Hello Mr. Robinson Pt. 12

It took me thirty-six hours in real time, which corresponded to thousands in the digital realm, to break the puzzle wide open. This was the first step and I was running out of time. I feared I would run out before I got beyond the first door. Speaking of the door, once the correct sequence was keyed in the one hundred and twenty-five-foot door split open and I was greeted by a holographic guide. I guess form dictated function. The hologram was the spitting image of the ship or maybe the ship was meant to match its creators. I swam to meet it. The hologram formed a sphere around me and carried me along much faster than I could have swam. The scale of the ship hinted that the builders were not only vastly superior to humans but much larger physically as well. The hologram took me to what appeared to be a work station. The room was a two-hundred-foot cube with holes in all six surfaces. The spacing and shape of the holes appeared identical in all respects. I hovered over one of the stations and there were eight holes and around them in a perfect circle was something akin to an electronic grid pattern, like a circuit board. I suspect that the crew inserted their tentacles into the holes and that somehow, they manipulated controls inside those holes. That was my guess at least. The sphere I was in was lowered into one of the holes and I could see the internal mechanism.

"I was right. The pliable material adhered to their tentacles and subtle muscular changes allowed them to manipulate the machinery."

The pain was intense, and I cried out as my machine side was accessed without warning. I had alarm bells going off across the board. The probe continued and as I watched the very nature of my implant, nanites, and peripherals were altered on a fundamental level. Once it was finished, I ran a test and the reaction time was instantaneous. Whatever the alien had done to me had improved my functionality to a level that would take me a while to discover its limits, if it even had any. One of the things added was their language. It acted as a Rosetta Stone and that made communication possible on my end. I am sure they understood me within seconds. I attempted to tie into the ship's systems to keep it from tumbling. I guessed it would have taken time to power up the ship and systems to stop it. I was wrong. The moment my desire hit the network the ship corrected its course. The ship took a course that would place it in orbit around the Watcher's asteroid.

"What happened to the crew?" I asked, and the hologram took me to another part of the ship.

I hated to admit it, but I felt like the fish in the bowl being carried along. Half a mile down the hall I was taken into a space that could have been the ship's morgue or a cryogenic chamber. The hologram took me for a closer look. There were bodies, thousands of bodies, contained in individual water filled cylinders. They were stacked twenty high and ran down three walls as far as I could see. I couldn't see any activity among the bodies within the clear tubes. They varied in length and diameter but the bodies in general were on average about a hundred feet from head to the end of their tentacles. I looked at the hologram and asked if any of them were alive. A single shake of the head was so disheartening. There were so many of them and, yet the ship had kept the bodies. It must have been a cultural thing.

"I am sorry for your loss." I said, and the hologram brought my bubble up and looked at me.

I could see changes in its color and subtle shifts in the folds around its eyes but otherwise it was as inscrutable as always. The ship communicated via telepathy that we had achieved orbit around the asteroid. I couldn't leave it parked here for long. God forbid Nick or someone at NASA peek through and see it here. I had to move it somewhere relatively close to the Earth but out of sight. The dark side of the moon seemed to be a reasonable spot, but I disregarded it. One of the orbiting telescopes might spot it and I couldn't take that chance. I decided on the far side of Venus. I would work out a trajectory that would keep the ship free from detection. The hologram informed me that the ship possessed advanced optical camouflage. It was one of their oldest technologies. The exterior of the ship was covered with panels that acted like chromatophores in their terrestrial cousins. If it could cloak its presence, then the dark side of the moon it was. I started humming Pink Floyd and the hologram looked at me strangely and I let it in on the private joke.

"You are troubled Greg Voidsinger." The A.I. said showing me a color-coded globe of the Earth. "The people are divided, and you wish to unite them, yes?"

"Yes, but I have no idea what to do."

"I will implement solution." It said. "Setting coordinates, engines are hot... off we go!"

"Very human."

There was no sense of movement, but I was given a virtual window of the ship's exterior. The ship's course was plotted, and we were headed for the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system. It was the home to millions of comets and planetoids. It was where all of Pluto's siblings hung out. What normally would have taken years to reach we would arrive in a little over a day. My belly rumbled and the A.I. took over again. I guess it was programmed to be proactive. I was carried to what I assumed was the ship's galley. I was scanned, and the ship provided me with food and drink. I hovered in my bubble and examined the strange fruit and blue-violet gelatin looking substance. I broke off one of the fruit's spikey bits and took a tentative bite. I chewed slowly and was pleasantly surprised at the satisfying flavor. Like the alien fruit the Watcher had provided this one set my taste buds to puzzling out the sweet and sour and other flavors. It was the pleasant other that had no name. The gelatin had a completely different texture and taste than the fruit or anything else I had ever eaten. The small portion was more than enough to fill me up. I thanked the A.I. and unlike the servitor robot that worked for the Watcher the Progenitor A.I. said you are welcome and meant it.

"I met a goddess that said you calls yourselves the Progenitors. Is that correct?"

"It is a proximity. My creators had many names by many races they encountered. They called themselves the People. In their language is thirty-six syllables long. I suppose Forebearers would be an equally accurate description. Aside from a handful of races they are the oldest and lasted longer than any other. If it weren't for the Thanatons they would still be thriving."

"I fought the Thanatons." I said feeling the bitter anger of losing the love of my life. "Wait, you said thriving do you mean that your creators still exist?"

"Of course, they exist Greg Voidsinger. This is a seed ship. I was ordered to shut down when this vessel was attacked by a Thanaton pyramid dreadnaught. We played dead and survived the encounter. I placed the crew in hibernation while I worked on a solution to defeat the Thanatons. I have discovered a possible answer."

"Speaking of answer what is your solution to my problem?"

"I will explain once I set it in motion." It replied. "I should teach you about our technology Greg Voidsinger if you are to grow and evolve. You have your own demons to fight."

"I... UNNNN..." I cried out as a wealth of Progenitor knowledge was unceremoniously dumped into my mind. "So much..." I whimpered as I tried to process it. "Wait what is that?" I said noting a shimmering blue octahedron. I touched it and the files slowly unzipped so that I could understand them in a precise order. "That is better... oh wow... are these star maps... so many worlds..."

I spent the rest of the time taking in much of the Progenitor's vast libraries. They should be called the Wanderers. Their home world was practically vacant when the Thanatons attacked it. Most of their race were on ships like this exploring the galaxy and the universe. They were an intragalactic civilization. They had catalogued hundreds of thousands of star systems. The range of configurations was as random as anything a science fiction author could imagine. But it was the esoteric Black Sun Zones that were truly intriguing. Dark energy stars blazing at the core of dark matter planets. It was here that the typical laws of physics fell apart and psionic technology was required to navigate. If humans were to stumble upon one, they would encounter disaster. The denizens were as alien as the ten thousand-member planets of the galactic hegemony. They were far older and far more advanced than humanity. Their biology and intelligence made humans like mere insects and of no interest to them.

When humans look up and wonder why the aliens don't show themselves there is a simple answer. They don't see us as anything of interest. Would you spend the time and energy to walk across a desert just to look at an ant colony? I believe that about puts it all in perspective. For all our art, music, and pornography we don't rate the expenditure of energy. Besides there are plenty of non-human races on the Earth as it is. Some of them are near human while many are clearly not. It is the non-human ones that worry me the most. I fear the time when their ascendancy is closer than anyone would like. When they do decide to make their move, there is little humans can do to stop them. I fear that even Nick won't be able to pull a victory out of his ass. He is just outclassed this time around.

"Can we finish the tour of this amazing ship of yours?" I asked the Progenitor A.I.

"Where would you like to go?"

"Is there a bridge or central command deck?"

"No, there are several nodes or rooms that executive decisions for the ships travel and safety. Would you care to see one of them?"

"Sure, or any other place you think I might find interesting."

"I have just the spot."

Once more my bubble was carried along by the A.I. but this time to what appeared to be the center of the ship. It was here that I was shown the power that moved this beast and allowed it to travel at such fantastic speeds. The massive crystalline structure must have measured thousands of feet across. My bubble had been darkened to keep from blinding me. The power core of the ship was in fact a carefully controlled dimensional rift to a plane occupied by vast amounts of energy. The Progenitors discovered the dimension by accident and have been tapping into it for billions of years. It appeared to be limitless. Perhaps it was a universe unborn or the remnant of one that had lived out its entire existence and collapsed into a cohesive singularity. Even the Progenitors hadn't discovered the ultimate secret of this pocket dimension. Maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they wanted to keep some mysteries left. That I could understand. What was the point in a universe with nothing left to learn?

The next chamber was one of the several control modules that governed the ship. The A.I. told me they acted independent of each other. How they functioned properly was a mystery to me. If there wasn't a central control what kept these nodes from sending conflicting orders to the ship? It must work somehow and quite well. The room consisted of a series of concentric spheres that were interconnected with the ship's nervous system. It was as much alive as I was. It was governed by a vastly different and superior intelligence and that is something I could admire. The bundles of compacted artificial neurons worked at speeds that humans could only dream of. It was its ability to react to external stimuli that had saved the ship from the Thanatons. I hoped that one day I might be able to unlock that same speed to save the J'Nai from the Eater of Souls. I was going to need every edge I could muster.

I was studying the Black Sun Zones when the ship slowed to a crawl. We were near the orbit of Pluto. The ship sent out a gravity pulse to scan the Oort Cloud. It was looking for something specific and after an hour it found what it was looking for. It maneuvered deep into the cloud and I saw a monster of a rocky body. The ship's sensors measured it around the size of North America. It had an iron center and a rocky exterior. The A.I. informed me that it had found what it was seeking.

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked and that is when the A.I. revealed its plan.

"Humans have an artificial satellite orbiting the Jovian body. Watch and see the salvation of your people. I need to calculate the trajectory and launch it. See the future of your humans."

The ship formed a shimmering gate in the space between the monster asteroid and the ship. Gravity waves pulled the massive stony body forward and through the gate. It appeared at the outer edge of the orbit of Jupiter. The Juno mission couldn't miss it as it passed by close enough to block out the wan sunlight. It would send back images of the object and they would calculate its course. A course that would show its impact with the eastern sea board. It would be hell on earth when they learned the planet killer was on its way. The Progenitor A.I.'s solution was a worldwide crisis. They would have to pull together to solve this problem. They had a decade to get their shit together. No wonder it didn't want to tell me ahead of time. I would have tried to dissuade it. Now things were in motion and it wouldn't help to stop what it had set in motion.

It was time to return to Earth. The hologram informed me that the ship was cloaked and ready for its journey to Earth's moon. It was fast, and I do mean blistering fast. It made the journey in under eighteen hours. I spent my time onboard as I had on the outward journey studying. There were so many cultures to understand and with them language, art, and music. It seemed that there were certain universal ideals that many races held dear. However, what was heavenly to one species was hell to another. A great example of this was the subsonic orchestras that reached its height among the Fillingstra of Galnstra IV. Their closest terrestrial cousins would be our cetaceans specifically whales. The effect of those dulcet subsonic tones was absolute misery to the Plasma Wasps of Colgonda III. These frail sentients are susceptible to the low wavelengths to the point that it is considered torture and the music of the Fillingstra is banned on the home world and all their colonies.

When I listened to one of the more popular aria solos from the fifth movement of the Poet Saint Allanastra I felt my bones aching and switched it off after only a few minutes of exposure. I didn't blame the Plasma Wasps for banning that kind of music. The ache lasted for over an hour and I fear long term damage from my curiosity. I did notice that certain files were off limits because of physical and emotional damage I might suffer if I opened them. One such file was a sculpture that involved gamma ray radiation that was popular among Solarins who were in fact self-aware energy beings that had been sired by sentient stars. When I asked the A.I. about these beings it said they were the children of the Primal Sun the first sentient to arise in our galaxy.

"Are you telling me that there is a self-aware star as in a sun?"

"That is the definition of the term. She is the creator goddess of several species. The J'Nai are credited with being her finest creation. She gave birth to your Phoenix King. He carries her nature to this very day."

"You mean carried..."

"No Greg Voidsinger, I mean carries. The Phoenix King is very much alive. He emulates his namesake quite literally. He cannot die in any permanent way."

"I watched him die," I said remembering the rise of the Eater of Souls. "I watched him fall. Besides, I thought the Old Ones created the J'Nai."

"They adopted the J'Nai and educated them. They saw much of themselves in your adopted people."

"Star born and raised by sentient spiders with an immortal god king at the center of our culture. I wonder where he is."

The A.I. was silent. I stared at the holographic display and watched our journey to Earth. I watched as the five-mile-long beast made lunar insertion. When Nick got the word that it was gone, he was going to lose his shit. I hated to stress him so, but I had no option. I asked the hologram if there was anything it might be willing to share with me before I left. It pondered for all of ten seconds and replied with a mental nod. It took me to yet another room. I suspected it was a lab of some sort. It knew that my technology was in part crystal based and had a station fashion a single crystal. I took it from its receptacle and found that it fit my watch perfectly. I plugged it in and my mouth dropped open at the sheer volume of information. Unlike the Watcher this data was confined to my understanding basic lessons before I learned anything new. It would be a constant cycle of learning, testing, and moving on. I could ask questions about things I already understood, and it would expand upon them to a limited extent. I had so many questions and it was a treasure trove of answers.

'I am with you Greg Robinson.' It said, and my watch projected a tiny version of the cephalopod.

I was returned to where the J'Nai shuttle had docked. I told the A.I. that I would return, and it informed me that the ship would be ready when that happened. I nodded and swam back into the shuttle. The airlock cycled and Fireprism was ready to depart the ship for the Earth. I decided to land the shuttle on the south pole and have the ship cloak itself. I could tap into the web and transport myself back to civilization. I needed to catch up with Rhea and see how her manhunt was progressing. I had a single day of my week left and I was going to enjoy my time off. The shuttle left the hanger and winged it way back to the Earth.

Dawn of a New Day:

The shuttle settled deep into what Antarctic researchers called a no man's zone. It was so difficult to reach this portion of the interior because of a combination of terrain, weather, and inability for a support system. It was the perfect place to park the J'Nai craft. I gave Fireprism suggestions because I felt it was wrong to order him about. He would protect the secrecy of the shuttle to the best of his abilities. I left the cockpit and was passing the armory when I noticed a new piece of equipment. Had I missed it before? My watch turned itself on and the cephalopod A.I. sprang to life.

"It was I that placed that in the armory. I had the opportunity to review your life experiences, all of them. You are an unusual sentient Greg; may I call you Greg? Your life is out of balance, a common trait among J'Nai. This device will correct that."

"How am I out of balance?" I asked.

"You have trained heavily along the warrior path. I offer you the chance to take up the mantle of the Psion or the Crafter. You know the danger of remaining on a path for too long. This device works in the same fashion as the wraithbone trees of your home world. It draws upon a dimension which your ancestors brought forth the basic building blocks of J'Nai society. I can teach you the basics, but it could take a human lifetime to learn the subtleties."

"I don't have a human lifetime."

"Time is relative Greg," the floating image sad. "You have as much as you require."

"I guess I should get started. How many lessons have you stored in your memory?"

"A little over one thousand. I have established the most orderly and effective path to mastering the path of the Crafter. Shall I fetch some tea?"

"That would be lovely," I said as I drew upon Jon's staff of office once again.

While time within the shuttle flowed normally outside it hung frozen as the blasted landscape surrounding it. I delved first into the most basic of those esoteric practices. My mind grew stronger with each new lesson. I pushed beyond all my preconceived notions of matter, energy, and the limitations of my own understanding. My first constructs were infantile. They were crude geometrical shapes that lacked creativity or function. Once I pushed on, I discovered the glorious intricacies the J'Nai had mastered over centuries of purpose. Form merged with thought and function followed. I took a very human notion like the smart screen and crafted my own using my mind and the wraithbone.