Possivelmente Primeiro contato (1994) por Nigel Robinson.
Em 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.
Esta revisão fala sobre três livros "Point SF", incluindo Primeiro contato , para o qual ele menciona o robô:
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.
Não admira que você esteja procurando por 20 anos. A análise acima parece ser o único resultado da Internet de "first contact" "nigel robinson" "kili" (ninguém mais se lembrava daquele robô?). Eu encontrei o referido comentário por Googling book "kili" "kilimanjaro" robot -"mount kilimanjaro" (para evitar sites de turismo). Como não tenho uma conta do Proquest, copiei e colei tudo acima da visualização de resultados do Google. Eh, o que quer que funcione.