Chapter 90: Yucanojo

The ice flows spread out below in all directions, stretching to and past the horizon.

Snow that hadn't seen liquid form since before man discovered fire wafted ghost-like about fissures deeper than the Grand Canyon. Born aloft ever so briefly not by wind but vibration generated through tectonic stress caused when continent size five mile thick sheets of ice slammed ponderously together in an eternal ballet of titanic destruction.

Seen from orbit as long spider-web cracks, gave the surface a placid appearance, which didn't fool Yucanojo for a nano-second. Europa was every bit as violent a world as its sister moon Io. Just in a radically different fashion.

Already fourteen days into his survey of this fascinating Jovian moon and he'd already catalog more raw data on its composition and ever changing surface morphology than earth's mightiest probes had in the last forty years. Not that he necessarily scoffed at earth science.

They were getting good! Twice within the last three years he'd had to raise his cloak to prevent being picked up. Once even to the point of having to change orbit drastically. Direct visual was never the issue but 'Galileo' had an impressive set of sensors on board!

For such a primitive robot Yucanojo was almost happy to see the nosy little bastard fall out of orbit into Jupiter's atmosphere. When at last its creators deemed it's mission had at come to an end.

He supposed he should have felt guilty, wishing ill upon a fellow machine, even a primitive one. But he had his own duty to think about. His duty and...

"Mihoshi." The name echoed in the silence withing his hull.

Hastily he corrected the fault, realizing he had actually activated the audio system within his hull. Of course no one was there! He knew that! As if being a state of the art cybernetic system would allow him to forget Mihoshi was three hundred and sixty-six million miles away ... give or take. Had he fallen so far from the destiny his makers had intended that he was actually talking to himself?

He had been created to be the most advance warship ever conceived. The prototype of a new fleet! A breed of starship that could match point per point the best of Juri's tree ships! And yet ... She was always there. Awash in his data, flowing into his ravenous mind from every sensor. Amassing, correlating more information than a hundred perhaps a million of the best living organic minds could know. She was there.

Her eyes, blue as the skies of earth, seeming to hold secrets that she would never tell. Her hair, those cascading gravity defying locks, golden as the G1 star about which these planets danced. And that smile! Electric as the power flowing from his solar furnaces and as welcome. Its absence too had he felt a similar effect upon him.

"Mihoshi..." He repeated. This time not bothering to correct himself. There was no denying it! He missed her.

Instantly Yucanojo routed power to his internal grid, overriding the touch contacts within her room and switched on his camera's. Feeling a welcome lessening of the angst he was feeling as the lights in her cabin brightened.

He spent one full minute scanning the domicile letting its contents caress his electronic eyes. These were, after all the last objects on board him to feel her sweet touch. The bedclothes rumpled, half hanging on the floor were like magic to him. The contents of her G.P. issued X.O .5 Footlocker, scattered about the floor round the bed recalled to him her voice delightfully inquiring the location of 'That damn service manual!' Rumpled facial tissue dispersed amid empty 'cup o' noodles containers hinted at the divine mystery that was her.

Of course he could have dispatched one of his servos to 'tidy up' but this was a shrine to her! And he was but a humble acolyte, worshiping all things that were...