“I know you will. You’re Skywalker, after all.” Maggie’s throbbing slowed. “Now, where are my little ones?”
“We’re here, Nicky,” John said.
“Good. Now hold your hands out to Maggie, just like I showed you. Don’t be afraid. Feel my energy.” The three children cupped their hands around the Cyton. “Goodbye, my sweets. I don’t want to leave you, but it’s time. Remember I love you, and take good care of one another.”
Maggie glowed brightly enough to swallow the children’s hands in an orb of light. When it faded, the Cyton was gone. Morgan watched as the youngsters’ hands remained cupped in the air. Their eyes were closed, and peaceful expressions graced their faces. It was as if Maggie had injected Nick’s spirit into them as she passed away along with her companion.
Tula habitat — Suhkai spacecraft Ethel
When the airlock door opened, Kiera was the first to step into the Tula habitat. Ajay followed shortly thereafter, his mouth hanging open. Behind him, Carillo waved to the waiting Morgan, while Shilling, engrossed in a thought exchange with the BLUMO queen, came through the door last. There were long hugs and plenty of smiles as the crew reunited with Morgan.
As Morgan separated from an embrace with Carillo, Ajay asked, “What is this place?”
“Another world,” said Morgan. “Come on, follow me. I’m sure you have a million questions and so do I, but I want to show you something first.”
The BLUMO queen departed as Morgan led his team into the rainforest. Soon they emerged into the clearing where, fifty meters away, the silver domes of the Reed-Baker-Lockett home sparkled under the glow of an artificial sun.
“Wicked!” Ajay said.
“What is it?” Kiera asked.
“Nick Reed’s home,” said Morgan.
Annie edged into view through the open front door. Sarah and John appeared behind her. “And those children are Nick’s family. Well, part of his family. Well, part of Christine’s and Avery’s, too. The strapping lad is John. The young lady is Sarah, and the little drop of sunshine is Annie. They’re anxious to meet you but, before we go to them, there’s something you should know. Nick passed away earlier today, so they’re hurting a bit. They could use some friendly faces and some TLC.”
“Say no more,” said Carillo. “I could use some too.”
She started walking toward the house with her arms extended toward the children. Shilling followed close behind. As the two astronaut parents neared the front stoop, Woof poked his head out from a nearby bush. The sudden appearance of the creature’s ostrich-like head startled Ajay. “What the heck is that?”
“The family pet,” said Morgan. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
With Kiera and Ajay following his lead, Morgan walked slowly to the bush, and they all crouched down. He extended his hand to Woof, and the creature sniffed the air. Apparently satisfied that no predators were around, Woof scampered out and licked Morgan’s hand.
Morgan encouraged Ajay to hold out his hand. “Careful, though. He’ll bite it off if you make a wrong move.”
“Huh?” Ajay yanked his hand back.
“I kid, I kid.”
A short while later, the Rorschach crew and the Reed-Baker-Lockett children gathered in the family dining room for a meal and a trading of stories. The questions and answers flowing back and forth were disjointed at first, but Morgan stepped in to bring order to the dialogue.
He asked the children to begin by telling his crew the tale of the Cetus Prime astronauts, beginning with their departure from Callisto and ending with their settling on Tula. The story they shared was more about their parents’ adventures than a detailing of facts, so Morgan interjected at various points to explain the who, what, where, why and how parts. Annie was as impatient with his interruptions as she’d been with Zoor’s.
Morgan then directed the path of the conversation to cover the Suhkai, Cytons’ and Zikzaws’ roles in the tale, including a discussion of the magnetar and the reason for Nick’s return. During the conversation, Annie hopped from lap to lap until tiring of the dialogue and falling asleep nestled up to her mother, Sarah.
John and Sarah interrupted here and there to elaborate on certain points and correct Morgan on others. Morgan shaded some of the more unseemly details in an effort to avoid speaking badly of Nick in front of the children. The crew seemed to read between the lines. When they shared their own tales, they also tiptoed around certain elements.
When Ajay, the last to share his part of the story, finished speaking, there was a lull in the conversation. Sarah yawned and whispered something to John. He nodded and turned to Morgan. “When will you be leaving?”
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“We want to visit more, but we’re exhausted.” John stood and picked up the sleeping Annie from Sarah’s lap. With a little help from Shilling, the pregnant Sarah rose up as well. The Rorschach crew left their seats and gathered around the two teenagers. Careful to avoid waking Annie, they exchanged hugs.
“Please don’t go without saying goodbye,” Sarah said to Morgan.
He kissed her on the forehead. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Will you take us to Earth with you, please?” Sarah pleaded. “Annie will be so disappointed if she doesn’t get a chance to see and play with other children. She’s never seen one. Neither have I or John.”
Morgan hugged her again. “I will come back for you in a day or two. I promise you’ll see so many children, it’ll make Woof’s legs pop off.”
Sarah smiled, arched up on her toes and pecked Morgan on the cheek. She turned to the others. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for helping us.”
Carillo hugged her and said, “I think we’re the ones who should be doing the thanking.”
After the children departed, the Rorschach crew cleaned up and left the house to walk around the meadow behind the home. Woof joined them but then scampered off behind another stand of trees. When they caught up to him, they discovered another home tucked among the trees. Looking across the meadow, they saw similar nooks with other homes.
As they wandered along, Shilling asked, “So I understand that the BLUMOs came to our rescue, Paul, but I’m not clear on why they did.”
“I’m not a hundred percent clear myself.” Morgan stopped by the edge of a small pond and turned to the group. “While you were all on your way back to Ethel, I had a long conversation with Haula, the head Suhkai aboard, and the BLUMO queen. I think I understand most of what they communicated, but there are still some parts that are hazy.
“First of all, most of the BLUMOs that came aboard Rorschach during Julia’s spacewalk never left. They cloaked themselves and observed, reporting back their observations to the queen. Hence the chirps, quivers and hisses Ajay picked up on the radio afterward. Once the queen developed an opinion of us, that’s when she instructed the alpha to connect with Julia.”
There was never a moment after that, Morgan told them, when they weren’t accompanied by a cloaked BLUMO. When he, Kiera and Ajay went aboard Ethel, a cluster of BLUMOs followed them. The same happened later when the Suhkai brought Carillo and Shilling aboard. All the while, those BLUMOs were communicating back to the queen about what was transpiring. When the queen reached the point where she’d learned enough, she intervened.
“But why did she intervene?” asked Carillo.
Morgan bent down and dipped his hand in the pond. As he pulled it out, a few jellyfish-like creatures floated to the surface. Woof came up beside him and stepped into the pond. Soon it was floating across the surface like a swan with an ostrich head. “This is where things get a bit complicated, relationship-wise, between different colonies of Cytons and between Cytons and Suhkai.”
He related Nick’s description of the reverence with which the Suhkai view Cytons, how they see the balls of light as the saviors of their race and the spreaders of life, and how, over hundreds of thousands of years, as the Suhkai expanded their presence in the galaxy, they formed symbiotic bonds with mill
ions of individual Cyton colonies.
“And that’s the sticky part. The Suhkai are so spread out now, there is no central command structure of their civilization. Their population spans thousands of light years’ worth of distance. The Cytons are spread across even more of the galaxy. In fact, the Suhkai believe they exist beyond the Milky Way. And just like honeybees on Earth, there is no central queen bee that lords over all bees. Each Cyton colony is distinct. Do they collaborate with other colonies? Yes. Do they compete or fight with other colonies? That too.”
“I see,” said Shilling. “So the BLUMOs cooperated with the Callisto UMOs to a point.”
“Exactly. As I understand it from Haula, most of the Cyton colonies in our solar system originated from the hive the Suhkai brought with them thousands of years ago — the one on Callisto. So there’s somewhat of an allegiance between the outlying colonies and the Callisto hive, but not to the point of outright deference.” Morgan turned to Kiera and Ajay. “Case in point. You know those whale songs going back and forth between the BLUMOs and Callisto? We were wrong about the gist of their conversation. From what I was told, they weren’t coordinating a handoff of Rorschach. The BLUMO queen was questioning the purpose of the handoff and alerting the Callisto queen that there was a Zikzaw lurking about. Their conversation turned into a fight about who was responsible for dealing with the Zikzaw, and then a discussion of a joint effort to kill it.”
Shilling sat down on a rock and shook his head. “These are such sophisticated beings. I’m having a hard time believing they’re so sentient. None of the UMOs around Earth ever demonstrated anything close to these kinds of interactions and coordination.”
“Well, I might be wrong, but I think it comes down to environment.” Morgan lowered himself onto the rock next to Shilling. “The harsher the living conditions, the more the Cytons rely on each other and work together. The BLUMOs are tough and clever because they’ve had to be in order to survive in the belt. They’ve developed a collective intelligence and honed cooperative tactics.”
Kiera sat on the grass and stretched out her legs. “I see what you’re saying. Around Earth, food is abundant, and there are no Zikzaws or other big-time threats, so there isn’t the same pull for colonies to bond together. As a result they’re simpler, more individualistic in their behaviors.”
“Kind of like the colony that followed us from Earth,” Ajay said.
Woof exited the pond and shook his fur dry, spraying water on the crew.
As Carillo wiped droplets off her flight suit, she said, “That’s all very interesting, Paul, but it doesn’t answer my question. Why did the BLUMO queen get involved?”
“Short answer — disgust, bitterness,” Morgan said. “She couldn’t take the hypocrisy of the Suhkai and the complicity of the Callisto hive queen. The magnetar didn’t wake up on its own four thousand years ago. The Suhkai stirred it awake in the process of creating a magwave to transport hydrogen and helium they’d mined from Jupiter. The Cytons had apparently warned them against trying it, telling them it was too unstable, but the Suhkai ignored them. The BLUMO queen was here when it all went down. Her colony was the one the Suhkai dispatched to deal with the Zikzaws way back then. She considered the Suhkai cowards for leaving.
“So when the Callisto queen alerted her the Suhkai were coming back, it evidently surprised the BLUMO queen. At first she thought the Suhkai were returning to finally deal with the magnetar. You know, clean up their mess. But then the Callisto queen tasked her with intercepting us, and eventually the BLUMO queen figured out the Suhkai were sneaking back to collect humans to seed a new colony on Tula instead of confronting the real issue. That pissed her off. Especially when another Zikzaw showed up. By the way, you want to hear something amazing? The BLUMO queen didn’t know humans existed until they found our fleet and started tracking us.”
Ajay was examining a piece of fruit he had pulled from the branch of a nearby tree. He turned to look at Morgan. “You’re kidding. How could they not know about us?”
Kiera picked at blades of grass. “Not my monkeys, not my circus.”
Shilling nodded. “That’s probably exactly right. The colonies I’ve studied around Earth tend to stay away from one another, stick to their own territories. It’s probably true of all colonies.”
“But Cetus Prime…it passed through the belt,” Ajay protested.
“With an escort of Cytons from Mars, remember?” Shilling said.
“That’s right,” Kiera said. “And keep in mind how big the belt is. They may never have crossed paths with the BLUMOs.”
Carillo knelt beside Woof and petted his head. “It would certainly explain why they dissected our fleet. They couldn’t figure out what to make of us.”
“Or what to make of you in your spacesuit,” Morgan added.
Kiera brushed grass from her hands. “Or why our UMOs didn’t respond to them.”
There was a pause in the conversation as the five astronauts absorbed the totality of the information. Drops of rain began to fall. Kiera tilted her head up and let it splash her face. “Oh my God. That feels so good. I never thought I’d ever say it, but man do I miss rain.”
“And sunrises,” said Shilling. “And my family.”
“Ditto,” Carillo said.
“Don’t forget sunsets,” Ajay chipped in.
“Or margaritas,” added Morgan.
“Mmmm…how about a big juicy burger,” Kiera said.
As more rain fell, they continued to rattle off additional items on their list of missed joys and comforts until Carillo said, “Okay, I think we’ve firmly established we want to go home. So what’s the plan, Paul?”
“Short-term or long-term?”
“Both.”
“Well, I’ve already arranged for the Suhkai to take us to Earth on the cruiser that brought you guys back…with a BLUMO escort, of course. Sounds like it’ll be a quick trip, less than a few hours, but first I have some negotiating to do with our hosts about the long-term plan. So I’d say we’ll be heading out in less than a day. You guys should get some rest in the meantime.” Morgan nodded in the direction of an igloo-house across the meadow. “I’ve been told we can use one of the homes. The Suhkai will prep whichever one you all choose.”
Delighted faces soaked in the news along with the light rain. Carillo said, “Sounds good. By the way, we brought you a flight suit and your boots. The Suhkai are holding them for you.”
“Excellent.” Morgan wiggled his feet. “I’m kinda tired of the slippers.”
“What about Mayaguana?” Kiera asked. “Dante, Mr. Amato and the rest must be beside themselves. Not to mention our families.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Kiera. We’ll give Maya a heads-up before I huddle with the queen and Haula.”
“Speaking of which, what’s the long-term plan?” Shilling asked.
“Well, we should talk about that. Believe it or not, the BLUMO queen has put me in charge of this boat and the Suhkai crew. She’s left the next steps in my hands…our hands. To me, it’s a no-brainer to send Ethel back to Tula with a colony of humans, willing humans, people who know what they’re signing up for and what’s expected of them. Agreed?”
Amid the unanimous bobbing of heads, Shilling asked, “How do you plan to recruit them?”
Morgan shrugged. “Above my pay grade. When we get back, we’ll discuss it with Augie, Dennis Pritchard, Helen Brock. Discreetly call in some experts, see what they recommend.”
Shilling frowned. “When you say discreetly, you mean to say we’re not going to tell people about the magnetar?”
“That’s another one I’m struggling with, Bob,” Morgan said. “I don’t want to panic people, but I don’t want to lie to them either. So if we’re going to talk about it, we’ve got to find a way to have the conversation without freaking everybody out. I mean, from what the Suhkai shared with me, it could be thousands of years before it finally erupts. Kinda feel that argues in favor of easing into the conversation, but even if we do
that, there’s no way we’ll be able to control people’s reactions to the news. Yet we’re going to need help to stabilize the magnetar, so we’re going to have to clue in some big-brained scientists. And once we —”
Carillo raised her hand. “Whoa there! You hinted at this earlier. We can stabilize it?”
“Well, not alone. Evidently the Cytons and Suhkai have done it before, but it’s a dicey deal from what they tell me. No guarantees and all that. It could backfire and the star could blow up. Truth is, we need to get a closer look at it, study it and figure out a plan. The BLUMO queen has committed her colony to help us, and she’s commanded the Suhkai to assist. They’ll be calling in some help from outside the solar system.”
“And where is this magnetar?” Kiera asked.
“Ballpark…two light years away.”
“So it could blow before anyone gets there,” Ajay said.
Morgan nodded.
“Geez, that’s not a comforting thought,” Carillo said.
“No, it isn’t, but those are the cards we’ve been dealt, so those are the cards we’ll play with. But I’m also going to ask for additional cards.”
He told the crew he would push for an agreement to have Ethel make round trips to Tula until it could no longer fly. And he would demand the Suhkai take a contingent of human engineers in the first colony to study the ship during the journey and design other boats that could be added to the caravan over time. “They may not be as grand as this boat, but if we can send four or five at a time, then we can transport more people to Tula.”
Ajay’s eyes got big. “Or other places in the galaxy.”
“You read my mind, Elroy,” said Morgan. “I’m also gonna demand the Suhkai hand over the Callisto and Dione facilities so we can establish permanent bases for human space exploration, including a commitment to staff the facilities with Suhkai and a full complement of their cruisers. They don’t have to stay in perpetuity, just long enough to show us how to operate the facilities, adapt them for human use, mine Jupiter and Saturn and build the propulsion system that powers their cruisers. Who knows how long it will take us to get up to speed, but once we do, we’ll be in a position to start spreading humanity across the galaxy.”
Magwave (The Rorschach Explorer Missions Book 2) Page 31
