Luna huddled in Astro's arms as he carried her at about three thousand metres in the air.

"Don't worry," he said. "We're almost there. I'm going to drop down to treetop level now." That would keep them off of any Foredan radar.

"Good," she answered. "I'm still not watching."

They skimmed over the trees for a while before he landed and set her on the ground. Then he powered up his military communications headset and said, "We'd better get into position."

"Yeah." She switched her headset on. "See you soon."

He ran off into the trees, heading to the spot where the head of the advancing column of Foredanian armour would likely be soon.

"Astro to base. I'm in position."

"Copy that. ETA has not changed."

"Roger." Good, he thought as he hunkered down behind a fallen tree trunk. They're right on schedule.

"Luna to base. I'm in position, and the back of the line's getting close."

"Roger."

A few minutes later, Luna gave the code message, "Puppy has passed."

"Copy that," answered base. "Time to grab the tail."

"Roger," said Astro and Luna together.

Astro hopped over the log in front of him in time to see the lead tanks appear over the top of a small rise. He dashed over, jumped onto the back of the nearest machine, and drove his fist deep into the engine. It died instantly. "I'm putting the leash on Puppy," he reported.

"Copy that," base answered as he tore over to the next one in line. He was to take out the eastern column and Luna the western, so they would pass each other half way along. The traffic in his personal radio was going wild as the enemy tried to figure out what was going on.

"What is it? A robot?"

"We've got one here too! What are your orders? We've already lost ten units!"

"Shoot to kill! Shoot to kill!"

"It's too fast! I can't get a sight on it!"

"Damn!"

Astro saw Luna zip by him out of the corner of his eye. Using his own radio, he said, "Hey."

"Hey, yourself." In a couple more minutes, he heard her report, "Puppy's in the doghouse."

He punched out the last vehicle, then called his code in as he fled the area, "Bad dog's been punished."

"Copy that. Come on home. All units! Move out. Fire only if fired upon."

As Astro ran toward the base camp, he was relieved to hear only sporadic gunfire.

After he and Luna had been debriefed, they sat alone together under a tree to wait for the operation to be wrapped up so they could go home.

"I sure hope this doesn't become our purpose in life," said Luna fervently.

"It better not," Astro said as he played with a twig. "Because one of these days we'll come up against an enemy we can't beat, and then it's all over."

She sighed. "If only we could have a family."

He nodded. They'd had this discussion before, so there was nothing more to say. They were just two androids without a purpose, with no clear goal in life.

He'd had a talk with his father and Dr. Elefun just before he and Luna had finished their 'honeymoon' ...

"Hello, son," Tenma said as Astro entered their and Dr. Elefun's apartment that evening. "Is the honeymoon over?"

Astro slumped into the kitchen chair and stared at the floor. "No, not exactly. But, as I was walking over here, I noticed something: when I'm away from Luna, I get scared. Is that normal?"

His father sat down on the other side of the table. "I think so. You've got a lot riding on her."

"Yeah, I suppose." He gave a wan smile. "She's literally the only girl for me, isn't she?"

"And that is a scary thought. Now, what do you mean, 'not exactly'?"

"Well." Astro struggled with how to put it. "We are each other's masters and all that, but we're not married. I mean, we can't have kids, so what's the point of being married?"

Tenma lifted an eyebrow. "Indeed."

Astro looked at him hopefully. "I don't suppose you could make another robot for us so I could do like with Luna and give it some blue energy to make a core out of."

His father shook his head. "First of all, you have no idea how expensive it is to make a robot like you, most especially your flesh; and secondly, all the custom built equipment that I used to make you two was destroyed in the fall of Metro City."

"Oh." He gazed out the window onto the dusty street below. "No family then." Sighing, he said, "Luna will be disappointed."

"You are as well."

"Yup." What would happen to the two of them with only the fear of being alone holding them together?

"Thinking of scary thoughts," Tenma said, standing up, "have you been following the news lately?"

"Why?"

"You should be following this." He called up something on his computer display and pointed to a headline which read, 'Gen. Orkan Seeks Agreement.'

"So?"

"So, with Metro City gone, there's been a power vacuum in this continent. I had no idea of the influence that the city wielded over all of the provinces. It's apparently what held the country together, and now, with that gone, some people, like the general here, are getting ambitious. He's already threatening to secede if he doesn't get what he wants."

"What are the other provinces doing about it?"

"Not much, and that's the problem." He sat back down at the table. "It's taking time to build up strong local leadership, and the ones who are in power right now are scared silly of Orkan."

Astro sighed. "War, right?"

"Of course war, and the province most directly in his path is Antemonain."

"Ours. Why are you telling me this?"

"Colonel Devan, the commander of this district, saw you in battle with the Peacekeeper up on Metro City. He knows who and what you are, and that you are still alive."

Astro clenched his fists. "The curse of being a weapon. Tell him 'no'."

Tenma chuckled. "If only it was that simple. But perhaps there will be things that you can do that don't involve killing."

"Yeah, maybe. But I'll still wait for him to get a hold of me." He sat up. "You know, since we're talking about a robot weapon, I've been thinking about Toby, how he really wanted to be involved with robotic weapons."

"Yes?"

"He had a purpose for his life." Astro wandered over to the doorway and gazed out through the screen, then turned back to Tenma. "How do you get a purpose, Dad?"

Tenma leaned back in his chair. "You don't get a purpose; the purpose gets you. When I was Toby's age, all I wanted to do was develop robots. I don't truly know why, because my father was not particularly mechanical, but it was as if I wanted to make them to be more than machines, to live, to be truly alive. It was all I could think about."

"And Luna and I are your success."

He sat forward again. "Only in part, because of the blue core. That was a wild card nobody could have anticipated."

"What do you mean?" Astro sat back down at the table.

"I've seen the difference the blue core made to Luna. When I built her, she was a robot, following her programming, seeming to be alive, but not—just an imitation."

"And a brat." He snickered.

"As Suzanne had been in life. But when you gave her the blue core ..."

"I didn't do that."

"But you told me ..."

"I gave her some of my blue energy, but it was Mr. Immortal who gave her the core."

"Mr. Immortal? Who is that?"

"I don't know, but when I gave her the energy, we were both suddenly bathed in light, and, when we came to, she had the core, and mine was fully re-energized, as I found out later. It was the same light that gave me the idea to give Luna my core when hers was damaged, and that's when he called himself immortal."

The door opened and Dr. Elefun came in. "What is this about an immortal?" he asked.

"Astro has been telling me some fascinating bits of information," said Tenma. "It seems that the blue core has secrets I couldn't have imagined."

"Indeed," said the old scientist as he eased himself onto a chair. "It has come up in conversation between myself and the boy once or twice. What have you learned?"

"That we may be dealing with something that goes beyond the realm of science. Astro claims to have received several experiences of someone he calls Mr. Immortal." Tenma went on to explain what had been discussed.

"I see," said Elefun and turned to Astro. "Are those the only experiences you've had?"

"No," said Astro. "There was at the battle with the Peacekeeper up in Metro City. I was being torn apart by the red and blue energies, and then I was in a place of light. I loved it there, but somebody—I never saw who—told me I had to go back: I had things to do, it said. And then I woke up in that field with you guys around me."

Elefun stared for a moment. "But that means ... Then you must have a soul! That is incredible! Who could have imagined it? So that must mean that your blue core is something far more than a mindless bundle of energy: a living being! I shudder now to think of the experiments I was planning for it before your father asked for it. Goodness me."

"That might explain why it reacted so violently when we booted up Astro in the beginning," said Tenma. "But are you suggesting that Astro and Luna have had contact with the Creator itself?"

"I am. I can think of no other reasonable explanation."

"The Creator," said Astro. "Who or what is that?"

Elefun turned to him. "The Creator is a being who exists outside of time and space, since it created them. It is not subject to either of them, so its existence is undefined."

"What do you mean, 'undefined'? That's just a mathematical term."

"Indeed, but in this case it essentially means that the Creator is infinite, fully present in every place and every moment of time." Astro nodded. "The Creator knows and sees all that exists, and we cannot act outside of its will."

"But how come I never heard of it?"

Elefun chuckled. "People do not like to talk of such a being, for they feel uncomfortable with the idea that there is something greater—far greater—than themselves, a someone who makes the rules of the universe without consulting them, a someone who offers them their best destiny if they will but receive it."

"Wait a minute," said Astro. "If we can't act outside of its will, how can we choose to receive our best destiny or not?"

"You love Luna, correct?"

He winced. "Um, sure, I guess."

Dr. Elefun glanced at him questioningly, then went on, "If you could program her to love you, would it really be love? Obviously not, for then she would truly be no more than a robot. The Creator does not seek robots, so its will includes the possibility that we will refuse our best destiny."

"When Luna was just a robot, I hoped she would ... love me, but I guess she couldn't, as you said. It didn't happen until after she got her core."

"My point exactly. She had to have a soul—to be a person."

"Interesting point," said Tenma. "But since, as you say, you cannot program a person to love, how do you define love?"

"Does it have to do with being together and stuff?" asked Astro anxiously.

"What you are talking about," said Elefun gently, "is affection, an important component of love, but not to be confused with it, for true love can exist even when the lovers are separated. And that love exists when the lover is more conscious of the one they love than even of themselves. False loves include the one already mentioned, seeking to control the loved one like a robot. Another is being wrapped up only in the good feelings that the loved one provides ..."

"Why is that one false?" Astro asked, wondering if he was guilty of it.

"Because good feelings can be provided by anyone, so that the lover could easily obtain them from another, thus being disloyal to the one they claim to love."

"Oh." Now he was worried, but he had another question. "How can we know what our best destiny is?"

"It is the path that comes most naturally to you if you do not shy away from it in fear or force yourself to go a different way."