Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel (19 page)

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.

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 have 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.