The image of the Milky Way appeared with the galaxies between it and the target galaxy, again marked with a red “x” over it.
“Thank you, Morning Song,” Maria said. “Now show the location of all Seeder Scout ships along that line.”
The green dots appeared along the way.
“We can tell,” Roscoe said, “at least from any reports coming from that lead scout ship, that the Lotus is not within two galaxies of that lead ship’s position.”
Ray nodded, looking up at the big screen. Then he frowned and shook his head.
Roscoe turned and looked directly at both Ray and Tacita. “I propose we jump to that lead scout ship and take a look at the Lotus galaxy before we go too much farther with large-scale plans to include a large military force on Morning Song when there is a good chance it won’t be needed.”
Maria could feel herself still holding her breath. This was one of those turning point moments and both she and Roscoe knew it. She wasn’t sure how they had gone from making love to having a moment that might change decades and maybe centuries of work, but they had.
Ray stood there for a moment, then asked a simple question. “Morning Song, what is the name of that lead scout ship?”
On the big screen the words appeared over the images of the galaxy.
I do not know for certain, Chairman Ray
Maria watched as Ray nodded, then he said simply, “We will return in five minutes.”
Tacita and Ray vanished, leaving the Command Center in silence.
Maria just shook her head and squeezed Roscoe’s hand.
“When I’m that age,” Fisher said, “I hope I explain my actions to the poor people around me a little better.”
“When you’re that age,” Roscoe said, “you won’t have to.”
Maria laughed.
Fisher said, “Good point.”
Then standing there in silence, Maria looked up at the screen and suddenly had a thought she didn’t much like.
“Morning Song,” Maria said. “How do you know the location of those ships? And do you know who sent them on those missions?”
The positions are their assigned projected positions at this point in time.
Chairman Ray sent them on the mission ahead of my being launched, ahead of the Seeder ships coming to the Local Group.
“Oh, crap,” Fisher said softly.
Maria’s stomach clamped up and she had a hunch their great idea to scout ahead had just been shot down.
“Are you telling me,” Roscoe said, staring at the big board with disbelief, “that those scout ships have been out scouting for almost two million years?”
“Yes,” Maria said softly.
“And that lead ship might not be there after all,” Callie said, “or it might have been taken over by Lotus if they are expanding?”
“Yes,” Chairman Ray said as he and Tacita appeared again. “That is exactly the result of using old data, as I have been asking you to do. That has been my problem and we need to correct that.”
Maria stared at Ray for a moment, surprised at that statement.
“Do we even know if any of those ships are in those positions?” Roscoe asked.
“We do,” Tacita said, “because being scout ships is their job and how they get paid. They scout and report back. Over the two millions years each of those ships has returned to a major Seeder galaxy many, many times for overhaul and updates of equipment. Scout ships always use the most advanced technology and have the best screens and speed.”
“They also send a comprehensive report back every ten years,” Ray said.
Ray turned to the big screen. “Morning Song, please contact my ship and update your records on this topic.”
An instant later, on the screen about a third of the green dots vanished. But the ship two galaxies away from the target galaxy was still there.
“The Horizon is the name of that lead ship,” Ray said. “It has over two thousand humans on board and is extremely fast and modern. Chairman Strong welcomes the use of his ship for such a scouting purpose you proposed, Chairman Mundy. He will have his ship under way at full speed toward the target galaxy in three hours. It will take just over twenty days for him to get there.”
“How does he even know?” Maria asked, stunned, staring at the screen showing the incredible distance from the Milky Way over thirty galaxies to the solo green dot on the screen.
Ray just shrugged, as if that was a silly question. “I just spoke with him.”
FORTY
ROSCOE AND MARIA spent the next twenty days continuing almost day and night with the repairs to Morning Song.
And every day they found time to make love in their unfurnished suite. Maria insisted they spend that private time and Roscoe was not going to decline something like that with the most beautiful woman he had ever met.
And one he was head-over-feet in love with as well.
The crew on board had grown from the original fifteen to just over six hundred. And yet Morning Song still seemed completely empty to Roscoe.
Finally, after what seemed like an incredible task with more problems than Roscoe could ever imagine, the water systems on the ship had been completely repaired, recharged, flushed, and deemed safe. Having that system shut down and in near-zero temps had caused seemingly millions of problems. But now all the problems were fixed and it was functioning.
Finally, the original team could leave Fisher and Callie’s wonderful ship, get their own places to live, and let Fisher and Callie have some peace.
So Roscoe and Maria spent a few hours in the morning in one of the huge warehouses, finding furniture for their suite.
And by that evening, it was furnished enough to live in. Even the fireplace was working. They had put very soft brown area rugs in certain places for contrast, and the kitchen was completely stocked. Maria had even found some incredible pictures of various worlds, framed in storage, and hung them on the walls.
She said as they visited new places together, they would replace them.
Roscoe had to admit, the place felt like home, a home he would enjoy for a very long time.
When Roscoe told Fisher that their kitchen was finally stocked and working, Fisher offered to cook the four of them the first meal in the new kitchen. Both Roscoe and Maria had taken him up on that instantly, since they had come to love his cooking and Fisher loved to cook.
Maria said it was better to start off their new kitchen with a quality meal instead of something either she or Roscoe could do.
And the meal had been wonderful. Great chicken dinner with great friends and lots of laughter. Nothing could have better for the first full meal in their new home.
Then next morning, Roscoe told Fisher and Callie to take good care of Morning Song, and he and Maria jumped to Chairman Ray’s ship.
The Command Center there felt very small compared to Morning Song’s. Roscoe was stunned he had been getting used to the huge size so quickly.
Ray and Tacita were standing there in front of the big screen. And both nodded to them as they appeared.
Roscoe had no idea what might happen. He knew that being so far away from known homes bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Sort of feeling like he was out in an ocean and couldn’t see land.
Of course, over the next million plus years, all the galaxies they were going to jump over would be seeded with human life, by a ship and crews he controlled. But in the meantime, there just wasn’t anything in any of them. All scout ships had come up completely empty for any intelligent alien life in any of the galaxies.
“We’re only taking the four of us,” Ray said. “And I’m going to jump us all the way to The Horizon. They are nearing the border of the target galaxy.”
Maria glanced at Roscoe and took his hand. Clearly she was as worried about this as he was.
Roscoe just nodded and Ray reached over and took Tacita’s hand in his. Then he smiled and a moment later the four of them were standing in a very modern Command Center.
As they appeared, everyone stood and bowed slightly.
Then a young man with a beaming smile and short, blonde hair stepped forward from near the center command chair. “It is an honor to have you on board, Chairmen.”
“The honor is ours,” Chairman Ray said, bowing slightly.
Roscoe had no idea what all the bowing was about, but at some point he needed to ask someone.
Then Ray turned to Tacita. “Chairman Strong, you know Tacita?”
Strong bowed slightly again. “Always a pleasure.”
Tacita bowed back.
Ray pointed to Roscoe and Maria where they stood holding hands. “Chairmen Mundy and Boone of Morning Song.”
Strong’s eyes got large and Roscoe was surprised at that kind of reaction. He bowed once again and said, “We are honored.”
Roscoe didn’t know what to say, so Maria jumped in. “We are the ones who are honored that you gave this mission such important attention.”
“Yes, very much,” Roscoe said.
With that, Strong nodded to one of his crew and turned around and pointed at the big screen. “Let me show you what we have found so far. We are within a few hours of the edge of the target galaxy at this speed and we are completely shielded.”
On the screen a large mass of stars appeared. Roscoe knew the galaxy was a cluster galaxy that sat alone, with no secondary galaxies or satellite galaxies even close. It had about the same number of stars as the Milky Way, but there was no telling how many were suited for life. Cluster galaxies tended to have fewer on average than spiral galaxies.
“Long-range scans are showing no signs of any forms of extremely advanced cultures at all.”
“Nothing?” Ray asked, sounding surprised.
“Nothing so far, sir,” Strong said.
“That should not be the case,” Ray said.
Roscoe wasn’t surprised at all. But he didn’t want to tell Ray that. Over the last few hundred years, and especially in the last forty working in the Sector Justice force, Roscoe had seen how short-lived dictators and totalitarian governments were. They often destroyed themselves quickly, even without Seeder help.
A huge ship full of humans had arrived here more millions of years ago than Roscoe wanted to think about. If they had managed to establish a stable, war-like culture, he would have been very, very surprised and worried. He was pretty sure a culture like that wasn’t possible for more than a few hundred years.
But still, the chance of that was why they were here. And that fear was why Chairman Ray had sent the Morning Song and picked him and Maria.
But the chance was not great anything remained here.
“Any sign of where the Dark Night might be located?” Tacita asked.
“Yes,” Strong said.
The image on the big screen focused in on a cluster of stars just inside the edge of the galaxy. “We located one of the beacons on it you said would be there, Chairman Ray. We will be in the same system thirty minutes after entering the galaxy.”
Ray nodded and Roscoe felt stunned. Maria’s hand gripped his tightly.
The big ship that had brought the Lotus here millions and millions of years ago was instantly found even from this distance. Amazing.
“How?” Maria asked.
“We planted numbers of signal systems in the big ship,” Tacita said, “that would last and could not be traced.”
“Is there a place we could wait and watch your scans and approach and not be in the way?” Ray asked.
Strong nodded. “Yes. I can jump you there if you don’t mind.”
Ray nodded and a moment later the five of them were in a large conference room with screens on all four walls and all sorts of stations around the walls.
Roscoe glanced around at the very comfortable space. In the center of the room was a white conference table with comfortable cloth chairs around it and doughnuts and other baked goods, along with fruit, on the table. There were also pitchers of water and glasses.
All the screens came up live at that moment and Strong pointed to one in the center. “You’ll be able to follow us in Command Center there and all major scans and data will appear on the other screens.
“This is wonderful,” Tacita said, looking around.
“Yes, thank you, Chairman,” Ray said.
“My pleasure and my ship’s honor,” he said. “Now if you will excuse me.”
At that he jumped away and appeared in the Command Center, quickly sitting down in his command chair.
Roscoe could tell that Chairman Strong was as excited as he was feeling, maybe more, since he and his ship existed to explore new places. And this galaxy was about as new and different as it got.
FORTY-ONE
AFTER AN HOUR or more, Maria had given in and taken a doughnut and some water. The stress of watching and waiting was more than she could take. She wasn’t sure if the chocolate-covered cake doughnut would help, but they had smelled so good, she had to find out.
More than anything else she wanted to get up and pace, but she forced herself to sit and eat instead. And luckily, the doughnut tasted as good as it smelled and was very fresh. And the dark chocolate was her favorite.
Roscoe sat in the chair next to her, staring at mostly only three screens, all showing visuals ahead. She could tell he was in his military mindset and not moving at all.
Ray and Tacita sat near the end of the table, one chair separating the two couples. They were also staring at the screens, swiveling around at times to take in other readings from other scans.
Maria was about halfway through the doughnut when Chairman Ray turned to them. “What did you expect to find here?”
Maria had had no expectations, but she knew what Roscoe had expected, so she nodded to him.
“Not much,” Roscoe said. “But we had to know for sure, otherwise we would have prepared Morning Song completely wrong for her coming mission to seed.”
“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.
Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel Page 13