Then he turned to me and with a half-smile said, “Go and say hello?”
FOUR
WE DID SOME QUICK CHECKING and the atmosphere outside the ship in the huge space dock was normal, no bad things in it that could kill us. And the gravity seemed to be Earth-normal as well.
Beyond that, we couldn’t tell much of anything about the ship around us past what we could see in the huge room. The dock had to be as large as a football stadium and could have easily held three or four ships The Lady’s size.
We tested, but every control we had was locked down solid and our engines were offline. We were going nowhere under our own power.
“You ready, Skip?” Doc asked, standing and pretending to stretch like he was relaxed about meeting the owners of these huge ships.
I just shook my head and stood as well. “Seems like we have no choice, doesn’t it?”
A good minute later we were standing on the deck looking around. The sides of the room seem to vanish in the distance and I was clearly wrong. This room could hold twenty ships the size of ours, and have room between them all.
And we thought we had built a large ship when we built the Lady. Everything in space was relative it seemed.
Then, just as the first time we were grabbed, everything shimmered and we found ourselves in a meeting room with tables full of meats and vegetables and breads that that looked like they had been worked over by starving hordes.
I turned slowly around, surveying the large meeting room. The place was littered with a bunch of blankets and chairs and cots. One wall was filled with a huge view port that looked down on the greens and blues and whites of the planet below.
“Looks like we are late for the party,” Doc said.
“If you had come to this planet ten minutes earlier,” a voice said from behind us, “you more than likely would have been as dead as most of those on the planet below.”
Doc and I spun around to see a man about my height and weight walking toward us, smiling. He had brown hair, wore jeans and a green short-sleeved shirt tucked into his pants. He looked as normal and as human as anyone from Earth.
And as far as I could tell, he was speaking perfect English. We had met a few human cultures that had perfected some sort of translation devices that just made it sound like they were speaking English. But this was even more advanced. His lips seemed to match what he was saying.
Considering the size of this ship we were in, I think I would have been less stunned if an alien had joined us spouting six arms and a beak and squeaking our national anthem.
He extended his hand for me to shake. “I’m Benson.”
“Fisher,” I said, carefully shaking his hand back.
It felt as normal as any human handshake, which bothered me even more.
“Doc,” my stunned partner said softly as he shook Benson’s hand next.
“So you are the two explorers we’ve been hearing about,” Benson said, smiling. “I understand you have had some adventures.”
“A few,” I said, even more shocked that anyone had followed us around this area of space. Granted, it was a tiny area in comparison to the entire Milky Way Galaxy, but we had still covered a lot of light years and visited a few hundred Earth-like planets. And tracking us through open trans-tunnel space wasn’t like following footprints in the mud. Or at least I didn’t think it was.
“So where are you two from?” Benson asked.
“Earth.” I gave him the answer I knew would make him smile and at the same time give him no information at all, since most of the human planets we had visited had called their planets Earth. In fact, every one of them had.
He did smile. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to tell me. How about I show you around and tell you what we are doing and then maybe you’ll feel more like talking. I find it fascinating that a human culture in this area has advanced as far as you have.”
I almost told him that the rest of our planet hadn’t just yet, but instead just nodded and said, “Lead the way. But first off, what happened down there?”
I pointed at the planet that could be seen out of a large view port on one side of the room.
Benson tapped something on his wrist and in the air near us an image of the Milky Way Galaxy came into being, spinning in the air.
Impressive three-dimensional image.
Then like focusing in, the view shifted down to this spiral arm of the galaxy and then to this small section of space. There had to be five hundred suns represented by nothing more than bright colored lights floating in the air.
One light was suddenly circled in the air by a red ring.
“An explosion in this sun caused rays of extreme electro-magnetic energy to be sent out into space.”
From the circled star a number of white rays seemed to expand outward. Benson went on. “By the time we noticed the explosion and calculated the frequency of the energy and then traced its path, we were too late to get here to save the people of this planet.”
“EMP blast killed them where they stood,” Doc said, nodding. “The right frequency would short circuit human brains like that.”
Benson nodded. “About three million of the population survived by accidentally being in different forms of shelters or underground or inside something that shielded them. They didn’t know it was coming.
Then I understood finally what we had seen. “But there was a second blast of energy following the first.”
Benson nodded. “We got here ahead of that with a large enough fleet and got the survivors out of the way. What you witnessed was us putting them back.”
“We arrived right behind the second wave?” Doc asked.
“About two minutes after it passed,” Benson said. “Your shielding might have sheltered you, but it might not have either. Before you leave we will help you strengthen that shielding some for the future.”
I looked at Benson and then nodded. “Thanks.”
“So you go around rescuing planets full of humans?” Doc asked.
Benson shook his head sadly. “First time. But after this we will be more vigilant. Millions died down there before we got here.”
He seemed actually deeply affected by that, so I tried to change the subject.
“So you know who seeded humans on so many planets in this area of the galaxy?” I asked.
“In every area of the galaxy,” he said so matter-of-factly that it bothered me. “There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of human civilizations in different stages of development in the galaxy. And no one knows much about the people or race who did it except that it took them over fifty thousand years to complete the task.”
“Your planet was seeded as well?” Doc asked. “How come you are more advanced than any we have seen?”
“We were all seeded,” he said, nodding. Again the floating map of the Milky Way Galaxy came into being in the air beside us. “My home planet is there, also called Earth.”
A circle appeared around a dot a third of the way around the galaxy. Then another appeared around a dot I knew to be the sun we were orbiting.
“We are here at the moment,” Benson said. “My area of the galaxy was seemingly seeded first, so civilizations that survived in that area are the most advanced. This arm of the galaxy was next, and as you move around in a clockwise direction, each human civilization gets more primitive.”
“Wow,” was all I could say.
Benson went on. “Our area of the galaxy has formed a large organization of aligned planets and about fifty worlds work together. That’s why we could mount such a large fleet on such short notice.”
“And no alien life at all?” Doc asked.
“Nothing above basic animal level,” Benson said. “The Seeders, as we call them, not only seeded humans, but all the plant and animal life it would take to sustain human civilizations in the growth years.”
“All the same on every planet?” Doc asked.
“All the same. Exactly.”
I stood there shaking my head a
nd just staring at the image of the galaxy floating in the empty meeting room air. I remembered how stunned I had felt every time we came across another human civilization during our first year exploring. But after a while I had just come to expect it.
Now I was feeling that same feeling again. It was just too much to grasp.
Humans always thought we were alone in the galaxy. It seems we were. But not in the way people back home might think.
Finally I shook my head and glanced at Benson, who looked almost haunted as he stared out the view port at the planet below. For some reason he clearly felt responsible for all those deaths.
I decided that our only hope in learning even more from Benson and his people was to confide in him.
“Could you focus this image in again to this area of space?” I asked, pointing to the floating galaxy.
He nodded and the floating image focused down and I pointed to a yellow star about sixty light years from this sun. “That’s our Earth. And we are the only two that have this kind of technology at the moment.”
Benson nodded. “I figured as much,” he said. “On a couple of the planets in our area single explorers were the first out between the stars as well.”
“So we are the first in this area of space,” Doc said.
Benson nodded. “But after some of your visits to a few of the planets, I have a hunch those won’t be far behind now that they know it’s possible.”
How in the world had he traced us? I was about to ask, but Doc got a question in first.
“So is your drive the same technology as ours?” Doc asked as I turned to stare back out at the damaged planet below.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Benson shrug. “Just more advanced, but the same principles. If you want, I’ll get some of our scientists to explain some of it to you?”
“You’d do that?” I asked, turning to Benson. I was again as stunned as Doc looked.
“Why not?” Benson asked. “We’re all out here together. If we can’t help other human civilizations, what’s the point?”
Doc opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He was like a kid that had just been offered everything for free in a candy store.
I just shook my head and turned back to the view port. “So how do we help all those people down there?”
“We can’t do much,” Benson said. “At least not right now. Not until they get through the rebuilding stage, which the experts tell me is going to take a few hundred years at least.”
“They have enough population to survive?” I asked.
Benson nodded. “More than enough. The Seeders only put a hundred and forty-four thousand humans on every planet and all but a few populations managed to keep going. There’s almost three million alive down there still.”
That exact number bothered me as well. A lot about this was bothering me, but I was in such shock, nothing was fitting together.
“You saved millions,” Doc said. “That’s impressive.”
“And we didn’t save many millions more,” Benson said, his voice soft. “But the one thing we know about humans, we survive. And they will as well. The Seeders made sure we all had that trait.”
FIVE
WE SPENT THE NEXT two months on the big ship, getting The Lady refitted with the most advanced technology and screens. Doc was like a kid let loose with a million new toys. He was soaking in more information than I could ever imagine and said that The Lady would be the fastest thing in the galaxy when he got finished with it. And the safest.
I was happy to hear that second part.
At first I spent about half my time with him learning everything I could about our new upgrades, especially the ones that were in my areas of expertise. The rest of the time I explored Benson’s vast ship that he called The R-12. He said it was so new, rushed into service for the big evacuation, that it hadn’t been officially named yet.
It turned out Benson was actually the captain of the thing. But it seemed the big ships of his world were run more like huge corporations and he was the Chairman of the Board. Everyone called him “Mr. Chairman” instead of Captain.
Their corporate system sure seemed to work. There had to be a thousand people on board of all ages and sizes. And many had families, including newborn babies.
“Nice thing about space,” Benson said one day when I commented on the size of the ship while sitting in his office. “Materials are plentiful in space, power is limitless, and size is easy.”
At first, after the second day we were on Benson’s ship, there were still four of the original hundreds of the big ships in orbit around the planet. But as the month wore on the other three ships left when it became clear that there just wasn’t anything more anyone could do to help the people on the planet. Those people down there were starting over in the bones of their own civilization. But it was clear even after a month that they would make it.
Benson said his ship had been picked to remain in orbit watching them for at least six months. He said it gave him and his crew time to settle in to their new ship.
At the beginning of the second month, I finally decided to flat ask Benson a question that had haunted me since we had been on board.
“Has anyone ever gone looking for the Seeders?”
He laughed. “Just about every day from every planet out there that has figured out space travel.”
“And no trace?”
“Not one item left behind by the Seeders. Nothing. They seeded the galaxy with humans and plants and animal life that took over on each Earth-like planet in the Goldilocks zone of each sun and then seemingly vanished.”
He tapped what I had come to learn was a form of computer panel on his desk, then scribbled something on a note pad that everyone on the ship seemed to have and leave around like paper. He then handed the pad to me.
“Doctor Jenny Sins, the top scientist in the department focused on the Seeders search. Go talk with her. Tell her I sent you.”
“You have an entire department on the ship for this?”
“Every ship does. The question you asked is that important to all of us. We all know how the universe started. That’s just science. None of us have a clue how we got here. Or for that matter, why?”
SIX
I WAS STUNNED when I entered the Seeder Research area of Benson’s big ship. There had to be fifty people working in the large room at different stations. I had no idea what they might be doing.
An elderly man with white hair and a formally white lab coat that seemed smeared with some sort of strawberry jam sat at the first desk closest to the entrance. He glanced up and then smiled with a perfect set of teeth. The smile made his face turn into a mass of loose flesh and wrinkles. “You’re one of the explorers from this sector, aren’t you?”
“I am. Doctor Vardis Fisher,” I said, extending my hand. “But everyone just calls me Fisher.”
The older man took my hand and shook it, but before he could say anything a woman’s voice behind me said, “Well, Doctor Fisher, The Chairman warned me you would be coming.”
I turned around to face one of the most beautiful woman I could have ever imagined wearing a white lab coat. And trust me, over the years I had imagined some pretty amazing women in white lab coats. Never met one, but imagined many.
“I’m Doctor Jenny Sins,” she said, extending her hand and smiling and melting me down even more. The smile reached her pretty green eyes and made her seem radiant. She had long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and seemed to be about my height.
And she was my age as far as I could tell. I was far, far, far from an expert on anything to do with women. Most of them over the years had just ignored me, and to be honest, most of the time I had been too busy with research and work to pay much attention to them in return.
That didn’t mean I didn’t want a relationship some day. It just had never come to the top of the priority list.
I took her hand and managed to choke out that I was pleased to meet her.
More pleased than
she would want to know I imagine.
She held my hand for a few seconds too long while she stared into my eyes, then nodded and let go and turned away. “Let me show you what we do here.”
Somehow, following her and her flowing brown hair and white lab coat, I managed to pull myself back together a little. But for a climate-controlled ship, it was sure hot in this Seeder Research lab.
After introducing me to three others, we finally ended up in a large open office built into one wall of the large room. It was clearly her office and from it she could pretty much see the entire room.
She went around and sat behind a large desk that had seemed to have grown out of the floor. She indicated I should take the chair across the desk from her, which I gladly did. Anything at that point to stay talking with her.
She smiled at me again and once again the room got far too hot for normal climate control.
“Well, Doctor Fisher, ask me anything and I’ll see what I can tell you.”
“It’s just Fisher,” I said.
She smiled again. “Jenny.”
I think I smiled in return and then tried to gather my wits enough to ask something logical about the Seeders.
“So is it clear where they started and where they stopped?”
She nodded and with a few quick taps on a control panel on her desk, an image of the Milky Way Galaxy appeared on the wall to the right.
“They started in this area,” she said, and on the map an arrow appeared pointing at some stars on the outer edge of one of the spiral arms of the galaxy.
“They went around the galaxy clockwise, working inward and then outward, and ended in this area.”
Again on the image of the galaxy another arrow appeared near the edge of the galaxy.
“Looks like they came into the galaxy,” I said, “did their work, and then left.”
She nodded. “Sure seems that way.”
“How far into the core of the galaxy did they push?”
“Only as far in as human population could stand the radiation levels,” she said. “But very few of those civilizations in close have survived for very long. Just too much going on that causes planet-wide destruction.”
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