Galactica: Book 1 - Via Lactea

 

The group of Atlanteans quietly made their way under the cover of trees. Silence reigned like a mantel of lead, and even the wind had died down, killing with it the rustle of leaves, the bark of branches rubbing against each other, and even the whisper of air flowing within holes drilled in by now silent Insects. The Atlanteans had stayed in their Feline form and progressed as silently as ghosts.

As they reached the other side of the lake they had been tiptoeing around, a terrible commotion was heard coming from the water’s edge. A series of roars and a terrible amount of splashing could be heard, accompanied by breaking branches. Evidently, a battle of giants was occurring on the lake’s shore. Harp climbed the nearest tree to its top and took a discreet look over the treetops. What he saw sent shivers down his back, and he climbed down quietly.

«It is a battle between what seems to be a plant-eater and a water-dwelling predator. The size of the two opponents dwarf the dinosaurs! The plant-eater is well over 200 feet long, and the predator is around 100 feet long. I am not sure the predator will win that battle, because the plant-eater is using its tail to hammer at the flank of the predator while the meat-eater is trying to find a vital organ to pierce. The funny thing is, they are furry! I can not say for sure if they are mammals, but they definitely are furry.»

«While you were up there, I saw a dragonfly pass by,» said Timor. «Believe it or not, it was a foot long!»

«I do not like this one bit!» commented Fang Chao.

«Neither do we. Is there a way to speed up the progress to the first cave?» enquired Spare-Ribs.

«According to the scan we did from orbit, we are about 21 miles off the entrance to the cave, if we travelled in a straight line. That, unfortunately, is not possible due to the terrain.»

«Did you see that flying bugger we met earlier?» asked Typhoon.

«No, but it does not mean much. It might be lurking just behind a bump, waiting for prey.»

«Or it might be the bump!» Colibri said, much to the displeasure of the Equine contingent of Atlanteans.

«Willie, bring us further off and, this time, try to find a clearing. I shall try a flight.»

The Fox guided the Atlanteans up and around, until they were faced with a vertical cliff.

«Sorry, I thought this would be a clearing because the forest seemed to clear up.»

«That is even better, my friend. You guys stay hidden, I shall dive and convert to my Dragon form during the descent. That cliff face is at least 3,000 feet, more than enough to gain speed and satisfy evil authors wanting to leave their readers hanging.»

Typhoon jumped off and his magnificent gold form shimmered fluidly into existence, replacing the Feline form well before he had reached the half-mark. After pulling out of the dive, Typhoon circled around, watching for the beast. He had not long to wait. A pride of Chimeras suddenly burst from the cloud cover, intent on attacking Typhoon. The other Atlanteans immediately began diving and changing into their Dragon form, intent on assisting Typhoon in the upcoming battle. The rainbow of colours visible from the cliff was astounding, including Red, Gold, and Green Dragons, as well as the Chimeras’ own colours varying from almost white to deep black, passing through tan and blond.

The Chimeras tried to grip the Dragons with their claws, but the rocky skin made for a slippery surface that became impossible to hold on to once it got wet from the water contained in the clouds. The Chimeras tried standing on the Dragons’ back, but the Atlanteans had trained for this kind of attack and simply rotated to fly upside down, throwing the Chimeras off.

Typhoon and Timor decided to try something that would squeeze the Chimeras between their two massive bodies: Typhoon would catch up with Timor and suddenly roll over, placing the Chimeras riding on each one in a sandwich. The two Dragons would then converge until they could feel their flight stream merge, indicating there was less than a foot between the two massive forms. Any Chimera unlucky to be holding to Timor or falling off Typhoon on Timor ended up as foot-thick pancakes. After a pass, Timor would do a couple barrel rolls to clear his body of the residue, and take a dive in a nearby lake to clean up before rejoining the aerial fight.

As the battle progressed, the Atlanteans realised that Chimeras had pack mentality and that the battle was attracting more and more of them from the area. On the ground, the corpses of the dead or dying Chimeras attracted huge hordes of carrion-eaters. Spare-Ribs and his brother Fang Chao teamed up to play a game of ping the Chimera, using their tails to send a Chimera between themselves, and keeping score as to how many hits they could exchange before one or the other missed the ‘ball’ and it hit the ground to be immediately jumped on by whatever held the role of Vultures in this ecosystem. The game attracted the attention of the others.

«What are you two playing?» asked an interested Harp.

«Chimera beach volley ball!» explained Fang Chao as he out-smarted his brother and managed to slam their current Chimera ‘ball’ right in the middle of a thick concentration of the ground-hugging Vultures, killing a dozen in the process and triggering a feeding frenzy that rivalled the best the Sharks ever did. The two brothers then cornered another Chimera to resume their game.

«Who leads?» Timor said.

«We are about equal. I must have downed a good dozen and so did Spare-Ribs. Our Females and Kittens will envy us when we show them the fun we had!»

«You better hurry up! The number of Chimeras is thinning up in the area!» noted Willie Coyote as he swallowed whole one of the last contestants to the Dragons’ air supremacy.

«If Typhoon and you had not eaten half of them, we could keep this game on for hours. It is hard to play Chimera beach volley ball when the Umpires eat the balls!» said Spare-Ribs as he sent another Chimera down, it being missed by mere inches by Fang Chao’s batting tail.

«We are over the location of the cave entrance. Maybe it is time to stop playing and to get serious?» said Colibri, head-ramming another Chimera down, merely feet above the clapping maws of the carrion-eaters.

«Do you see it?»

«There’s a narrow pit diving through the vegetal cover. However, I feel uneasy simply diving in.»

«Torch it!» said Typhoon as he side-swiped another Chimera, sending it in the way of one of his tailing Chimeras and producing a double-down crash.

«I tried! The damn thing smells like burning flesh, and releases a toxic gas that sinks in the cavity, making it impassable!»

«Did you drop some boulders in the cavity?»

«That was the first thing we tried, and it revealed the so-called branches were snares. They are highly elastic, and wrap tightly around a dropped object. It takes them a while to eject it.»

«The branches ejected it? You mean the boulders were thrown out? That is highly unusual!»

«I agree. I wonder about something. What if these plants were put there to guard the entrance by the colonists?»

«We never found any plant of this type on Atlantis One,» replied Colibri.

«Maybe they are native to this world but got enrolled as de facto Cerberus guarding the entrance to the door,» said Harp.

«In that case, it is highly effective!» noted Timor.

«Big does not do it in this case. Try a small pebble. Let us try to figure out what is the minimal size to trigger a response,» Colibri suggested.

After some trials and errors, it became apparent that anything weighing more than eight pounds triggered a response. On the positive side, the plants did not seem to give off any gases that could disorient an oxygen-breather unless they were triggered.

«Do we all have Bird genomes, like the Blue Jay or something of similar size?» asked Harp.

After receiving confirmation from all Atlanteans of the expedition, Timor and Typhoon cleared the airspace of the few Chimeras still able to pose a challenge, before everyone converted to a small Bird and took to diving between the branches of the plant. After five minutes and an ever-darkening atmosphere, a circus opened below the overhanging canopy of twines and the Birds continued dropping about a hundred feet before the floor of the well appeared. It was covered with bleached bones of thousands of animals of all sizes and shapes. Some were crushed by falling bones from above, and still others seemed to be well on their way to full mineralisation.

«Stay in Bird form. We can fly above that ossuary much better than we could ever walk in it,» said Colibri. «Explore the walls and try to see where the entrance to the Cave is.»

After spending twenty minutes flying around, Spare-Ribs found the side-door, hidden by a drape of vines that seemed to look quite similar to those snares they had flown through to reach the base of the well. Harp perched himself on one of the vines and began studying the lock. It too seemed to be based on astronomical aspects of the life on the surface.

«What a lack of imagination! Everything is on the same model, whatever planet we explore!»

«It is probably to ease the return of the colonists,» suggested the always practical Colibri.

Harp nodded and quickly resolved the rebus, but had to use telekinesis to move the parts and push the door open. The others followed him inside before recovering their Boy-Dragon form and taking a look around the dark room.

«Lux!» said Harp, bringing light to the vast room.

A quick tour revealed the Cave was similar to the ones found on the Marsupials’ planet.

«What do we do?» asked Harp, as he eyed the map of caves.

«Map the ecosystem from inside the caves. It will be a lot safer. Let us collect genetic maps, and transfer or simply duplicate everything in the Caves for further study,» decided Colibri, taking in his Imperial Ecologist mantle and taking over that part of the expedition.

«Why not transport everything?» asked Fang Chao.

«We have no idea of the future trends of evolution on this planet. I would prefer that these tools be available like they were on the Marsupials’ planet should they become a necessity to boost technological evolution of an emerging civilisation. Harp, put in magic triggers so we can not only track the natural evolution of life on this planet, but also determine if and when a check-up of the planet might be enlightening. Do we have Paschal’s Collectors?»

«Yes, somewhere around 3,000,000,000 of them. They are currently held in inter-dimensional space,» Harp informed the Ecologist.

«Fine. I want them set to backtrack the evolution of life until the Colonists departed from here to return to Atlantis One. It will reveal the evolutionary constants that led to what we observe today.»

«Okay. How long do we have?» asked Greywolf.

«If all goes well, it should take a month to collect all the data we need. Then we leave a set of Collectors and a relay on the fifth moon of the seventh planet to transfer data and genetic material until we leave this universe. I will ask Paschal to install a beacon in the middle of the fifth moon where we can teleport to wherever we are in the Universe. I know he has been working on this and has been planning on testing it. A short jump from the next colony we plan to visit as proof of concept should suffice. Study the Cave map and validate the viability of the Caves you are to visit before doing a jump. I noticed the system maintains a validation protocol that determines if the Cave is intact, if the atmosphere is breathable, and so forth. Use the safety protocol.»

Once the Collectors were let loose on the planet to explore its current state and what brought it to its situation, the Atlanteans began porting from cave to cave, comparing what they found in each one with the catalogue of what they had recovered from the Marsupials’ planet. It became apparent that the contents of the Caves were not only standard issue, but were also the same from planet to planet, clearly demonstrating the procedure had been thought out and standardised to a high level. The only changes were reported by the Collectors, who noted architectural changes adapted to the exterior environment. For instance, the standard Atlantean structure found on Atlantis One was a rather Moon Crescent-shaped structure exposed on the south side for allow the maximum exposition to the Sun. In contrast, the Colonists had adapted a square structure with a domed courtyard, that allowed them to live outside even if it rained every day for hours. The water was directed to the roof of the house to evaporate, thus acting as a full-surface Air Conditioning Unit without the need of power. All these structures had collapsed over time and were now totally eaten up by the jungle. Harp had a few of the most intriguing buildings recovered by the Collectors and sent to the Museum Tessaract. One such building was an eight-wing construction with a central courtyard that extended within the arms of the construction. According to the data collected, it became apparent that this had been the centre of government on the very prosperous colony.

As the month came to a close, the Atlanteans returned to Thebes, leaving behind the Collectors to continue their job and a well-hidden forward station they could pop in to verify some particulars reported by the Collectors once they had returned to the present to begin their surveillance of the Planet.

***

The next colony explored by the crew from Thebes was a radical change from the previous one. Colony Five had been undergoing intensive terraforming since the colonisation had begun, but the departure of the Atlanteans had let the planet return to its original state to a certain point. Comparing the initial report of the Colonists with the current situation left Colibri speechless.

"When you think they worked so hard to make this into a garden and it is now all back to sand and bare rocks! Ah, the futility of grandeur when it fights nature! The only real change I see in this planet from the original survey done by the Colonists is the presence of a higher level of atmospheric humidity and some rather extensive salt flats!"

"Colibri, these flats are not salt, they are glass flats. Maybe there is more to this planet’s return to savagery than meets the eyes!" exclaimed Paschal as he scanned the planet from the orbiting Thebes.

"I tend to agree with Paschal on this," said Enron. "I have read their last reports, and they spent a considerable amount of effort in weather control by satellite. However, there is a comment that left me perplexed. Repeatedly, they complained of powerful ion storms on the surface of the planet and of the inefficiency of the satellites to control them or of the weather forecast to tell them in advance when such an event was to occur. Quite a few Colonists were caught outside during these storm and died of radiation burns. I do not understand what might cause these ion storms on the surface of the planet since it is enveloped in a magnetosphere comparable to the one found on Earth."

"Given these facts, I suggest we send down robots rather than drop down, even if the surface is clearly visible. What is the average temperature?" asked Ian.

"Sensor readings indicate temperatures range from 50° at the pole to just below 200° at the equator. It is just the right temperature for sun-bathing!" Felicia Wolf said with a smirk.

"Do we detect the usual caves?"

"Yes. I suggest that if you do drop to the surface, you get near a cave entrance just before daybreak. It is the coolest at that moment. Unfortunately, the planet does not seem to have seasons so we can not try to go where a day might be shorter."

"That is another strange thing about this planet," said Harp as he digested Felicia’s comment. "All the planets we have met have seasons, some longer than others, but overall, seasons are the rule rather than the exception."

"Could the Colonists have modified the inclination of the planet’s rotation axis?" asked Greywolf, awed by that perspective.

"I do not see how, but with our ancestors, nothing is impossible," replied Harold. "Thebes, do a search on the topic and come back with a reference on the procedure and what other things you might discover related to this."

While the crew on the Bridge waited for a report, the planetary scan continued, revealing a number of caves, mostly located in the mountainous regions. Paschal dropped a few hundred robotic fliers that began circling the planet.

As the first very bright surface came into view, the passage of the flier produced an unexpected activity below. Literally millions of almost translucent and whitish animals seemed to skate with spindly legs and absolutely long feet on the glassy surface of what could best be called a sea of glass. They seemed to use the wind like sailboats and their forward arms to spread sails and twist left and right to progress upwind, then suddenly change direction to navigate cross-wind. As the Atlanteans observed the huge herd, they noticed much darker groups of animals that converged on the herds, inducing evasive movements from the much bigger and numerous light-skinned skaters.

"The rule of life: prey and predators at work. If I know what the predators eat, I can not fathom what the preys gain sustenance from. I see absolutely no vegetation!" exclaimed Enron as he watched the ballet of death from the monitors.

"I was asking myself the same question," replied Colibri. "But look at the sails. They are bicolour, a dark and a light side. The herd at rest was almost invisible, camouflaged to perfection. It was only when they started moving that we detected their presence. It was then that their darker side appeared."

"Yes, so?"

"They are like plants: they feed on the solar energy while being at rest. The moment they start moving, they need more energy and expose their dark side, thus absorbing more solar energy."

"That is another type of animal-plant?" commented Annabelle, very interested by the prospect.

"I would surmise so. Paschal? Drop Collectors and try to sample both preys and predators."

"Okay, Colibri. They are off. I also dropped a robot to open up one of the caves. I should have a report on its contents shortly."

"Ready an army of artefact Collectors to drop and port from that cavern also," said Ian. "I do not like leaving advanced technology to get picked up by hostiles later on."

Paschal nodded and began preparing another armada of Collectors for the cave system. Looking at Ian, Paschal signalled the start of the recovery process.

"It should be complete within a week. I will recover everything, including the doors, and then collapse the caves. Is that what you want?"

"Yes. No trace of our passage should remain on this planet."

"Do you want live samples?"

"No. We can spend the week recording the interactions between the different groups, collect as many genetic samples as necessary to gain an understanding of the intrinsic variance, but that is all. Harp, try to figure out what could have caused these huge glassy areas."

"Okay."

Things progressed quietly until the day before Thebes was to leave orbit and progress toward the next colony. Just as the space-ship emerged from behind the planet, the detectors reported an immense influx of corona material getting ejected from the primary star, a mass equal to several times the planet’s mass.

"The matter flux is seven days off. What we saw was the gamma ray burst. If we had been on the surface without protection, we would have been micro-waved!" exclaimed Timor as he looked at the gamma-ray spike level.

"That explains the complaints from the Colonists quite nicely. How could their weather satellites control a gamma-ray burst or forewarn them? And putting a satellite in between the planet and its primary would be totally useless. The radio signal would have come behind the gamma-ray burst, not ahead of it. All this leads to some roasted Colonists, and probably some very spectacular aurora. By the time the light show attracted attention from some individuals outside, it was probably too late for a person to find a shelter."

"That explains a good part of the mystery, Harp, but what do we do now?"

"Colibri, it explains a big part, but not where these glassy plains come from. Paschal, have the Genome samplers retreat within the caves for safety and suspend the matter transfer streams. Enron, Colibri, examine the behaviour of the animals on the surface before, during and after the ion storm."

It took three days for the ion stream to reach the planet’s magnetosphere. The sensors noticed that the magnetosphere got depressed to the point of being pushed back to the surface by the stream. The resulting collision between the oxygen and nitrogen-rich atmosphere ionised the area exposed to the blunt of impact. It, in turn, produced a high concentration of ozone. On the surface, powerful electrical arcs that jumped from neighbouring protuberances, bringing their tips to well above melting point.

"Now I know why the fork melted in the micro-wave!" exclaimed Jerry as he watched the light show below.

The flux of electrical currents continued to increase to the point the surface of the seas of glass shone. The slightest anomaly was wiped out as arcs of electricity followed the cracks and melted them to oblivion.

"Where are the animals?" asked a concerned Colibri.

"The last image we got from a lagging surveillance drone before it vapourised was a long line of them vanishing into these narrow canyons that border the seas. Some roasted before reaching these narrow passages and melted, their mass getting added to the surface of the seas," reported Willie Coyote.

"Do we have any drone in these canyons?"

"Yes, but they are on record mode, Colibri. No signal can cross the ionosphere worth recording."

"What can we detect from here?"

"Not much, I am afraid. The borders of the seas are where the highest electrical activity is occurring, as lightning jumps from the mountains to the sky and down to the glass planes below. There are huge bolts travelling along the main axis of the canyons, along with short but very intense arcs jumping from one side to the other."

"Do you have thermal measurements?"

"I have no idea within the canyons, since any reading of their internal conditions is blocked by the electrical sparks binding the lips of the canyons together. It looks like these canyons act like huge Faraday cages."

"That is a nice speculation as to why the animals might find refuge within these canyons Willie," said Harp.

"What I find most fascinating is that the animals seem to be made of the same material as the seas: glass! If it is so, this is yet another form of life made out of silica, adding to the widening variations found in these types of life: First it was the Dragons, then the Seraphrims, now these Glass Skaters," speculated Colibri.

"I have another line of questioning," said Typhoon.

"Yes?"

"What if these glassy life-forms were the native life-forms of this planet and they almost got exterminated by the Colonists, intent on terraforming this world even if it led to the destruction of its original ecosystem?"

"Given how they behaved on Atlantis One, I would not put it beyond them to have done just that. Remember, their ecosystem was on the verge of collapse due to lack of genetic diversity. If it is the case, it might be a good idea to extend our backtracking beyond the establishment of the colony project in order to get a more varied history of life on this planet. Dad, would you object to this?"

"No, Son. It is a valid undertaking. We might even consider building a zoo in the Ark project for these life-forms if it is viable to do so."

Colibri did a back-flip in joy and immediately enrolled Tom, Jerry, and Enron in the planning of the future ‘Zoo of Glass’ as he dubbed the project. They and Harp moved off to the Captain’s Ready Room to discuss the project and set out plans.

"You know this will take a good month?" asked Sitar as he looked at Harold.

"So? It is worthwhile if the glass life forms proved to have been exterminated by Atlantean intervention and that they used to have a sustainable ecosystem."

Five days after the onset of the ion storm, the planet’s surface cleared of lightning but remained relatively hot still. It took another two days for the first animals to venture on the flats, mainly the preys. The last ones to leave the protection of the canyons were the predators. The emergence of the sensors from the canyons was awaited with growing impatience. Finally, near the end of the seventh day, they came out and began transmitting their recorded data.

Clearly, the first to find refuge in the canyons had been the preys, whose population progressed deep within the cracks to the end, packing the canyons’ floors from side to side. Then the predators came in and made their way to narrower cracks that could not shelter the preys. During the electrical storms, the animals, all variety confounded, lay spread as low as possible on the ground, while arcs of electricity jumped across the canyons from wall to wall. Sometime, lightning struck so close the animals jumped or were shocked. An unfortunate prey or predator could be seen getting dismembered by intense electrical currents, but, overall, the canyons offered protection. The level of ozone climbed steadily, reaching in some areas well over 90 % of the oxygen concentration in the higher levels of the canyons. SiO₂ concentration rose in the canyon’s lower parts, revealing the respiratory cycle of the life-forms of this planet.

"I never thought silicon oxide could be in gaseous form!" Sitar exclaimed.

"It is not. It precipitates in the form of a very fine dust but the heat creates updrafts that bring it to the upper parts of the canyons," explained Thorsten from the Science Station.

"I still am amazed at what we have seen so far. Glassy life! Who would have thought?" said Zen, as he slithered into the Bridge.

"So? I am made of rock!" said Typhoon, looking at the Snake crossly.

"Oh! I bit my own tail with that one did I not?"

"Yes, you did!"

Time passed quietly while the reports flowed from the Genome Collectors and the backtracking Collectors. After slightly less than a month, the Royals made their way to the Throne room to discuss what they had found. The Council room was too small for a comfortable meeting of all the Royals, and the Bridge was not the place to hold such a conference.

"What have we got?" asked Harold, who was presiding as was his right.

"Atlantis One made a number on the life of this planet. They virtually destroyed everything, ignoring the value of the silicon-based life," began explaining Colibri. "We duplicated a considerable portion of the planet’s original surface and life just before the first stage of terraforming began. The Skaters are descendent of what would be considered Rodents in Carbon-based life-forms. They were considerably smaller, about half the size of Gerbils, and grew quickly to fill in a vacuum in the ecosystem once the Colonists were recalled. The variety of life found just before the Colonists began their genocide was fabulous. We have ‘Birds’ made of glass of different colours, that can compete with my namesake for their beautiful iridescence. There were also rock climbers and a number of Skaters of differing sizes and colours."

"While Colibri studied the past, I looked at what the present has. We reserved space to rescue the current ecosystem in the hopes of rebuilding a new, distinct and sustainable population out of the restricted genome of the current life," said Enron, taking over from Colibri.

"And I wondered how the Skaters made their way around. We know skating on ice is achieved by the ice melting and creating a thin layer of water between the blade and the surface. In the case of the Skaters, it is the presence of microscopic glass beads, their form of bacteria! They roll on the surface. I have forwarded this information to Colibri and Enron so we do not forget to get these beads in our collecting efforts."

"I was wondering what you were examining so closely, Paschal. Glass ball-bearings would have piqued your curiosity," said Ian. "What else have you found about these balls?"

They are made of a very special type of glass, that is as hard as diamonds. In fact, to cut one open, I had to use a special blade."

"Very interesting indeed. What other properties do they have?"

"They are highly resistant to deformation, even under intense heat. I am currently looking at the possibility of using them in joints for machines. I have put some of my Engineers to task in finding how to manufacture them. I may use them in nanobots."

After further talks about what had been found, Ian asked the fatidic question.

"Are we done here?"

"I think so. I dropped a monitoring device on the biggest moon and it buried itself to its core," said Paschal. "If ever that planet’s life-forms evolves to sentience, we will know. I also have called back the Collectors, completed the move of Atlantean material, and collapsed the caves. Unless there are other things to do, we are done."

Silence met Paschal’s unspoken question, and Ian looked at Samson. "Where to next?"

"Let me see. We cleared up colony 12 and 5; the nearest would be colony 8 followed by 11, and 6. That would bring us near where the Atlantis One Black Hole resided before you did that number on the Cyborgs, Ian. Then we have colonies 1, 9, 7, 10, 2, 4 and 3. Between 10 and 2, there is the Terra Solar system we need to hop in to find out the answer to the question about the origin of Magic in Atlanteans. I talked to Colibri and Sitar about that. It is quite apparent that Atlantis One’s population was not magical in any significant way since those we rescued show no sign whatsoever of developed or developing magical cores. The order of the Colonies may seem arbitrary, but I did a simulation of their placement when Atlantis One began its colonisation project. They were in a roughly spherical distribution around the Metropolis of the Atlantean Empire. It is only the differential in star displacement that led to the current apparent randomness in the placement of these Colonies. The only exception is colony 12, which has always been an outlier."

"Okay, we set course for Colony 8 at the next shift change. Meanwhile, proceed with a complete check-up of Thebes," ordered Ian.

***

The Atlanteans made quick work of recovering material left behind on colonies 8, 11 and 6. Only minimal traces of the colonies’ activities were found: plants and wildlife had taken over, but no intelligent species seemed to have been able to grow out of the chaos left by the precipitous departure of the Colonists. Colony 11 showed traces of culling by an unknown species, but no living individual or settlement was found. Colony 6 showed that it was beginning to recover from the stress of intense and more advanced colonisation.

As Thebes emerged within the general area where Atlantis One’s primary star used to be, the damage done to space, matter, and time by the destruction of the Black Hole jumped at the crew’s face.

Ian, from the Captain’s seat was stunned. Huge swaths of space seemed to rip open and close instantly, swallowing matter explosively to throw it out like some seasick passenger recovering from a binge in a hurricane. Time itself seemed to be unstable, as the streams of matter coalesced into Cubes before disintegrating again. The flux of time oscillated madly. Bits and pieces of data exchange between the Cubes could be detected, but their meaning was lost as data was sent backward or forward, echoes of a long past battle. Even Ian’s voice could be heard echoing its defiance to the Cubes.

Within the debris field, small vessels could be seen hopping in and out, trying to capture bits and pieces of the giant Cube armada. It was fascinating to see these ships, no bigger than a car, hop into a gutted Cube to tear at a piece of material and jump out just before it blew up once more, or to see them skirt the tears in space, escaping its grip as it ripped open or closed with a cascade of photons. Even the photon torpedoes that had been used by Thebes in the initial battle were being cannibalised for parts as they detonate causing the destruction of the Cubes in an unending show of fireworks.

"What are these things?" asked Ian, finally getting out of his shocked mood.

"I am unaware of anything like that in Atlantean records," said AI-6.

"I am waiting for propositions on their origins."

"I speculate they come from across the rips. They are actually recovering stuff and taking it across I think. These are the ultimate battlefield Vultures," said Harp as he saw one sphere pop into existence as another rip opened.

"Do we have sensor readings?"

"I am analysing the data. It seems they have negative mass, which does not make much sense to me."

"Negative mass? You mean to tell me their Higgs particle has a negative mass index?"

"No. The Higgs particle creates mass by affecting a field, the Higgs flux field, much like a ship’s prow pushes water and raises a wake. In their case, the wake is negative, therefore the mass registers as a negative mass. That explains why they can move so quickly in our space. They are like skaters on ice compared to a swimmer in water."

"Right... But why are they picking up the garbage?"

"Maybe you can ask... They spotted us," said Sitar, as a massive armada of spheres seemed to curve their trajectory to intercept Thebes.

"Cloak! Fold space!" ordered Ian, in effect enveloping Thebes in its own bubble of space-time.

"That does not seem to faze them, Ian. They seem content to wait for us to unfold space to resume their progress."

"I hate sticky spheres. Jerry? Open a narrow-band high-frequency communication channel."

"That is easier said than done, Ian. I am still trying to find what frequencies they use to communicate! Given the background noise produced by that battle, it is proving difficult to differentiate between your call of vengeance, the Cubes’ constant chatter, their reply to you, the background static produced by detonations, the Black Hole ripping apart, and the thunderous claps and zipping noises of space-time being torn to shreds, and these spheres. When I have identified and eliminated everything we know, what we will not know will be the Spheres, and that is a lot to clean up."

"What do you mean?" asked Thorsten.

"Listen to that recording!"

The ears of the crew was suddenly assailed with thunderclaps, zapping sounds, and a cacophony worthy of the end of the world, that left the hardest heavy metal bands in the dust. Suddenly the zapping sounds were neutralised.

"That’s the ripping of space-time. I finally managed to negate its existence. But, as you can hear, the problem is not yet resolved."

Just to prove him right, a tremendous rolling explosion was heard.

"What the Hell is that?"

"I matched this with time flux reversals. If you pay attention, each time time reverts its flow, it creates that noise, like the one that accompanies a tidal bore. Each time (so to speak) time reverses, events collide before realigning themselves with the flux. Then, it is like an elastic toy. You certainly remember the toy you had ported through time, that Slinky?"

"If I remember? You and Tom were making us go nuts with these toys racing around all day!" exclaimed a horror-stricken Timor.

"I removed your voice and its echo through time, Ian. Now that Gamma hiss.... There! The crack-tic-crack is the compressed data exchange of the Cubes. I played back the recording of the original and I think I can use it to wipe that out too..."

After some more tinkering, the sound disappeared leaving the time reversal boom and a hiss. After some more work, Jerry managed to anticipate the reversals and removed the most annoying part of the signal.

"It is a time series. I applied Fast Fourier transforms to determine the base frequencies. Nonetheless it has an unstable component that will continue to bug us until I manage to factor that in."

"What about that hiss?"

"It is the hydrogen’s 21 centimetre band. I have it almost cleared up." As he said that, the hiss vanished, leaving only the occasional signal associated with a time reversal and a persistent, very high-frequency click-click-click.

"What is that?"

"Compressed data. And it is not from the Cubes, therefore it must be from these spheres. AI-5, decompress, please?"

"I am working on it. It is also encrypted, making it very difficult."

"Harp? You were the encryption maniac that gave Thorsten and Yamato that huge headache. Pay-back is a bitch!" said Timor.

"Why should I bother? Jerry is well on his way to solving the riddle, and I see no reason to rob the feather off his hat! In fact, I am pleased to no end at how far they have progressed! Who would have thought a stay in the Pyramids would have resulted in this kind of bloom!"

The two Australopithecus Regressi Boys blushed profusely, taken by surprise at the praise.

"No pranks to get even, you two!" said Harp.

"And why not? You have been teaching us a lot of nice tricks! It is about time we show you ours!" said Tom with an evil smirk.

"Water can have so many nice properties!" added Jerry, a comment that sent shivers down the back of many Royals. "By the way, I broke their encryption. It was a numeric one, based on a running window key. They were exchanging data on the frequency of rifts in time until they noticed us, and then the data contents changed, matching a pattern giving positions and speed assignment and tracking our own movements. What do you want to do with this?"

"Can you tell us from that where they come from?" asked Ian, very interested.

"Unfortunately, no. Their co-ordinate system is centred on the battlefield, and any relevant information is derived from that."

"I have been running numerical models that would produce a negative Higgs Boson particle. Only an antimatter universe would be able to sustain that type of particle," said Paschal from one of the free desks of the Engineering Stations. "The conclusion is clear: they crossed the rips and are trying to capture matter in whatever form they can because they can derive energy from it once it is brought across the rifts! That also explains why they do not stay constantly visible. The Cherenkov radiation we see enveloping the spheres is the result of the contact between their ship and the matter dust. They must be on a tight schedule if their ships are not to completely disintegrate from the matter-antimatter reaction."

"How does matter survive on their side?" Thorsten wondered.

"Like antimatter survives here, I guess: the presence of magnetic bottles, probably the of the Klein type."

"Guys, these speculations do not help us. How do we establish intelligent contact?" asked Ian, as he watched with growing frustration the debate drift from his primary problem.

"Supply a Klein bottle for them," suggested Alexander, from the Helm. "If we show a positive attitude, maybe they will consider things more closely before trying to cannibalise Thebes. Actions speak louder than words. Enron, I need to be relieved. Bathroom calls!"

"Okay, little brother. I am on the secondary Bridge. You stand relieved."

Harp and Paschal did as Alexander suggested and materialised a Klein bottle outside of Thebes before unfolding space for a brief moment and ejecting it outside of the space-ship before folding space back around their home.

"Give them an hour or so to study the bottle, and then we can check if they understand we mean no harm," Ian said. "Meanwhile, lunch! It is past sext and...". Just then, Ian’s tummy emitted the most scary growl signalling its intentions to digest anything thrown its way. "I am going hunting. Who wants to come?"

"Wolf or Dragon form?" asked Timor.

"I want to take Wolf form. It has been a while and I feel like I need to run. Are you with me, Greywolf?"

"Yes. And you, Spare-Ribs and Fang Chao, are you coming?"

"We shall take our Feline form, if you do not mind."

"I certainly do not mind! You are formidable hunters in that form."

"I have not exercised the Feline form enough. I think I will use that form for the hunt," decided Timor, converting into a huge Sabre-Tooth Snow Leopard that dwarfed Spare-Ribs.

"I had never seen you in this shape, Timor. I knew your Wolf form was huge, but, damn! You are giving me inferiority complexes!" said Spare-Ribs.

«Sorry! I can down-size!»

«Do not bother. You are not an enterprise!»

The hunt went well, and Timor brought down a Musk Ox, barely enough to fill his appetite, while the other Felines downed a Moose, sharing it with Ian and Greywolf. Upon returning to the Bridge, they noticed Thebes had returned to standard space and that the spheres were leaving it alone.

"I managed to establish contact while you went out to play," said Jerry. "They are from another universe, with a negative Plank Constant relatively close to ours."

"Say it right, Brother: identical in value to the last digit, but with a minus in front of it," said Tom.

"Well, yes... So we exchanged some more information. Their universe is also of the same age as ours. We came to the conclusion their Universe is a mirror of ours in all dimensions. They have not discovered some aspects, but are looking into them. They have yet to validate Magic. I told them of our mission, and they fear their Universe is headed the same direction as ours. I kept to ourselves the true origin of the Big Bang, but they know of its existence."

"What Jerry is skating around is that if this proves right, it is not 87 or so universes we need to salvage, but a grand total of 174, of which half are currently inaccessible because they are composed entirely of antimatter."

"I wonder if there is a civilisation mirror image of ours over there?" asked Timor.

"I asked that question, and those people have no knowledge of such a civilisation. However, I am not too worried. Mirror image does not mean identical. It might be it lives off another solar system, or that it got destroyed, or still, that it never did actually grow to interstellar status. Who knows?"

"Right. What are they asking of us?"

"To establish diplomatic relations. They are well aware that we cannot exchange Ambassadors, but the data streams can be passed on. I told them we planned to only stay in the area for a short while. They understand that we will move away from the rifts. AI-3 has suggested supplying them with the plans for a transceiver capable of transmitting and receiving data across universes. AI-2 is currently designing the circuitry with the help of Paschal and one of their Scientists. It should be ready in an hour or so, and, if you approve of the idea, Ian, our transceiver will be ready in 24 hours. It will take them about twice that time, and then we shall be able to test it."

"Okay. However, include a self-destruct mechanism, just in case it falls in the wrong hands on the other side, and a protocol of signal authentication."

"I heard, Ian. It is already on the drawing board. Security for both parties has been at the core of discussions for half an hour already," said Paschal from his Engineering laboratory.

Just then, Harold made his way to the Bridge.

"I thought this stop was a check and go?"

"We have established contact with an intelligent life-form from another universe, Dad. We are exchanging data and a way to set a permanent communication between us," said Ian as Harold’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "Do not worry, they are unlikely to invade us this side: they are made of antimatter."

"Dad," began explaining Paschal, "in order to visit their universe, we would need to wrap Thebes in a Klein bottle so as not to disintegrate! They suffer a similar issue, as you can see with the Cherenkov radiation their ships emit the moment they are on our side. They can only do very brief pops in and out."

After letting go of a breath he was unaware he had been holding, Harold sat down on the Admiral’s seat and observed the crew at work, while getting updated on the last developments. Finally, three hours after the plans had been exchanged, the first direct contact across universe boundaries was established. The signal was clear on both sides. The Sphere carrying the transponder in the antimatter universe left the battle zone to head to the Star system that housed their central government. The signal stayed clear and Thebes moved away from what was left of Atlantis One’s system, maintaining a constant contact with the Antimatter space-ship, whose people called themselves the Xenon race.

"Set course for Colony One," ordered Ian. "Estimate our arrival time at warp 4."

"Seven days, six hours and fifteen minutes," replied AI-6.

"Why the slow speed, Son?"

"If we need to return to Atlantis One, I do not want to be too far. According to the information I have received from the Xenon, their speed is approximately Warp 3, and their core system is three days away from their current position. I did some maths, and I have given their political structure some time to discuss that momentous discovery their science ship made. Knowing how conservative politicians are, I do not expect any contact from them for a fortnight. By then we will be at Colony One and well on our way to finishing the clean-up."

"All right, Ian, I cannot fault your reasoning."

***

Things progressed smoothly. Colony 1 had been occupied far too long to ever recover from the disastrous management the Atlanteans had made of its ecosystem. It had collapsed the moment they had retired, returning to bacteria, moss and fungus, with sparse trees that seemed on the verge of disappearing. The Caves had been left alone for so long they were covered in dust. Colonies 9 and 7 seemed well on their way to catch up with the miserable state of Colony 1. On the other hand, Colony 10 presented a thick green cover, and no trace of Atlantean colonisation could be seen. In fact, no animal could be detected by thermal signature, much to the surprise of the crew.

"That is really strange. According to the manifest of exploration, the Atlanteans brought farm animals and pets with them. They should have survived, diversified, and occupied niches when the Colonists left in a panic," said Colibri.

"Send sensors down. This is not normal," said Enron.

Micro-sensors were dropped in the thickest forest and began reporting what they observed. Apart from Insects that seemed to be busy pollinating, not a single animal was found. On the other hand, strange long tracks could be seen at the base of the mountains.

"I wonder what these tracks mean?" asked Enron, as he studied the images sent real-time by the sensors. "Look at that rock! It is cracked, sheared, polished, and... If I was not sure this is stupid, I would say it got attacked by a root that got removed."

"And these flat surfaces look like stairs climbing up the mountain. They are way too high for us and are certainly not of Atlantean origins. They seem to be made for a giant," Paschal said.

"Can you estimate the size of the user of these stairs and how long ago they were last used?" asked Sitar, worried about military consequences.

"Let me see. These ‘feet’ are about 74.4 inches in length, or slightly over six feet, which gives a height of 480 inches, or 40 feet! The rest is in proportion. Just look at the height of each step. Each one measures slightly over six feet in height."

"You are talking about someone measuring 40 feet in height walking around? It is not a person, it is a tree!" exclaimed Harp as he looked at Colibri in horror.

"So? The Ogres were far from small, and if they are their current size, it is because we keep them on a starvation diet," said Enron. "Anyway, it fits what we observe: the ground seems eaten by powerful roots, there are no animals capable of doing what we see, and if you look at the path, it is rather wide if rather roughly levelled. Something with these types of legs would probably consider the ground conveniently flat."

Just then a sensor reported a commotion along one of the paths. Zooming on the disturbance, its camera revealed a strange activity. Off to the side of a stream, two trees were engaged in what could only be interpreted as a battle. The two giants exchanged blows and tried o topple each other, gripping on rocks that exploded under the pressure of their roots. One, backed against the mountain cliff, kept gripping huge rocks and throwing them at his enemy that would back off, just to charge back and throw some of the sizeable slabs back at his opponent. Leafs flew everywhere, and wide gashes letting out a whitish substance could be seen on the trunks of the opponents.

"The white stuff is sap," explained Colibri. "Notice it solidifies almost immediately after leaking out and becoming exposed to air."

The one cornered against the cliff was slowly climbing up, drilling hand and foot-holds in the rock face, all the while keeping its opponent at bay with a hail of rocks. The cliff face rose several hundred feet, and the retreating opponent was making slow, but certain progress upward. As it reached 400 feet, it began speeding its climb, abandoning the battlefield. The other tree began climbing behind the other, intent on catching up with its fast retreating opponent. Suddenly, as it reached the overhanging lip of the plateau, the one in the lead jumped off the cliff and landed in a giant slash in the middle of the stream, to run off downstream with giant steps. The other one tried to follow, but being several hundred feet below, missed the stream and landed in a pile of rocks that crumbled under the impact. It rose groggily on its feet and began to move toward the stream, intent on pursuing the retreating combatant. It limped along, still making huge strides, but it was apparent it had been hurt in the jump, contrary to the one that it wanted to pursue.

As it reached the stream, it suddenly came to a halt and began to back out of the water as quickly as it could, but something seemed to have gripped it from underwater, holding to it with tenacity. Under the amazed gaze of the Atlanteans, long lianas seemed to sprout out of the water, encircling the trunk, immobilising the feet, and the arms. By then, the trunk began smoking, as the walking tree fought desperately for its freedom. The vines began tearing branches and legs and inserting their tips in the open wounds left by this macabre activity and the wounds in the trunk produced by the previous battle. The atrocious scene became even more grisly as the trunk began to crack from the foraging vines, and the lianas penetrated the tree from the roots up toward the top. An hour after that assault, the tree trunk was discarded, emptied of its substance and left to flow down the powerful stream.

"Is anyone interested in going fishing after seeing that?" asked Harp, making Timor puke.

"Your sense of humour is dubious, big Brother!" said Alexander, white as a ghost.

"The first one that jumped showed remarkable courage. It must have known about that predator lurking in the river!" said Sitar with an admiring tone. "It could have missed and ended up as lunch!"

"Quite true. However, I wonder if it is really safe. It will have to climb out of the river somewhere," said Colibri.

"I suspect it knows exactly where to do that. Did you notice the stream is relatively quiet here compared to upstream and downstream? I suspect the predator needs these calm pools of water to be able to anchor itself properly. I would not put it beyond the one that got away to have picked that exact spot to confront its pursuer just because it offered a combination of high cliff, a pool of water occupied by a predator and a powerful stream whose midsection was within jumping distance from the top of the cliff face," said Sitar.

"Anyway, we now know who makes those trails. We focus on picking up the contents of the Caves and then, after that, we look into this society composed of plants. The behaviour of that runaway proves a certain level of intelligence worthy of rescue."

"Okay, Ian, that is assuming they do not see us as delicacies," replied Harp. "Ogres are enough for me!"

Things progressed quickly from there. By then, emptying the Caves of their contents had been done so many times it was routine. The Atlanteans of the Home World seemed to have set the plans for one cave and followed it ever since, over thousands of years. Sitar called it the military way of doing things: if it works once, why change unless proven faulty by a resounding rout?

After fifteen days, the last cave emptied, time came to establish contact. The issue was that there were no villages, no grouping of any sort that might lead to a beginning of social structure or anything similar.

"Have we managed to find a way to locate individuals?" asked Ian.

"Thermal signatures are not very effective, so I resorted to reflexivity. The principle is that the leafs have differing reflexive indexes depending on area, gloss, and texture. The micro-sensors have been good at measuring these factors. For instance, I have found that one mobile tree has very dark green leaves, with an almost mirror-like surface, giving out bright flashes of light in the green wavelengths. Another mobile tree has somewhat more reddish-brown leafs with red fringes. Its overall colour range covers green, but also red and orange. It also has more ‘hairy’ leafs, which disperses light, weakening the reflection and giving it a darker look," Colibri said.

"How many mobile tree species have we found?"

"There are about 300, spread according to differing ecosystems. Closer to the poles, the mobile trees are both shorter and have narrower leaves reminiscent of evergreens, but still oversized relative to our types of evergreens. The mobile trees do not seem to build structures, but they group by type, in clusters of varying sizes. I think the limiting factor is the availability of resources to feed on. Some prefer to set root in barren rock, others prefer water, others still want to grow on the corpses of fallen trees. Some hunt other trees, while some lay in ambush. Apparently, what we saw was a hunt. Quite evidently, not all trees are mobile. In fact, the vast majority are not."

"So, we have mobile trees that stay in clumps, some feed on other trees, and what else?"

"The tree clumps are all closely related genetically, sort of like families. And there are wars going on, between different species of trees to occupy choice growth locations, or to feed on resources that are rare. The most versatile are the vines. They grow quite fast, grip on a passing tree and literally devour it alive. Then there are the scavengers. These eat on fallen or sick trees and eat just about anything, including vines that have grown sluggish from overfeeding."

"Have we found out what happened to the Colonists’ animals?"

"They probably got eaten up. Calcium, which compose bones, seem to be rare, and a trunk that contains calcium is stronger than the standard tree trunk. I also noticed that chemical warfare is endemic. All plants produce some form of poison, mostly derived from a family of molecules called the opiates. These plants would likely kill any of us if we tried to eat their seed, their fruits, their roots, or their stems. On the other hand, they are a gold mine of pharmaceutical products, if we keep the dosage to microscopic values. I have been spending the last fifteen days magically extracting everything we can; once we are done, I can spend time synthesising the purified forms and we will have a pharmacopeia at our fingertips."

"What about life underwater?"

"The sea floor is carpeted with a whole new class of plants, including algae that measure thousands of feet in length. There is another war going on underwater, between surface plants and plants that live off minerals in suspension produced by hot springs and chimneys. There are huge rafts of plants floating freely that seem to war on each other when they meet. Again, we found no fish, no shellfish either. The perfect beach-side resort!"

"I see. We leave without establishing contact," decided Ian. "I see no gain from this, and who knows, if they discovered there were other planets, they might decide to leave their home world. Give a life-form a goal, and you can change their behaviour to the point they become a risk for others. We have enough trouble as it it without seeding the idea of space travel in these trees," decided Ian.

"Afraid of Ogres, little Brother?" teased Harp.

"Piss off!" replied Ian, all the while showing a finger in a very distasteful manner.

"If we continue according to the plans, the next colony is Colony 2," Samson said from the Navigator’s desk. "The planned route is already available to Helm. I suggest we bypass Earth and come back after cleaning up Colony 2. It would be safer."

"Approved!" said Sitar.