MATT, IN ALL his memory, had never felt so shocked before.
After the information from the ancient ship, Matt and Carey had sat down in their command chairs and talked briefly with Chairmen Ray and Tacita.
They both clearly were stunned as well. Matt couldn’t even begin to imagine how much, actually, since for millions of years Ray and Tacita had worked to expand the human race, only to discover they were just distant relatives of the actual human race.
They decided that for a full day everyone would look at the data coming in, both from scout ships and from the ancient ship, and then the eight of them would meet to decide what to do next.
Matt and Carey agreed to that idea and then headed back to their apartment to get ready for their legs in the race.
For Matt, the next hour or so of running felt good. Just thinking about moving forward, winding his way through long corridors and then out into the open of the forward military hangar felt good. He was very, very glad that they hadn’t cancelled the race even with all the activity going on.
And even though his legs were starting to tire, he didn’t much notice and more than likely ran far too fast.
Carey’s team had made up a little time on them, so he just waited for her to arrive at the transfer point. As she arrived and handed off her armband, she also looked like she was feeling less shocked than earlier.
It was hard not to be shocked learning that humanity had existed for so many millions of years and that speeds like the ancients used could be attained.
They planned on a five-year mission to the Center of the sphere at half speed. Knowing that a ship could do it in three hours just made Matt shake his head.
And it was no wonder that members of this ancient race could be helping Ray and Tacita get humans going into the stars millions of years before. With that sort of ship speed, this area was not more than a day or so away from the human galaxies. The same trip that had taken Star Fall decades to make.
But he had no doubt that the scientists who had advanced the trans-tunnel speed from the old standard to their new speeds now would be here studying the old ship in very short order. And Matt wanted Star Fall to have those new speeds as soon as possible. There would be no telling when that kind of speed would be needed. Space was a very empty place. Getting through the emptiness quickly was always a good idea.
He and Carey jumped back to their apartment, took showers, grabbed some quick lunch, then headed back to the bridge. Matt had been right about the scientists working on increasing trans-tunnel speeds arriving to study the old ship. Two dozen of them were on their way already through the bread-crumb network and would arrive tomorrow.
Carey set up arrangements for them to stay on one of the science ships and to get daily reports on their progress.
At the moment the ancient ship had seven scientific ships surrounding it and a dozen military ships standing off as guards.
Matt and Carey spent the next hour back in the command center going over the data that Star Fall had collected from the ancient ship. Much of it was about the day-to-day life of the crew of the ship. And surprisingly, it didn’t much differ from what life was like on Star Fall and other ships.
Matt wasn’t sure what he had expected. It seems that humans were humans, no matter how advanced.
Then Star Fall said, “The Chairmen of Star Rain have called for an emergency conference.”
“Now what?” Carey asked, shaking her head as she and Matt moved to their command chairs.
As they sat down and the chairs closed in around them, Benny and Gina’s faces appeared. Then Angie and Gage, then Ray and Tacita.
“One of our scout ships has made a discovery we think you all should know about at once,” Benny said. “The ship was doing high-level scans of an abandoned planet in a shielded galaxy that was part of the sphere and discovered this.”
An image of a desert appeared on the screen in place of the faces. Then the image sort of dissolved, going down into the ground to expose massive caves dug in the sand.
“I’ll be go to hell,” Matt said.
“That is a Gray city,” Gina said. “We had our other scout ships do searches for Gray cities on other abandoned planets and they found them on every one they quickly checked. All were abandoned.”
Matt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The Gray lived in this sphere with humans as well, just as they did in the human galaxies. Gray existed under the dry desert regions of human planets. Water was almost deadly to them, even in small amounts.
They were a race that supposedly had helped humans get out of their first galaxy and get stable and explore. But having Gray here as well was a shocker.
“That’s not all we found,” Benny said. “Once we decided to expand our searches beyond looking for human developments, we also found this.”
The desert scene changed to a scene of a vast ocean surface. Most terra-formed Earth-like planets had vast oceans on them.
The image faded down into the water and then to the bottom of the sea and then down below that to show a vast network of very advanced-looking structures, forming shelters, open areas, and so on, all in water.
“We think a third intelligent and highly-advanced race lived in the oceans as well,” Gina said. “These large cities were also found in our quick checks of other abandoned planets. The underwater cities were also abandoned.”
At that the images of the other six chairmen returned in front of Matt and Carey. Only Benny and Gina looked normal since they had had time to get used to this information. The other four looked like Matt was feeling.
Stunned.
“We’ll get our scout ships on it as well,” Carey said, recovering faster than Matt had done. “And Star Fall, is there any evidence in Arcadia Case’s information about the other two races?”
“I will inquire,” Star Fall said. “It will take a moment.”
All eight of them just waited, knowing that a moment for Star Fall would be only a few seconds.
“Yes,” Star Fall said. “Arcadia Case shows historical information about the three races existing together for millions and millions of years. Humans, Gray, and the Cirrata.”
“Octopus?” Matt asked.
“Yes,” Star Fall said. “A species of what we call octopus. They advanced into the stars before even the Gray and Humans did. I have no more history on this subject from Arcadia Case.”
The six faces in front of Matt and Carey just sat there, stunned.
Finally Matt said to Ray and Tacita. “Might want to tell the Gray what we are finding.”
Ray nodded.
“All our scout ships will search for more information on this,” Carey said.
“I will talk with the Gray,” Ray said. “Everyone please share data as it comes in on this.”
“With the other Starburst ships as well?” Benny asked.
“I can see no logical reason to not share this information with everyone,” Tacita said.
Ray nodded.
Matt agreed completely.
The conference ended and he and Carey stood up.
“Star Fall,” Matt said, “please play the entire conference we just had for the entire command crew. Then make sure the entire population of this ship knows about the findings.”
The image on the screen showed all eight chairmen, then the Gray city, then all eight chairman again, then the Cirrata city.
Behind him the command crew stood and watched silently.
It was hard not to be silent when your entire worldview was just upended.
TWENTY-TWO
CAREY SPENT THE next number of hours, with only a break for food, watching all the data come in from the scout ships, both from Star Fall and from Star Rain.
Galaxy after galaxy, planet after planet showed the presence of the long-gone three cultures. In fact, it seemed that the ancient cities of the Gray and the Cirrata had stood up better to time than anything the humans had done. But the Gray cities were under desert and the Cirrata cities were deep
in the oceans.
There was no denying that the three ancient cultures existed for millions of years at the same time on the same planets and it is clear that they all vanished around the same time. No idea why.
Not even a theory.
Matt had stayed working beside her until he got a call from his team captain. They had lost a Tip-to-Tip team member to injury and were down to nine, so Matt’s running schedule was now off from hers and he had to go earlier than he had planned.
When she jumped back to their apartment to change into her running clothes, he was already done and out of the shower.
“We’ve switched to a run-walk routine now,” he said. “We all have to walk at least half of our ten-k leg each time.”
“Did you do that?” she asked as she quickly got into her running shorts and top.
“Actually,” Matt said, smiling, “I did. It was my idea, since our goal now is to just finish.”
Carey kissed him. “We have moved to run-walk as well now,” she said. “Half-and-half as well. Gives us more time to rest between legs with a slower pace and also isn’t so hard on each of us.”
“You did that last year, didn’t you?” he asked, smiling.
She laughed. “From day three onward. Didn’t you notice that when your team dropped out we were almost a full day behind you?”
“All I remember is being too tired to care,” Matt said, laughing.
“See you when I get finished,” she said and jumped to the transfer point.
Carey got there just ahead of her teammate, but she could see on the monitor on the wall that she was close.
This transfer area was right in front of a restaurant and lounge with a wide viewport across the hallway that looked out at the stars. Tables and chairs had been lined up along the wall outside the lounge for customers to sit and drink and watch the stars and cheer on the runners as they came and went.
Carey knew there were still more than four hundred teams behind her, spread out over a vast area of the ship. The customers here could spend days watching the fun.
It was no wonder everyone on this ship loved this yearly event.
The place smelled of barbeque and Carey walked over to a table with plates of barbeque ribs and fries. Two couples Carey didn’t recognize sat at the table, clearly enjoying a fun evening.
“They as good as they smell?” Carey asked, pointing to the ribs.
“Even better, Chairman,” one woman said. The other three nodded. “Want to try one?” the woman asked.
Carey laughed. “Don’t think that would help my running. Besides, no time. Thanks!”
Chairman Annie, Carey’s teammate came into sight jogging at that moment from around a corner and into the transfer point and pulled off the armband.
“Watch out for those ribs,” Carey said.
“I could smell them for the last half a kilometer,” Annie said.
Carey got the band on and then with a wave to all the cheering crew members enjoying their time in the restaurant and bar, she headed out at an easy run. Her legs were sore at first but quickly loosened up and after a short time she enjoyed the run and the walk.
It gave her time to get her thoughts in place. Especially after all the news that had come in today.
One thing nice about this race as well was that she got to see areas of the ship she had never seen before. She and Matt, through Star Fall, knew every inch of the ship, but actually seeing areas in person felt different.
And no doubt she and Matt would have to try those ribs. They looked and smelled wonderful.
SECTION FIVE
Headed Inward
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY DAYS AFTER the discovery of how old the ancient civilization was, and also that three ancient cultures had vanished together, Star Mist finally reached the edge of the sphere.
Now three of the Starburst ships were at different spots along the edge of the sphere and ready to move inward toward the Center.
Matt was excited that they now could get started on really finding some answers. He had a hunch that all the answers were in that massive structure in the Center.
He felt better with the three ships going in together. Among them they had enough military, scout ships, and scientific ships to solve anything they ran into. At least that was his hope.
In the twenty days it had been completely confirmed with scout ships over thousands of planets in hundreds of different galaxies that all three cultures had existed on every planet. And from what they could tell, all three cultures had vanished at about the same time.
Also in the twenty days, the scientists studying the ancient ship Arcadia Case had gotten more and more excited at the things they were finding. Matt had been happy to hear that the ship’s trans-tunnel drive system was basically the same as theirs, just more advanced, and that advancement would be easy to reach given some time.
What had frustrated Matt the most was that they had made almost no progress at all in discovering what the shields around the galaxies were, how they even existed, what kind of energy they transmitted to the Center, or anything.
One scientist had said to Matt and Carey that they were going to have to find a key to the knowledge of shields. The technology was so advanced, it looked like magic to them. Impossible magic.
Matt knew that more than likely all the answers would be found eventually in that massive structure at the center of this sphere. And now they could head that way.
The idea of approaching a massive structure like that scared him and excited him at the same time.
One thing that made Matt happy was that his team was still in the Tip-to-Tip race even with only nine runners. Meetings had pulled him away from two of his legs, but otherwise he had run-walked every leg he was supposed to.
They still had a very long way to go, but all nine of them had the right attitude. But Matt had to admit that after sleeping for a while, he wondered why he was doing this, since it took him twenty minutes to just walk normally after getting out of bed.
Twenty very painful minutes.
Carey’s team was also still in the race and his team and her team were actually pretty close in time. Her team had lost one runner on the fifteenth day, so both of their teams were now down to nine.
She also was feeling the pain. He could tell, but she whined less about it than he did.
Both Matt and Carey were standing beside their command chair watching data flow on the big screen when Star Mist reported in that their scout ships along the area of the sphere they had approached found the same as Star Rain and Star Fall.
Galaxies shielded, billions of empty planets inside each galaxy with evidence of a long-ago major civilizations of humans, Gray, and Cirrata.
Now the original plan was to work their way slowly toward the center, taking five years. But Matt had grown to not like that plan. He had mentioned his dislike of the plan to Carey over dinner one night and she agreed.
“Star Fall, please ask the chairmen of Star Mist and Star Rain for a public conference. At their convenience.”
“They are available now,” Star Fall said.
“Please put them on the big screen,” Carey said.
The faces of her four friends appeared on the big screen. Angie and Gage from Star Mist and Benny and Gina from Star Rain. All of them were just standing near their command chairs and Matt could see their command crews behind them.
“We’re having issues with the five-year plan,” Matt said, jumping right into the reason for the call.
He was happy to see the other four nodding.
“Too slow,” Gage said. “I doubt we’re going to pick up much more information from interior planets than we have already gotten.”
“Agreed,” Gina said.
“So here is what we were thinking,” Matt said. “We send off today a thousand scout ships each with military escorts, headed inward at three quarters speed. They check the path along the way.”
All four nodded.
“Then tomorrow,” C
arey said, “we each send another group of a thousand scout ships and military escorts at full speed to get ahead of the other group and then slow down to scout that area.”
“Will that allow us to go in most of the way faster?” Angie asked.
“It will,” Matt said. “Star Fall calculates that we should all be able to make it to a reasonable distance from the Center in just about one year at just over three-quarters speed.”
“Safely,” Gage said, nodding.
“Safely,” Matt said. “We rotate out the scout and military ships regularly, keep them scouting ahead of us until we get within a certain distance of the Center. Stop at any point if we find something unusual.”
“I like it,” Benny said.
Everyone nodded.
“So first wave of scout ships head out tomorrow morning at first shift,” Matt said. “Second wave twenty four-hours later. Then we follow first shift on the third day.”
Again everyone nodded.
“Here we go,” Angie said. “Once again into the unknown.”
“Seems to be what we do,” Carey said.
At that, Matt could only agree.
TWENTY-FOUR
FIVE DAYS AFTER they started into the sphere, Carey hated the call she got from her team captain, Chairman Aimes, while she and Matt were going over reports at breakfast. Her team had lost another runner to injury. They were down to eight with just about seven days of running left. All of them were exhausted.
Carey could remember last year how she felt, but this year seemed worse for some reason. Every time she sat down she wanted to go to sleep. More than likely it was because this year they were also dealing with the amazing discoveries of the sphere and the ancients, as everyone was calling them.
“We going to try to push to the end?” Carey asked Aimes.
“I polled the other six and all of us are willing if you are,” Aimes said.
“Let’s keep going and we’ll check with everyone every day,” Carey said.
“Good plan,” Aimes said and cut the connection.
Star Fall: A Seeders Universe Novel Page 7