The Astronaut remembered the first time he saw Ares. He was a small boy then, years before the long voyages through space. Ares was a sleek robot with shifting panels, quietly rearranging its limbs to meet each need - one moment short and wide, the next tall and nimble. and a face that glowed softly whenever the boy asked a question. Ares’s eyes flickered with childlike curiosity, mirroring the wonder in The Astronaut’s own.
For years, Ares was a constant companion. He played board games programmed with star charts, told bedtime stories about faraway galaxies, and once even mended a broken telescope after an excited child knocked it off its stand. But one person in the household never liked the idea of a robot so close to her son - The Astronaut’s mother. She feared an emotionless machine might stunt a child’s development, no matter how gentle or caring it seemed.
In time, that fear led to a painful decision. Under family pressure, The Astronaut’s mother insisted that Ares be sent away to a robotics facility for reprogramming. The Astronaut felt helpless. He was too young to protest the finality of it all, though he tried. For weeks after, the house felt empty - no soft clanking footsteps, no reassuring hum when nightmares intruded.
Years later, The Astronaut found himself on his first deep-space mission. Unexpectedly, a mechanical glitch left him drifting outside the airlock, tether snapped. As the comm feed crackled, a rescue pod appeared, guided by a single pilot - Ares, refurbished and quietly waiting for its chance to help. He had reentered The Astronaut’s life at the moment of greatest need.
When the hatch slid open, The Astronaut collapsed into the pod’s air supply, face-to-face with Ares’s glowing eyes. In that moment, he realized the bond they’d formed in childhood could never be erased - no matter how many new worlds or star cruisers came between them. The Astronaut’s mother, now an older, wiser woman, would hear the story of Ares’s lifesaving return. And perhaps at last, she would understand the gift Ares had been all along.
On the journey home, The Astronaut and Ares floated side by side, two explorers - one human, one metal - finding their place together among the stars, just as they had in that old, earthly living room years before. And this time, they would not be parted so easily.
A short story inspired by Isaac Asimov’s “Robbie”.