important decision for the ship and the mission, and at the time I want to be fit!'

'What kind of decision,' she frowned even more.

'I have no clue,' he replied quite embarrassed, 'but at least for one thing, it's clear that we will never feel what real gravity is.'

'Nor our children, if we have any,' added Eve.

It triggered Adam's alert system and the ensuing emergency random manoeuvre for escape.

'Eh... We must first learn more about this other ship coming towards us,' he continued calmly. 'I don't know if you remember the lessons about the Real Frontier, but there was a possibility that Mars would later send a much faster ship that could overtake us.'

'Which means we are useless,' she thought aloud a bit sadly.

'...Which means we could stick to the original plan, but end up in an already settled system,' corrected Adam. 'There would be no hard work of settlement then. We would be the first guests of a bright new colony.'

'Our children might be, but not us. We would be long dead by then,' she added calmly. 'I choose to hope that there's also the remote possibility that we could jump onto the other ship.'

'Don't you worry, Eve, there's no reason to lose hope,' answered Adam without thinking. And in the back of his mind, he was impressed by this idea that had come to her so quickly and naturally. The robots were rights to wake us up.

'You just said that as if there is something to fear.'

'I'm sorry. I just meant...' He took a pause to think. 'Actually, I don't know what I meant exactly. I guess it's just an expression I picked up in one of those movies.'

'Hey, that's a good idea! Let's go watch a movie.'

'Right now? Like that?' he replied a bit surprised, and then a bit thoughtful. 'You'll always amaze me. You're so full of life.'

The sparkling in his eyes and his thin smile emphasized the cuteness of his little friendly face. But then he made a face when realising he was again acting romantic like in the movies.

'Oops! I did it again,' he admitted.