Part I

Sanjay thought he was in trouble but he was not sure what he did wrong. He had been summoned by to the principal's office. While waiting outside he was trying to figure it out. Was it because he had punched Fyodor last week? But he had already received detention for that. Was it because because he took his mother's rover for a joyride? But he had returned it safely and without a single scratch. Besides no one knew about that, except Sarah of course. The sudden appearance of Miss Denzel, the principal's secretary, broke his train of thought. Miss Denzel smiled and said, "Mr. Satoshi will see you now." Miss Denzel rarely smiled, so may be he was not in trouble after all.

Mr. Satoshi looked up from his desk and kept his dark piercing eyes on him as he entered the room. "Take a seat, Sanjay," he said gesturing at the couch. Sanjay sank into the generously stuffed couch. He had never been asked to sit there on the previous occasions he had been in the principal's office. Miss Denzel appeared carrying a tray of cupcakes and a glass of pistachio milkshake. She placed it on the coffee table, smiled at him again and left. Sanjay was sure now that he was definitely not in trouble but was getting suspicious of the treatment. How did Miss Denzel know he liked those? He doubted that his mother and Miss Denzel talk about him at the town council meetings.

Mr. Satoshi asked, "Sanjay Smithson, do you know what date is today?" Sanjay was perplexed but he answered, "Today is 18 March 34YA. 14 September 2201 in Earthdate." The principal repeated, "18 March, 34 years after arrival. Yes, that is correct." He then turned to windows and ordered them to close. The window shutters slid down and the curtains closed. The sights and sounds of the children playing the in the afternoon sunshine were blocked. Sanjay felt a slight chill as the glint of the sun on the distant shimmering lake was obscured. The room was flooded by artificial light designed to emulate the daylight outside. But, it still felt cold and fake to Sanjay.

"You are very precocious, Sanjay. So, I have decided that you are old enough know about where you came from. Do you know where you came from?" Mr. Satoshi asked. Sanjay couldn't believe that the principal had called him to give him the "birds and bees" talk. How old did he think he was? Six? "I know about that already. I already know all about meiosis, gametes, embryos...," he began. But Mr. Satoshi interrupted him, "I am not talking about that. I want to talk about your parents." Sanjay now couldn't see where this was going.

"What about my parents? You know my mother, Megan Smithson, and my older brother Kazuma. My father died when I was three, in an accident in the mines," Sanjay replied getting impatient and irritated. He barely remembered his father and had only a few pictures of him. His mother almost never talked about his father. "I remember James, the person you call father. But he was not your real father. Neither is Megan your mother," said Mr. Satoshi. "So, what? I already suspected that I was adopted. I mean, I do look different from my brother and..," Sanjay began but was interrupted by Mr. Satoshi again. "I always find it easier if I begin at the beginning. I have done this a hundred times, but each one is different," he sighed.

"Listen to me carefully. If you have any questions, you can ask them in the end," said Mr. Satoshi sternly and paused. Sanjay gulped and tensed up. "Today is not 13 March 34YA. The colonist starship arrived on this planet 231 years ago. The ship had launched from Enceladus on 2176 Earthdate. It took the ship 4321 years to arrive at this system. So it is about 6497 CE on Earth. After the ship arrived, it took 83 years to terraform..." Now it was Sanjay's turn to interrupt, "How the hell did a starship take 4000 years to travel a mere 24 lightyears?" Mr. Satoshi smiled, "That is because we could achieve only a fraction of a fraction of lightspeed with even our most advanced warpdrives in 2176. I doubt that technology has advanced much since, otherwise we would have received visitors already. After all, we are one of the closest colonies to Earth."

Sanjay looked at the graying principal in disbelief. This old guy was pulling his leg. "But, Mr. Warszawski said that the Wang-Winston tachyon drive was invented in 2112," Sanjay said and watched for a reaction. Mr. Satoshi shook his head and replied, "The Wang-Winston tachyon drive is merely theoretical. Although, quite a few prototypes were built in the 2150s but none of them produced a single tachyon. Our fusion reactors were not powerful enough to run them. We still receive the occasional transmission from the Sol sector. From what I understand, the tachyon drive has been relegated to textbook footnotes and faster that light or FTL travel is still theoretical." Sanjay noticed that he was working at his desk, now paying less attention to him than before.

"What do you mean, theoretical?" Sanjay found himself getting agitated. "Don't we have trade with neighboring colonies and the Sol sector? Aren't there hundreds of ships in orbit and docked at the space-station?" Mr. Satoshi smiled and shook his head again, "This system has not seen a single starship since the arrival of New Meru. All the docked ships are mining and supplies vessels for the asteroid belt and gas giants installations." "Ah, New Meru," said Sanjay smugly, thinking that he had caught him now. "My mother took me to the New Meru museum last year. I saw the tachyon drive myself."

"I know about that exhibit. That is merely a Hyundai-Airbus ramjet engine for low speed maneuvering. But may be this will convince you." said Mr. Satoshi, and calmly put his hand on his face and lifted it off. Sanjay yelped and jumped up at this. Mr. Satoshi tried to calm him, "Relax Sanjay, I am just an android. You have seen them all around, right? The janitors and the municipality bots are all androids." Sanjay was staring at where Mr. Satoshi's face was, the gap filled with metallic circuitry, a speaker for a mouth and two camera holes for eyes. He noticed the magnets and connectors which held the animatronic mask in place. "But, you sound so human and different from the janitor bots," Sanjay gasped. "Yes, there are very few models as advanced as me on this system," said Mr. Satoshi putting his face back on. "And your mother is even more advanced."

"My mother is not an android!" Sanjay stood up and shouted. He had clenched his fists and was shaking with anger. "I have been living with her since as long as I remember. She eats, she sleeps and laughs. She bleeds when she cuts herself. She...she..she even weeps when hurt. She is not a robot." Sanjay saw the Mr. Satoshi was looking at him over his steepled fingers. A human gesture. A machine pretending to be a man and it was telling him that his mother was also a machine. Sanjay turned and stormed towards the door. As he reached for it, the door opened and Sanjay came face to face with his mother.