Starburst, page 7
“They did it on purpose,” Cole said, nodding. “I am sure of that.” The reason was dawning on him and he hated it.
Echo looked at him. “Why?”
“They branded them,” Cole said. “Just as we could kick the ancients off this ship by seeing the difference in our genes, they needed a way to track anyone from these groups.”
All Echo could do was nod.
The ancients purposely damaged millions of people simply so they could be tracked.
Cole was really starting to hate the ancients.
CHAPTER 15
Echo and Cole sat over the dinner she had cooked. Chicken breasts in a light garlic sauce with steamed potatoes and some corn. She had to admit, this meal had turned out better than she had hoped. The sauce was a lot lighter.
The evening felt normal, which Echo loved. Even their cats were asleep in their normal places in the living room area.
It now had been a month since all the ancients had been kicked from all the Starburst ships and safeguards set up through the breadcrumb trail back to the Milky Way to let none of them through again.
Everything on all twenty Starburst ships seemed to have returned to a normal pace and the loss of friends and the hurt of being betrayed was fading. Seeders never forgot anything, so the memory wouldn’t leave any of them. But they could get past it.
And it seemed most were.
Echo could feel herself putting the hurt and loss of JP away.
As of today, fifty-two of the seeded areas had been explored by the twenty ships. All of the ancient seeded areas were exactly the same. The human populations had vanished a long, long time before. At almost the exact same time in history.
“We’re wasting our time now looking at all these seeded areas,” Cole said, finishing off the last of his chicken. Then he pointed to his empty plate. “That was wonderful.”
He took a sip of the oaked chardonnay she had picked out to go with the sauce and dinner and nodded, holding up the glass. “And this is perfect as well.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling. “Going to have to remember how I did that sauce.”
“Please,” he said.
“So what do you suggest we do next?” Echo asked, finishing off the last of her chicken as well and letting it sort of melt in her mouth.
“I think we pull in all scout ships,” Cole said, “and all twenty of us head for the first logical location where we think all these people would have gone.”
She nodded and sipped her wine. She liked the idea, but it worried her on a number of levels, not the least of which was what they would find when they got there. Assuming they figured out correctly where millions of galaxies of humans had vanished to.
“Not agreeing?” Cole asked.
“Not disagreeing,” Echo said. “Just worried. Feels like there is something we are missing.”
She had no idea what that might be, but everything about this entire mission felt off.
“I agree,” Cole said, taking a sip of his wine and then standing and starting to clean up the dishes. She just sat and sipped on her wine.
“What is haunting me is that Ray and Tacita said that the ancients were scared when we discovered no humans here,” Echo said. “It was what they had been afraid of.”
“That bothered me as well,” Cole said as he moved the dishes toward the dishwasher near the sink. “But why I have no idea.”
Cole worked in silence as she sipped on the wine.
Finally she asked, “Think we should check in with the other chairmen tomorrow to see if they think we should all spend a year going even deeper in space?”
“I do,” he said. “But if we are going to do it, I think we should all meet up in this area of space and go as a fleet.”
She nodded. “One more ancient seeded area will be reached tomorrow. If no change, we contact everyone.”
“If one of them doesn’t contact us first,” Cole said, smiling. “Got a hunch we’re all having this same conversation.”
“I have a hunch that you are right,” she said, laughing.
And he was.
The next morning, while she was still running along the edge of one of the ship’s many forests in her morning exercise routine, Star Ray reached yet another abandoned seeded area of galaxies. Thirty minutes later Chairmen Lisa and Jaden called for a conference call and included Ray and Tacita.
Echo was called to the command center and when she appeared there, Cole was laughing.
“Great minds think alike,” he said to her, then turned to the big screen. “Star Trail, please add us into the conference link with the other chairmen.”
It took only another fifteen seconds before all the Starburst chairmen and Ray and Tacita were on the big screen. Twenty boxes. In each image Echo could see the command center crews behind the chairmen.
“I would imagine we have all been talking about this,” Jaden said. Since he and Lisa had called the gathering, it was his place to lead it. His smile was wide and his shaved head almost gleamed in the light around him. “What should we do next is the big question?”
Ray nodded. “There is little doubt now that all seeded areas will be found abandoned by their human populations.”
“Are we all pretty much in agreement with where we think they all went?” Jaden asked.
Echo nodded and beside her Cole did as well. All the chairmen on the screen nodded as well, without exception. She liked that they were all in agreement on this.
“On a direct path to the assumed target location,” Lisa said, “It would take one year. But Jaden and I have another suggestion.”
Jaden nodded. “Star Ray, please show the image of the suggested exploration paths of each Starburst ship. Show each location now with a green dot, show the target location with a red dot. Show the paths with a dotted line.”
An image filled the screen replacing all of the faces of the other chairmen. It was a three-dimensional image of what looked like a sphere, but not a perfect sphere, more like a pumpkin shaped ball, with all the lines coming back in together at the red dot.
Echo could see the line from Star Trail leading off into unknown space and then circling around and back to the red dot of the target.
“We’re out here to explore,” Lisa’s voice came over the image. “That’s what these ships were built for. We think we should go exploring for some years on the way to our target. See what’s out there.”
Echo loved that idea. It sent a thrill of excitement down her spine just thinking of it.
Beside her Cole was nodding as well.
“That plan is being sent to all of the ships now,” Jaden said as all the images of the chairmen appeared back on the screen.
“How long would it take to get to the target with these paths?” Ray asked.
“At trans-tunnel forty,” Jaden said, “and dropping scout ships where we find interesting galaxies, it would take five years. At trans-tunnel thirty-six, which would allow scout ships more time along the way, it would take just over ten years.”
Ray and Tacita both nodded.
“This plan would explore a vast area,” Lisa said. “An area we really haven’t even looked at in the slightest.”
Almost all the chairmen on the screen were nodding.
“I suggest everyone study the plan and the details we have sent,” Jaden said. “We meet again at the same time tomorrow morning.”
Everyone nodded.
“Good,” Jaden said, smiling. “See everyone tomorrow.”
And the screen went back to scrolling reports.
Around them the command center started buzzing with excited conversations.
Echo turned to Cole, who was smiling.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I love the ten-year plan,” he said, smiling. “And I find it exciting again. Just exploring into the unknown.”
“Getting reports from twenty ships exploring into the unknown,” Echo said. “I find this idea wonderfully exciting.”
“Star Trail,” Cole said, giving her a hug and then turning to the big screen. “Please put up the image sent from Star Ray on one side of the screen and the data on the other.”
Echo turned to the command crew behind them. “I want all of you studying this as well and any problems or opinions you might have before shift change today.”
Everyone nodded. They all looked as excited as she felt.
Suddenly what had been missing was now back. This was a ship for exploration and exploring they were going again.
Finally.
CHAPTER 16
Cole was just about to head out on his afternoon run. He and Echo and the rest of the command center crew had gone over all the details about taking all twenty Starburst ships out to explore. Everything seemed fine and sounded exciting. There was no telling what might be out there in those millions of galaxies they would pass.
But something still felt wrong.
He leaned against their command chair, just staring at the large screen and information came over it giving him no help at all. Echo paced, just thinking, clearly not completely convinced at all either. She did that when she was bothered.
So he decided to do what a college professor had suggested he do when in doubt: Question all basic assumptions.
The first basic assumption was that one group of ancients was afraid of a second group of ancients. He could see no reason for that assumption. Nothing.
Sure, they had sent spies on this mission, but that didn’t seem to be out of fear but more out of trying to find out what had happened out here.
The groups they were searching for had left ancient space over four million years ago. What kind of grudge would last that long? But Seeders did have the ability to remember just about anything.
So he decided to ask a question he should have asked back when the ancients were on the ship.
“Star Trail, what was the average age of the ancients who were on this ship?”
“Two hundred and six thousand years.”
Echo snapped around and looked at him, frozen in mid-pace.
“Repeat that please,” Cole said, not really sure if he had heard the answer correctly or not.
“Two hundred and six thousand years,” Star Trail said. “That is approximate to the nearest year.”
“What was the age of the oldest and what was the age of the youngest?” Cole asked.
“Seven thousand and four years was the oldest,” Star Trail said, “the youngest was ninety years of age.”
Cole just felt shocked. In all his years as a Seeder he had never thought to ask some really basic questions about living.
“What is the overall average age a Seeder will live to?” Echo asked.
“One thousand, three hundred, and eight years old,” Star Trail said. “Again that is an approximation of the average rounded to the nearest year of the data I have.”
Silence filled the command center.
Complete and heavy silence.
Cole always felt that if lucky, he could live for millions of years. Now he understood suddenly it was going to take luck.
A lot of luck.
“What is the average age of the Seeders on this ship?” Echo asked.
“Four hundred and sixty years.”
“Main cause of death of Seeders?” Cole asked as he tried to get his mind working again.
“Accidents,” Star Trail said.
Cole nodded to that. They had had many, many deaths on Star Trail from accidents since they launched. It always seemed tragic, but it happened so often he hadn’t thought much about it. After all, they had three million people on board.
“Second main cause?” Echo asked.
“Suicide,” Star Trail said.
Cole again nodded. They had had numbers of those as well, but usually when someone started developing suicidal traits, they were sent back to the Milky Way for help.
Echo was looking almost haunted.
The silence around them felt unnatural. Clearly none of their command crew had thought to ask these basic questions either.
But now Cole needed another piece of information.
“Star Trail, with the information you have, how many Seeders, by percentage, will live to one million years of age? And beyond?”
“One-point-three percent,” Star Trail said.
Now Cole knew what happened to the ancients they were looking for out here. But he had to hammer the nail in the coffin home just to make sure in his own mind.
“Star Trail, how many humans with Seeder genes would be born on a normal planet of four billion population in ten years?”
“Approximately one thousand every ten-point-six years with a four billion population base.”
“You multiply that by billions of human planets in any seeded galaxy and you have a lot of Seeders,” Echo said. “Most don’t have their Seeder genes activated.”
Cole nodded. “Especially counting the fact that just in our group we have seeded a couple hundred thousand galaxies.”
“Exactly,” Echo said.
“Star Trail, how often do Seeders have children after their Seeder genes are activated?” Cole asked.
He knew the answer, but he needed to hear it one more time.
“One child per every two thousand Seeders,” Star Trail said.
Cole nodded.
Echo looked pale. A number of the command crew gasped lightly.
If these groups of Seeders had been stupid enough to breed only Seeder genes in the entire populations of these planets and activate them all, then they really did just die out.
They would not have had the human population bases to continue seeding, either, since seeding requires taking base material from a seeded planet and moving it to the next planet.
Very, very few Seeders would have lived long enough to be alive now.
But the real question was could they have been that stupid?
He didn’t believe they could have been. Something else had happened.
And where did all those mother ships go?
CHAPTER 17
Echo now understood why the massive numbers of galaxies that had been the ancients’ home world were empty. It wasn’t because they had all moved out to a big new home. The ancients had told them that those galaxies had been only populated by Seeders and the home center had only had Seeders in it as well. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of Seeders.
And that the ancients had stopped exploring and seeding new galaxies with humans millions of years earlier.
The ancients had died off as well.
They didn’t have a big new home. They had an empty old one the ancients were trying to keep maintained so that humans could once again live in it.
How could the ancients have been that stupid? What could have happened?
But now she knew that what they were facing wasn’t two warring factions of ancients. They just had one faction, the original ancients hoping against hope that the other groups had survived. No wonder the ancients had feared exactly what the Starburst ships had found.
“We need to talk with Ray and Tacita,” Echo said. “Get them to confront the ancients with this.”
“And we need to tell all the chairmen this theory,” Cole said.
Echo nodded. She knew Cole was calling it a theory, but it was the only theory that explained what they had found. In both the ancients’ home area of space and in these seeded areas.
“Star Trail,” Cole said. “Please ask all other Starburst ship chairmen to join us in a conference call. And invite chairmen Ray and Tacita as well.”
“Invitation sent,” Star Trail said. “Links are coming live.”
“On the main screen,” Echo said.
Within three minutes the other forty chairmen were present on the screen. Their command center crews were all watching behind them.
Cole glanced at Echo and she nodded that he should start.
“Matt and Carey,” Cole said, “when you discovered the ancients’ home area of space, it was clear that they had all left the planets about the same time in history. Correct?”
Matt and Carey both nodded.
“And when the eight of you talked with the ancients,” Cole said, to the eight chairmen who had originally met the ancients, “they alluded to learning while trying to build a new home? Correct?”
All eight nodded.
“They would not, in any fashion, tell us where the new home was,” Ray said. “Even though we had been friends with a few of them for a very long time.”
“Because they were embarrassed,” Echo said.
“Why would they be embarrassed?” Tacita asked.
“Because they had to move back in with the kids,” Cole said. “Their new home was with us.”
“And we just kicked them out of it,” Echo said. “For the moment at least.”
The puzzled expressions on the forty faces on the screen almost made Cole smile.
“None of us did the math,” Echo said.
Now the puzzled expressions just deepened.
“When you were talking with the ancients,” Cole said, “didn’t they say that all their home worlds had been only full of Seeders?”
“They did,” Ray said, nodding.
“So let’s do some math,” Echo said. “Star Trail, what is the average lifespan of all known Seeders?”
“One thousand, three hundred, and eight years old,” Star Trail said. “Again that is an approximation of the average rounded to the nearest year of the data.”
Cole nodded. Those were the exact words Star Trail had said when they first asked the question.
“Star Trail,” Echo said, “how often do Seeders have children after their Seeder genes are activated?”
“One child per every two thousand Seeders,” Star Trail said.
“In other words,” Echo said, “doing the math, a planet of one billion Seeders would have a population of only five hundred thousand in one thousand years. And a thousand years after that only two hundred and fifty.”
Stunned shock covered the faces of the chairmen.
A couple chairmen were nodding.
“It would be delayed by the small percentage of Seeders who lived past the thousand years,” Echo said, “but not much.”
