Little Cherine Book 04 - BPost041

Jade told Candy, “I think he wants to see how the Harrafin will react, will they speak of him as their child? In a way he is, since he lives in a body of their kind.”

Previous: Book 04 - Post 040

2501

Cherine was doing her usual and she giggled. Robbie raised an eyebrow in enquiry and I flopped my hand in permission for her to tell him.

“Sam has seen through your act, you are pretending to be annoyed that Somisa was not all sweetness and light, as you put it, but you are pleased, for it means they do have the instinct of self-preservation.”

He asked her, “Do you think Samantha does?” By the moment of his lunge in my direction, I was already off the other side of the bed, crouched over with laughter, so he ended up proving that my instincts of self-preservation are not as strong as my sense of humour.

* * * * *

Our small adventure and the excitement of meeting with another race, built up our inner reserves again and we began to follow the fire-world once more with energy and patience.

In (our estimated) early December the fire-world stopped moving. We stayed put, moving backwards in time only. It decreased in size and as it reached the size of the one we had killed, our travel backwards in time slowed to the point where we were moving at the same pace we use in our normal lives.

The fire-world exploded!!!

Our shock cannot be imagined. Even the scientists had nothing to say. Years of our lives all culminating in the same result! We sat looking at each other or off into nothing, too deep in our distress to talk.

Seltwe asked, “Robert, can you take us forward in time? When it exists again please reverse time so that each second is lengthened.”

We replayed the time, taking it slower each time.

“This time, when it explodes, could you zoom in on a part of it and follow it?”

It seemed pointless, but any hope is better than none. As the pieces flew apart and we zoomed in we noticed all the parts have the same shape. Zooming even further in on one part, we saw that the detailed appearance is not what would be expected as the result of an explosion. The parts are designed to fit together!

Robbie broke into laughter, startling us. When we turned to him he pointed at the window. The piece we were tracking began to glow and disappeared.

“I’m sorry! I can’t help it.”

We waited for him to explain.

“We were there at its birth and because we were regressing it, we thought it had died. How foolish I have been!”

“How could you have known Robert!?”

“I should have Cherine,” he smiled at her, “you don’t have to become protective of me, I made a mistake because I did not think it through. We were all too distraught to think clearly. If it had been allowed to resume normal time we would have seen it return into existence. I should have thought of the fact that since it was moving backwards, the explosion was being seen by us in reverse. The pieces were coming together!!”

Seltwe, his voice excited, asked, “Robert, please track it again. From the time the piece disappears to the moment it joins the others.”

Robbie did it in slow motion and we saw how each piece found its niche like pieces of a jigsaw coming together to create one picture.

“It is not good enough!” Seltwe complained. “Robert, is there any way we could light it or colour the creature so as to see the tail? What happens? Does it come together with the tail then penetrating through to another reality, or did the pieces come together where the tail already was?”

2502

Robbie went forward in time a little and experimented with various energies until the tail showed up. Staying focussed on it he moved backwards in time again. The tail disappeared. Robbie hit his forehead, exasperated, muttering ‘stupid’.

“What now?”

“The energy moves forward in time while we moved backwards. We have to go back in time and wait for the damn creature to exist.”

The energies washed over the area and there was nothing there. Satisfied Robbie sat back and we waited. The second possibility by Seltwe was correct. First the tail appeared, thrusting it’s way through into this reality. It had no head and wiggled around as if trying to sense something or else calling to its parts. Then the parts appeared and joined it. This only took seconds.

Robbie replayed it on our screens, zooming on this end of the tail. Where the head would join we saw strands like tentacles or feelers swiftly moving around. Seltwe and the others were excited.

“Could those be what call the pieces of the head!?”

Robbie zoomed in even further and as a piece attached itself we clearly saw the tendrils sink into the piece.

“Nerves! They are nerves and they are attaching themselves to the brain!”

“Dad, let me send my healer to those ropy things. Maybe it can tell us if they are directing the pieces so that they join in the right sequence.”

I was backed by the scientists and he agreed, his eyes slits as he concentrated, but I felt him looking at me with pleasure.

My family were all instantly sharing with me and gave screams of triumph as my idea worked. The healer said each nerve was sending a different message to which the pieces responded.

“A truly remarkable creature Robert. We could happily study it for years. What we could learn from it!!”

“We need to learn how it crosses over from it’s own universe. I have to see how it appears in this galaxy through the void. I will split myself again, but I am already stretched to the maximum, no sudden noises or screams please.”

Cherine went to him and put her hands in his. He held on to her as most of him departed, taking the protector with. If anyone coughed they would be in trouble. It took about forty minutes, but when we felt Robbie strengthen we also sensed his emotions of triumph.

He grinned at us. “Time for an experiment. I’m going to let it pull me back with it as we reverse time; soon as I’m on the other side I’ll let time run forward again. At least we will know what to expect.”
Cherine jerked her arms. “You do that I’ll follow. You are not going alone.”

There was a general outcry, none of us agreeing.

“What if the tail is in a sun?”

“What if the enemy see you?”

Many protested, but none of them would stop him. I knew that only cold hard logic could stop him. Desperately I thought. I knew I’d found the answer when everyone was suddenly silent and they all turned to me. Robbie picked it up also.

“A good point Sam. Unfortunately you are wrong.”

“How? If you go then you cannot use the same method to take our ship as you will be attached already.” My thought was that if he latched on to the tail and as it reversed back to its universe he let time move forward and returned with the tail for all subsequent changes of time he will still be there and if we try to do the same with the ship it would occupy space he is already in and kill him or even damage the world. I felt that Robbie agreed with me and yet he still insisted on going. I did not want to appear foolish and thought quickly.

2503

“You will use another way to move us there?” He nodded. I looked around while my mind raced in its search for inspiration. “Oh! You will have been there so you can take us!”

“Go to the head of the class. Bravo Sam!” Before anyone could protest again he spoke, “I’ve heard your reasons for fearing, but I have to take the risk. I will not die if I end up in the center of a sun. Most of me is here. I would not lose more than I’ve lost a number of times in the void when dying. Each time I split my soul I make certain that each part of me has part of your slivers with, so in a way you will be with me.”

“Are you taking the protector with?”

“Of course.” He stared at Claudia. “I will be wrapped in a pod of energy, same as when the fire-world chased me. I promise to keep the protector in it with me. Does that make you feel better?”

Jade answered. “No. If you are killed and the protector is destroyed, you will be leaving them without protection. You must make the protector also split.”

“I’ll be leaving them Jade - not you?”

She only stared back at him, a fierce little girl determined to protect us. He inundated her with his love and promptly disappeared. We waited, not daring to breathe. His trip there may have been instant for him, but we had to wait nearly four hours before he returned. We all burst into tears.

After he had soothed us he turned to the scientists and Thinkers. “I’m going back again. This time I will go to their void and jump back here directly. I do not want us to arrive in normal space. I also need to see that the energy we need is available there.”

“Robert, take a Sparkler with.”

“You would want me to abandon it there? I have to become the void to gather the energies I need.”

“Nonsense! It can return without you.”

“You will not go now Roberto.” Dommi stood, her posture daring him to defy her. “You will eat and sleep first.”

We were left alone, just the family. He somehow, without making any of us feel he was hurrying through it, found time for each of us and calling the youngest to join him in his mind he played puppy and various games with them. Afterwards he talked about what he had seen.

“Their galaxy is about half the size of ours and it must be a lot older. The suns are dying and the galaxy looks like embers of a fire going out. I had the impression it was filled with cobwebs! Beautiful in a way, but also sad to see. If we come back here in our time, most of the suns may be dead. I imagine they must be really desperate and it explains why they sent the fire-worlds.”

“Rubbish! Nothing excuses what they have done.” Dommi was furious.

“Of course not my love, I did not mean that.”

When we went to bed there was not to be any sex, just the comfort of all of us lying against each other and as close to him as possible. Marita timidly asked whether Milto and her can join us. There was a slight feeling of shock at the thought of another male being with us, but Robbie quickly agreed.

When Robbie returned, he immediately stood up and we felt him gathering power, energies battering at his slim body. With eyes shut he concentrated and we felt the whole world shake. He relaxed and sat down smiling.

“It is done.”

“We are there?” Seltwe asked, astonished.

“We are. This is not an alternate reality. I do not know what it is, a universe that lies parallel to ours?”

The Sparklers all disappeared and Robbie grimaced. “I know you are all in a hurry to see it; I am drained, it was not easy carrying all of us over to this void. Give me a few hours to recover please.”

2504

Sol remained by us, her face bright red. “It was rude of my people to do that. They should have waited for all of you.”

We reassured her and truth be told, not one of us begrudged them their dashing off like that. If we could have we would have! We noticed Robbie kept the windows blank which swelled our expectations.

We made certain Robbie was fully recovered before we allowed him to create his dome and take us out.

In our void, even before we found the Anadir and Sparklers (as I see it in the memories of Cherine and Robbie) there was never total darkness. The souls of Earth were there as a beacon of life. In this void there is no sign of souls close by and the energy of the suns are weak. Robbie chose about half of us (not me) and took them with him as he became the void. He searched for signs of life or Kaleidoscope Worlds. He found them, no Kaleidoscope Worlds, but countless souls on or close to planets of suns that still had the energy to provide them with light and heat. We moved to one of them.

“Robert, you must provide the machines with windows for them to see this galaxy. It would not be fair to leave them in ignorance.”

“I’ll do so Solomon. I would like to take it a step further. What if we touch our sphere to theirs and opening a passage we allowed a number of them to join us?”

“Is that wise?”

“Would it be wise to call them allies if we do not trust them?”

Solomon looked at us and shrugged with a small smile. “He has not changed.”

We stepped out into a fairyland of extraordinary beauty. Robbie was right, this galaxy is dying, but their people evolved other methods to prolong their lives. Within the solar system we were at, the space between planets is filled with vegetation that has been adapted to live in the vacuum of space. What looked like seed pods move from clouds of vegetation to other clouds. We did not arrive secretly, our sphere glowing with energy. While we waited for them to make the first move, we stared in fascination. The dainty lacework of vegetation looks so fragile and precious, colours gently fading or streaking one into the other.

“God! It was worth taking the trip just to see this!” Wendy exclaimed.

A multitude of seed pods gathered between us and the vegetation, as if in defence of them. They did not come close, but waited to find out what our intentions are.

“Solomon, are you crazy enough to join me? I’m going out there to try and find a way to communicate.”

“We can do it for you.”

“It must be done quickly. I think if they are forced to wait long the lack of maintenance may kill their space-trees. Soon as you can, send them our greetings and tell them we come in peace.”

When Solomon returned he looked perplexed. “They want us to move away, at least double the distance from their trees.”

“They really are trees?”

“No. More like a brew of chemicals that are alive and grow. This is their sole remaining food source and they claim the energy we are giving off is distorting the growth and causing them problems.”

Robbie pulled us away.

Em-e asked, “Why Robert? They send fire-worlds to kill all life, but we must be considerate of their food?”

2505

“Our first responsibility is to get to know them. If they are then still enemies, we can decide on our course of action.”

Sol stared at him with glowing eyes. “Is there even once that you have not spoken to us truly Robert?”

“By us you mean your family here, or the Sparklers?” He was teasing, but she could not see it.

“The Sparklers.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

If we were not so much in awe of him he would have been pummelled by all of us; how could he tease at such a moment!

The flotilla of seed pods did not withdraw in it’s entirety. About a third of them returned to their work or harvesting while the rest waited. After a lengthy time a small number of them came closer. They stopped and three of them came even closer, stopping close enough for us to see them in detail. On their surfaces are what look like veins with lumps moving around within them. They are of a grey-brown-green colour.

“What now Solomon? How do we talk? Can we meet them?”

“I think not Robert. Many of them are not able to survive in an atmosphere as thick as this. Some have also engineered themselves so that they now live in symbiosis with their spaceships.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Either you cross over in your soul allowing a body to be created for you within their pods or you allow them to come here in the same manner.”

“I find it difficult to choose. I would prefer they come here so that all of you can follow our discussions and meet them, but I would love to go to them and see what they are like.”

“I shall ask them to come here.”

As Solomon left, Robbie shook his head, his eyes round with wonder. “I cannot believe the Sparklers thought they had no purpose! What would we have done without them?”

Three girls appeared with Solomon. “iv-Cark, Ertoli and an-Fisp. One of each seed has come to greet you and your family Robert.”

“I am grateful and extend our hospitality. Please do not fear, we will not harm you while you are our guests.”

“You shall when we leave?”

“If I do not find answers that satisfy me.”

“We shall leave you then.”

“Wait!” Solomon spoke to them softly and went to Robbie. “You speak too abruptly my friend and it sounds like a threat.”

“No threat was intended Solomon,” he turned to them. “I carry within me the memories, as witness, of many thousands of planets and I do not know how many people. They are all dead because of you.”

“How can that be! It is a lie.”

“If it is a lie I would not wish to burden you with the memories, for they could destroy you. If I speak the truth I have vowed to pass on the memories to you.”

“We better explain to them Robert.” Solomon pleaded.

“Very well.” He created an image above our heads of a fire-world. “Is this creature yours?”

“You are from where we sent it!?”

2506

“Correct.”

The machines Robbie had brought over as guests swirled in anger at their acknowledgement. Robbie did not even look up at them, but they restrained themselves.

“Why did you send it?”

“Our galaxy is dying, running out of energy. It was created to find suns that do not have inhabited planets and is meant to funnel energy from those suns back to our sun. You are saying that was wrong of us, you do not have enough to spare?”

“What!!” Robbie swayed, but we were all in shock and nobody moved fast enough to catch him. He fell to his knees shaking violently, his face drained of all colour. He was really sick with fear as he recalled his anger when watching planets die. Distraught as he had been, he had decided that soon as he found those responsible he would send them the deaths in all their painful gory details and then kill them. Only the fact that we had not witnessed the deaths of any planets recently had helped him recall himself and act in accordance with his beliefs.

I took over. “Solomon, please explain to them what happened and what pain my father has witnessed on their behalf. We thought they sent the fire-world to kill all living creatures and came here prepared to destroy them. An entire galaxy has been left lifeless because of them. If they are innocent of that motive, as they indicate, despite being guilty of the end result, they have nothing to fear from us.”

He did so with all the tact he could, but he could not clothe the truth in a way that would be acceptable to any species with empathy. They were in such distress to learn of what happened that without knowing how to do it they tore apart their connections to the bodies Solomon created for them and before he could undo their presence, we found ourselves facing the lifeless bodies of three little girls that still wore the incredible pain they’d been subjected to.

As a family this is the first time we’ve seen children like us die suddenly and in such great pain and only the quick action by Solomon helped reduce the tears. Though also in shock, Robbie, Cherine, Dommi, Aganthi, Maria and Jade reacted instinctively, soothing and holding the rest of us.

Robbie called out to Solomon, “Quick, go to them, do not allow them to spread their despair amongst their people. Tell them I promise a future with meaning.”

“Robert, their hold on life is weak, their galaxy is dying. What future!?”

“Promise them! They must come to hear me tomorrow. If necessary I’ll see them now, just get them back here!”

They did not return, nor did Solomon. When we saw all the Sparklers disappear as we lay on our bed, Robbie jumped up.

“Cherine, Sam, Aganthi, Maria, come with me.” We went to him and his energy surrounded us. We left the spaceship-world and flew to the same cloud of vegetation. There were no seed pods to intercept us nor any moving that we could see.

“Come with me to the void.”

Soon as we arrived he drew us with him as he became the void and using as much power as he could muster we returned to the galaxy. Robbie sent out the protector, forcing it first to meld with the healer, giving them strict instructions to save the lives of the aliens.

*We do not know enough about them to act effectively. I hope the healer-protector can help.*

We waited, linked to Robbie so that the healer-protector would be strengthened, as we’d done during the war with the Sparklers. Time seemed to crawl by. The healer-protector returned.

*They say the aliens are not dying.* Robbie laughed, his laughter more like tears. *They are all listening to Solomon, he is doing a storytelling.*

*About us!?*

*No. About the Sparklers, their history, our war, the discovery of what the truth was and their need to die. Of my promise and how I kept my word. He is trying to get them to return and listen to me.*

2507

*Oh Robert, how can you save them?*

*That is easy! If they will but listen to me. I just need a chance.*

I answered him with more confidence than I felt, *Solomon will bring them daddy.*

We returned home, but now we could not sleep. We made coffee and waited, Robbie smoking as he waited anxiously.

Aganthi got together with five others and they whispered. She left them and stood in front of him. Suddenly a huge bouquet of flowers appeared by him. Startled he looked up, saw Aganthi and smiled.

“Roberto mou, you will get your chance to sell them flowers. I was not sure you had enough though, so we made some for you.”

He sat there trying to puzzle this out until he saw that she was gently teasing him. He grinned. “You too? My sweet Albanian princess, your teasing has no thorns.” She smiled shyly, pleased.

It was morning hours when Solomon returned. He sat by Robbie and there was a glow of pleasure emanating from him. “They will return to hear you soon.”

“You have done well Solomon.”

“Robert, if you are able to save them it will be a miracle. Their suns are dying, they see no future and therefore have no reason to bear their guilt by staying alive. If you are able to keep your word, we the Sparklers will accept that you have kept your word and we release you from any further expectations.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If by our intervention you save them, it means that by us not dying when we wanted to, we helped save a species! You promised us we would see that we have a role to play in protecting and helping others. You will have been true to your word.”

“What nonsense is this Solomon? Even if I were to fail here, you will have still saved at least fifty species. Have you not the task of collecting souls and holding them while the machines heal their planets? Will they not live again because they have friends who are called Sparklers? Will not future generations of their people be born, live and die with the comfort of knowing they have the Sparklers as friends to preserve their souls and give them time to learn to create their own Kaleidoscope Worlds? Have you not saved my girls, myself? Oh Solomon, there was not one moment your lives did not have a purpose, all you needed was to learn to see it for yourselves.”

As they were talking the sky filled with Sparklers. We looked up in amazement. There was no empty space between them that we could see and it looked like our sky was covered by a green cloud that glowed and roiled as if a storm blew through them. Without us asking, Solomon explained.

“Sparklers have been brought here from all the alternate realities we know, what you see here is but a small part of them, the rest wait in the void. They have come so that we all share in our task. They will all then feel they are part of the purpose of nurturing life.”

“As every species should feel Solomon.” Dommi said.

We were silent a while. Solomon spoke, his words more of a question he asked himself. “I cannot see, how can he save them?”

“Solomon, Robbie said it was easy, does that help?”

“No Sam, it makes it worse. Still, knowing him he will not tell us until he is ready to.”

“Solomon, you are smarter than he is. Why don’t you think what you would do if you were him?”

“Are you insinuating Sam, that you know?”

“I haven’t a clue, that is why I was hoping you could work it out and tell us. I don’t want to wait either.”

2508

I’d distracted him by amusing him and I was pleased to feel Robbie come into my mind. *You are a little minx! Sammy love, I’m dying for a night alone spent in loving your itsy-bitsy body. Will you help me have what I crave?*

*How can I help father?*

*By guessing what I intend doing. If you succeed before I tell the aliens, your prize is our time alone.*

I laughed, my heart swelling. *You want me to solve the problem for you so that you can claim a reward? I bet the truth is that you have no plan and are desperately trying to find a way to give meaning to their lives!*

*Just this once you are wrong sweet know-everything daughter. I’ll let you look in my mind afterwards and you will see. What would you do if you were me, if I may steal your suggestion to Solomon?*

He did not leave, just swirled around within my mind, distracting me with the loving of his presence as I tried hard to find the answer.

*It is obvious something went horribly wrong with their genetic engineering. Instead of avoiding populated planets it killed them. Instead of sending energy to their sun it stole the little they had left. Are you hoping that now they know the truth, they are able to correct their mistake and send us fire-worlds we could use to save lives?*

*I do not think they can, not in the time left to them. They are falling apart and though your suggestion is good, to spend the little energy they have left in solving our problems is not feasible. Nice try, but not thought through. How would that give them a future? Do you truly think I would steal from them the little time left to them?*

*I think you are not going to get your reward and it will break my heart.*

I did try, I thought of various scenarios, including those of teaching them to create their own Kaleidoscope Worlds, but by the time girls began to appear I had not solved the problem. This time a few hundred girls arrived. They arrived sitting or lying down and not one of them tried to stand. They must have bodies very different from ours and found it difficult. One of them spoke for all.

“The entity you name Solomon has spoken to us of hope. Such entity has shown faith in your ability to find a way for our guilt to become of no importance. This is not something we can believe, but we have agreed to listen. To claim we could expiate our sin is unbelievable!”

“Sins? You have such a word?”

“To cause harm to others, yes.”

“Thank you for coming then; if you did not believe, but were willing to give me a fair hearing, it places me under an obligation to you.”

“Speak not of…”

“To us the avoidance of truth is a sin. First of all, I wish to understand. What we call the fire-worlds, they are creatures you have developed for a certain purpose? Please answer yes or no, if I need explanations I shall ask for them.”

“Yes.”

“Something went wrong when it left your reality and came to ours? You think the transition itself is to blame?”

“Yes to both.”

“If you could give life and a future to thousands of species while creating a future for your own species, so that you too can bear young without sorrowing, would that wipe out your sin?”

“It is not possible.”

He answered in a severe tone, “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

2509

“Then I must tell you that I cannot offer that to you. All I can offer is the possibility, we can try, but there is no certainty it can be done. Will you accept a possibility?”

“Possibility? The use of the word is confusing.”

“I am saying I will try. My efforts may not be successful. There are many difficulties and any one of them could be beyond me to solve.”

“Understood. We are here for that reason.”

“I need to learn about you first. The clouds of matter we see growing in space, it is a form of life that grows and provides nourishment for your species?”

“Yes.”

“As nourishment, does it provide all you require to survive and grow as a species, if there is enough of it? What I mean to ask is, did you in the past have a wider variety of foods?”

“We did, but our planets can no longer sustain them in the quantities we need. We mutated them so that they provide us with most of what we need. We also mutated our bodies, simplifying our needs.”

“I think you will be able to teach us a lot! If you can have worlds that will allow you to grow the variety of food you need, can you mutate your bodies back to the way they were originally?”

“Where could we…” At Robbie’s abrupt gesture it interrupted itself . “I think we could.”

“Why has your galaxy only one species? What happened to the others?”

“They grew old and died. They could not survive in space, needing gravity and having other physical or emotional needs that life on their planets provided.”

“Some species may consider my next question insulting. It is not meant to be. How fast do you breed? I am worried, for I see your kind have filled up a whole galaxy.”

“We are aware we breed too fast. The creatures that used to prey on our kind no longer exist.”

Robbie laughed. “I bet you ate all their food!” He waved a hand. “I apologise, my sense of humour, Solomon will tell you, is terrible. I have a very important question to ask of you. When you answer I will need your confirmation that you speak for all of your species. If we could adjust your rate of breeding so that you can sustain a reasonable population, perhaps occupying twenty planets rich in all you need, would you agree?”

I had guessed, I thought, what he intended by now and was overwhelmed!

“Why twenty worlds?”

“You must leave space for other species; after all, the universe is theirs.”

“We would agree. Would such adjustment take care of accidents? We have had disasters that killed off entire planets of our people.”

“We will show you how to make the adjustments yourselves. We will rely on goodwill from your side. If such goodwill is not exercised, I will be forced to make an adjustment myself and then I cannot promise to be available to compensate for accidents. You are upset, you see this as a threat. May I ask why? If you are a species that honours their commitments, I will never need to interfere. If you do not have honour and I am forced to, it will be so as to protect the rights of other species.”

*You sound like the government of the United States.* Dommi teased him.

“You are truly alien! How could any species at the end of their time see your words as a threat? You are promising us life with all the richness of our past!”

“Not promising!!” The words of Eminixx had really affected him! “I said I will try!”

“Understood. Why would you do this for us?”

2510

“We will get to that. Would you agree to such terms, binding yourselves and all future generations?”

“We would.”

“You can see the size of the world we travel in? If I were to fill such a world with your food, how long would it take you to increase it to the point where you could feed all your people?”

“Perhaps, depending on the conditions being favourable, between two to three hundred years.” (We knew what they consider a year. It is equivalent to one point eight Earth years.)

“We will then work on five hundred of your years. You will need to feed those who care for your food. I offer you five thousand years to settle your new planets, once the planets are mutated to suit your species. Within that time you should stabilise yourselves. After that I will offer you the opportunity to earn back your guilt so that you may face all species, including your own, with pride. You are curious as to how this will happen?”

Ashiir sang out, “Robert, never mind them being curious, which they must be, you are driving all of us crazy trying to guess what you are planning.”

Robbie gave her a big smile. “Alright Ashiir, just because you are such a pretty girl I’ll explain. This galaxy is dying, we cannot fill it with energy and maintain a balance. If we tried, we are bound to make errors and cause some catastrophe. I propose to transfer every person of their species across to the galaxy they killed.”

He had to stop as there was an uproar! The machines were buzzing as if they had gone berserk and even the aliens were all trying to talk to each other at the same time. Robbie ignored them and looked at his family with a tiny up curl to his lips. He’d expected this and was enjoying it. Solomon reverted to being a Sparkler for a while and returned still looking amazed. They all gradually settled down, having hundred of questions needing answers.

“I will first take a group of you to help me identify planets that can be terraformed to suit you. They must be planets that have never been populated. We will then transfer enough of your food to give you a start. We will check on those maintaining the food growth every hundred years. Soon as the food in space is enough to feed enough of those who have to tend the planets, we carry there enough of each type of food you need to maintain a healthy ecology. Once your planets are ready for you, I will transfer the rest of you. During this time I will expect to find you have reduced your population to suit the food and number of planets you have without damaging your planets again by overpopulation. Twenty planets!”

“We occupy over eight thousand planets, but that is misleading. The energy from our suns is so low, each planet and the space surrounding it only has about five percent of the population a healthy planet could sustain. You have found us at a time when we are dying as a species and systems are collapsing, reducing our numbers even further.”

“That still means your current populations would need four hundred planets. I regret it, but you will have to reduce your population to about five percent of what it is now.”

A machine buzzed Solomon. He looked at Robbie. “The machines say we came to kill these evil creatures. They want to know why you are trying to save them. Whether they intended the evil they caused or not, they are responsible.”

“All life is precious. Machines, understand that none of us are free of guilt in some way. You have told us of your guilt. Your guilt and their guilt demands of both of you a reparation. Listen to my plan first and then you may argue if you wish.

You will help this species engineer their planets so that they can sustain them. I will transfer them. Their food and the balance of their people will be transferred within my protection so they should not suffer any genetic damage.

Soon as we have enough food, of the kind they have now, available to feed them, they will undertake to assist you in terra-forming the planets you are to repair. We had intended repairing only fifty planets. With their help you may be able to bring back hundreds!

On our planet, the kind of food they grow is of the plant kingdom. People who tend plants and help them grow are called gardeners. If you and these aliens take on this job, you will together become the gardeners of your galaxy for all of time. Helping life to multiply and grow. Is that a dream worthy of you?”

Next [Book 04] - Post 042

I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love - and should some of it be true for our reality, I hope you will love our Cherine.

Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου

(Alexander Zenon Eustace)

^{22nd October, 2019}

• posted on Steemit: 22nd October, 2019
  
  
  
  
  

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