Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel (17 page)

He couldn’t even remember or imagine being alone as he had before meeting her. That just seemed like an alien time and memory.

“I’m bothered by something,” he said.

“Nothing I did, I hope,” she said, snuggling even closer against him.

“Oh, heavens, no,” he said, laughing and hugging her. “I’m worried that we are planning for a mission with million-year-old scouting data.”

She pushed herself up on her elbow and looked into his eyes with those wonderful, round, golden eyes of hers.

“You suggesting we send a scouting mission?”

“No, I think you and I need to do it,” he said. “We need to see what we are taking over a million people on the
Morning Song
into.”

Now she frowned. “How? The target galaxy is over thirty galaxies away from here. We can’t be gone that long from the preparations here. That would take a decade to get there and back at top trans-tunnel speeds.”

“I know,” he said, smiling at her.

She shook her head and laughed. “You have a plan, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said, smiling at her, “but it will take being in the Command Center and the help of
Morning Song
to lay it all out.”

She pushed away from him and stood, her wonderful naked body shining in the dim light of the bedroom in their suite.

“Where are you going?” he asked, enjoying the view of her toned body and smooth skin and the patterns of freckles.

“We’re not sleeping until we work this through,” she said, grabbing her slacks she had shoved off to one side of the bed. “You want to present this idea to Fisher and Callie as well at the same time? They are still in Command Center.”

He stood, laughing. This was not what he expected, but he should have. “Might as well.”

She pulled on the thin, silk blouse she had been wearing earlier without the exercise bra, then said simply, “
Morning Song
, please warn Chairman Fisher that we will be arriving.”

Five minutes later, after one long kiss that Maria said was to hold her, they jumped to Command Center.

THIRTY-SEVEN

THE MOMENT ROSCOE said that he was bothered by planning a mission on ancient scouting data, she knew he was right. And he seemed to have a way to scout the distant target galaxy without spending the years to get there.

Somehow. He was smart that way and could see patterns and solutions no one around him could see. One of the thousands of things she loved about him.

The overall mission was that
Morning Song
would seed galaxies along the way, getting close to the target galaxy in about one and a half million years. Maria was still having a very difficult time grasping those sorts of time spans, but yet it seemed very ambitious that they could completely seed an entire galaxy with human life in only fifty thousand years. But that was a normal time for Seeders.

In the Command Center, both Callie and Fisher stood as Maria and Roscoe appeared. They had both been working at their stations on either side of the big chairs. Both wore jeans and Fisher had on a dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up while Callie wore a white blouse with a necklace of freshwater pearls.

The Command Center felt like her home every time she came here. Even though it was a huge space, it felt intimate to Maria.

There were four other crew members in the room, so Roscoe turned to them and said, “Please take a break, everyone. Chairman Fisher will contact you when you can return.”

All of them nodded and vanished.

“So what’s happening?” Fisher asked, looking puzzled.

Maria smiled and sat on the empty chair for one of the environmental stations. “Roscoe has a plan he wants to run past the four of us and
Morning Song
.

“To do what?” Callie asked.

“We need to scout where we are headed,” Roscoe said. “Before we make preparations we either don’t need, or that are not enough.”

Callie and Fisher both nodded.

Maria turned to face the big screen. “
Morning Song
, please bring up a two dimensional representation of the galaxies between the Milky Way and our target galaxy that are on the plan to seed.”

On the screen the Milky Way was labeled. Then like stones crossing a river, the other galaxies and satellite galaxies along the way were marked, with a line from one to the other. The line stopped short of a galaxy marked with an X.

Maria had seen that image a number of times and studied it. If she really was as long-lived as it seemed she would be, barring accidents, that simple map represented the next million and a half years of her life.

Impossible for her to grasp, so she had made herself stop thinking about it.

“
Morning Song
, at a Seeder ship’s fastest trans-tunnel pace,” Roscoe said, “how long would it take to get to the target galaxy?”

The answer appeared on the screen below the map as a direct line appeared from the Milky Way to the target galaxy.

Seventy-one years.

“To your knowledge,” Roscoe asked, “are there any Seeder ships between here and the target galaxy. If there are, explain what they are and show their locations.”

Twelve scout ships.

Green dots appeared showing the locations of all the scout ships searching ahead for any sign of intelligent alien life.

Maria knew those ships were slightly smaller than Chairman Ray’s ship and held a crew of a thousand or more. A couple of the scout ships were even larger and very fast. They were staffed with mostly scientists and explorers and their families, people who loved to push off into the unknown to see what they could find.

Those scout ships were very fast and only lightly armed, but had the best screens known to Seeder technology, so they could move around without ever being seen if there was alien life. She knew from the knowledge poured into her head that the scout ships often spent a couple hundred years or more in a galaxy.

The closest ship to the target galaxy was only two galaxies away from the target.

Suddenly Maria understood what Roscoe was thinking.

“
Morning Song
,” Maria asked. “At full speed, how long would it take the closest scout ship to reach the target galaxy?”

Approximately twenty-three days.

Roscoe was smiling.

Maria went over and kissed him, then hugged him. “That’s just brilliant.”

Fisher cleared his throat and then said, “We might need a little more explanation here.”

Maria turned to the big screen again and pointed. “
Morning Song
, please connect each ship with each other ship, starting from the Milky Way.”

Green lines connected the green dots.

“Is any distance between ships too far for Chairman Ray to transport?” Roscoe asked.

No.

You and Chairman Boone could also make the jumps.

Now that shocked Maria. She had no idea she had that ability. She wouldn’t even begin to know how to do it. Just the idea of transporting herself over an entire galaxy gave her the shudders.

Beside her, Roscoe was staring at the big screen, shaking his head. Clearly he had not known he could do that either.

THIRTY-EIGHT

ROSCOE LOOKED AT Maria and smiled after he got over the shock of being told he could personally transport over distances between galaxies. He honestly didn’t want to think about that at the moment.

Besides, he wanted Chairman Ray and Tacita to be part of this scouting mission as well.

But looking at the big screen, he suddenly realized something else that needed to be added to the upcoming mission, part of Maria’s plan to help Seeders have more of a historical memory, even over millions of years.

“
Morning Song
,” Roscoe asked. “Approximately how far can a person who has been given training as a Seeder transport under normal conditions?”

Over one hundred thousand light years is standard

“Why that question?” Maria asked, looking puzzled.

“A new addition to our mission,” Roscoe said. “We add in jump stations along our path so any of us can easily return to the Milky Way at any time.”

She instantly understood what he was suggesting and again gave him a hug.

“That will help with the Seeder historical records,” she said.

“And help us return to our lodge at times for rest periods,” Fisher said, smiling. “Thank you.”

Roscoe could tell that Fisher and Callie really, really liked that idea. Leaving their lodge was one of the only hesitations they had about joining the mission.

“It will also make recruiting for this mission much easier,” Callie said.

“We’ll call it
Project Breadcrumbs
,” Maria said. “Each jump station can have shops, sleeping areas, restaurants, and so on.”

He loved that and they all laughed, but he knew the name would stick. And he had to admit, it would help a lot with recruiting. Someone knowing they could return home at any moment was much better than trying to convince someone to never return.

“So when do we talk with Chairman Ray and Tacita,” Maria asked, “about this scouting mission and jump station idea.”

“How about now?” Roscoe asked. “If there are objections, I sure would like to hear them before we go any farther.”

“So would I,” Maria said.

She took Roscoe by the hand and pulled him down toward their chairs. He knew what she was doing. In the chairs, they could talk directly to Chairman Ray and ask him to come here if he was close. As far as Roscoe knew, Ray was close.

They sat down in the chair and a moment later were melded even more than they were outside the chair.

Roscoe loved that feeling.

He loved everything about being close to Maria.

“Chairman Ray?” Maria said aloud, knowing her voice was being sent to Ray. “Would you and Tacita have a few moments to talk with us in
Morning Song’s
Command Center?”

“Certainly,” Ray said, his image clear in the reply. “Five minutes.”

He cut off and Roscoe stood, pulling Maria to her feet.

“Well?” Fisher asked.

“Chairman Ray is on the way,” Roscoe said, turning to look up at the images still on the big screen. He had no doubt this coming conversation was going to be interesting. He just wasn’t sure how or in which direction it would go.

“
Morning Song,
please clear your screen for the moment,” Maria asked.

The big screen cleared.

Roscoe had no idea what he would do if Chairman Ray said no to this scouting idea. There was no way he was going to spend years preparing a mission without knowing a little of what they were facing.

He had been in the military far too long to do that. He wasn’t going to take millions of humans on
Morning Song
into some huge disaster or fight without being prepared correctly.

And correctly meant he needed to know what they were going to face, even a million and a half years in the future.

THIRTY-NINE

MARIA WAS HOLDING Roscoe’s hand when Chairman Ray and Tacita appeared. Ray was in his standard gray slacks and silk dress shirt and Tacita had on dark pants and a white blouse that set off her black hair.

She looked stunning to Maria.

“Thank you for joining us,” Roscoe said as Chairman Ray nodded to each of them.

They were all standing on the second deck behind the big chairs, Maria and Roscoe together, Ray and Tacita together, touching but not holding hands, and Callie and Fisher standing together.

“It is always a pleasure,” Ray said. “So what can we help with?”

“We have two ideas that are linked,” Roscoe said. “First, we hope to add into the overall mission the building of jump stations as we go along.”

“Jump stations?” Tacita asked, frowning.

“Yes,” Maria said, taking the lead with this idea, “stations on planets or in orbits or in deep space of some sort that we will design ahead that will allow any Seeder to jump back to the Milky Way and Local Group from any point along our mission. Or any galaxy we have left and recruited from as we move forward.”

“Spaced about every one hundred thousand light years,” Roscoe said, “a normal range that most Seeders can jump.”

“It will help with my project of adding in a historical memory for Seeders,” Maria said.

“And it will help in recruiting over the next few years,” Fisher said.

“We call it
Project Breadcrumbs
,” Maria said.