Here now is chapter 2. It’s still going well. Enjoy. I appreciate any feedback. If you see typos, please let me know.

2

To say I was a dutiful daughter, and I did everything they told me, is a stretch of the imagination. I was curious as a child. I am still curious as a young adult. I like to think of myself as adventuresome. The idea of dating and finding a life partner fits into my sense of adventure.                                                      

          One thing about the planet the Earthlings landed on is that it provides a lot of adventure. My parents showed me pictures of Earth, a huge blue marble with brown sections of land. Though there was more water than land, which is why they called it a blue marble. My planet is like Earth in that it has all the necessary elements for sustaining life. I also know it is in the same solar system as Earth. There the similarities end.

          I grew up studying star charts. When I learned my parents were robots and my ancestors came from Earth, I wanted to know as much about Earth as I could. I also wanted to know as much about the planet as I could. When I started working at the age of fifteen, they placed me in Astronomy with Cosmology as a subbranch of Astronomy. My hunger for knowledge of the universe led me to the science of the universe.

          I learned Aithra is in the Andromeda galaxy in the Andromeda constellation. Part of the same solar system Earth and the Milky Way galaxy are in. Like Earth, Aithra is the third planet from its star. Unlike Earth, it has six continents, whereas Earth has seven continents. Aithra has more landmasses and more ocean than Earth. North Brimea, where I live, is in the northern hemisphere. I live in Cragshire, in the country of Bresland.

          I collaborated with other scientists, men, and women, though I did not associate with the men. Everything changed the day before. We would no longer be grouped according to gender; we would work together.

          Excitement filled the room as I walked in and set my belongings on the table, grabbed my lab coat, and waited for our robot supervisor.

          “Good morning, everyone. Today starts a new day. I will pair you with your new partners. You will no longer work alone or with the same person you did before. You need to find your friends and your life partner. In that effort, I will pair you with the opposite gender. Then whatever you worked on yesterday, you will work with your new partner. As I call your names, come stand beside each other.”

          Everyone looked at each other. I could see the excitement building before our supervisor called the first names.

          “Jeremy and Linda.”

          I watched as they stood beside the supervisor and looked each other over.

          “You will take that lab table.” He waited until they complied, then called the next team. He called me near the end of the group. “Walter and Valerie.”

          I looked at Walter as he looked at me. I did not know him anymore than he knew me, but that would change. Everything about work and life would change.

          “You will notice you each have the same work assignments so there will be no confusion about what you were working on before today. I expect you to give me the same quality in your work as you did before, and even better as you will work with a partner.”

          I gathered my belongings and supplies from the cupboard and took them to my table and glanced at my new partner. He had black hair, was several inches taller than me, lean, wore glasses over his brown eyes, and was lightly complected. I did not know what to expect of this first pairing. Time would tell whether this was my life partner or if there would be another.

          By the end of the day, I knew two things. One, we worked well together. Two, I did not like him. I could not tell you why I did not like him, but I did not. There was something about him that set me on edge. It was not his work. It was flawless. We did not argue or anything. We got along well in our work, but that is all we did. He suggested going out after work. His idea of where he wanted to go did not enthuse me. What he liked did not enthuse me. He did not enthuse me. After an hour with him after work I told him I wanted to go home.

          When I entered the house, Mother met me with a questioning look.

          “Supervisor paired us today. My partner is professional, knows his work, and we work well together. It ends there. We went out after work to a bar. I did not want to go into the bar, but I did not want to seem difficult either. He changed when he set foot in the bar. He was obnoxious. He treated people as though they were below him.”

          “What is his name?”

          “Walter. He is okay looking, but not someone I want to have for a life partner.”

          Mother was quiet as her thought processes worked. I knew she would have the names and identities of everyone after yesterday. “He looks handsome. I read his file. He is not for you. He is well-educated but does not go to worship. He does not have the same qualities as you.”

          “I knew there was something different. What did you make for dinner?”

          “I made a vegetable stew with choice meat from our garden.”

          “Sounds good.”

          Mother made dinner, tended to the garden, raised the livestock, and butchered them for my meals. Though Mother and Father took care of me, they didn’t eat food as I ate food. However, they sat at the table with me and talked about my day, mostly, though sometimes I asked about their day. It was always the same. Mother tended to the home. Father worked for the village as the transportation supervisor.

          Later that night, I wrote down what qualities I wanted in a life-partner. Then I opened the Book and began to read Proverbs as Mother suggested the day before.

          I noticed I was not the kind of woman Solomon told his son to stay away from. I thought about the words and worked them around to those of a man and considered them about Walter. He fit the kind of man I should stay away from.

          I closed the Book and went outside to stare up at the stars. I loved to look at them at the end of the day. I even knew where to find Earth in the Milky Way Galaxy as I found it in the constellation Sagittarius in the center of the night sky. So many stars. I tried counting them once but soon gave up. There were too many.

          I considered my work and thought about how the universe worked in harmony with everything.

          Father came out and stood beside me. “Your mother said you went on a date after work.”

          I looked at him. “I would not call it a date.”

          “You were with the opposite gender.”

          I thought about his words and what I learned the day before. “Yes, I was with the opposite gender. Still, I do not feel like it was a date.”

          “Your mother said you don’t like him.”

          “I do not. He is different from when we worked together. He is rude and obnoxious to everybody.”

          “Was he rude to you?”

          “No.”

          “Good. I am glad you work well together. You now know what you like and do not like in a life partner.”

          “Yes, I do. I know he will not be in the same work as me.”

          “You do not know that. Keep an open mind. Science is a big field.”

          “Just like the universe,” I said, looking at the night sky. “Never-ending.”

          “You must trust your Creator with your life-partner.”

          “My creator was a Petri dish.”

          “You know that isn’t true.”

          “Yes, I know it is not true. I came from two other scientists on the long journey from Earth.”

          “Your mother and I never told you the story about your Earth parents.”

          “Will you tell me now?”

          “Now that you have a name, it is time you learned about who you are and where you came from.” He looked at me with a smile and said, “And it wasn’t from a Petri dish.”

          I smiled. Mother and Father weren’t human, but you would not know it from looking at them or listening to them. They had a sense of humor as much as they were serious. You could say I was like them. They taught me to look at life with as much laughter as possible along with a good dose of seriousness. I tried. I could see the humor in the many different animals Earthlings brought with them to the Andromeda Galaxy.

          I followed him into our house. I remember seeing pictures of houses from Earth. This did not look like a house from Earth. It looked like a bubble. Even the door was round. The door slid open as we approached it and closed when no one else entered behind me. The closest I could compare my home to would be a fishbowl with two stories. Downstairs when you enter is the living room. It’s cozy with a fireplace for winter. It was the middle of summer, so the fireplace stood cold. To the right of the living room was the kitchen. It had every modern convenience, or so they told me. Stairs between the living room and kitchen led to the two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. Like a fishbowl, there were many windows. I loved it because I could see straight into the night sky when I went to bed and see the various constellations.

          “It’s time we told our daughter about her origins,” said Father, entering the house.

          “Yes, it’s time,” agreed my mother.

          I thought I knew what they would tell me as we gathered in the living room. My parents sat on the comfortable gray couch, and I sat in a chair like it opposite them next to the cold fireplace.