Embarkment 2577 Read Online Free PDF

is hopeless.”
    I sat too, less worried about the towel
now.
    “I’m sorry it upset you, you have a lot
to cope with right now, but please believe me when I say my intentions were
good.”
    She leaned forward towards me, and
rested one of her soft palms on my knee. “If you’re to have a chance of getting
a real man in this day and age, a good man and not some space scum, a perfect
body is an advantage. At our age, all the good ones are taken. There’s
something wrong with most of the ones who aren’t.”
    Once again, I was dumbfounded. I
expected her to tell me to get some rest, or something, not give dating advice.
    “You’re not seriously considering
spending the rest of your life with the android, are you? He doesn’t feel like
we do. It’s difficult enough with a man who is alive, and he could never give
you any offspring.”
    This conversation sure took a strange
turn quickly. Assuming these people really were fabrications of my mind, why
couldn’t I invent someone making a bit more sense? And why couldn’t my
imagination provide me with jeans and a T-shirt?
    There were many implications in her
words. This might be a good opportunity to gain information, but I wasn’t up to
it. “I don’t know what I’m considering, I haven’t been here a day yet.”
    I sounded exasperated even in my own
ears. I had lived a lot of my life alone and didn’t want to spend the rest of
it that way, but that didn’t mean hooking up with someone was my first
priority when ending up in an alien future, on a spaceship. Not to mention she
made it sound like I already had without even knowing it. I muttered, “Too
bizarre.”
    She lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t
comment. A few second’s silence seemed like forever, and Ima sighed. When she
spoke, her voice was soft and low, almost a purr. “Look, I understand all this
seems scary now, and it’s tempting to hold on to Adam, but he is an
android. He’s a computer and not a flesh and blood person like you and me. What
if you’ll want to have kids? I sure want to have a litter some day. Having your
genes live on is a natural, normal urge for biological beings. I’m just saying.”
    “What about me and Adam, Ima? My mind is
blank, remember?”
    “It will come back to you, I’m sure.”
    Her smile seemed sincere.
    “He spends a lot of time with you, even when
he should be doing other things. Hanging around in sickbay, getting in my way.
It’s a good thing you woke up; he was driving me crazy.”
    That wasn’t it, but I wasn’t up to
pressing the subject. Curling up in a corner somewhere to sleep or maybe weep a
little seemed much more appealing.
    Ima left a few minutes later, and I
pulled a sheet off the bed to dress in instead of the towel. The makeshift toga
wasn’t exactly high fashion, but good enough. There must be a way to get real
clothes or at least a robe, but I couldn’t figure it out, and I sure wasn’t
calling for Adam again.
    I didn’t have to grumble along for long.
Anya stopped by just as she promised, and considering how peculiar I found her
just hours earlier, it was a bit funny how pathetically grateful I was to see
her now.
    She lifted an exquisitely shaped
eyebrow. “Why are you wearing the bed?”
    I wanted to throw my arms around her and
wail. I looked at my bare feet instead. “I don’t have any clothes, and Adam
showed me the replicating thingy, but I can’t get it to work.”
    When she asked it, it produced a robe in
no time. The mysterious panel in the wall also made tea, crackers, and cheese
for us. “How…”
    Anya walked towards the living room
table, and I plodded after her. I snatched a cracker and could almost hear my
stomach grumble for more.
    “Did you ever see a 3D printer in your
time?”
    I had a vague memory of seeing a big box
on TV. It added layers of plastic and made intricate shapes, thin as a sheet of
paper. Probably close enough. I nodded, and she smiled. “It’s the same
principle. I’m sure Adam will tell you