Eventuellt Första kontakt (1994) av Nigel Robinson.
Från Amazon :
The year is 3243. A mysterious alien craft, which has been travelling for 2000 years, moves slowly through deep space, searching for only one planet - for contact.
Denna översyn talar om tre "Point SF" -böcker, inklusive Första kontakten , för vilken den nämner roboten:
In First Contact, Shari and Kristas are teenagers in an inter-system authoritarian society. Assigned to mundane tasks on graduation, the two rebel and, with the help of Cruse, an escaped student rebel, and Kili, a two-hundred-year-old "faithful family retainer" robot, flee off planet in search of Shari's missing father, and Old Earth or the Home Planet, which no citizen of the System is supposedly allowed to set foot upon. The tyranny is controlled by Donovan Truehart, leader of the Earthlifers, a fanatically chauvinist organisation which maintains human supremacy over all other life forms; the Seti, intelligent aliens, are nearing the System and Earth. [...]
The youngsters' stolen space cruiser (not the one they intended to steal in the first place) is able to escape from the planet because it happens to be equipped with a brand new sub-tachyon drive. When Cruse, the pilot, is knocked out during a meteor storm, the robot Kili (short for Kilimanjaro, a name which is never explained) is mysteriously able to pilot the ship, despite not being programmed for the purpose.
Inte konstigt att du har letat efter 20 år. Ovanstående recension verkar vara det enda internetresultatet av "first contact" "nigel robinson" "kili" (kom ingen annan ihåg den roboten?). Jag hittade nämnda granskning av Googling book "kili" "kilimanjaro" robot -"mount kilimanjaro" (för att undvika turism webbplatser). Och eftersom jag inte har ett Proquest-konto kopierar jag allt-över allt från Google-resultatförhandsgranskningen. Hej, vad som helst.