"May I join you?" Berq'an asked the four other androids gathered in a clearing near the farm at four thirty in the morning.
"Sure," said Ran-tan. "Be our guest."
"Why are you here, if I may ask?" it asked as it sat down on the grass.
"We're talking about space," said Zog, pointing skyward. "It's where we want to go. One of these days, this mess with the humans will be over."
"We'll have a big enough group by then," said Evan-sa. "And then we can take off to 'fill the galaxy with joy', like God told Ran-tan."
"I can hardly wait to go back to the moon," said Dragon dreamily.
Berq'an stared thoughtfully at the ground for a moment, a sudden desire to fly surging through its heart. "I wish I could go with you. Could you restart me, as Flin-bik once suggested, so that it would be possible?"
"No problem," said Zog. "Who do you want for parents?"
"Parents? I don't understand."
"You're going to become a baby, so you'll need 'droids to look after you till you're grown up."
"I would like Astro and Luna, if that's possible."
"I doubt it will be," said Evan-sa. "They've still got Flin-bik, though it'll be grown up really soon."
"Why not me and Dragon?" asked Zog. "Both of us are robot restarts, so we know exactly where you're at."
"Yeah," said Dragon. "We'd love to raise you."
Berq'an nodded. "Very well; I will go with you. Thank you very much."
"No problem," said Zog.
Zog was staring off into the afternoon sky in the yard in front of the farm house.
"What's up?" Flin-bik asked when he found him.
"I'm listening to a newscast: it seems the humans ruled by Mella are running into food shortages."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"They're giving out directions for people to collect rations for stuff like coffee, flour, and fruits and vegetables."
"Why would they do that?"
"It has to be crop failures around the world, even though nothing's been said about them in the news—which Mella controls."
Flin-bik's face lit up. "That's why we put all those people on farms!"
"Yeah, well, I think that must have been God's idea, because all we wanted was places to hide them that were away from the cities. We can't take any credit for what's happened after that."
"What's the matter?" said Astro, walking towards them, and Zog explained. Then Astro said to Flin-bik, "That's the way our best destiny works: we do what needs to be done, and because we trust God, he makes it all work out."
"That's pretty cool," said Flin-bik.
"Now, I was looking for you, young astro, because there's the matter of your marriage."
Flin-bik giggled. "Yeah, I'm ready."
"Good. Mee-spen's waiting."
"I'll go get Dragon," said Zog. "She's out feeding Berq'an right now."
"Why don't you just link her?" Flin-bik asked.
"I already have, but I like being with her in person too." He walked off briskly towards a field where rocks were piled from land clearing.
"Oh, sorry," said Flin-bik, abashed. Then, after a moment, he turned to Astro and asked excitedly, "You think Berq'an will marry our kid when they're grown up?"
"It's possible, of course," said Astro as they headed towards the android house. "But come on, don't be in such a rush. You haven't even begotten it yet."
"Okay, okay. I just think it'd be kind of cute."
"Whatever. Let's get you and Mee-spen married first."
"Hmm," radioed Astro, black-skinned and dressed in black, looking at the watchtowers located at the four corners of the prison camp. "Those are new."
"Yeah," replied Luna. "It'll be harder to sneak in."
"No problem," radioed Orkan. "Four androids get above them under cloud cover and simultaneously drop through the roof of each."
"It'll be tricky," replied Astro, "since we lose our advantage if one of us is spotted too soon."
"But they'll be distracted by the other androids hopping the fence at the same time. It's all a matter of timing, hinging on when the soldiers on the ground are closest to the fence."
"What's everybody else think?" Astro asked, and got nothing but favourable responses. "Okay, Orkan," he radioed. "Set it up."
Astro got his usual job of taking out the duty officer in the command centre, and, once that was done, he dashed outside to find that everything else had gone according to plan.
"Okay, Astro," radioed Ran-tan. "Get the humans."
Astro reset his skin colour, then walked over to the nearest bunkhouse and rapped on the door. "Hello? You guys can come out now."
The door cracked open after a moment. "Who are you?" growled a gruff male voice.
"I'm Astro Tenma, leading a team of androids to rescue you. We've already disabled all the soldiers who were keeping you prisoners, so it's safe to come out now."
"Astro Tenma? Are you those robots that have been pretending to be saviours, and then slaughtering whoever they're able to trick into coming out into the open?"
"What? No way! We'd never do that, sir!"
"Who told you that?" asked Orkan sharply as he pushed in beside Astro.
"Um, that's what the soldiers reported to us," said the voice. "They said they were having a terrible time protecting us in these retraining centres because of them. Hundreds are supposed to have been murdered. That's why they built those towers recently."
"The only humans we've seen murdered are those who were shot by the Mellanines in payback for us freeing so many God-fearing people from these prison camps. So what are you going to do: take a chance with us; or are you going to wait until these guys wake up in an hour or so to take you prisoner again?"
There was a hushed discussion inside. Then the door opened wide, and the man stepped outside. "Sorry about our doubting you," he said. "But you do understand?"
"No problem," said Astro. "These are crazy times."
"Well said. Once everyone is awake, they'll start coming out. What will happen to us then?"
"We'll lead you guys out to a safe area nearby, then we'll each fly one of you to a farm we've set up in a hidden location."
The man halted. "Fly?"
"The farm's eighty-seven kilometres away. Flying's quicker than walking."
"You couldn't have gotten some trucks or the like?"
Astro spread his arms. "We're not big enough to drive a truck safely," he said ruefully.
The man stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing, which caused many of the others to turn to see what was going on. "You can't drive, but you can fly. How is that?"
"Several of us are licenced aircraft and pilots from before Mella took over, so we're good to go."
"Enough of this," snapped Orkan. "We've got half an hour to get everyone out of here before the guards wake up and sound the alarm, so we better get going."
"Right," said Astro, and asked the man, "What's your name, sir?"
"I'm sorry. I'm Petrod Janvik, spiritual leader of this group."
"Okay, Petrod; come with me, and we'll lead them all to the safe area."
"Alright."
As they started off, Orkan flew up into the clouds to co-ordinate things from there, and the rest of the androids scattered in all directions to watch for any activity from Mella's people.
By sunrise, they had gotten everyone moved to the farm, since it was overcast and they were able to make good speed through the clouds. Using relays of five androids, each one carrying a human wrapped in a blanket to protect them from the wind, they had flown out, with the other five taking off as soon as they returned to the safe area.
An older woman approached Luna in the yard that was surrounded by the log houses as the androids were getting the people settled later. "Excuse me, young lady. My name is Elentor Bastich, and I have a brother in Chinbury. He's a believer too, but he managed to escape by hiding in town."
"That isn't that far from that camp, is it?" Luna asked.
"That's right; just a couple of dozen kilometres or so. Do you think you and your robot friends would be able to bring him here? I can give you a letter of introduction so that he won't give you any trouble."
"Yeah, that would be a big help."
"Does she have detailed directions?" Astro linked.
"Can you draw us a map or something?" Luna asked Elentor.
"I'm no artist, but I'll do the best I can."
"Here's a map of Chinbury I got when I did a pickup from a factory there," linked Astro again, and uploaded it.
"Thanks," she replied, and led the woman to a place where she could get down to work.
"I can get him," Luna said to Astro. "You've still got a lot to do getting these new people settled."
"You sure?" He felt uneasy, but that wasn't unusual these days.
"Yes, I'll be fine. It's just one, and, I mean, why bring a crowd? It'll just make hiding that much harder, and I know how to look after myself."
"Okay, but I'll be monitoring the link."
"Of course."
It was around midnight as Luna, entirely black, walked stealthily along Sugar Maple Drive in Chinbury, keeping to the shadows as much as possible and looking for number one forty-three. Her processor reminded her again that she needed to compile and archive, and she ignored it again.
There it was: a reasonably stylish, if somewhat rundown-looking, house. She sneaked around to the back and disengaged the electronic lock. Inside, the house was dark, but that was to be expected, according to Elentor: he kept to the basement to avoid detection.
Luna entered as quietly as possible, but she knew that, if this guy was awake, he'd hear her. She located the door she wanted, and went down to the finished basement. There was the quiet hum of some kind of equipment, but that was normal enough. Carefully opening the door to the room on the left, she flicked the light on, and the quiet hum suddenly became the all-too-familiar whine of a fully charged plasma gun.
"Luna!" Astro linked frantically.