“Why did you not expect any problems here?” Tacita asked.
“For the same reason you picked me and Maria for this task,” Roscoe said. “I know military and dictatorships, and I know that is not a cultural structure that can sustain even over short periods of time, as you proved in the original galaxy. You won and sent the survivors here.”
“Freedom of choice and a desire to make a profit will always win in the end,” Maria said, then licked chocolate from her fingers.
“So what exactly are you expecting?” Ray asked after glancing at the screens once again.
“Ravaged and destroyed planets, maybe, that might be so destroyed as to not be overgrown with local plants. There might be small enclaves of humans, if any. Very low technology, if any.”
Maria watched Ray nodding to that.
Roscoe went on. “Considering the millions of years they have been here, and logically spread out some at first, we might find a stable culture growing similar to what we plant.”
“Seriously?” Tacita asked.
Roscoe nodded. “From survivors. But if they continued to develop without help, my gut sense is that they will just keep falling into the same patterns we all know so well that cultures go through.”
“And thus end up destroying each other,” Maria said, trying to decide to go for another doughnut or not.
Ray frowned.
“Seeding the planets is wonderful,” Maria said, finally leaning forward to take another fantastic chocolate doughnut, “but it would be for nothing if not for the Seeders who remain behind for hundreds of thousands of years and guide the cultures up through the turmoil and the instability. That makes all the difference.”
“Entering the edge of the galaxy now,” Chairman Strong said over a ship-wide broadcast system. “Stay alert, everyone. Thirty minutes to first target.”
Now that got Maria’s full attention.
And made her even more nervous.
She bit into the wonderful chocolate cake doughnut, then grabbed a couple of napkins. Chewing, she put the doughnut down on a napkin and turned her full attention to the screens. Especially the one indicating the signal coming from the Dark Night, the huge prison ship that had brought millions to this distant galaxy.
FORTY-TWO
ROSCOE STUDIED THE screens as The Horizon dropped out of trans-tunnel flight. On the screen beside the image of the Command Center, the dark image of the old ship appeared. Small at first, and then the image got closer and closer and larger.
He didn’t know what to expect, but was surprised the ship looked almost round, with engines on one flattened side, not at all normal Seeder shapes.
But, of course, this was long before the idea of seeding outside the original galaxy had come about and the bird design of Seeder ships.
As the image got in closer, there was little doubt that the ancient ship was barely holding together. Giant meteors had smashed into it from all sides over the years. The only reason it still existed was because it was away from any orbit of any planet or large moon and no gravitational forces were pulling on it.
“Stunning any beacon still worked,” Roscoe said, more to himself.
“Only one survived out of a hundred,” Ray said. “We built them into bulkheads and in the metal walls of the ship itself.”
“Wow,” Maria said.
On another screen, it was clear that what had been an Earth-like planet close to the big ship was nothing but a burnt and destroyed husk. Roscoe had no doubt something very ugly had happened on that planet, more than likely human-caused a very long time ago. No atmosphere remained at all.
“Chairman Ray, would you and the other Chairmen please come to the Command Center.”
Roscoe glanced around at the other screens quickly before Ray jumped them to the Command Center.
“We are getting some very interesting scans from different areas of this galaxy,” Chairman Strong said, not getting up from his chair.
The big screen focused on a star about sixty light-years away from where they had found the big ship. “A planet around this sun has a flourishing human society on it, early space age levels.”
“Can we take a closer look?” Ray asked.
“There’s something else,” Strong said, “that you need to know before we move. We are showing preliminary scans of two different alien races in this galaxy as well. Both about the same technological level as the human society.”
The image on the screen pulled back and Roscoe could see that one race was on the far side of the galaxy, the other only about four hundred light years from the young human society.
“We have no idea what kind of cultures they are from this distance,” Strong said.
Ray was looking as shocked as Roscoe felt.
Ray looked at his wife for a moment, then turned to Strong. “We need to clear historical evidence that humans came to this galaxy from the outside. Can we bump the remains of Dark Night into a path that will take it into the sun?”
“We can,” Strong said. “It will take a couple weeks to get it moving without tearing it apart.”
“Can you consider that part of your mission now, Chairman?” Ray asked Strong. “And destroying any other historical evidence of the Lotus coming from outside this galaxy.”
Strong nodded. “That is no problem.”
“Can we take a look at the advanced civilizations safely?” Roscoe asked.
“Please,” Ray asked Strong, who nodded and then indicated that his crew jump to trans-tunnel flight.
Within minutes they were back in real space, approaching the human population.
“Early space age,” Strong said, nodding.
Roscoe noted that Strong glanced around at one of his crew on the bridge. The brown-haired woman shook her head and looked back at her board.
“Without help,” Strong said, staring at his screen at his command chair, “they will destroy themselves and this planet in the next decade. If not sooner. They are in the standard human society growth pattern almost perfectly.”
“Then we need to get some help here quickly,” Maria said.
“Why would we do that?” Tacita said, frowning and looking at Maria. “They are Lotus.”
Roscoe actually laughed. “Millions and millions of years ago their ancestors were Lotus. But now they are just a new human planet trying to get started and they need help to survive and follow a path to stability.”
“We’re Seeders, aren’t we?” Maria asked, staring at Tacita. “Helping young human cultures get started on the right road is part of our job description.”
Tacita started to open her mouth, then closed it. Roscoe could tell that Maria’s words had hit home and got through the millions of years of thinking anyone in this galaxy would still hold the beliefs from so long before.
Chairman Ray had a slight grin on his face, but said nothing.
Strong looked between the four of them, then said, “Many of my people were trained in planetary cultural growth. We’re going to be in this galaxy giving it a good scouring for a good two hundred years, if not more. We can help them until better help arrives.”
“Thank you, Chairman Strong,” Ray said, bowing. “You and your crew will be justly rewarded, I can promise.”
“Thank you, Chairman,” Strong said.
“Please send regular reports every month for the next few years,” Ray said. “I’m going to be following this very interesting galaxy’s progress with great attention.”
“As am I,” Roscoe said.
Strong nodded.
“And I really am curious as to the other alien races,” Ray said. “A very unusual find. Thank you for your ship’s work on this. And your time. It is very much appreciated.”
A moment later the four of them were back in the Command Center of Ray’s ship, over thirty galaxies away.
Roscoe still couldn’t wrap his mind around how that was done. He was just glad Ray was good at it.
Chairman Ray turned to Roscoe and Maria. “It seems we hav
e a mission statement to change.”
“Thankfully, yes,” Roscoe said. “And I have some ideas.”
“As do I,” Maria said, smiling.
Tacita actually smiled at that.
Chairman Ray stared at both of them for a moment. “Nothing can substitute for the excitement of youth. I will be looking forward to the new ideas.”
Roscoe took Maria’s hand. Then with a nod, he jumped them back to the Morning Song Command Center, much to the surprise of Fisher and Callie, who expected them to be gone much, much longer.
Section Five:
THE FUTURE
FORTY-THREE
MARIA JUST COULDN’T get enough of Roscoe, and forced them to spend private time together every day, even though they had a million things to get done and worked together all day.
She felt they needed the time.
And they both enjoyed it. She was stunned, but she kept feeling closer and closer and more in love with Roscoe every day. She didn’t think this kind of depth of love was even possible.
Since the scouting missing, she and Roscoe and Callie and Fisher had spent many meals planning what exactly to do with all the extra space that Ray had designed into Morning Song for a huge fleet of military craft.
Part of the space, Maria was happy to see, would be converted into making jump stations for the Breadcrumbs project. But that took up such a small part of the huge space that Ray had planned for a military fleet, it didn’t seem to really dent the empty areas.
Ten days after they returned, while having dinner in their suite—a wonderful dinner Fisher cooked of stream trout, garlic potatoes, and steamed vegetables—she and Roscoe decided to tell Fisher and Callie about the Morning Breeze, the second big empty Mother Ship coming into the galaxy in forty years.
“Ray and Tacita hope you two will be the Chairmen of Morning Breeze.”
Fisher just blinked.
Callie said simply, “What?”
Both were stunned.
Maria loved it, since Fisher and Callie knew what being joint Chairmen of a Seeder Mother Ship meant.
They had just finished eating and were talking about the next day’s major tasks as they cleaned up when suddenly Maria had an idea.
“You guys want to indulge me for a moment in the Command Center?”
Roscoe looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
She punched his arm. “Not that kind of indulge. I got an idea that will take help from Morning Song to figure out if it is even possible.”
“Last time we did this, we ended up thirty galaxies away from here,” Roscoe said, smiling.
“I don’t think this is that far,” Maria said, smiling at the three laughing friends.
They jumped into Command Center, much to the surprise of the crew working the evening shift.
“Would everyone please take a break until we call you back?” Callie asked.
The five who had been on duty nodded and vanished.
“Morning Song,” Callie said, turning to the big screen that at the moment was totally blank. “In your updates from Chairman Ray’s ship, have you pinpointed the location of Morning Breeze. If so, would you show us?”
On the big screen the image of the Local Group of galaxies appeared, clearly showing the Milky Way and their position.
A dotted line extended backwards and ended with a green light labeled Morning Breeze. It seemed to be numbers of galaxies away. And at mostly sub-light speeds and only short trans-tunnel jumps as Morning Song had been doing, Maria could see how that distance would take forty thousand years.
“At the top speed of The Lady,” Maria asked, “how long would it take to reach the Morning Breeze in trans-tunnel flight?”
The stunning words appeared on the screen.
Thirty-one days.
Maria turned and looked at the shocked expression on the other three faces. Then she said simply, “Now we have some real planning to do.”
FORTY-FOUR
OVER THE NEXT week, while still slowing Morning Song and getting more and more help on board to work on the major repairs and getting areas of the ship staffed, the four of them met every evening over dinner to plan.
Roscoe enjoyed those dinners more than he wanted to admit.
And they often ended up in the Command Center of Morning Song using the big screen to get some scale of the different galaxies where their seeding mission was heading.
On the seventh night of dinner meetings, Roscoe was thinking about the paths of future seeding missions when a different image appeared in his mind.
A balloon.
And he said that out loud.
At the moment he had been handing dishes to Maria to put into the dishwasher in their suite and Fisher and Carrie were still sitting at the now cleared table.
Maria looked at him with a puzzled frown? “Balloon?”
He nodded and handed her the last plate he had rinsed, then dried off his hands and moved over to his spot at the table.
“You know how we are always saying that Seeders think big.”
Fisher made an arm gesture. “I think Morning Song is an example of that.”
“And the fact that they have been doing this for more millions of years than I care to think about,” Maria said.
“What happens if they aren’t thinking big enough?” Roscoe asked.
“Now you are starting to scare me a little,” Callie said.
Maria looked completely puzzled.
“Time to head for the Command Center,” Roscoe said, smiling. “There is something that Tacita said at one point that has haunted me and I think I might have an answer.”
A few minutes later they were there and the regular crew had taken a break.
Roscoe pointed to the big screen. “Morning Song,” he said, “please put the Milky Way at the center of a sphere and slowly expand out the sphere until the edge of the sphere hits the closest galaxy outside the Local Group.”
On the big screen that image appeared, with a dotted line circle. It hit a galaxy that they all knew had been seeded already.
“Thank you, Morning Song.” Roscoe said. “Now please expand that sphere exactly one hundred thousand light years in radius.”
“The distance of a jump station,” Maria said and Roscoe smiled at her and nodded.
“Are there any unseeded galaxies in that sphere?”
“No,” appeared on the screen.
“Please keep expanding the sphere by one hundred thousand light years in radius and put the number of unseeded galaxies at the bottom with every expansion. Stop at five expansions.”
At two hundred thousand light-years, the numbers of unseeded galaxies was finally three.
At three hundred, it jumped to eight.
At four hundred it jumped to fourteen.
At five hundred thousand light years in radius from the center of the Milky Way, the number of unseeded galaxies jumped to eighteen.
“What exactly are you saying?” Fisher asked Roscoe.
Maria studied the image on the big screen for a second and then turned to Roscoe as well.
“We have been snaking our way outward as Seeders,” Roscoe said. “Always just jumping to the closest galaxy ahead without a lot of thought. With the Breadcrumbs transport stations, why do that? Why not make the Milky Way the center of this expansion and move outward in a consistent sphere pattern.”
He looked around at his friends and at the woman he loved. All three of them were blinking.
He went on. “The second deck can be a complete construction deck for building more Seeder ships as we go. We can have an entire factory working on both Morning Song and Morning Breeze. With the hundreds of frontline Seeder ships now working Andromeda, the frontline Seeder ships we have here, and the other Seeder frontline ships on Morning Breeze, we can do this easily if we keep building.”
“And with the transport system, the entire bubble of Seeded galaxies can be held together,” Maria said.
“Exactly,” Roscoe said. “Tacita said that
they needed so many more Seeder Mother Ships. Why not have a base here building more Seeder Mother Ships as the bubble expands and we need more?”
“And each Seeder Mother Ship would have a factory on it as well,” Fisher said, nodding.
Maria moved closer and kissed him, sending shivers through him. Then she held him at arm’s length and looked at him with those huge golden eyes. “That mind of yours continues to amaze me.”
“Scares hell out of me,” Fisher said.
FORTY-FIVE
MARIA LAY NAKED, tucked under Roscoe’s arm two hours later. The lights of their wonderful suite were dimmed and they had made love and then settled down to get some sleep. She felt relaxed and satisfied and completely at ease with her life and her world.
She loved just being against Roscoe, touching his skin, listening to him breathe, enjoying his faint musky smell. She could never seem to get enough of him, and when they were in the big command chairs and linked through Morning Song, it felt even better.
She opened one eye and looked at him. He seemed to be sleeping and she needed to sleep as well. But she just couldn’t turn her mind off yet.
She was trying to remember not knowing Roscoe Mundy, her life before the last two months. And even though that had been hundreds of years of living, those times seemed like distant memories now compared to the last two months.
How was that possible?
And if the idea of expanding out in a sphere was accepted, with the transport stations, they were going to start an intergalactic culture that would stay in touch, learn from each planet, each culture, each galaxy, and continue to advance into levels she couldn’t begin to imagine.
Just the idea of that had her excited beyond words.
And she and Roscoe and Morning Song would be on the leading edge of the building.
“Are you all right?” Roscoe asked her, hugging her closer.
She snuggled down even more against his smooth skin and hard muscles of his chest. “I’m about as all right as I can be,” she said, softly.
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