The Space Spoon

10. Welcome to Uthion

SCF1 was heading toward the Universal Consensus coordinates. Uthion, a class H stony planet with a perfect atmosphere for human existence, was their goal. It was mostly desolate, with just a few scattered tiny villages. The majority of Uthionians fled to other worlds as soon as they could. Many individuals would find it difficult to live with the continual danger of corrosive rain above their heads.

In the past, nefarious groups from this region of the galaxy collaborated to build a dome in the northern hemisphere of Uthion, which was immune to the planet's weather conditions. The planet's tiny population and corrosive rain made it ideal for shady enterprises, illicit auctions, and trade.

Tejeda and Shayla took a shuttle to the planet. After inserting the exact coordinates for the dome, he set the computer AI for automatic descent. The Nubilae turned around to admire Shayla’s outfit. After requisitioning several sheets, Tejeda asked Harland King and his team to build a copper-based chemical compound to generate the correct blood-red hue.

Fortunately, he found a former tailor on SCF1. The poor man became an outcast after a rich client denounced him for prickling his ass with a needle. He should have known better and not make modifications in production.

And there she was! Shayla Bale was dressed in an extraordinary scarlet gown. The cleavage was bringing into view the magnificent display Tejeda dreamt of. With Carmen resting right there to complete the picture, the Nubilae could have easily thought he died and went to heaven.

She took a seat. The cut of the dress reached to her thigh, completely revealing her left leg. As if she wanted to make things even harder for Tejeda, she lifted and put aside the part of the dress which was covering her right leg, giving him a full display of the lower part of her body.

“There is no need to stare since you have already seen everything there is when you were me,” Shayla remarked as she wrapped the gun holster over her right thigh.

“Not from this angle,” he smirked, leaving no trace of doubt that he was enjoying it.

Shayla raised to her feet and let go of the bottom part of the dress that reached her ankles. “Well, now that the show is over, can we move to more important matters?”

She turned her gaze to E00, which was still powered down at the back of the shuttle. "I managed to get him some new upgrades. For starters, there was a problem with his vocal processor. The tech team fixed that and also added a mute button per my instructions."

Shayla went next to E00 and pointed toward a toggle red switch. “‘I’ is on and ‘O’ is off. So, now we can mute him without necessarily powering him down or removing his power core.”

Tejeda puffed and couldn’t stop himself from correcting her mistake. "This is not an 'I/O' or 'Eye-Oh' switch as you said. A streamlined sans-serif font appears on the numbers one and zero of the rocker switch. One equals 'on' and zero equals 'off' in binary arithmetic. In some cases, switches were simply labeled on and off, but if the lettering was worn or dirty, or if the lighting was poor, it was difficult to distinguish which one is which. Anyhow, this thing is an even older technology than the actual robot. No wonder why no one knows what it means anymore. I think only on a derelict ship such as SCF1 can you find something like this."

Regardless of his burst of nerdiness, Shayla continued. “A simple thank you would have sufficed. Let’s see if it works.”

She inserted the power core into E00’s chest and waited for him to power up. When his eyes glowed purple, a generic ‘beep’ was heard. "Hi, Shayla! Oh, thank you for repairing my speech functionalities. I know exactly how to repay you, my dear."

When E00 dawdled his head toward Tejeda, his neck creaked. "You are an asshole. You believe you are the most knowledgeable person in the room. And, hey, you could be, but it doesn't mean you have to be a bastard and a jerk. You are fortunate that I find you intriguing enough to..."

Shayla pressed the '0' button and E00 was now muted. Most probably, he was still talking because the light in his eyes was flickering accordingly. "I think you got the picture now," she said, turning to watch their approach to the landing zone.

Tejeda remained silent. He had never understood why humans weren’t happy when others were correcting their mistakes. Free useful information was a rare commodity and should have been treated as such. In fact, he thought she would be grateful.

When they got out of the shuttle, they looked at the sky. It was a swirling pastel of red and amber. They could also spot above their heads the first one of the five planetary rings, which were mostly made up of gas.

On Uthion, temperatures varied only slightly based on the position of the planet over the year. Therefore, a permanent spring was in place, with around 18 degrees Celsius during the day.

On the sides of the large dome, there were another two smaller ones with different entrances. In front of the large one, there was a representative of the Universal Consensus. Tejeda couldn’t tell if it was Uni1 or not because they all looked mostly the same.

Both Shayla and Tejeda introduced themselves. “Excuse me for a second,” the egg-headed alien said and remained motionless, staring at them.

Shayla felt a cold touch of metal on her side and when she turned she saw E00. Seeing that the alien was still frozen in place, she unmuted the robot. "Thank you, Shayla. I know you are asking yourselves what he is doing. Well, he is searching for data in their common memory to see if any other members of his species decided to procreate with a human and thus give birth to the man in front of him."