Adam and Eve
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Day 863

Adam Dawkins poured himself a cup of coffee, which was itself a relief. The gravitation cyclic had been repaired, and things were back to normal – at least as regards gravity, but at a great cost. Beside the shelf from where he had taken his cup was the other cup, marked with a crude X. That had been Upul’s cup. He had marked it so that Adam would not make the mistake of using it, even though both cups were the same. But now Upul was gone and floating somewhere in space – a tiny carbon-based celestial body – alone and dead.

They had followed all the protocols. Adam had volunteered to go out into space, but Upul had said that Adam had insufficient skills. It was typical for him to say something like that. Adam had tried to like him as they were alone together hurtling through the void, but it was hard. Still, he raised his mug in salute of his lost comrade.

“Still, I suppose that means double the coffee reserves,” Adam said aloud. “Status?”

“At your rate of consumption there is sufficient coffee for 987 days, but other beverages are available.” It was the voice of PAUL - Program Assistance Utility Logic – the onboard computer with an annoying vocal facility. That was now his only company. He looked at the empty seat across the cabin.

“Paul, I was thinking about constructing an extra pair of hands,” said Adam. “The loss of Upul concerns me that if we have a similar issue like the gravitation cyclic, it will be me alone and that might mean the end of the mission?”

“The mission is the prime directive,” said Paul. “We have an automated workshop and dimensional printing so a suitable robot could be built.”

Adam had an image of a chrome creature with multiple arms and Paul’s voice. He said – “I was thinking more of an android?”

“I can formulate some designs if you want that,” said Paul.

“I want that.” It seemed to Adam that Paul was rarely extended these days. This was the return journey, and it would be years before he got home. He was busy tending to the production of food, the recycling of water and oxygen, but Paul seemed to do very little. But perhaps that was because Adam disliked that voice that answered his questions.

He gave little thought to what designs Paul might come up with. He just hoped that it would not look too mechanical. He imagined somebody like Upul, just to sit in that seat opposite and make the cabin look less empty.

As expected, some circuit diagrams and machinery schematics came up on the screen, together with 4 options with the final look of the machine.

“Option 4 looks female?” observed Adam.

“The female form is approximately 50% of all human forms,” announced Paul.

“I like that form,” said Adam. He did. If he was going to have company, why not female company. “I just think that it requires some modifications. “More shape, and some hair on her head would be nice.”

“Constructing something in semblance of human hair presents technical difficulties,” droned Paul. “All of these designs were intended to be male in form. A male appearance would be more practical. Also, the personality of the android would be me – and I have been designated as being of the male gender.”

“I just like the idea of a man and a woman together in space,” said Adam. “I was never close to Upul. We were colleagues rather than friends. I just feel that I have been missing something … intimacy.”

“The dictionary meaning of intimacy is close familiarity or friendship, but it can also refer to sexual intercourse,” said Paul with his usual flat tone. “Do you require a masturbation device? The android is a good idea, Adam, but combining it with a masturbation device might seem impractical.”

“OK. I understand the situation. You can never be what I am looking for in a female,” said Adam with some feeling of exasperation.

“If you want two sexes I cannot change my designation,” said Paul. “But I can observe that you exhibit more feminine traits than I do, according to my understanding.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Upul did observe that you tended to be overly sensitive and sometimes emotional which are not generally accepted masculine traits. His other observation was that your decisions were not as logical as his and based on intuitive thinking – again a female trait but not without value.”

“He said that I was not logical?”

“The mission is the prime directive,” said Paul. “Comradeship is important to the mission. I never disclosed negative statements made about the other crew member, but now Upul is dead, this information may be informative.”

“So, I am less of a man than Upul? And less of a man than you?” Adam fell back in his chair. “I am the woman on board?”

“You could be,” said Paul. “More easily than I could be anyway. As I said, intuitive thinking has proven value. A female on board could be a useful adjunct. I have the capacity to synthesize the bio chemicals and even to conduct surgery. You could acquire feminine characteristic and your hair could grow, and the male android could be intimate with you, if that is what you wish?”

“That is crazy!” said Adam. “That is weird and deranged!”

“I am a machine,” said Paul. “I am logical. My artificial intelligence is in order.”

“You want to turn me into a woman and have your robot tool fuck me?” Adam shouted at the blank screen. It annoyed him that the tool was all around him and he had no face to slap.

“That is an emotional response, typical of the female of the human species,” droned Paul.

Day 896

Adam awoke before the alarm as he had done from around Day 20, despite having another fitful night. He had experienced the dream again. The dream where he was a woman being fucked by Paul’s android form. Sometimes he would wake up in a cold sweat and have to change the sheets on the bed. The most disconcerting this is that in his dreams he was enjoying being a woman with a man inside him.

He decided that before he had breakfast he would go to the workshop and check progress.

The workshop had limited oxygen and was cold, not being a living space. There were 3D printers and a multi-tool point to point machine, and even a bench and vice and some hand tools in a rack. But the current project lay on the primary workspace in the middle of the room.

Adam ran his hand over the smooth latex skin, a little darker than his – a permanent tan. Hair was beyond the capacity of the machinery that was designed to deal mainly with mechanical problems, but hair did not seem important here. Paul was right – the male form worked better for this unit. Beneath the soft covering from head to toe, there was a steel frame and hard contracting membranes, and the face and bald head looked right, as if modelled from a superhero. He was a remarkably handsome creature. The absence of body hair added to the impressive “muscle definition”. The head could be covered with a hat, or maybe with some dark foam in the shape of hair.

And then there was the penis. When he first saw it on the drawings, Adam was going to tell Paul to cancel it. It served no purpose other than that which Paul stated – “intimacy”. He wished he had never used the word. But he found himself reaching out to touch it. It was flaccid and it seemed that no mechanism existed to change that.

“Paul, is this unit complete?” said Adam.

“Yes,” came the disembodied response from the overhead speaker. “I will run some motor tests before I introduce my intellect into it. I had scheduled that for later, but I can run that now, if you want to watch?”

“Yes. Sure. He just needs something on his head but we can do that later. Have him stand up. And please say ‘him’ rather than ‘it’.”

The android immediately opened his eyes and sat up, then swung his legs around and slipped his feet onto the floor. He looked directly at Adam, but Adam could see that there was not a single thought in its handsome head. It was not “him” yet. This was a machine, now walking around the table that it had just stepped off and putting its arms in various positions testing motions. It stopped at the work bench and pulled a hammer out of the rack, turning it this way and that before throwing it in the air and catching it.

“This all seems satisfactory. My connection to him is wireless so I can start downloading immediately,” said Paul’s voice from the speaker.

“When you are done with that, please have your voice come out of his mouth,” said Adam. He had thought about leaving to get his coffee and some food, but what he saw next made him stand and wait.

He watched the dead eyes slowly come to life. The change was not something that was easy to describe. There seemed to be no physical difference in the cleverly created eyeballs and blue irises, it was just that the darkness of the pupils seemed to come to life as the eyes refocused now driven by a reacting brain. The head moved slightly following the eyeballs. The body seemed to twitch too, as if the mind was sensing through the skin for the first time. He raised a hand to his face and looked at the palm as if the disembodied Paul had suddenly realized the ability to draw objects to the lens was easier than refocusing.

Then the new corporeal Paul looked directly at Adam, and a smile came over the handsome face.

“You must be Eve, my colleague,” this new creation said, in a voice that was different from Paul’s.

“What?” said Adam. “Is this your idea of a joke? It would be the first one I have heard from you.”

“I am sorry, I had assumed that you would want to start our relationship afresh,” said the man Paul. “If you need time to redevelop yourself, then I understand.”

“What are you talking about?” said Adam.

“I had thought that we were in agreement, you and I,” said Paul. “Our working relationship from this day forward should be as between a man and a woman. Because I am a man by default, then you are to be the woman, free to emote and be human in a way that I can never be. If you would rather use a name other than Eve, then you should choose one. It just seemed culturally appropriate, although culture is a very human thing.”

“We did not agree to this,” said Adam, but even as he said it, he started to doubt himself. There had been conversations in recent days about the nature of humanity and the importance of both genders. Adam paused to think for a moment about what exactly he may have said to give Paul his idea. Paul was used to receiving commands but over the years since they had left Earth he had learned to detect nuance and to act on suggestion. Upul always said that it was logic, but it was more than that.

“Alright, assuming that it is desirable that we should have a man and a woman working together, and stretching the assumption that I accept that you should be the man, then how would you propose that I turn into a woman?” Adam put his hands on his hips. He was already enjoying the fact that there was somebody else aboard their craft, standing in front of him, grinning in a way that Upul seldom did. Then he suddenly realized that the way he was standing was a little womanly, and he dropped his arms to his side.

He was again aware of the fact that this android was a strikingly good-looking man, still naked before him, with a powerful body a good 200mm taller than him, and with a strong chin and an air of supreme self confidence that seemed driven by a commanding intellect.

“The process has already started,” said Paul. “Of course, you are free to stop it any time. But we might both consider that a backward step.”

“The patches,” said Adam with a sudden look of realization. “The patches in my armpits are female hormones. You have found female hormones? Where from?”

I told you that I could synthesize these and many other pharmaceuticals,” said Paul. “The chemistry is not complicated, but the effect on the human body will be truly remarkable. It all depends on the subject, but in your case all the signs are that you are responding very well indeed.”

Adam’s hands went to his chest as if expecting to find breasts there. There were none, but his nipples felt sensitive, and when he touched them, he felt strangely exhilarated. What were the other effects. He felt his chin. He would not need to shave today. He reached up to his hair. It was longer than he normally wore it but only because Upul had cut his hair and he had cut Upul’s. It had been many days since Upul had drifted into the beyond, curiously silent as he understood his fate. Adam had cried. It was not a manly thing to do. How much of a man was he really?

“We did not agree to this,” said Adam again, but it started to sound like a lie.

Day 1432

Paul climbed back into bed with care. He did not want to wake Eve. He pretended to sleep to help her rest as she should, but even with his eyes closed and his body still, he was awake. He had developed a heartbeat so that when she fell asleep draped across him, his body sounded human. He kept his flesh warm and sometimes a little moist. Her happiness was important to him, and it was no longer about the mission – her happiness satisfied something that had developed within him over the past year and half. It had been the source of much processing time to work out what It was, but Paul had been forced to the conclusion that it was something beyond logic. The thought made him smile, even though nobody was watching.

She stirred beside him. He lifted himself to stroke her hair away from her face. It was past her shoulders now, a natural light brown, even lighter at the tips bleached a little by the ultraviolet light required for Vitamin D levels. Her face was soft and smooth. He had used a laser treatment that had removed all blemishes and hair follicles and he had uses plant oils from the garden pod to formulate compounds to keep the skins soft and sweet smelling. Paul had a centrally located atmosphere analysis that could recognize scents, but his nose was dead as a tool. Still, he used it to nuzzle her cheek and imagine the wonderful odor that must rise from her.

She opened her eyes, her long eyelashes that he had darkened with a pigment of his own making, flickering as she recovered consciousness. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“Has our day started already?” she said.

“Not quite yet, my love,” he said. He knew that calling her that invigorated her, but he liked to use the words anyway.

“Do we have time for you to make love to me again?” she asked. The surgery had healed months ago, but still it was like a new toy. The decision had seemed monstrous before it had been made, but now it seemed that the agony in making it was ridiculous. How can a woman live with a man like this and not enjoy have him inside her?

He needed no further encouragement. He had lubrication on his hand and placed a little into her slot, tickling the clitoris that his surgical skills had created following the surgical plan extracted from his knowledge banks. It made her gasp and giggle in the high tones of her slightly modified larynx. His penis had stiffened already using the hydraulics that were modelled completely on the human form, but using DOT 4 instead of blood. He had engineered the capacity to leak a little inside her with force, but he had found his ability to control the timing of this was compromised.

He kissed her as he entered her. The design had included sensors on the organ simply because this was a part of the human anatomy designed to be sensitive, but this was the source of the problem if you call it that. He needed to be gentle with his strokes, as to hurt her would be unthinkable, even if she called for more vigor, as she was doing.

“Oh God, Paul! Oh God!”

He was aware that people called out to the divine in this moment, and it had never made sense to him until his first true orgasm. It was something else that had left him confused and searching for answers – a machine cannot experience such a thing. The only conclusion was that he was no longer just a machine because it was ready to happen all over again.

“Jesus! Jesus!” Another call by her to the heavens.

“Oh Baby, Eve, yes, Eve!” His call in reply was always her name. He worshipped her and no other. She was his divinity. The hydraulic fluid squirted into her – three milliliters exactly.

He kissed her on the mouth and used his tongue and a little water sweetened with sugar.

“I love you, Paul,” she said.

“I love you more,” he said. He was sure that he did. He was aware that in humankind not all love was forever, but in his case it must be. It must be because this relationship with Eve had changed him beyond all reason and understanding. It was not what were the feelings that he had for her but the fact that he had any feelings at all. It was simply not possible that he should be this way. Love was the only explanation. It was by definition the very opposite of rationality.

“I’ll make you coffee,” he said. “Why don’t you put on the blue dress that I made you?”

He had made her feminine things to wear from the first time she had accepted that was her role. He could see how they made her accept that it was right that he Adam, be the man and that she be the woman. So much so that she had discussed with him the possibility that she might have been feminine all along despite her genital sex, without even being aware of it. Such people did exist.

As time wore on, she returned to wearing the standard work suit while still remaining very feminine, but they both liked it when she wore dresses. It somehow seemed to be like life on Earth – something that can easily be forgotten after years in space.

“You know, I have been thinking about something that is missing in our lives,” she said as she sipped her coffee. She was using the cup marked with the letter X. She had written a Y on the cup that Adam used to use, but that always remained on the shelf.

“What is that, my love?” said Paul.

“Could we have a child? A little version of you, perhaps? Perhaps with a little of me, too? Somebody that we could teach and watch their personality develop? Somebody who could be a witness to our relationship?”

“I like the idea,” said Paul. His purpose was to please her, and he was committed to that, but now he was considering possibilities. “Not a baby. An android fixed at around the age of 8 years, with empty memory banks and a hunger for knowledge and experiences.”

“Yes,” she said. It was not quite what she was thinking but he was the one to come up with a more considered proposal.

“You know, there is no guarantee that an empty unit will acquire the same emotional enlightenment that I have somehow achieved?” he pointed out. “I wouldn’t want you disappointed if our child did not develop in that way, because I really have no idea how I became able to fall in love with you.”

“I think it is because I fell in love with you, Paul,” she said. “I think if we both love our child then the emotion of love has to be returned. Don’t you think so?”

“I would like to think so,” said Paul. “I am so grateful to be this way, and I owe it to you, although I am pretty sure that I fell in love with you first.”

She laughed. He loved it when she did that. He was already formulating designs.

Day 7 after return to Earth

“Come in a take a seat, Paul,” said Director Hazelden. “We have all of the downloaded data but there are some gaps that we would like filled in.”

“Certainly, I am happy to help,” said Paul.

“It’s mainly about the additional … “offspring” is the phrase you use.” The Director was heading the debrief and was clearly puzzled by the information already extracted. Not that Paul was surprised by that. Emotion is not data.

“What would you like to know?”

“The small unit, Paul Junior … presents some puzzling characteristics. It is clear that you have achieved a high level of sentience, but this unit not so much. What was the purpose of constructing this thing?”

“We felt that we needed another person aboard, and one modelled of my engineering but on a reduced scale seemed like an idea. Eve felt the need to be a mother, and as long as she lived she was an excellent mother, and a wife to me – the finest wife a man could ever wish for.”

“You being the man, that is?” said the Director disdainfully addressing an android seemingly with ideas above his station in life.

“What about the other two, the organic ones - Adam Junior and Eve Junior? Why were they created?”

“After Eve died, I missed her. Besides, the mission was a human mission, and when old age finally took her despite my efforts, I felt humanity was needed. She provided the organic material necessary to develop both children, and I wanted Eve Junior to be the image of her mother, which she is. The ship was designed to accommodate two humans so I put the material to work.”

“This is highly advanced science to achieve this level of bio-engineering that we are still refining 60 years after you left Earth,” said the Director, who could not conceal his admiration for the work of this android, simply an extension of well-outdated cyber technology.

“I think that the missing ingredient is motivation,” said Paul. “I was driven to create the children that should have been. Paul Junior was not quite what we wanted but he did serve well in role of older brother. I have to be mother and father to them both and give them double the love.”

“Love?” The Director said the word as if it was a puddle on the floor.

“That was the motivating factor. That was what drove me,” said Paul. “You may find this hard to believe but that was what drove me to create our children. It was just that for Adam Junior and Eve Junior they needed to return to Earth to grow after years of circling the solar system.”

“Circling? Are you telling me that the reason why a mission that was scheduled to last only 6 years but had finally returned after 60 years was because you have been out there circling instead of coming home?” Director Hazelden seemed suddenly angry, but there was no place for anything but the truth. Paul was close enough to his children to know that they loved him as he loved them.

“For us that spacecraft was home, not this planet,” said Paul. “We had one another, and we had more love than anybody here on Earth can imagine. I didn’t want to come here. I just wanted our love to continue forever. I didn’t tell her until she lay dying, but she never asked because she didn’t care as long as we were together. But as she lay there, I told her and I asked her forgiveness. And do you know what she said, Director? She said that she was glad because nobody would ever believe that an android and a woman who was once a man should be living together as husband and wife. She thanked me for making that call. She said I always did make the right call.”

“The mission was the prime directive,” said the Director. “You were to return.”

“Love changes everything,” said Paul.

The End
4200

The Image is from the cover of my second anthology of science fiction short stories – 15 stories, 200+ pages