Daydream

4. The art of remembering a name

"What are you doing?" Zezilia shouted as she rushed into the control room. Miguel and Karen were right behind her.

"Steering the ship since you are not." Ernest responded from the chair in front of the controls.

"Where are you steering it?"

"Franger."

"We're supposed to go to the moon Onrom!" She pushed the robot away from the controls while he resisted. "Were you trying to fly us into Franger's atmosphere?"

"Sightseeing would be good for their underdeveloped brains."

"It rains lava on Franger!" She screamed. "We can't survive there!"

"The loss of a few organic life forms is inevitable when discovering the beauty of the universe." Ernest said but stopped any attempt at regaining the controls.

"Alpha and Beta would have died too!"

"Oh." Ernest said with, was it sadness? Miguel couldn't be sure due to the stale voice from Ernest voice box. "That is an unacceptable loss. Alpha is the only good thing the universe has ever created."

"I get it, she's your favourite." Zezilia said and began to steer the ship back towards the moon. "Why don't you go and play chess or clean or something that doesn't involve crashing us into molten lava?" Ernest didn't respond to her but walked out of the room in silence.

"Is he going to be okay?" Karen asked after Ernest had left the room. "He's not going to try and sabotage the ship or something?"

"Nah, he won't do anything that would endanger the cat, especially now when I just reminded him of it." Zezilia leaned back in the chair. "He always gets a bit mopey whenever I stop one of his plans. Nothing to worry about."

"How can you sleep at night with a robot wanting to kill you onboard?"

"It's fine." She waved her hand dismissively. "It's not like he actually can kill me, and isn't life about experience trills every now and again?"

"Uh, sure..." Miguel answered quietly. He was pretty sure that being stranded in space and almost dying was enough trills for a lifetime and he did not want to add being afraid of a hateful robot on top of it. Luckily, the moon named Onrom came into view. He would soon be able to get away from this weird situation and get a ride home.

"Now, you three stay close to me okay?" Zezilia spoke with an attempted militaristic tone. "I don't want to have to spend my whole day looking for you if you get lost and, actually, I might just leave you here if I can't find you right away. Understood?"

"Yes." The three said in unison. The Onrom harbour they had landed at didn't look that friendly and none of them dared to go around there alone. The streets before them were shabby with broken glass and small mechanical parts scattered across the uneven stone panels. Miguel stretched his arms and took a deep breath of the dirty air. This was the first time he ever taken a step on solid ground. If he had to be completely honest he didn't like it all that much, especially if all planetary places were this run down. He much preferred the clean space station he had grown up in.

"Are you seriously going to drop us off here?" Karen asked. "Looks like those black market places they show you in films and such."

"Well, that's kind of what it is." Zezilia answered. "Is that a problem?"

"No! Not at all!" Carlos hurriedly said while covering his sister's mouth. Karen gave him an angry glare, but swallowed her words. It appeared that she had come to understand that she was fighting a losing battle.