Annihilation: Book 05 - Searcher (14 page)

“A ship is lifting from the planet and coming our way,” Al reported.

The ship appeared to be made from the same substance as the tall spires. It was crystal and flashed brightly in the sun’s light. After an hour it parked next to Matt’s ship. Matt sensed three beings on the ship and he thought, “May I transport you to my ship?”

“Yes. We’ll wait for you.”

“I am going to teleport you to my bridge. My atmosphere is similar to yours; it does have slightly less nitrogen.”

“We will be alright. We can live for three deps without atmosphere.”

“Al, if you would do the honors.”

Suddenly the silver shimmer appeared and three beings appeared on the small bridge. They were different from any race Matt had ever seen or heard of; they appeared to be made of rock. The creatures glittered in the bridge’s light and appeared to be solid with no visible breaks or creases. They were about five feet high and three wide with irregular surfaces. They were basically triangular in shape with the top being somewhat oval.

“Welcome to my ship. My name is Searcher Gardner.”

“We are called the Reg. You could not pronounce our individual names but you can just look at whomever you wish to communicate. What is your purpose for being here, Searcher Gardner?

“I am a representative of a government that is attempting to communicate with as many civilizations as possible to warn them about an invasion that is coming to our universe and to try and help them survive.”

“Are you referring to the green eight legged creatures?”

Matt was startled, “Yes, I am.”

Matt could tell that they were communicating among themselves and then one thought, “They were here eight million planetary cycles ago and a sixteen million cycles before that. Are you expecting them?”

Matt was surprised by their answer, “They will return three cycles from now.”

“How do you know this?”

“I sense their coming. I am not alone in that estimate. My leaders also sense their coming.”

“So you are here to protect us from them?”

“Yes, we think we possess a generator that will surround your planet in a screen that will hide you from them.”

“Are you contacting other civilizations to protect them?”

“Yes, we are trying to contact as many as possible in the time remaining. We are going to peaceful civilizations first since they will not be able to defend themselves.”

“How do you know which ones are peaceful?”

Matt hesitated and answered, “I can sense them.”

“Show me which ones in this galaxy you think are peaceful.”

Matt thought about the map of the galaxy and sent the picture to the Reg.

There was more silence then he heard, “You are remarkably accurate. Only one is actually aggressive and they have been forced to peace by their neighbors.”

“Which one?” In his mind Matt saw one of the green lights turn red.

“Now your map is accurate. We appreciate your willingness to help; however, we have withstood four of their invasion attempts and feel that the fifth will also be a failure.”

Matt was stunned. “Is your race that old?”

“We are actually older than the green creatures. They will come and try to sink their fangs in us and make a nuisance of themselves for a few cycles then they will depart. They can only penetrate organic life so we are immune to their attack.”

Matt thought and then asked, “I suspect you could defend yourself if you chose to do so; however, you, like us, revere life in all its many forms.”

Matt could sense the surprise of the three beings, “You are astute in your observation. Your deliberately slow approach to our planet is what prevented us from taking action against your ship.”

“You took action against them the first time they invaded.” Matt again sensed their surprise.

“We did not know that they could not hurt us. Some of their captured warriors tried to bite us and failed. We determined that they could not hurt us so there was no reason to harm them.”

“How can you watch as these creatures kill so many in our universe?”

“We can only harm those that are able and willing to harm us. Harming one life form regardless of its actions would not allow us peace. Killing one life that is killing a million others would harm us just as much as killing a million.”

“I understand. I will leave you in peace.”

“You have not asked us how we defended ourselves against the green creatures.”

“You cannot tell me because it would lead to death of a life form and you would suffer the same harm as doing it yourself.”

There was a long pause and then Matt heard, “Of all the creatures we have encountered, you are one that we can call brother.” The three creatures disappeared from his bridge along with the ship parked next to Aladdin.

“I think we have just been examined, measured, quantified, and passed the test,” Al said.

“Al, mark this planet with a quarantine marker on our galactic maps and send the coordinates to the map room. These beings are so far ahead of us that it’s frightening at what powers they possess. I think the Eight Legs as well as any other race that uses weapons had better stay away from this system.”

“Done, we need to leave, like now.”

Matt laughed and said, “Go ahead.”

Aladdin immediately teleported out of the system. As they broke back into normal space at Ross, Al commented, “You know, I’d never thought I’d say it but I miss that plant.”

“Why Al, I didn’t think you had it in ya.”

“Don’t tell him I said that, he might get all mushy on me.”

Matt laughed out loud and then asked, “How many ships have been given assignments?”

“Nine million and counting.”

“Wow, I hope the Algeans are up to manufacturing the generators on this scale.”

“The Realm has also begun producing them. More than fifty thousand planets are building the facilities to make them.”

“I didn’t know that?”

“How could you. Do you think you’re psychic?”

Matt laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Then he had a memory of a young boy saying the same thing to another young boy. “These memories are interesting. I wonder how many I have.”

“Magic.”

“Oh hi, Angel. What’s up?”

“I’m approaching a planet and about to begin contact and I just wondered when we were going to get together again.”

“I hope it’s soon, my love.”

“Me, too, you’ve never told me what kind of magic tricks you performed as a child to earn you that name. I want you to perform a little magic with me.”

“Oh, Angel, it wasn’t anything much; just card tricks, coin tricks and the shell game.”

“What’s the shell game?”

“That’s where you hide a pea under one of three shells and slide the shells around and see if the bystander can guess which shell the pea is under. HOLY GROAD!”

“What!” Angel and Al said together.

“I’ll get back to you. I’ve just had an idea and I want to see if it’s possible.”

Angel was curious but thought, “Ok, you can tell me later, I love you.”

“And I love you, too.”

“Sprig!”

“Yes, Searcher.”

“Can you and Twig break away for a moment and join me on Aladdin?”

“I sense urgency in your thought, Searcher.”

“I just had an idea that I need you to consider.”

The silvery screen appeared and Sprig and Twig joined him on the bridge. “What do you need from us,” Sprig asked?

“When I was a child I played a game called three shells. I would place a pea under a shell and then move the shells quickly and challenge the other participant to find the pea. I always won because the pea was in my hand and not under s a shell.”

“I’m familiar with that game. It wouldn’t work with us because our observation skills are so superior to humans.”

“I know but it caused me to have an idea. We are hoping that the red screens we place around the planets we contact make them invisible to the Eight Legs; what if they don’t work?”

“Then there is going to be massive loss of life.”

“What if they see them but when they look they don’t find a planet?”

There was a moment of silence while Sprig and Twig communicated. Twig thought, “Are you considering moving the planet?”

“Only if they come in system to investigate; we know we can teleport planets. What if we move them to a different location? The Eight Legs are advanced but in all of the recordings we’ve seen they use standard travel thru null space once they entered our universe. They have not demonstrated the ability to jump in next to a planet but travel in from the jump limit. They would only move in system if their sensors detect something that leads them to believe there is intelligent life in the system. I traveled through more than a hundred thousand class g systems before I found a civilized planet. There has to be enough uninhabited class g stars to safely move a planet. Also consider this; what if we move them to a galaxy they have already examined. Will they backtrack to reexamine one they’ve already left? Isn’t it also possible to move more than one planet to some of these systems?”

Sprig and Twig began communicating and Matt was unable to break their attention from each other. “Back off, Magic,” Al said. “When Algeans are communicating with each other like these two the amount of information being passed is staggering. They heard you now they are investigating whether your plan is feasible.”

Matt sat back in his chair and reached into the little box he kept beside his command chair. He took out a small, white, wooden stick and looked at it.

“What is that?”

“It’s the only remnant of my childhood, Al; it’s my magic wand.”

“I’ve always wondered what you kept in that box.”

“Keep it to yourself, please.”

“I will.”

After three hours Sprig and Twig turned and asked Matt, “When you traveled through those systems did your sensors record any data.”

“I have recorded every system we traveled through and stored the information in a supplementary storage bank,” Al responded.

“What kind of data did you record,” Twig asked.

“The star’s temperature, planet’s locations in relation to the star, force of gravity around all the planetary objects, and the speed of any object circling the star.”

Sprig and Twig went back into their conversation.

“Al, do all our ships record that information or is it just the Alphas that do it?”

“Every ship makes those recordings. It’s a very simple process and it was programmed in the event that there might be uninhabited planets that would be available to planets that need to expand because of population pressures.”

Four more hours passed and then Sprig said, “Have you ever played the double shell game.”

“I don’t think so; how does it work,” Matt asked?

“You place a pea under the shell and move the shells around. The participant picks a shell but instead of finding a pea under it there is a rock instead.”

“What a great idea.”

Sprig thought, “What if we move the planet out and replace it with an uninhabited planet. After the Eight Legs move in and examine thousands of the red screens and find uninhabited planets then they might think that those planets had intelligent life in the past but the civilizations had disappeared or died out leaving the generators behind.”

“Can we do it?”

“I thought you were kidding about needing two billion of my children but now I see you were being conservative. One of the tasks of the adolescents sent to the planets to install the red screen generators will be to also find a substitute uninhabited planet and five hundred locations to move the screened planet in five hundred different galaxies. Once they gather the information, we will combine all of their information and send it to every one of those assigned to planet protection. Your Searchers will track the invaders and notify us of the Galaxies that have been examined and we will target those galaxies for movement of the screened planets.”

“Do we have time to make it happen, Sprig?”

“Barely, but this also means that we can save our building facilities and not destroy them. Another ironic twist to this is that we can use the millions of planets my race destroyed in my galaxy that have no life on them only ancient empty structures still standing to reinforce the idea that the civilization had died out. Those planets my race killed may now save life. It is fitting that they be used in our subterfuge.”

Matt sighed heavily, “More work, Al.”

“You must think I get tired,”

Matt laughed again and began to feel hope for his universe.