The Prophesy: Book 4 - Armageddon

 

"What is the issue, Dad?" asked Ian as they materialised into the Bridge.

"Look at this!"

"That is very strange. I wonder what it is!"

"It is artificial, and moving at slightly below our current speed. We should catch up with it in 10 minutes!"

Just then, P’Tarik, Colibri, Alexander, and Rockhook walked in.

"I am detecting more of these objects," commented Thorsten. "It is an armada. The counter has reached several hundred already, and is continuing to climb."

"Can you tell us their formation?" asked Ian.

"According to the three-dimensional projection, it is a pointed cone, layered by one light-year for several light-years," replied Thorsten.

"That sure is a risky strategy. If one of the lead space ships fail, they all collide at hyper-luminic speed," commented Sitar.

"That might explain the intense exchange of data between them the sensors report, my Lord."

"Analyse the data and determine its nature, Iridia!"

"We have visual reconstruction from the tachyons," said Thorsten.

"Project on left screen," replied Ian.

As soon as the image appeared, Rockhook started swearing like a Lumberjack.

"You seem to know them?"

"Yes. These are the same that forced our people off our planet, and devoured it. They have been following us from refuge to refuge ever since. We only know them as the Enemy. Unfortunately, they were not the only ones! We had a brush with the Mind-eaters too, sadly."

"You know, calling everything the Enemy can be confusing," said Ian.

"For us, it is not. Anything that attacks us is the Enemy."

"I wonder if this is the same Enemy which has eaten up the Matriarch’s home world?"

"We can always ask," replied Ian.

"It is secondary, Ian. It is an Enemy armada, let us deal with it."

"Right Sitar. It is your job. You have command."

"I have command," replied Sitar.

"I have the data flow analysis in," said Iridia.

"What do you conclude?"

"The entire fleet is under direct control of a single ship. All commands come from it."

"Can we match their signals and override it?"

"Yes. Give me two minutes."

Two minutes passed, and by then the distance between the armada and the Atlantean ship had reduced considerably.

"I am ready," notified Iridia.

"Override. Continue transmitting as if it was their Admiral ship. Keep them headed the way they are. What is their objective?"

"Where we are going," Enron said, as he looked over the shoulder of the Helmsman.

"Okay. Tell me when we are one minute behind the last ship."

"Seven minutes to objective," replied Timor, which had taken over sensor arrays.

Enron sat at the Helm, as Ian took the Captain’s seat.

"Enter stealth mode," ordered Sitar.

"Five minutes to checkpoint," said Thorsten.

"The counter has stopped climbing."

"How many layers are we dealing with?"

"There are 11 layers."

"Three minutes to checkpoint."

"We have direct visual in the deep infrared. Converting to our visual frequencies. Tachyon reconstruction confirmed!" signalled Thorsten.

"One minute to checkpoint."

"Put the brakes on the five leading rows, reverse their thrusters, Iridia. Cascade from front to back."

The result was instantaneous. The six layers following the lead rows entered in collision with the sudden wall of their sister ships and detonated on impact, shearing space in the process.

"Hard starboard! Dive at 45°. Engage quantum drive! We must pass below before the rip prevents travel," ordered Sitar.

The scene outside the Atlantean space ship was apocalyptic. As space expanded suddenly under the huge pressure produced by the creation of proton-antiproton pairs at 511 KeV, an important creation of Higgs bosons and time itself dilated with the creation of huge quantities of chronions, unfolding the time dimension in the process. In the beginning, events unfolding in the standard space were like flashes, but as chronions exploded, time seemed to slow down to the point the invisible became slow and visible. Huge thunderbolts of light, moving like molten rock, ripped through space, matter and antimatter could be seen slowly emerging as the charge reached the proper potential locally, to collapse back again into energy with the flux of matter and antimatter aligned in opposite directions due to the time substrate’s crystalline structure.

The Atlantean space ship negotiated the gaps under the steady hands of Enron, as he managed to feel the probability flux change that marked the tearing of space and time. In less than two seconds flat, they had jumped to past their target, and Enron brought back the speed of the space ship to below transwarp speed to a more sedate warp 9.9.

"What is the speed of the tearing?" asked Harold

"Initially, warp nine, it is slowing down, as the energy dissipates in the expanding space bubble. By the time the bubble has reached 10³⁰ of its original diameter, the tear should be healed," replied Samson.

"That is huge!"

"Yes, and it will destroy the planet we are going to visit, in approximately two weeks."

"Can we do anything for them?"

"Apart from rescuing a greater sample of upper life forms, not really. Two weeks is way too small a time interval," replied Enron, as he handled the Atlantean space ship to its destination.

"What is the impact on a cosmological scale?"

"It is creating a new superstructure, a sort of mass wall in the order of 10⁷⁹ tons per cubic inch. Luckily, it is almost atom-thin. The whole thing should collapse on itself and create a new super-galaxy in this area."

"Ian, we are less than two minutes to target."

"Okay. Slow down to warp two at 30 seconds off target, and then drop out of warp to ionic drive as we are less than two Astronomical Units from the planet."

"All right."

Shortly, a bluish-green planet appeared ahead of the Atlantean ship.

"Are you sure this is the right place? I expected a thick white cloud cover! This looks more like chlorine!"

"The coordinates match, Ian. I am doing a spectroscopic analysis."

"Go on red alert. I smell foul play. Paschal, put us into circumpolar orbit. I want a full scan!"

"Inserting, Ian."

"Unidentified flying objects detected in the planet’s atmosphere," reported Thorsten.

"Zoom in on visual!"

"Incoming spectroscopic analysis. It is indeed a highly toxic gas. It does not match our own preliminary analysis," Harp added.

The visual showed a cube measuring a mile on a side billowing green gases in the atmosphere of the planet. Huge areas of the sea were covered with corpses of all sizes and shapes. If any more indication were needed, one cube was seen on an emerged reef injecting yellowish goo in the water.

"Identify!"

"Sulphuric acid!" came back from Harp.

"That planet is under attack by the Cubes, that much I gather," said Sitar. "Can we rescue anyone?"

"Unfortunately, they targeted the most concentrated thermals, according to the sensor readings. The number of survivors must number in the low dozen if any."

"Did we trigger this?" asked Harold.

"I do not think so. This assault had to be planned and a careful survey of where to hit mapped out. To do this would take several months. I think the Enemy had this planet in its sights for quite a while. What we are seeing is softening of target. By killing all life forms they can literally grab anything they want. Notice that the Cubes are much smaller than the ones we disposed of. These are sort of Hunter-killers and the big one are the harvesters."

"Paschal’s comments are appropriate. I suggest we stay out of detection range and wait for the fracture to catch up with this space. Hopefully, the Hunter-killer Cubes will not realise in time they are doomed and will get shredded at the same time as the planet and the solar system."

"Thorsten, implement Sitar’s recommendations. Make us invisible," ordered Ian.

The giant Atlantean space ship became ‘transparent’ to radiation. In effect, photons were deflected and reemitted as if they had gone through space in a straight line. The only trace of the Atlantean ship was the microscopic red shift induced by the delay produced by the added distance travelled by the light.

"Crew on watch!" ordered Ian.

Everyone understood the need for this: transparency also made for the impossibility to emit radar or any other energy source, and quite a few pieces of rock were flying around. Invisibility would not hold much if the ship collided with flying debris, much less so if it collided with one of the Cubes!

"Do you think they will notice their fleet got blown out of existence?"

"Unlikely. The photon explosion is travelling at the speed of light, when the tears in space do not hinder it. These tears travel at warp nine or so, and will reach this place without any warning whatsoever. We have two weeks to monitor the Enemy Scouts and Hunters."

"True, Ian, but what I want to know is if they will miss the arrival of their space fleet. It was moving faster than warp eight and should reach this place ahead of the tears."

"Dad, we do not know much about the Enemy. Who knows how they think?"

"And what happens if they send back a Scout ship to find out?"

"Good luck to them! It will collide with the incoming shear, and end up in energy in the blink on an eye."

"Should we try and at least rescue some cultural elements?"

"I am porting some Collectors already," replied Paschal. "I am considering rescuing a cross-section of the population as well, in the order of one out of 1,000,000, just before the Cubes came in. However, I am having issues. So far, apart from the Seraphrims, all civilisations we have considered are based on the domestication of fire. That is impossible here, since it is covered with water. In fact, had it not been for the fortuitous response to the Ian Wave, we would have completely disregarded this possibility. I need suggestions!"

"There may be other industries, not necessarily based on fire, Paschal. Look for caves or constructions that would indicate some artificial change," suggested Paschal.

"Look for tools too," added Harp.

"Tools?"

"Remember the Yamato expedition? The first solid confirmation that the Australopithecus Regressi had a culture was the presence of flint tools. They too ignored fire, with good reason since they did not really need it to stay warm, the forest was so wet seeds grew on bare rocks, and they were mostly vegetarian, therefore did not really need to cook food."

"Do not remind me!" exclaimed Yamato. "I had forgotten a seed pod on my desk while we were exploring the area for the Australopithecus families, and, within a week, it was sprouting roots and shoots!"

"I almost forgot about them!" commented Paschal.

"Remove the almost, Paschal. You forgot about them!" noted Ian.

"Yes, little Brother, you are right. We do need to get a better understanding of them and their behaviours. As soon as we are out of this bind, I think we should go pay them a visit."

"They are not the only ones. P’Tarik is about to get his first Adult released from the stasis chambers. I plan to be there!" replied Harp.

***

"I saw 11 Cubes leave the planet late last night on-board time. It was the crack of dawn on the planet. They were moving at warp two. I think they are expecting to make contact with their fleet shortly. They will have to travel considerably further than expected!" Typhoon reported.

"I wonder what is this obsession with 11?"

"As if I cared, Ian!"

"Maybe you do not Sitar, but I do. Thorsten, what do we know about the Cubes from passive observation?"

"They emit much more heat than they receive, indicating active energy sources. The level of energy is congruent with machines only. However we cannot be sure of this fact until we examine one of them in detail."

"Hey, that makes me think of something! I wanted to test a series of nanobots. I wonder if we could not port them in there and have them build some transmitter for us from metal scraps in the ship?"

"How small would the nanobots be, Paschal?" Ian enquired.

"Each one is about the size of a Human ovum. It is huge considering that most nanobots we use in the stasis chambers measure about 1% of a standard cell. They need to be that big because they need to gather energy and resources to produce their results. The nanobots in the stasis chambers get their stuff fed to them by carriers. They look like microscopic Spiders."

"How many do you have in store?"

"Several millions, but I would only send out about 1,000. We do not want them detected."

"Harp, accompany Paschal to the laboratory to help in the port process. When you are ready, we will close in behind one of the Cubes and feed the distance so you can adjust the port on blind distance. Timor, take the helm."

Paschal quickly assembled 1,000 nanobots, and pre-programmed them to assemble a microscopic flying vehicle equipped with a narrow-beam neutral neutrino transmitter, an even smaller auto-destruct charge, and a camera.

"The biggest issue is the neutrino transmitter, Harp. To generate neutrinos, we need a lot of energy, and I do not know where we could get it in there. So I have considered my options carefully. I have no idea about the energy source for these space ships, but it has to be considerable. I plan to put a drain on their source. That made for the need to plan for a variety of sources, from dilithium to a domesticated micro black hole."

"That means the nanobots must have some form of analytic capacity?"

"Yes. It is spread across all of them, for obvious reasons: first, that reduces size, second, it guarantees that, should one get damaged, the others can take the relay; third, it improves safety."

"How do you plan to build the transmitter?"

"I have looked at many options. The best is a three-dimensional Spider web built in an unoccupied area, probably one of the canisters for the toxic gas. Some must be empty, and even if they are full, the web is so thin it would be seen as a fluctuation, nothing more."

"Good luck getting in one of these canisters!"

"Hey, you are forgetting we are talking nanobots here. They may be the size of an ovum, but they can flatten themselves to barely 15 atoms thick and maintain their functionality. They change shape to fit whatever hole they must use to get where they need to be."

"Are you finished?’ asked Harp as Paschal took a break from programming the nanobots.

"Not yet. I need to check the code with the Pyramids. I will run a simulation. Give me 20 minutes."

"Okay. How do you plan to transmit via a web if the nanobots are flying around?"

"I plan to use the background noise to hide the data stream. No mechanical device is without noise. It must be filled with a wide variety in the Cubes. The flying machines will transmit low-energy numeric data streams, and the nanobots will string antennas on to the floor, ceiling, and walls inside these Cubes, and bingo. I am sure a 10^-5 Watt signal will go totally over their pincers."

"Pincers?"

"Well, yes, pincers. From what the Goblins told me, these things are machines, which add to the argument linking them to the same entities that destroyed the Seraphrims’ home world."

"I just hope he is not talking about Spiders gone wild!"

"I asked. He said no. They are more like some sort of Reptile in shape, a miniature Therapod. I think we are seeing some technology gone wild due to lack of safeguards, but whatever it is, it still should be considered destroy on sight. From his description, they look, in their smallest form, like mechanical Dinosaurs."

"That is interesting. We know how Humans were interested in producing androids, or Human-shaped machines. If this is a case of therapodomorphism, much like androids are a case of anthropomorphism, we have some interesting research to do."

"Yes we do, but for now, let us run these tests. Ian must be climbing up the wall. His patience is as short as his stature."

"The smaller the Dog, the more it bites!"

«I heard that!» said Ian, «Better wear hardened underwear, Harp!»

Half an hour later, with minor adjustments, everything was ready.

«Everything is ready Ian. How do you plan to get close enough to one of these flying dice without getting detected?»

«I notice they regularly leave the lower atmosphere and streak in the higher stratosphere for short periods. I am looking at what happens when they move to see if we cannot hide in their wake.»

«Do they ionise the gases?» asked Paschal.

«Yes they do, but for less than two seconds on atmospheric reinsertion. Why?»

«Their sensors must be blinded for these two seconds. That would be the ideal time to get in their wake, but then we would need to stay very close to them until they again took a loop out. Can you tell me how long between each reinsertion?»

«No, I am sorry. I did not do the measurements. Let me see if we have a tracking of a single Cube.»

A few minutes later, it was Thorsten that came to report.

«According to the log covering about 100 or so ships, they loop every 4 hours 13 minutes and 53 seconds, like clockwork. It is fascinating; they do a huge vertical figure eight, and then rotate 0.3° clockwise. The ballet is so precise you might think each Cube is part of a clock! The total number of ships covering the planet is around 33,300 and some.»

«Maybe it is. Remember we are talking about machines!» Paschal replied.

«Thorsten, is the pattern so precise it can be calculated to within a reasonable tolerance?»

«They follow the pattern to the nearest inch!»

«Wow. Okay. Paschal and I will port the nanobots at the apex of the figure eight, just as a Cube does its inversion to dive back in the atmosphere. When is the next Cube due to do it?»

«In 0.0252 seconds and counting!»

«It is too short! When is the next one after that?»

«It is less than 0.5 seconds later!»

«That sucks!»

«What are you complaining about? You usually like it!»

«Thorsten!» replied Harp, blushing.

«Estimate the apex point of a trajectory in three minutes anywhere around the globe!" ordered Ian.

«Calculating!" replied AI-6 across the speakers.

The reply came 30 seconds later:

"44° 31' 21.32212" North 172° 12' 11.5476" West from our current meridian."

"Moving into position! ETA is expected at 14 seconds!" reported the Helmsman.

«Paschal, Harp, synchronise with AI-6. We will be directly above the emergence point, and exactly 250 miles above the apex!» ordered Ian. «Rockhook, adjust the ship so the floor of Paschal’s laboratory is exactly 250 miles above the expected apex. AI-6, calculate the elevation and transfer to the helm!»

«Calculating! Sending! Countdown to emergence at two minutes 15 seconds and counting,» reported the Artificial Intelligence.

«Timor, passive sensor array to maximum sensitivity! Report any deviation from planned trajectory! AI-5, compare projected and measured trajectory, and signal them to AI-6!»

«In position! Should I transfer helm to AI-6?»

«Yes! Tolerance to within an inch!»

«Transfer complete! AI-6 has the helm!»

«One minute 30 seconds to port! You have visual!» replied AI-6. «Zoom at maximum, coordinate grid overlay! Trajectory in red, estimated in blue! Projection in laboratory.»

«Thank you, AI-6,» replied Ian.

«There is 30 seconds left before port,» reported AI-6.

As the clock counted the seconds, the AI adjusted the position to compensate the small oscillations produced to the trajectory of their target by the upper atmosphere. The Cube began slowing down its ascent in prevision of its back flip,

«Porting!» said Harp as the Cube turned on its back to begin its re-entry trajectory.

«Report to Bridge!» ordered Ian.

The two Princes ported directly into the entrance hall leading to the Bridge. They heard Ian order AI-6 to relinquish control of the helm to Rockhook.

"How long before we begin receiving reports?" Ian asked.

"From 30 minutes to an hour. Can we keep track of our salty Cube?"

"Ian, why did you need to make me think of food? I am already starving!"

"Dad, nothing holds you to that chair! Go eat! What is it with Adults nowadays? All they think about is food!"

Harold left the Admiral’s chair grumbling about ingrate Children, accompanied by his Wife. Timor relieved Samson at the Astronomy station, while Enron took over Strategic station, and Sitar took Weapons station from Timor.

"Hey! Wait for me!" hollered Samson as the Imperial couple reached the exit door. "Let us go commiserate together on the ingratitude of youth!"

"Bring a hamburger to your ungrateful offspring!" yelled Enron back.

"Tofu?"

"Do you want me to puke on the controls?"

***

"Did you study these Cubes?" asked Paschal as he was waiting for the first transmission from the nanobots. "I noticed something really strange."

"To be honest, as soon as they were identified as the Enemy by Rockhook, they stopped being a focus of study and became a collection of targets."

"From you, Sitar, I expected no less. But there is something strange. Let me point it out to you. Each of these Scouts is one mile on the side. But look at the surface of the Cubes. They are not flat; they present cannelures. It looks like the Cubes can be assembled to form bigger constructions. I am beginning to think that the big Cubes destroyed earlier are assembled Cubes. Let me pull out the dimensions of these Mother Cubes from Archives."

Paschal queried the Artificial Intelligence for the data rapidly.

"These Mother Cubes were 100 miles on a side, and presented the same cannelures. This is what I think: What we are seeing here is a thin wafer of one of these Cubes disassembled into its one-cubic mile components. Each 100-mile on a side Cube contains 1,000,000 one-cubic-mile Cubes! And there is no reason to believe this is the smallest unit they can disassemble into. Sitar, if we attack a single one of these Cubes, it would be like kicking a beehive. If I carry the reasoning further, when we met the armada, it was in the process of disassembling or assembling a Cube of Mammoth proportions!"

Sitar looked at Paschal with wide eyes, clearly not understanding the implications.

"The armada was the super-Cube’s components. They were under the control of a master Cube for the disengagement or the reassembly, but once it would have been complete, each Cube would have been autonomous. It was our luck they were in such a vulnerable state!"

"Estimate the size of that super-Cube!" ordered Ian, preoccupied.

"According to the counter, there were 1,000,000,000 or so of these 100 cubic miles Cubes, enough to construct a super-Cube of 100,000 cubic miles! We would have been a spec of dust compared to that!"

"You said earlier what we are observing is a thin wafer of one of the 100,000 cubic mile Cubes we destroyed earlier. Where is the rest?"

"They are disseminated all around us, Sitar! We neglected to look at the other planets. They are lifeless, and I would not be surprised if the Cubes are already in the process of literally digesting their crust! The Seraphrim were lucky in their bad luck! Had that armada assaulted them, they would have had no chance whatsoever to escape. It would have been finished before they even realised there was trouble."

"How could they be so numerous?" Ian wondered.

"Remember the comment by the Matriarch: they have been dispersing for so long they lost the count of the number of stars that have exploded since they left their home world under the pressure of the Enemy. Even if it takes 1,000 years to double the number of atom-Cubes, there is ample time elapsed for them to reach the number we observe. We fought the Soul-eaters, we fought the Scavengers, but the Enemy is worse still: it digests everything, leaving nothing behind, not even stars!"

"Not even stars?"

"I wondered why we never met any brown or black Dwarves in space, or, for that matter, errant planets. This is why. A piece of rock that meets these miners gets digested to its last atom. I think that, had the armada reached this system, the planets would have been gobbled up in a blink, and the star itself would have ended up in their mineral processor."

"This is scary, Paschal. Consider this: the armada we met was 100,000 cubic miles. There must be others. Maybe there is a critical size for these Cubes, and this one was readying for a split to create more colonies!"

"Hey, I did not need that image! I already have nightmares just watching that macabre dance down there! Anyway here comes the data stream from the Cube we salted earlier!"

The Atlanteans collected the data for a full cycle before the nanobots disengaged the transmitter and returned it to its basic atomic components before beginning to migrate to the surface to be recovered at the next apex passage.

"What do you make of what we got?"

"Ian, my intuition proved correct: the one cubic mile Cube is made up of smaller Cubes. Now we learned that once the Cubes merge they open gates to allow exchange of resources. Each Cube is composed of 1,000 Cubes each measuring 528 feet on a side. Each atom-Cube has a unique task: engines, mining, storing, and one Cube is the core Cube, much like the one we rolled over in star dust to get rid of the armada. Another thing is that each core Cube is a consumer, solely a consumer of resources, and a lot of resources at that. It is a positronic brain!"

"Should we try and contact it?" enquired AI-6.

"No. Not until I have found a way to download their program without risk of contamination!" replied Paschal and Ian at the same time.

"For now, let us go inspect the rest of the system. Enron, put us in orbit around the closest planet to the star, altitude 1,000 miles," ordered Ian. "Use stealth mode to gain proper location. We must stay undetected at all costs."

"Should we not stay close to pick up the nanobots?"

"They can wait for our return when they eject! I doubt their mass will be detected!"

"All right."

It took six hours of careful furtive manoeuvres for Enron to get them into the proper gravitational trajectory.

"It will take us three days to reach the innermost planet," he informed the rest of the Crew. "I cannot do better due to the high concentration of dust in the area. We would leave a trail if I did not hunt for gaps in this cloud."

"Okay. Rockhook, Timor, Paschal, and Harp! With me! We have some visiting to do. AI-6, you have the helm. Sitar, you have command."

Everyone left his or her post to be immediately replaced by the secondary Crew of Atlanteans.

"Where are we going?" Paschal asked.

"To visit the individuals we rescued from Erigon to inform them of the situation."

"Okay. It makes sense."

***

It took several hours of careful explanations for all three species to understand the situation, and that nothing could be done to mitigate the situation produced by the Enemy.

«Simply put, everything is dead on the planet. You are the sole survivors, and only because the psionic port wave got to you before they did," said Harp bluntly. "We destroyed their armada, but their Scouts are more than capable of reducing the star system to its basic components on their own. They will not have the time, and they are doomed due to the incoming event horizon, but that is a fortuitous event, not one to count on in every instance. We are trying to be as invisible as possible, since we do not want to attract their attention, and we are studying them so we can deal with other instances of their err species, should the event present itself. We dare not use psionic powers to deal with them: they might be able to detect it, and use it for their own purposes.»

«We have kept you isolated from each other for the most part because we were not sure you would not try to feed on each other. Have you managed to resolve differences that might arise because of your different species, Tribes, social statuses or what not, or should we maintain the isolating walls for some time still?» Ian asked. «You are so few we do not wish to lose any of your kind due to our own lack of knowledge. It is time you begin reproducing, and that implies contact. We cannot say go and multiply by dividing, as resources are limited, but we believe each one of your species deserves a fair chance to take its place in the future with us and write the requiem for your world by exacting vengeance from the Enemy. Assume your diversity, and live within the confines of the ecosystem we have reproduced for you. In time, your descendants will join us in the ocean of stars. Come, Brothers, we have others to visit.»

Ian and his group left the survivors of Erigon-IV, and left the tessaract that contained them.

"We need to come back to the Dolphins one of these days. They are of Earth origin, and we are already able to contact them telepathically. Yet they lack strong Magic, and we need to find out why and fix the issue," declared Harp. "In fact, I will probably spend some time with them if only to understand them better."

"Who is next on the visit list, Ian?"

"The Matriarch, Timor."

"Let us go. It has been a while since we paid her a visit."

***

«Good afternoon, Matriarch, I hope everything is fine?»

«Yes, Prince of Magic, it has been some time you paid me a visit. I hope things are well for you too.»

«They could be better. We have encountered the Enemy a few days ago and disposed of one of their armada. We are currently studying their structures to find a way to deal with them more effectively.»

«Are you sure it is the Enemy?»

«Rockhook identified it under that name when he saw their Cubes. Look at the projection on the wall. Is this what your people remember of the Enemy?»

«There was one like that, yes. But the rest of the boxes disgorged the Enemy to eat us.»

«I think the Matriarch remembers the appearance of their therapod robots and of the core Cube. They probably dispose themselves around the core Cube to begin eating up a planet and progress from there, returning to the transport Cubes once they have reached their capacity,» suggested Paschal.

«We will be able to validate your memory and Paschal’s hypothesis in three days, Matriarch. Do you wish to join us on the Bridge? It would be nice for us to have an independent confirmation of Rockhook’s identification," said Ian.

«Certainly. I wanted to know when my eggs would be completely treated?»

«According to the schedule, the last eggs should be done within a few days.» said Harp.

«Good.»

«We will retire with your permission, Matriarch. We have others to visit. Feel free to explore the ship, and I expect you on the Bridge in three days,» said Ian.

***

"Where to next?" asked Rockhook.

"The Pterodactyls. This is the second generation to hatch under tessaract, and just hatched over the past three days. It is going to be a short inspection. They are under constant watch by Elves," said Ian.

The group made a short visit to the Pterodactyls’ tessaract layer. They could observe the Adults feed the young tons of Fishes, and each nest, containing from four to six hatchling, was the centre of a lot of activity. The young ones would prod the regurgitation of food by pecking on the side of the parental beaks until the regurgitation reflex took over and the parent would dump a scoop of food in the open beaks veering for attention. Once a parent had emptied its cargo, it would take off, to be replaced by the other parent. It seemed a task of every instant. Strangely, a thick cover of hairs covered the hatchlings!

"I was expecting feathers!" said Harp.

"This is the duvet, I think. When you inspected the first generation, they were already old enough to sprout feathers, but they fell off at maturity, much to our consternation and worry. Many Birds do have a duvet covering when they are young. It is when they grow older that hair is replaced by feathers," said Paschal.

"I wonder how the parents recognise their nest."

"It is called imprinting, Rockhook. The parents imprint their song to the hatchlings, and in return, the hatchlings imprint their cries on their parents."

"Is everything going fine?" asked Ian as he spotted one of the Elves charged with monitoring the Pterodactyls.

"Yes, Ian. We have not seen anything wrong so far. We are constantly monitoring health of the parents and the hatchlings."

"How many hatchlings do we have?"

"Around 2,000,000 to 2,500,000. The Pterodactyl population is well on its way to recovery from the depredation the Orcs did on them."

"Okay. Continue the good work. Let us go off to visit the Orcs, since we just mentioned them. I think P’Tarik will appreciate our visit. It is the exit day for some Adults."

"I wonder how he is doing with his new Dragonling?"

"Busy as Hell, I have been told. And this one seems a lot friendlier. The execution of the other Dragonling by P’Tarik drove the point across all the new hatchlings that their species had a vow of fealty to Atlantis, and that denying it would imperil their life."

"What colour is that Dragonling?"

"It is Gold, like the previous one, Rockhook."

"I was afraid the other one was trying to set a trend."

"It was, but P’Tarik took decisive action and made the point clear, bloody clear at that. I doubt anyone else will ever underestimate P’Tarik again. He has taken his commitment to Atlantis to the letter, and I’m proud to count him as a friend."

***

The arrival of Ian and his colleagues took P’Tarik by surprise.

"Hey! Welcome to the Orc tessaract layer. By the way, you guys are just in time to accompany me to the General Hospital; we are taking out of stasis about 30 Adult Orcs. P’Arrant, P’Rin, A’Sarek and A’Ferents are coming with me. Four of the Adults taken out of stasis are the Mothers of these four ones. Four others are coming as back up and constitute my Privy Council. They are A’Biran and A’Navir " as two young female Orcs curtseyed to the Atlanteans, "And P’Dur and P’Zen," as two young males curtseyed in turn. The other four Orcs also followed the Councillors’ example and curtseyed, albeit with a lot less grace.

Ian could not help but smile at the four young Orcs, which displayed obvious hard-on. "Do not feel bad. I am well aware that the presence of powerful individuals does that to most males. It is only the impotents that do not spring a bone when they meet us!"

"I know it! They still get a boner every morning when we meet to discuss the Orc affairs, and it is only I. They will flag their presence for the duration of your visit!"

"Let us get going, P’Tarik. I am surprised they were not released already?" said Ian.

"I had to go take care of my bonded. He wanted to come along to protect me, but I told him there was very little that could do anything to hurt me. But I can feel his nervousness through the bond."

"Oh. Okay. Let us port everyone to the entry hall of the General Hospital. We have a lot to do today, and we will need P’Tarik in the last visit, so I want this dealt with in short order."

Everyone looked at Ian questioningly, but he offered no other explanation concerning that last visit. The port went without a hitch, as it occurred in the incoming port ring, kept void of any life form just for that purpose.

"Hey, I am here to collect 30 Adult Orcs. Do you know where they have been regrouped prior to release from stasis?" asked P’Tarik from the desk attendant.

"The release roll says they are in room U490." As the desk Clerk checked everyone signing in, he noticed Ian and Harp’s name.

"My Lords, the General Healer has been trying to contact you today. May I signal your presence within our walls?"

"Sure, I wonder what that old geezer wants?" decided Ian.

"Hey he is barely older than Dad!"

"Dad is a younger geezer, that is all!"

"I wonder how you call me behind my back?"

"A geezer in making!" replied Ian with an impertinent smile.

"You are lucky this is a Hospital or you would find yourself taking a swim in the Imperial Pool!"

"Threats never carried out lose potency!"

Ian vanished one second and reappeared, wet from head to foot.

"Say what?" said Harp, much to the amusement of the witnesses.

"What is the meaning of this? This is a Hospital, not a playground!"

Harp turned around and looked at the incoming Hospital Manager, whose eyes were ablaze with fury.

"Cool down or you will find yourself in the Oceanic tessaract!" said Harp in a cold voice that sent shivers to everyone around. The pen pusher bleached as he recognised whom he had so summarily told off. Usually, when Harp talked to someone with that tone, it had the desired effect, but this Manager had always met an affable Harp, and misread the Boy completely.

"You may be Prince, but I will not let you dirty my Hospital entry hall!"

Harp did not take the attitude any better than he did with any blue blood, and the Manager disappeared.

"Where did he go?" asked a flabbergasted desk Clerk.

"In the Oceanic tessaract. He is lucky I did not put him at the bottom. I will let him swim four or five minutes and bring him back, if he has not drowned before then. If he has, well, he is Fish food."

"I wonder what he wanted?" asked Ian.

"Whatever it was, the answer is no."

"I did some scanning while he was still around. He wanted to release the Royal Healer, Francesca, from psychiatric stasis. He believes he needs the chamber for more useful applications."

"Thank you, Rockhook. The answer is still no. Only the Royals have the right and the power to release her from that stasis chamber, and so far, nothing justifies it, even if the lights on the chamber are all green. It is not a physical condition she has, nothing chemicals can fix. It is an attitude issue." Turning to the desk Clerk, Ian ordered, "Young Man, have that chamber moved to her apartment, my Brothers and I are more than qualified to monitor the stasis chamber’s functions; furthermore, have the chamber itself removed from the Hospital inventory. By the way, do you have anyone to recommend to replace Fish Food?"

"Fish Food?"

"He drowned. Had he stripped, he would have stayed alive five minutes, but his clothes sank him."

"As to your first enquiry, I can not do it, since I do not have proper clearance. As for your second question, I have no one to suggest, since I have been just about ignored by everyone here since I came to work."

"What are your qualifications?"

"Management, specialising in medical."

"Then you are now the new Director of this fine establishment. Computer! Record the new assignment of this desk Clerk as General Hospital Manager and give him proper clearance, as by order of Harp of Atlantis!"

"Acknowledgement: Harp of Atlantis. Change of assignment recorded, and effective immediately, as by order of Harp of Atlantis."

"Computer? Call in my replacement at the desk!" said the young Man, who took things in stride.

"Command accepted. Replacement on its way, and should be in within three minutes."

"Thank you Computer."

Three minutes later, a tall Teen, aged around 14, walked in.

"Hey Shawn! What is the rush? I was taking a bath when the alarm went on in my bathroom and a voice I never heard before ordered me to stand up and stay still! In the blink of an eye, the water was out of the bath, I was drier than a fresh lava bed, and my uniform was on my body! I do not even remember how I got here!"

"Hey Henry. The old Manager drowned "

"In paper? I knew he could not swim better than a paper weight!"

"No, in the Oceanic Tessaract, after pissing off Harp of Atlantis "

"He what? I have never met him, but if the rumours are 1% right, I will crawl under the floor rather than piss him off!"

"Sorry, Henry, there is not any space between the floor and the first basement big enough for you to crawl into," Paschal said, "So, you will have to stand and face the foe, my little Brother Harp, standing right there!"

The youth fainted right there and lost bowel control in his pants.

"Oh! Henry! That is even messier than chlorinated water!" said Shawn.

The explosion of laughter from the visitors totally took him by surprise and it took an image for the young Manager to see the funny side.

Harp snapped a finger and everything disappeared, from soiled uniform to chlorinated water to pee and turd.

"Why not put a new uniform on the poor guy?" asked Ian

"Hey, he has a cute butt! Why hide it? And we might as well enjoy the view of a soft sausage while we can. The moment he comes back he will spring a boner like everyone else!"

The Boy came back to reality in a few minutes, after Ian mercilessly dropped an ice cube at the root of his arse crack.

"You are no fun, Ian. I was storing jack-off images for tonight!"

"As if you need any Paschal!"

It took a few seconds for Henry to realise he was not wearing his uniform and he blushed furiously.

"No need feeling ashamed. We usually walk nude except when we are performing a really big and important duty, like executing some judgement, or flying that bucket of nuts and bolts," Harp said.

"Given how you like nuts, I think you like flying them too!"

"Ian! I wonder who taught you all these things?" Paschal asked.

"Do you really need to ask?"

"Anyway, Henry, you are to take your station. Shawn is now the Hospital General Manager. Find someone as back up for your shift."

"Can we hire an Orc?" asked Henry. "There is a small one that visits me every day with fresh fruits, and spends about four hours keeping me company. He is very good with visitors."

"Sure. Tell P’Tarik and Manager Shawn his name and it will be official," decided Ian, as he indicated P’Tarik to Henry.

After exchanging the identity of the newly hired Orc, the group left Henry to his duty and move to wing U, fourth floor, room 90.

"Still no elevators?" asked Ian.

"Why? You have to wait for elevators, while the ramps are wide enough to have four stretchers racing up and down without colliding! Those that are in a rush can always take the stairs!" replied Paschal. "Stairs are good for your health anyway."