Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel (20 page)
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.
“So what were you thinking about?”
“Honestly,” she said, “about what we are going to build and about how much I love you.”
“I really like both of those thoughts,” he said, hugging her even tighter against him. “You know, we’ve never really talked about that we are committing ourselves to each other for a very long time.”
“Does that bother you?” she asked.
He laughed softly. “It actually is one of the things I love about doing all this. I’m going to get to do this for a very, very long time with you.”
She kissed him on the chest and said, “I like that thought as well.”
“How about you?” he asked. “Are you bothered by us being together for such a long time?”
“I’m worried about one thing,” she said, snuggling down against him.
“And what’s that?” he asked.
“I’m worried that a very, very long time won’t be long enough.”
“Then we’ll make it even longer,” he said, squeezing her. “I promise.”
“I promise as well,” she said.
And with that she kissed his skin one more time and snuggled down close and went to sleep with the man she loved and planned to love for even more than an eternity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction,
USA Today
bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
At the moment he produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, and a superhero series starring Poker Boy.
His monthly magazine,
Smith's Monthly,
which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month.
During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen
Star Trek
novels, the only two original
Men in Black
novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for
Hallmark Hall of Fame
movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from
The Final Fantasy
to
Steel
to
Rundown.
Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at
VB Tech Journal,
then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed
Fiction River
anthology series.
For more information about Dean's books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at
www.deanwesleysmith.com
.
Look for These Other Titles from
Dean Wesley Smith
The Seeders Universe:
Against Time
Sector Justice
Morning Song
The High Edge
The Earth Protection League Series:
Life of a Dream
The Thunder Mountain Series: