Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (58 page)

Ungor went below to where his departed tanth were lying at peace.  A special tank had been prepared here for his body.  After he took the Taal, he would climb into the tank.  When the computer sensed that his life essence had departed, it would flood the tank with preservatives.  It had been estimated that unless some un-foreseen event took place, his body should remain reasonably well preserved for thousands and thousands of cycles.  It was only fair that any race that found this cache of information should know the Barbakath as they were before they attempted to re-create them.

Ungor initiated the power down sequence that would put the outpost into dormancy.  The computer would soon sleep also, just barely using enough power to listen and look for signs of an intelligent race.  When it detected those, it would then wake up and attempt to communicate with that race if it determined that the alien race had the means to bring the Barbakath back into the universe.

Looking around at his departed tanth, Ranor Ungor Hanth, the last surviving member of his species, held the piece of Taal in his three fingers and looked at it.  For countless cycles, his people had used the Taal to take the journey of their ancestors when they felt their time was over.  He placed the Taal in his mouth, swallowed and stepped into the preservation tank.  Ungor felt his four feet grow cold, and then darkness closed over him.  As his consciousness fled his body, he could hear his ancestors calling him.

The computer sensed that Ungor’s life had left his body.  It sealed and flooded the preservation tank.  When that task was accomplished, it powered down the outpost’s instruments and equipment and put itself into a watchful sleep.  Over two hundred cycles went by with no change.  Then, a sensor sent a signal that caused the computer to bring itself to a higher level of consciousness.

One of the outpost’s sensor clusters was receiving an electromagnetic pulse that fit its algorithms for defining it as artificially produced.  There was an intelligent race nearby that had the technology that fit its requirements.  After the computer analyzed the frequency of the electromagnetic pulses, it started sending out a pulse of its own using a pre-determined pattern that Barbakath philosophers and scientists had all agreed that any intelligent race would recognize.  The computer also detected that the solar power producing arrays on the outpost buildings were starting to produce appreciable amounts of power again.  It shunted that power into its power storage arrays to augment what it was receiving from the geothermal generators deep in the planet below it.   The computer then did what computers do best, waited for additional input.

*******

Thank you for reading Dark Star Rising.  When I was around el
even years old, I stumbled onto a copy of a
1933 science fiction novel co-written by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer. It was titled “When Worlds Collide”.  That novel is what started my love of science fiction. The book was a quandary for me.  I loved the story but it just did not sit well with me.  Since then several Hollywood movies have touched on the subject of what would happen to Earth if we were hit by an errant asteroid or comet.  Again, they left me wanting more.  I have always wanted a story of what would happen both before and after an event that changed our environment here on the blue marble that we call Earth.  Since it has not been written yet, I decided to do it myself.

If you enjoyed this book, or even if you did not, please leave me feedback and a review of the book.  My writing can only get better if I know what my readers like and dislike.

Book two, Blue Planet Rising, of the Pebbles in The Sky series, will be released in summer 2014.