Father Gus
by Marshall Payne

Having crash-landed on an unnamed planet in a star system known only as R-17, bandy-legged Captain Gus Eckert prepared himself for a life of lonely survival. An interstellar anomaly had knocked him so far off the beaten path--hyperspatial transit being such a fickle thing nowadays--he doubted if he'd ever see humankind again. The good news was that although his starcraft was a crumpled mess after having impacted on the planet's surface, his astute high-performance robot known as Lancelot and his portable nanochine factory had both survived. Though the uninhabited planet would have ordinarily been survivable despite its rocky, arid environment, the bad news was that R-17 was showing every sign of going nova. This according to Lancelot, who had extensive files on such things. Maybe if Gus had let the spindly metallic genius pilot the craft when they'd encountered the hyperspatial anomaly, he wouldn't be in this mess now. But he shrugged it off and told Lancelot to construct the necessary underground bunker crucial to their survival.

Although Lancelot was quite capable of digging the bunker himself, he recommended using the nanochines. Time was of the essence, for there was no telling when R-17 might erupt. In the robot's estimation, the nanofactory, which was slightly larger than a breadbasket, had just enough capacity to construct the bunker, hermetically seal it, make it impervious to hard radiation, and provide Gus with a lifetime's supply of food, water, and oxygen. "But might it be wise, sir, if we first use the nanofactory to replicate itself thrice?"

Gus agreed, and soon there were three nanofactories and construction on the bunker began.

Upon its completion, Gus was about to climb into the smallish shelter where he planned to spend eternity, when another starcraft crashed on the planet. Gus had half decided to let them fend for themselves, but when the better part of valor was overruled by nobleness, he soon found himself, accompanied by Lancelot, climbing over the adjacent foothills on bandy legs. (He wasn't totally selfless, mind you--the newcomers' presence might signify some way of getting off the planet before R-17 erupted.)

"Oh, thank the heavens, good sir," the nun said upon his arrival. "How grateful we are to see you. I don't know what the girls and I would do without the presence of a strong able-bodied starman in this time of crisis." Her name was Sister Madelyn and behind her were the sixteen teenaged girls in her charge. Of course, their parochial, autopiloted starcraft, the Saint Mother Teresa, was a crumpled mess as well--it was amazing they'd all survived with nothing more than a few scratches and many doleful tears--so Captain Gus took them back to his bunker and had Lancelot thrice-out the remaining two nanofactories so as to expand the accommodations and supplies. That was when Lancelot, after scanning his extensive files, told Captain Gus that their situation bore striking similarities to a Gary Grant movie from three centuries prior. "Father Goose it was called, sir. Cary Grant's penultimate flatvid in a long career of fine--"

"Cary who?" Captain Gus had to ask.

Presently R-17 did its cosmic dance and the gender-lopsided castaways settled down to a lifetime of underground ennui. But eventually Sister Madelyn had a notion. Apparently the Catholic Church had become more liberal as of late, because the idea she proposed in their sixth year of isolation was most radical. "It would be a shame," she said, "for these fine young ladies to be forced to become barren spinsters." Since it seemed apparent they would never get off this nova-scorched world alive, shouldn't the girls, who were now of legal age, be given the opportunity to start a family? Why should humanity on this godforsaken planet die out when there was a way to circumvent it?

"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Sister?" Gus asked, feigning shock while sequestering a long overdue leer.

No, Captain Gus having his own private harem was the last thing on Sister Madelyn's agenda. Artificial insemination, having been looked on more favorably by the Catholic Church in recent years, was what she wassuggesting, following the quasi-appropriate marriage ceremonies performed by the ship's captain, Captain Gus, the multiple bridegroom himself. Of course, there was still the problem of consanguinity. Captain Gus being the only sperm donor available, a too-narrow gene pool would prove detrimental. If this uninhabited planet was to someday be populated with a viable race of humans, it was necessary that that race have the appropriate number of fingers and toes, Sister Madelyn maintained. The good sister would not countenance a race of inbred imbeciles. No sirree! Fortunately, Lancelot had a solution: it was possible (using the nanochines) to alter Captain Gus's spermatozoa, a retrogressive genemod procedure that would produce additional sperm cells from up the Eckert family tree. (Theoretically, Great-Grandpa, who, incidentally, had been as bandy-legged as Gus, was still swimming around in there somewhere.) Such diversity might keep fingers and toes to an appropriate ten.

Seeing the logic in all this, if not any hedonic benefit for himself, Captain Gus agreed. Again the nanofactories were thriced, then thriced again. Then again. Because the planet's atmosphere had been entirely disintegrated, prospective life on Planet Eckert (as it was now being called) would have to be completely subterranean. Consequently, within two centuries the bunker had metastasized to consume the entire planet, a global underground city populated by Eckerts to its core. However, when R-17 decided to erupt once again (this time as a supernova), the nanofactories--by now huge multilevel complexes taking up a third of the planet's interior--were called upon to construct a stardrive to escape certain system-wide annihilation.

Though today Captain Gus and Sister Madelyn are alive only in spirit, Lancelot dutifully sits in the captain's chair of the colossal starship Planet Eckert, faithfully guiding the bandy-legged populace between the stars. Reunification with their fellow humans has never been on their agenda, however. As it turns out, they're a rather clannish lot. All seven billion of them.

 

-Born in 1957, Marshall Payne has led a colorful life. He has worked as a touring
musician, music producer, sound technician, a salesman, and a waiter. In 1999 he
committed himself to speculative fiction and has never looked back. Since then he has
written over two dozen short stories and seven novels, the last three he’s looking to publish. (The first four were merely for practice.) When not writing, he likes to watch Spurs basketball with his cat C.C. and eat popcorn.

I currently have stories online with Nanobison.com and Astounding Tales.com.

 

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