"DESPERATELY SEEKING DAVID" by Bob Pemberton

She sat between galaxies and began to cry. David was nowhere to be found.
Andromeda shone dimly to starboard. The Milky Way threw up a white speck of
light from below. Elsewhere, only the blackness of deep space pervaded. Two
days earlier, the computer had brought her out of deep hibernation. She was
shocked to find her ship, the Starbringer, had been off course from her
original destination and had been travelling in space for over five hundred
years. She was supposed to be following David's distress beacon to Pluto.
Things had gone terribly wrong at his research base on Pluto and she was
his only hope of rescue. The computer had put her to sleep for the long
journey from Earth. She could not guess what she was doing here, surrounded
by utter blackness save for the points of light that were distant galaxies.

Earth was but a distant memory now. But why had she been brought out of
hibernation?

She was exercising in the ship's gymn when the computer suddenly alerted her
to a dark planet sliding into the viewport. "Hang on, planets don't exist by
themselves between galaxies" she thought. They usually orbit galactic suns.
She pressed a console button to show more details. Unexpectedly, David's
beacon was being recorded amongst the myriad of data being collected by the
ship's computer. She understood what the computer was doing now. It was
following its prime objective: to find David. But out here, surely impossible?

The planet became clearer now. Bluish tinge. One tiny moon. The computer
analysed its chemistry. It was Pluto, out here in the middle of nowhere!.
This was absurd. But David had been involved in a teleportation experiment.
And obviously things had gone terribly wrong on a huge scale. 

The computer identified the exact coordinates of David's beacon. Surely he
couldn't still be alive. Her heart prepared for the worst.

The computer brought the Starbringer to rest on a pad near the twin Research
Towers where she knew David had conducted his work into the theory of Bulk
Matter Teleportation. Outside her airlock, she could hear the wind moaning
between the towers. She donned her suit and left the comfort of the
Starbringer. She struggled through the wind to the shortest tower.

An auto-elevator took her to the ninth floor research lab. It was deserted,
but when she opened the door to the adjoining quarters, she discovered David
lying in a hibernator. Obviously he had entered the hibernator for safety
when the accident had happened. 

She spent the next hour helping him to consciousness. He eventually opened
his eyes, and after the initial shock of seeing her, said "I did the best I
could Marie, but the experiment went horribly wrong and the entire planet
and it's moon was teleported to a distant location". 

She caressed his face with her hand and began to kiss him. "I've found you
and you're alive and we're together again. That's all that matters to me in
the whole universe David." He relaxed and looked up into her eyes. A single
tear rolled down her cheek.

"You know what" she said, trying to cheer them both up "we've been married
for over 500 years" "I think that must be a record for the longest marriage
ever!. The best part is that we're still young and have a lifetime to look
forward to." They hugged. She felt wonderful for the first time in ......
a long time . David told her that his three other research companions were
not so lucky. They had been on an excursion to Pluto's moon when the accident
had happened and  perished when the disaster struck.

The Starbringer had enough spare plasma to return them to Earth - although
it would take another five hundred years. This time, they would return in a
double hibernator - made for couples. They programmed the computer for
automatic navigation back to Earth.

A deck observation camera recorded a beautiful image as the Starbringer lifted
off towards distant Earth. It showed two lost lovers embracing. As they slept,
they dreamed of life together again on a distant Earth, on a far off spiral
arm of the Milky Way. She was happy now.