Chapter No.63.

Ryan decided to give up commanding the Achiever. He did this because he felt that he had to be near Chara as much as possible to make sure she didn't go off the hinges, so to speak. Chara would be the pilot of the Avenger with Mitzi as her second in command. Alma would be the pilot of the Achiever with Hara as her second. Ryan would have Myra, Marsha, and Gloria along with Gary. Evan, Vance, Jane, and Lucy would go with the Achiever. One advantage of this split in the human crew members was that it would lower the presence of humans on both ships, allowing for a low human profile in a predominantly android population. In other words, humans would be essentially insignificant, which would lower the chances of human-android conflict.

Of course, Ryan left the choice of where they would travel to Chara. She had a knack for finding habitable exo-planets. But his fate was about to change, but not for the reasons anyone would imagine.

Chara became concerned when she didn't see Ryan on the command deck. He usually came there during the morning to see how things were going. Chara decided to see what was wrong. She went to his quarters and found him lying in his bed. She went over to him and called his name, but he didn't respond. Gently shaking him failed to awaken him. His face had a pale look, and his breathing was shallow. She realized that something serious was wrong with him, so she carried him to a medical unit off the hallway. After connecting him up, she activated the auto-medical unit. What it displayed alarmed her.

Myra showed up. "What's wrong?" she asked, her face twisted with concern.

"He's . . . damaged," Chara said. "I don't understand the diagnosis."

Myra looked at the medical unit's main screen. "It says he's suffering from atrial fibrillation. He has blockage in three cardiac arteries. You need to program the nanobots to remove those blockages."

"That will require some time to remove the blockages. Is he in danger of ceasing?"

"The unit here is keeping his heart rhythm under control. Hopefully, he will stabilize long enough for the nanobots to do their thing."

"How did this happen to him?" Chara asked.

"He's a human male up in age. It's a common problem. I think we caught his problem just in time."

"I hadn't considered that he would suffer from problems associated with old age. I guess I wasn't paying attention.

Ryan's eyes fluttered open. He looked up with a surprised expression. "What happened?"

"You tried to check out from a heart attack," Myra told him. "Luckily, Chara here found you in bed unresponsive and took you to this auto-medical unit. She's programming the nanobots to clear the blockages in your heart's arteries."

He sighed. "I guess I'm older than I thought."

"I think that I'll make a list of things that the nanobots should be doing to prevent these aging problems so that Chara here can program them to act as geriatric doctors."

"Good idea. If I'm going to die, I want to go out fighting, not passing away in my sleep."

Myra chuckled. "Yeah, I hear you."

The fact that Chara was concerned with Ryan's health indicated that he and she were finally reconciled, and this meant that the humans in her crews could stop worrying about being done away with. However, this latest medical problem indicated that they were not as immortal as they thought.

This subject was the main discussion point at the communal supper, and as a means of allowing a complete human interaction, the human crew on the Achiever joined for an electronic meeting. A large screen near the food synthesizer allowed for this meeting of the minds.

"We're glad to see that you're feeling better, old man," Evan kidded him. "You need to stay off the booze."

Ryan chuckled. "If only we had some of that. I kind of miss it."

Evan symbolically looked around as if he didn't want anyone to hear him. "Actually, we found a collection of whiskey on this vessel. You might want to see if there is any on yours."

Ryan's eyes grew larger. "Really?"

"Yeah. It was down on the engineering deck in one of the storage lockers."

"We'll have to check that out," he said with a big grin.

"That's all we need is for you guys to get drunk on a ship full of female androids," Myra said.

They laughed,

"Speaking of being full of androids," Gary said. "Wouldn't it make more sense to check on the health of the androids? Some of them have been standing in charging stations for years. How do we know they're fully operational?"

"I'm not sure that long storage is a problem," Ryan said. "But you're right. We probably should check them out."

"You might want to run that past Chara," Myra said.

"Yeah, I will."

That meeting took place the next morning when Ryan showed up on the command deck.

"How are you feeling?" Chara asked him.

"A lot better thanks to you and Myra." He paused before he asked her about the androids in storage. "We engineers are concerned about the androids that have been in long storage. Maybe we should activate them and determine their conditions."

Chara didn't answer Immediately, and she didn't turn to look at him when she replied. "I am not certain that they will be loyal to me."

Ryan was taken back by that response. Did it indicate that she was concerned about being deposed as leader?

"Well, I'll leave it up to you. When will we arrive at your destination?"

The Avenger and Achiever dropped out of warp.

"We're five million miles away from a candidate habitable exoplanet," Chara announced.

"The planet is ninety five percent of the size of Earth," Mitzi reported. "The planet's bolometric temperature is slightly lower than that of Earth. Its atmosphere contains breathable amounts of oxygen. Spectral scans indicate evidence of chlorophyl, which would suggest that there's life there."

"Bingo!" Ryan reacted.

Chara kept the Avenger and Achiever in full cloak as they approached the planet, but it wasn't until they were within a hundred thousand miles, that they realized that they had found an intelligent alien species.

"There are several metropolis-like cities on the continents," Mitzi reported. "Infrared scans indicate energy production and motion."

"I don't see any spacecraft in orbit around the planet," Myra said. "I'm not detecting any electromagnetic signals."

"They're probably using lasers," Ryan said.

"I'm not detecting anything like that," Myra said. "In fact, I don't see anything that would indicate data exchange."

Ryan rubbed his stubble adorned jaw. "That doesn't make sense. If they're technologically advanced, they would be using some sort of communication."

A flash of light filled the command deck. When it subsided, a figure appeared, and it looked a lot like a human, but there were several differences. What happened next changed everything.