Galactica: Book 1 - Via Lactea

 

«Let them hear the howl of the Wolves hot on the trail of preys!» ordered Ian to the several hundred Canines involved in the hunt. Immediately resonated along the halls of the cavernous bunker the bone-chilling Wolf calls. It took ten minutes for the laggards to be captured by the advancing Wolves, mostly Children left to their fate by panicked Adults. The Children, most of them being the descendants of the Nobility too young to keep up, huddled, motionless and in shock as the huge predators ran toward them, too traumatised to even whimper. The Wolves simply jumped over the clustered Children, ignoring the paralysed figures, and continued head-on in their mission to catch up to the fleeing Adults and Teens.

«The cowardice of those that left their Children behind has sealed their fate!» said Ian to everyone.

A few minutes later, a thin line of Praetorian Guards tried to offer some resistance, but the Wolves just jumped at their neck, snapping them with their jaws, or, in the case of shape-shifters, with their body mass. It was not a battle, it was a bowling game with the Guards playing the role of bowling pins. It barely gained the runaways a minute of respite.

After three more minutes, the Wolves found a compact group, clawing at each other to reach the furthest point in the hallway. The escape door would not budge and people climbed on each other mercilessly in an effort to be as far away from the approaching menace. The weakest were crushed by the heaviest, and blood and guts were everywhere. In the middle of the mess was a square of Guards wearing black suits, the Sandarkars, the cream of the elite Imperial Guards, that protected a group of persons and prevented anyone from entering the area. The arrival of the Wolves renewed the pressure on the close-knit Imperial Guards, but they held, a testimony to their discipline.

Harold returned to his natural form. He slammed his Hammer against his Shield, creating a thunderclap. Shock momentarily stopped the in-fighting, and Harold used this respite to use a sonorous charm to amplify his voice magically and bellow:

"Stop! The next one that moves dies!"

«Your Highness, you have to teach me that trick!» said Mouth of Thunder, a Sergeant-at-Arms whose loud voice gave him a reputation that permeated the Legions.

«Are you sure deaf recruits will hear you better?» Prince Yamato commented.

"Harp! Dispose of the dead! Paschal heal the innocents! Sitar, kill the guilty, except the Emperor and his Privy Council!"

The butchery was merciless, and, as few innocents were found under Paschal’s mental scan, the number of head rolls and gutted bodies rose steadily while the number of healed people was downright skimpy. Only a few teens, that had the good sense to stay out of the melee actually survived the entire process unscathed and required no intervention from Mitsuko for healing.

Once the immediate area around the Sandarkars was cleared, Harold looked at them with contempt.

"Who are you protecting? My Boys found no member of the Imperial Privy Council in that pile of smelly refuse."

Silence answered Harold’s legitimate question. Harp, still in his huge Sabre-tooth Snow Leopard shape, walked in from the rear to sit beside Harold, and after a nod from him, progressed to what seemed the highest-ranking survivor of the Guards. He swiped his right paw at the hands of the Atlantean, effectively removing from his grip two long poniards that were soaked in blood. He then got up on his hind legs and set his forepaws on the Officer’s shoulders, finally displaying his 9-inch claws. Blood dripped from the huge teeth, falling between the collarbone and the black shirt.

"Harp has a very effective way to make someone talk, Officer. It is called eating family jewels while they are still tied to their very conscious owner. Shall I repeat my question?"

"We guard God."

"God does not need Guards, since he does not exist. Ian, my Son, is the closest to what a God is, and he protects his people not the other way around!"

"There is only one God!"

"That can be arranged! Open a passage to what you guard, or we shall!"

"We can not unless ordered so."

"Harp? How about giving that arse hole a lesson before eating him up from the middle?"

Harp’s Feline cock stretched to a good foot in length, as he pushed the individual on the floor and holding him in place with one paw, ripped the clothes off. The Cat’s intentions were very apparent and the Officer understood clearly what was coming up if he did not order his troops to open a passage to the Emperor. Just as Harp flipped him on his belly and finished shredding the pants, he hollered the order to split ranks.

"Hold him in place until I say otherwise."

Harold, Ian, Paschal, Sitar, Typhoon and Thorsten walked within the hedge of Guards with a group of Wolves and Timor on their heels. They reached a clear area of about 50 feet in width and 100 feet in length. In the middle of the area stood 15 men framing a single rolling seat. The portable throne was occupied by a fat, ugly-looking humanoid. The face had huge lips showing missing or rotten teeth. The eyes were prominent, the nose crocked and the beard spotty and badly cut. Greasy hairs framed the dangling ear lobes, while showing a huge bald spot. The Emperor wore rings on each finger, a huge ruby tied by a gold chain around the neck, and a dress that left nothing to the imagination: sagging tits of fat, a barrel belly, covered with dark, sparse hair. The pants, hanging low below the belly button, showed ample traces of the Emperor’s last dinner.

«That is the Emperor?» wondered Harold. «Kill me the day I look like that!»

«Do not worry, love,» answered Annabelle, «You practice every day with your Legions, and you still do ironwork every other day. There is no reason for you to gain the look of a mollusc!»

Harold and Shazam eyed each other for long minutes. Harold’s stature stood out and compared favourably to the short Emperor of Atlantis One. Harold now measured well over seven feet, and his arms, bare, showed sinews and muscles playing powerfully as he handled his Hammer and his huge shield. His boots, tipped with orichalque, shone brightly, the red deerskin giving the impression he wore blood. His pants halted at mid-thigh, and were held in place by a thick leather belt delicately embroidered with gold and mithril. On his right side was the blade his Son Sitar had recovered from an Orc General. His torso, nude except for a gold tie in the form of a gold Sun that held a cape flowing freely on his back, showed powerful muscles and a stomach that could have been used as a washboard. His hair, held short, nonetheless showed he was quite young, and his head wore a gold crown to the symbols of his House and the Vassals of the Empire. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about symbolism understood that the person they were facing was not to be written off.

After waiting for what seemed an eternity, Harold spoke.

"Shazam XI Padishah of the House of Eider, I presume?"

"Yes, and who are you?"

"Your heir."

"That is impossible, he is with his mother..."

"He was with his mother, you mean. She abandoned him to his fate rather than stay to protect him, and she is dead. So is your Son, but this is not of our doing. You had quite a few enemies, and they did not miss the opportunity to terminate your line. They probably thought they would bargain their life for his head. They misjudged us. They killed an innocent for no reason, and they are now cold cuts for our Allies. Your heir’s genome was rescued and he will have a new body, and recover his memories within a year, but he will not sit on your throne. Neither shall we, for that matter. We do not sit in crap, be it situated on a throne. We are in the process of recovering the Teen genomes as well, since they had no say in your perfidy."

"How did you manage to cross the Sandarkars?"

"My Son dealt with their Commander, I think. We did not exchange pleasantries when we met."

"How can you claim to be my heir? You seem barely younger than I."

"Did you ever hear of time-travel?"

"Our scientists aboard the ship are working on it, but they claim it is impossible. We shall have their head for lying to us."

"It will be difficult, they have been dead for quite a while already, and their bones are dust travelling the interstellar void. So is your Primary Star."

"We do not understand?"

"Your star blew up ten years early. In your original time-frame, your entire population and you died. We are the Children of the Crew that survived the blow-up aboard the space ship you so kindly made available for our forefathers. We survived on a planet, named Terra, or Earth, and fought the Elohim. I see from your face you know who they are. We were assimilated by the Humans, who were close enough to us to mate and produce fertile hybrids. We are Human-Atlantean hybrids. Like most hybrids, we are stronger for it. We did not put up being considered Chattel by the Elohim."

"Are they coming for us?" he asked with a shaky voice.

"Who? The Elohim? Very unlikely, that. We whipped their arses when we left Terra. We also met the Cubes..."

At this mention Shazam released his bowels on the throne.

"If I were you, I would panic at my presence, not at the mention of the Borgs. They met my Son and had, let us say, a hair-raising experience while trying to follow us in the Black hole the Primary had become. The detonation of the worm hole while they were shred to their basic subatomic components ensured they would not be able to reconstruct at the end."

"What you say is a tissue of lies! We saw the Sun rise!" exclaimed one of the members of the Privy Council.

Harold looked at him crossly.

"I did not give you permission to talk, piece of walking cholesterol. One more interruption and you feed a Feline, live!"

Shazam lifted a finger and the Councillor kept quiet, if not still.

"Feline?"

"Spare Ribs? Show up, please."

The sudden appearance of the giant Cat amongst the Councillors had the same impact as a Fox in a Chicken coop! The dispersal was instantaneous, and only the presence of the unmovable hedge of the Sandarkars stopped them from trying to climb walls.

"Look behind you, Shazam. This is Spare Ribs, a Sabre-tooth Snow Leopard, a Feline."

«Do I feed now? I am not sure I want to eat them before they have time to rot a bit. They smell like dangerous bad-tasting food!»

«I do not recommend it either, my friend. But stand ready to kill them on order. Runt? Join Spare Ribs. That might be fun!»

Runt, the biggest Wolf ever to grace the universe due to having been fed Dragon Hormones during his lactating period, walked majestically to stand beside Spare Ribs.

«They do smell bad, Spare Ribs! I wonder if I shall not use Magic for the kill. I do not want to have a foul taste in my mouth for weeks! And I do like to run down my preys, not hear them pray for mercy!»

«I wish I could do that.»

«Will and Verb, Spare Ribs. Why not use this occasion for practice? We have backup!»

"Apparently, the Runt and Spare Ribs are debating on what is the best way to slit throats. We shall get to that part of the rejoicing when we are done."

Shazam had managed, by some sort of miracle, to crush his sorry carcass on the seat of the portable throne, putting to the test the Pauli exclusion principle.

"Do no put too much pressure, you might turn into a Black hole on your own, Shazam."

"Why are you talking to me like that? I feel..."

"Like shit? Because you are! You planned to leave eight out of nine people behind, saving your sorry carcass and a select slice of the population with that space ship. You knew it was a lie to tell your people you could save them all."

"What about all my titles?"

"You want titles? For what good titles do, I can drown you in mine! But you never did ask, did you? Oh no, I am a negligible quantity, an upstart! Well, you are a has-been! Your Empire is reduced to that shitty throne! Mine is growing by the minute! Do you still want to hear the title list? I guess you do, your eyes finally shine a bit from the pit of cretinism they are so sunk in! Incestuous relationships, even between the different Houses that have ruled the dirty planet you called your home, has produced an insurmountable obstacle to your survival, Shazam: congenital stupidity! It is not only your food stock that dumbed out, it is you as well! I doubt your Son will be any better! In fact, if Paschal, Enron, and Colibri notice the result will be like you or worse, they are hereby authorised to terminate the genetic reconstruction. We have no need for dimwits, we have our fair share."

Harold looked at the individual crumpled on a seedy throne, and, with a simple finger move, removed everything from clothes to throne, materialised a bath already filled with water, and let the Emperor fall in it.

"At least you will be clean for your funeral! Oh no, I shall not let you drown. Up! Down! Up! Down!" As each command was uttered, Shazam lifted out of the basin, its contents was instantly replaced by clean, hot, and soapy water. Each sinking was accompanied by a strangled noise from the Emperor and a splash that sent water spilling. "Why, thank you, I had not thought of washing the mouth! Dentists must be a luxury here! I have had enough of dirty executions when we wiped some Archduchies off the map!"

After 20 or so flip-flops, the bath and its contents vanished, and the Emperor fell on the cold tiles, nude, leaking water from every crease in his body.

"Eww! I understand why the Predators are looking at your Councillors with suspicions as to the quality of their meat! I am having heart burns just at looking at you. There is a limit to carrion, and you are over the board!"

"Stand up!" ordered Harold, giving a virtual kick in the flabby butt of the gelatinous mass. The Emperor stood up, only to fall down again, unable to hold his body upright from lack of exercise.

"Bah, you might as well stay down. Seeing you stand almost made me throw my dinner! From what the partial scan of your archives indicate, you are now the 523rd Dynasty on record. We are still in the process of analysing the data. Some Dynasties only lasted the time required for their single Emperor to have his first dinner! You were sitting on a simmering volcano, Shazam. I know from our own history that Atlantis II was not much better. I hope my own Dynasty shall show more restraint in the use of Assassins, poison, blades, and arranged accidents!"

"But there is only one Atlantis!"

"I know you are not a bright star, but try not to compete with a Black Hole! I told you we are your future. I am Harold, Thor, Horus, Pharaoh of Atlantis III, reborn King of Atlantis II, Liege Lord of the Legionnaires, the Canines, the Equines, the Elves, the Dwarves, the Dragons, the Faeries, the Centaurs, the Unicorns, the Pegasuses, the Seraphrims, the Orcs, the Goblins, the Humans, the Felines and the three new species we are unable to name because they live underwater. As one of my Sons said, we do not talk Fish yet. We are in the process of Elevating more species: the Australopithecus Regressi, the Dolphins, the Pterodactyls, and an invertebrate sea-dwelling life-form. We are also looking at some birds, and possibly an animal-plant, the Ogre. That one will need to be handled with a lot of care, since it eats just about anything that moves."

"But...!"

"No but if you want to keep your butt safe from my boot! Look at the gold pin holding my cape! It carries the Rising Sun, the Sun of Atlantis One, the Imperial Symbol of authority. That is probably one of the many reasons the Sandarkars have not attacked yet. Conditioning them to respect a material symbol to the point of depriving them of any autonomy has been your downfall. My Legions are taught to think on their own, to decide what is right and what is wrong. The Felines, the Canines and all of my Vassals are taught to act on their own, from birth until death. Yes, we found your seedy secrets: slavery, abuse, and debasement of political opponents in an attempt to protect your arse. It failed."

"What if I ordered them to attack?"

"Do you wear the pin? You are as nude as the day you were born, slob! I told you, counting on a material symbol to exercise absolute authority smacks of absolute stupidity! I could butcher you with a buttering knife and they would not budge. Their eyes are fixed on only one person, me! You have lost all significance in their mind. You are not even registering on their numbed minds. They hear the exchange, but what you say is as insubstantial as the wind blowing on a rock."

"How come you possess the pin of authority? I had it barely minutes ago!"

"You sure are not shiny on the scale of intellect. As Horus, I received it from my Dad in Atlantis II. Once I recovered my memory in Kantar, I also recovered the pin. As to how it came into our possession in the first place, I told you we are from that space ship you had built; it contained a lot of duplicates of the symbols of authority. The flag of the Rising Sun, the Stave of Power, the Pin, the Hammer and the Shield, the Sword Excalibur, the Trident of the Stars, currently under the custody of Samson, an Elf. Most were destroyed and reforged anew, gaining power at each reconstruction. Your original symbols are weak, Shazam, very weak, in power. Look at my Shield. See how it fascinates you and the Guards. It breathes Power, it projects Power, it is Power. Your shield reflected the infancy of Magic. Mine reflects its plenitude. So it goes with the Pin. The one I wear far overpowers the one you used to wear around your neck, Shazam. You could yell your throat sore, the Guards would see and hear only me. Excalibur, I reforged myself, and again, it gained immense Power from its reforging, You had one such singing sword on board. It was badly tuned and killed its user. Subsequent reforging improved on the design, and now, it is perfect. So it is with the Hammer of Thor and the Trident. We have refined Magic to the point we breath Magic, live Magic, are Magic. My Son, that is gently drawing arabesques on the back of the Commanding Officer of your Imperial Guards using his nine-inch claws, is the Prince of Magic. He is Magic incarnate! Even the Humans were better at the task than you ever were: they made Mitsuko, the Sword of the Light, the Truth-Seer, and that, in itself, is a feat of Magic you never were able to match in your history. Even the blade I wear to my side is better than yours, and it was forged in Toledo, Spain, by a non-magical Human, some 8,000 years ago in this time-frame. I wear it to respect an Enemy the God of War killed in my stead, because even the God of War saw in him a worthy fighter, which is quite a compliment. Sitar, show Excalibur!"

Sitar had moved to stand beside the Runt in his Wolf form. He slowly changed shape to the Man he had become and pulled Excalibur from its scabbard, producing a song of triumph in the process.

"See Excalibur in its perfection: hear its harmony, the richness of the song it sings. And yes, we shift shape at will. This is the Gift of the Dragons to us for saving them from destruction. Ian! Shine!"

Ian had moved ahead of his Dad and converted to a miniature Sun before taking the appearance of a Dragonling.

"This is my Son, Ian, the essence of Life itself, the Living Star!"

Shazam was now reduced to mental pulp, and could only look at those standing in front of him with the utmost abject fear. He was nothing compared to these people, and he understood clearly they could do anything to him without his having a say.

"Do not add more, Dad, his mind is like his arse: jelly!"

"You are right, Ian. I think we need to finish up. Timor? Neck breaking time."

The huge Troll simply took two steps, bent over, and snapped the neck of the Emperor.

"That was done at break-neck speed!"

"What about them?" asked Harp as he looked at the frozen Sandarkars.

«I do not need these individuals in my Empire. Kill them by Magic.»

«Ok. I agree.»

Harp snapped his fingers and the Sandarkars’ brains shorted, killing them instantly.

"What about the Councillors?"

"I had considered giving them as toys to the Cats, but Spare Ribs does not seem to be interested. Why not do the same with them and let them hang until their meat becomes more appetising for the predators? Just send a couple in the Amazon Tessaract segment for the meat-eating Ants. They need fresh food once in a while to keep their claws sharp!"

"Alive or dead, for the Ants?"

"Dead. I do not want the poor beasts to overwork themselves!"

Another snap of the Prince’s fingers added to the pile of cold cuts. They were then sent either to tenderise or directly into the path of a migrating colony of carnivorous Ants.

"Done. The clean-up is almost complete."

After doing a quick rotation on himself, and porting some left-overs from the mob, Harp looked at his Dad and commented with a smirk, "Home sweet home. I need a bath, and I want to go play with Tom and Jerry."

"Yes, it’s over. Sitar, you have military Governor status; Colibri, restore the ecosystem. I shall see you both for dinner at vespers. Are the two little Devils getting toilet-trained?"

"I fixed the issue within a month Dad! You date! Old age must not fit you!"

"I shall show you who is old. The last one at the Royal suite is old!" Harold popped right out of the basement and arrived merely a fraction of a second before Harp in the living room of the suite.

"See, I am not so old!"

"You cheated! I felt you used Magic as a sling-shot anchored to mine so you could go back in time."

"So? You think an old Monkey can not learn new tricks? I proved you wrong!"

***

Vespers was quiet, and the Royals proceeded to the change of the Guards. For the first time, the Felines took part in it and their presence as an organised Centurie took many by surprise. Everyone had gotten used to Fang Chao and Spare Ribs and their family in their midst, but most had mistakenly believed all the Cats present were the same individuals.

"The Felines contributed effectively in the cleanup of Atlantis One. We welcome them as fully organised military Units within our Army. Spare Ribs, Fang Chao, please be seated with us at the table and share our meal. I gather your mates are staying in the den, as Kitten-bearing is getting on their nerves. Remind them that we are there to assist and that they are to report to the Healing Den shortly for a check-up."

«We shall.»

After the meal was over, and everyone had vacated the Mess Hall, the Royals moved to the Royal Suite for a quick overview of where things stood.

"Sitar, Colibri, Enron? Report on the situation in the Tessaract."

"I have begun implementing low-level predation. Reconstructing a functional ecosystem will not be done overnight. As for backtracking the genetic manipulations done to the two sources of food, I have yet to hear Paschal’s report from the Collectors, or Enron’s study of the archives."

"All right, Colibri. Which one of you two wants to start?"

"The Collectors’ raw data is being synchronised by the time stamps, but the process is slow, as there were billions of them at some time. I have to interlace with the running task of cross-indexing the recovered records, the analysis of contents, the study of the evolution of writing and language it represents over time. The more we progress, the slower it becomes."

"I have the same issues as Paschal. I can not allow as much resource in mapping the genetic make-ups of he animals involved, and I must wait on the consolidated data Paschal is creating. We are stepping on each other’s feet."

"Can Thebes or Kantar be added to the resources?"

"No. Kantar is currently handling external aspects of protecting the space ship and Thebes is maintaining life support on-board the ship. The Ark AI has its hands, err, mind full with the project it manages, and the General Hospital AI is in the process of restructuring some critical aspects of the distribution of stasis pods. After all, we have 9,000,000,000 or more of them on hold in the Tessaract we used to store the population of Atlantis One. I have decided to allocate that layer for the General Hospital, but that requires some rewiring. I have also begun wiring it for porting capabilities right across Thebes. It might be useful, and we now have the energy resources for it, given the Ianium in store and connected to the distribution grid. I also began adding a portal to each room. That too is made possible by the additional energy available."

"Ok, Paschal. How long before that is completed?"

"A month or so. The General Hospital is huge. I plan to convert the long-term stasis pods to emergency treatment pods, since we have all those other pods available. It might come in handy should we be caught in a big fight. As you know the emergency pods consume five times more energy than cryogenic pods. That requires rewiring the power lines of the Hospital. We do that when we install the portals."

"Did we collect more atoms of Ianium?"

"A pair. We are now at 14 atoms. On the other hand, the exterior of Thebes has added a layer of about 32 atoms of Orichalque collected from the star dust we are immersed in. As for mithril, we have collected another five megatons. It is in the process of crystallisation prior to beginning Magic loading."

"Sitar?"

"I had to shave a few heads, but overall, the discovery of the duplicity of Shazam just about insured no one wants to ever hear of him again. It was the hard-core that managed to pass under the radar that caused problems."

"A few heads in less than six hours, Sitar, that seems a lot to me?"

"Considering the original population, it is not surprising. The Canines, Felines and Equines are currently monitoring any activity, and telecommunications are still frozen solid, so it is difficult for any rebel to organise themselves to mount a systematic attack. All patrols are fully telepathic, and include a Mage or a Dragon. The rules of engagement are simple. Organising, abating or participating in trouble ends the individual without any remiss. I had the Decree read on all signals every hour for six hours. No one can claim ignorance. I made it as shocking as possible, taking my cue from Ian."

"What do you mean?"

"Let me see: Any person partaking in a revolt, planning a revolt, or trying to hide revolutionary activity shall be eaten alive."

"You do not mince your words!"

"No, it is the enemies of Atlantis that get minced."

"Is it the only decree you announced?" wondered Samson.

"Oh no. there is one concerning military training. Everyone able to walk will first learn to run! And then we organise them the same way we organised Thebes. It will increase our striking potential."

"I am afraid they might turn on us."

"I though of that, Bjorn. The only ones that will actually dispose of real weapons are the Children. They already have been reconditioned by their stay in stasis pods. The others will only dream of getting their hands on one. And we noticed that the Atlanteans of Atlantis One were generally of poor health. Advanced techniques were reserved for the elite. We have treated their ailments, but like most non-magical life forms, they have a short life-span. It should allow for a quick roll-over."

"Have you found many with Magic?"

"That is Harp’s expertise, Dad."

"So far, the only reports of magical activity are legitimate and solely associated with our own troops. It may change, but, quite apparently, the Adults have not manifested any. I am a bit miffed as to why this is the case, since we know that the ship that helped the Seraphrims had at least one High Mage on board, a Seer."

"Try to figure out why this is the case."

"I plan to."

"Manasa, you had the Bridge. Anything to report?"

"No, your Highness. We are well-hidden in that dust cloud. We are cruising at well below the speed of light, thus not creating any significant shock wave in the interstellar gases."

"Internal security was on your shoulders Bjorn. Anything?"

"No. Those rescued from the Eastern seaboard of Americus are integrating easily."

"Let us head for bed. Who is in charge of the matins shift?"

"Fanfir Dragon."

"Ok."

***

Prime found the royals already well engaged in the day’s activities.

"Do we still need to go back to Earth to recover the information from the Colony ship?"

"I think so, Dad," replied Paschal, as he munched on a huge pile of sausage, an enormous omelette, and a pile of French toasts bathed in a sea of maple syrup.

"Why not send port the Collectors?"

"We had enough of a bad experience with the Spiders. Do you want to live another one like that?"

"Actually, no. That is the prime example of circular reference!"

"We must be quite far from where the Sun is?"

"AI-6, where is the Primary of Earth relative to our current position?"

"One moment."

"While AI-6 does the star chart of the area so we can pinpoint our position, was there anything worth mention during the night?"

"A couple thousand shortened bodies in the Atlantis One Tessaract level. Nothing to write home about," replied Sitar. "Oh yes, and a dozen shredded ones."

"Shredded?"

"They met the Cats before meeting the blade."

"Oh. Ok. How is the archive indexing progressing?"

"It is slowing down. Hey, you cannot expect things to pick up speed as the volume increases. We are still indexing only ridulian scrolls. I would expect an evolution of media support as we go back in time with the indexing protocol."

"And still no plan for that Colony ship?"

"No, and that is strange. We are well past the time they discovered the presence of the micro-cubes, therefore well before they began designing it. We do find some space ship designs, essentially mineral transporters, and small colony ships, nothing comparable to the one that orbited the Earth before Venusia’s arrival."

"Your Highness, the presence of sixteen pulsars from neighbouring galaxies has led to the estimate that the Primary you are looking for is located 135,000 light years away, across the Galactic disk. I adjusted the position to take into account the differential in time light has to travel and the displacement of the home galaxy."

"Suggest options to reach Earth."

"We can do transwarp, quantum jump, and warp, in order of preference."

"Explain. AI-6."

"While slower than quantum jump, transwarp allows us to scan for life as we travel. We shall have to take into account the Wall of Ian, the bubble of matter that is travelling across the galaxy at warp speed. It allows to do what we planned, and we can use Scouts to locate and recover life. We must also take into account the impact of the Magical sensor array Ian created when he demolished Erigon. We can do hyper-jump, in effect using our capacity to drill a worm-hole, but that is a bit riskier, if a lot faster. Finally, we can take our time and do the crossing at warp speed below 9.9. In the later case, we would have ample time to explore for life in solar systems. In all three cases, we shall be heading toward the next galaxy we need to explore."

"I see. Inputs, ladies and gentlemen?"

"Before we decide, would someone clarify something for me?" asked Samson.

"Sure, Dad, what is it you need to know? Birds and Bees, or seeds and flowers?" replied Enron, smirking at the blushing Elf King Father.

"No, you twit! I know that! What I want to know is why we need to get that information about the Colony ship so much?"

"We discussed this last night, Samson. You must have been sleepy from over-eating!" said Harp.

"Given your appetite, I would not point fingers!"

A few snickers marked the exchange before Harp clarified the situation.

"Samson, we have yet to figure out how come we developed Magic. Our ancestors definitely did not have it. And there is the mystery of the Seer that died protecting the Seraphrims. The only source of information is on-board that Colony ship. We completely neglected to look for it when we tracked archives through time, deeming it an empty shell. Apparently, some stuff stayed on-board, probably a lot more than what was ever brought down from orbit. There might even be a reason for this, such as lack of shuttles, fuel, or even events we are totally unaware of."

"I see, at least I think I do..."

"I can remove the cataracts, if you think it might help?"

"Harp, it’s my foggy mind that needs a wake-up call... not my eyes!"

"Hum, where to send you for a cold bath? Arctic Tessaract? Fresh-water lake covered in ice?"

"Forget it! I can get wet on my own!"

"Back to the question: quick and dirty, or we slowly navigate across the galaxy to reach the Solar system’s current position?" asked Harold.

"Before we deal with that question... AI-6, assuming that the Colony ship was destroyed 19,000 to 20,000 years ago, would it be preferable to send collectors at the position the Sun occupied 20,000 years ago, or launch them from the current star’s position?"

"Prince Williams, the Sun’s orbit may be roughly circular around the core of the galaxy, but determining its exact position at the time of the insertion of Venusia is problematic at best. Its orbit is influenced by quite a few factors, many of which are unknown. Just a star passing close to it might change its orbit so it will be several light-years away from its estimated position. I suggest the Collectors backtrack from the last know sure position of the Primary star."

"Ok... Ian, I can sense you made your decision?"

"I do not wish to impose Dad."

"So far, Son, it is all you have been doing, with a knack for the spectacular! Who am I to deprive the others of the firecrackers you so diligently dispense?"

"Ok. I think we travel at no faster than warp 9. We distribute the Scouts in a dome covering 5,000 light-years ahead of our planned path. Each Scout checks solar systems for life in the present time frame, and sends back in time a sensor array to check for advanced life, or traces of technologies indicating colonisation, be it successful or failed. We know that each Scout space-suit is able to transport within its exoskeleton around 1,500 sensors, compressed to a factor of L-5. They collect data, return the data to the suit that informs its wearer of what is found. It then falls on the Scout to decide to report a strange event. In all events, should a high-order life form be found, we halt our progress across the galaxy and move Thebes to the star in question and begin collecting data, including genetic samples, ecosystem structure, the whole nine yards."

"I am surprised we are still at three life-forms found by the Ian wall," Amethyst once again wondered.

"I am not. The Soul-Eaters and the Cubes combined unwittingly together to make this galaxy a desert," replied Paschal.

"Should we go in a straight line?"

"It is impossible, Annabelle. First, there is the super Black Hole at the core of the Galaxy; second, it is useless to do so. Most stars in the core have no planet because the dust got pushed away by radiation pressure from the other stars well before planets could form. The density of the stars in the core is such that even if planets did form, they never developed life due to the intensity of ambient radiation. Finally, the core is composed of Population II stars, with low metal contents, a requisite for the formation of planets. There must be a region in the galaxy where life is more probable, and it is certainly not in the core."

"Thank you for the overview, Samson. I was more focussed on the genesis of life when I passed my Ordeal."

"Ian, have you thought of how to proceed?"

"Actually, I have looked at the galactic map while Samson and Annabelle were debating probable impact of the galaxy’s structure on the formation of life. We should follow a closing spiral going counter to the rotation of the galaxy. We are in the outer fringe of the Milky Way due to the worm hole, located in a star nursery created by the passage of a gravitational wave some 100,000 years earlier in the area, which places the leading edge of the bar of the Milky way a few light-years ahead of our position. We could cross the galaxy following the bar, but it is not worth the trip, since most planets within the bar probably are too young to harbour intelligent life. It is only within spirals that we have a chance of finding anything."

"How many planets should we expect to meet?"

"Oh that! From 9 to 12 per star, which puts the number of planets at somewhere around 12,000,000,000,000 or so. And I’m not counting rogue planets. There should be at least that amount roaming the galaxy without being attached to a star!"

"Ian, I think we are nuts thinking we can save life from its destiny."

"Dad, we are not trying to save life from its destiny, but intelligent life! And that reduces the numbers considerably! And given the ravages done by the Soul-Eaters, I suspect the number to be even less than what the models state it should be."

"When do we leave the safety of the nursery?" Yamato wanted to know.

"It depends on the progress of training with the FSS units. I would appreciate having at least 500,000,000 available. Sitar?"

"Let me check... At last count, we have 100,000. We are far short of your numbers, Ian."

"I thought we had over 1,000,000?"

"That is the number of suits. Suits do not fly by themselves. It takes time to train non-magical being in handling the suits properly, even if they kick their own butts at the task. Talking about training schedule, I am going to resume training Dianne and her group shortly. It is flying and interstellar navigation that is next. They are slow. The Children are much more willing to take risks and try things than they are. Nonetheless, we have only so many apt at training the Children, and I would greatly appreciate additional help."

"I see. What if everyone of us took part in the training?"

"We still have to stay put in this area for some time. I would say about a year to reach your requisition."

"Is there anything that rushes us out of here, Harp? Maybe it is time we took a new look at the future."

"I was thinking along the same line, Ian. We can do that tonight, after a good nap."

"Just so you know, we just added five more Ianium bonded pairs. While we were waiting here, there was a super-nova explosion across the star cluster and the wave front passed us half an hour ago."

"Thank you, AI-3. What is the impact on the gas?"

"A compression that will lead to the formation of another 100 stars of varying mass, including a blue giant some three light-years away. We shall be gone by the time it ignites."

"Ok."

***

The next morning, the Boys made their way to the Mess Hall and told Harold of what they had foreseen.

"Dad, we can stay here another year or two to maintain our training regimen with the FSS. After that, we have to resume our peregrination. We shall be collecting more Ianium, somewhere around 30 more bounded pairs. Meanwhile, we shall be sending exploration teams around this cluster for additional resources, and expand outside to search for life. It seems we need to stay around because there is a nexus coming up and we feel it is better to stay put and ride it here than in the open."

"All right, Harp. Where do we start?"

"If you noticed, the team that started with Dianne is absent. They are back into training. I am taking a Cohort out on the shell of Thebes to begin their sensory training. Each one of you has a Cohort to train as well. If we do this systematically, we can train 60 Cohorts at a time."

"But it takes three of us to train ten Elves! That number does not add up!"

"Annabelle, the ten in question are considered the most flexible of the old Elves, and you know how stiff-necked they were! The Cohorts are composed entirely of the new generations, aged fifteen or less. The Cohorts are also mixed-breed, which allows for interactions and shows they are adaptable. Old Legions are also being readied for this update, but it takes more staff. We decided we needed to train the Children first and then use them to train their Fathers and Grand-Fathers. If we had 60 well-trained Cohorts, we could possibly train 20 Cohorts of the older members of our society into the proper use of the FSS at a time. that means there will be 2,442,220 Adults in training after we have released the Children as trainers. Furthermore, the Children learn a lot faster. It took a month to train the ten most flexible old Elves in sensory reprogramming, and we have no idea how long it will take to train them in flight, much less tactics! Children take a week to learn the same stuff, and fly on instinct, requiring next to no training. We jump right to tactics with them."

"So, if I understand your program, the idea is to train 60 Cohorts of Kids, and then have them take over training the old geezers?"

"Yes, mom. And you train your Cohort. You have the mental flexibility. We shall leave behind in Command of Thebes a skeleton crew to control the Bridge and insure internal security, mainly Wolves. I expect we shall have trained within a month 120 Children Cohorts, and we shall continue until all are fully operational."

"What are the numbers?"

"A full Swarm, or 167 training cycles."

"That is going to take forever!"

"Actually, no. There are a lot less Adults than Children. Once the Adults are enrolled into the training program, the newly minted Children Cohorts will train those Children Units released from Sandal Camp to the intricacies of FSS. As each wave comes to fruition, it is put in charge of training the upcoming Units.

"How many Adults need retraining?"

"AI-5?"

"One million eight hundred thousand seven hundred nineteen Elves; 6,323,444 Humans, 153,544 Orcs, 1,002 Centaurs, 2,122 Pegasuses, 4,322 Unicorns, 12,220 Legionnaires, 34,582,882 Goblins, the Matriarch of the Seraphrims, 52,882,800 Canines, 50,800,000 Equines, 88 Dragons, 4,090,220 Fairies, and I do not know if I should add the members of the rescued Erigon IV life forms and the Atlanteans of Atlantis One. Also not included are the Dolphins, and the Australopithecus Regressi and the Feline Adults. Their Children are already undergoing training and the change this is causing in the social structure of the Primates is considerable. The current total number of Adults that needs training stands at 146,563,056 or approximately 220 Cohorts, including the ten Adults currently suffering from space sickness!"

"How many..." began Annabelle.

"It would require 61 cycles to train all the Adults. This means that if the Adults take three months to train, a very optimistic number if you want my opinion, it would take 15 years to train the whole bunch, if we left the training to the first 60 Cohorts. But this idea does not take into account the release rate of Children. It is estimated that each month should release another 60 Cohorts of Children ready to take over 20 Cohorts under their wing. that means by the time the first batch of Adults is released to active duty, there should be 40 Adult Cohorts in different stages of training, and it would continue increasing, to 80 Cohorts and then to 120 Cohorts and so forth. Each cycle would increase the throughput of Adults in training by a considerable amount. Naturally, that assumes the Adults are amenable to training. I have seen where the expression no use trying to teach a new face to an old Monkey comes from!"

After a good laugh, everyone took note of the billfold that Harp had distributed that morning.

«I see we are again assigned to patrolling the Atlantis One Tessaract?»

«For now, Spare-Ribs, for now. As soon as things settle down, I plan to get you and your family into Magic training. We shall then send you to the Ordeal. Once you have bonded with a Dragon, your responsibilities will increase considerably. Do not rush into them, they can be tough!» replied Harp. «We have two years to spend here. By then, I hope to see a Feline in command of the Bridge.»

"Ok. Ness, Fanfir and Apalapa have the Bridge in shifts. The others move to collect the Children in your respective Cohorts. Within a month, the slackers will feel the heat of retraining!" Ian ordered.

***

Things gradually fell into a routine of sorts. Six months to the day the decision had been taken to train the Adults, the first batch was released to active duty. The delay pissed Ian immensely, and his Dragon form could be seen stomping harshly the volcanic segment of the Dragon Tessaract. Quite a few Adults understood they were pushing the envelope by balking at adapting to their new life. Some came quite close to being roasted!

The 20 Cohorts were assigned to patrolling the star nursery and making sure nothing would come across on the back of Thebes while it was still relatively immobile. The star nursery was dark and dense but small at 11,000 light-years in diameter. The newly released Cohorts met in the centre of Thebes for a general briefing on their mission. Sitar took the stage.

"Cohorts, you number 2,442,220. It may seem huge for you, but you have to cover 279,940,000 light-years of area. You must imperatively stay on the periphery of the nursery, lest you get lost because of the lack of stars to navigate by. Do the maths: that means you need to cover 156 light-years each. That is not a swimming pool! Use your sensors to the best of your ability, but, first and foremost, do not get detected. Use passive listening only! On arriving to your patrol area, you are to set a random pattern of patrol, and begin to listen in on all frequencies for any signal. The FSS will help you filter out noise, and extract any potential signal. If you do find a signal, use a narrow beam between yourselves to communicate and exchange data to locate the source. As you were taught, the further apart two measurements are taken, the greater the angle, the more precise the location. Once this is done, send a narrow pulse to Thebes, by line-of-sight transmission. We must stay undetected."

Paschal took over from Sitar.

"You will receive your coordinates from the FSS as soon as it closes. The areas overlap somewhat, and are measured by the angular parallax of the stars that constitute the area within the immediate sky, outside of the nursery. Thebes will port you directly in the centre of your patrol area. We have no time to lose for you to reach your patrol area by warp drive."

"Any questions?" asked Sitar.

None raised any, and the 20 Cohorts began porting into the FSS halls to get into their space-suit. An hour after the first dive into the physiological liquid, the last FSS was ported to its destination.

"Let us hope we shall not have any issues."

"That would be a nice change for once, Sitar."

***

Things again settled down. It became apparent that some Adults really needed a full rewiring of their neural pathways to be able to function in space. A case in point was Alaric’s Dad. The Elf entered shock and his brain functions were restricted to autonomous aspects such as breathing, thermal control, and garbage disposal. The situation was so critical he was ported into a stasis pod and the brain rewiring was begun.

"Sorry Alaric," Ian said to the distraught Legate, "we never thought it would go that far. We are currently creating a map of your Dad’s memory and then we shall analyse the data to find what underlies this severe reaction. Until then, he will stay confined to a stasis pod."

"Can I do anything?"

"To help? No. Just in case you think he is unique, get rid of that idea. We have one out of 628 Adults reacting as adversely as your Dad at some stage during the FSS training. It goes from a phobia of water to intense agoraphobia. I must admit your Dad’s reaction to void was, let us say, far stronger than average! Mostly, they freeze, or become aggressive. A total brain shutdown is a first."

"How long before he is out of the woods?"

"To be honest, I have no idea. We shall leave the analysis to the General Hospital AI, and once we have the whole structure and main focal points of the analysis, we shall delve in it more deeply. I feel no need to rush this. Even if your Dad is in the last training cycle, does it really matter? Not really."

"What can I do for now?"

"If I remember, you are back from a patrol?"

"Yes. At coordinates 80° North 170° East, right across the nursery. It hides a star cluster, and also a galaxy. That dwarf galaxy is headed our way from the Doppler shift."

"Ok. Did you notify Samson?"

"Yes."

"Come with me, I am headed to the Tessaract containing the Australopithecus Regressi to check on them. We are bringing back some youngsters so they can spend a week with their Parents in the Tessaract. I wonder how the Parents will react to what their Children will tell them about the outside world."

"Do you expect any issues?"

"Trouble, you mean? No. They are a very peaceful lot, except for some that quickly get brought down a few pegs by the others. Paschal and Enron are trying to design a learning protocol for the Adults so they can begin leaving the Tessaract and feel fine. It will not be tomorrow the Adults will be involved in the day-to-day affairs of Thebes."

"What about the Children?"

"Tom and Jerry were the tip of the iceberg. They are adapting fast! The current generation will never be very magical, but the next one holds promises! They are already light-years ahead of Tom and Jerry."

"What is the expected life-span of a wild Australopithecus Regressi?"

"It is hard to say. Maybe 25, 30 years? We are still studying them in the wild. It is changing, due to the Tessaract Effect, which speeds up evolution."

***

The return of the Children to their respective Tribes was greeted with a lot of signs of happiness by the Adults that had stayed in their ancestral foraging lands. There were a lot of telepathic exchanges about who was alive and who was dead; quite a few Children learned that one or other of their Parents had fallen prey to the Crocodiles, or had succumbed to accidents. Memories of past good days were exchanged, and connections made with youngsters born during the prolonged absence.

After three days, the dynamic changed. Questions fused about how the returning Children were doing, what they had been doing, and what their plans were. If the astounding health and growth of the Children that had taken a stage in Thebes’ training environment could not be ignored, what they had learned and its importance to the Australopithecus Regressi community was hotly debated. For the Adults, food and water were paramount, followed by safety of their Children.

Finally, Tom, still the most proficient Magic-wise amongst the group, did a demonstration by throwing a tree on the lurking Crocodiles, drowning two in the process.

«We learn new survival skills. We learn to eat new things. We learn we are not unique in our history. We met Orcs, and they too suffered from the hands of the Torturers. We also learned the Torturers are all dead, because of events that began to unfold even before they came to be. Yes, we share a common fate. And we learned we are inside a huge ball that is travelling between the stars.»

"Torturers?" asked Alaric.

"The Crocodile Priests, servants of the Atom God, that produced both the Australopithecus Regressi and the Orcs," Ian informed him.

«What do you plan to do?» asked the old leader of the tribe that had nursed Tom when his mother had died.

«Continue to learn, continue to train to our maximum capacities. Then we shall return. Some are training in care of the elderly, so do not despair of finding yourselves alone in your old age, we shall be there. Others will progress further than we have. I hope we shall produce more of us. We know we are only one branch leading to the top of the great tree.»

"What is Tom talking about?»

"Evolution, Alaric. It is a nice image, well within the grasp of the Adults in the Tessaract."

"I never thought they had grasped that."

"I too was surprised, but when we began exposing its foundations, it clicked with their own myths and history. Given they had suffered immensely under the claws of the Crocodile Priests and were of human stock, they had managed to understand the principles of what these creepy bastards were trying to do. Their telepathic history, while no more trustworthy than oral history, was nonetheless sufficiently precise to let them understand the concepts."

"I thought Tom and Jerry were barely four when you took their education over?"

"Yes, but we never did block telepathic communication with their community, at least at a subconscious level. They had access to the compendium of their ‘oral’ history."

"I am always amazed at the amount of care you guys take in handling things."

"Careful consideration of all aspects is what allows for success in complex environments. I think the Children are ready to leave."

"I think you are right. From what I see, we shall be taking more Children?"

"Yes, I think Tom and Jerry managed to convince the community its future lies with its Children, not with its Elders. In that, they are more sensible than the average Humans!"

"This will eventually create a cleavage."

"We know. By bringing the Trainees here on a regular basis, we ensure they do not forget their Parents and where they started. It also reassures the survivors as to the fate of those they entrust to our care."

Tom is leading the way to the port site. Let us follow the group."