Chapter 13
Terry looked around the room for a moment before taking a closer look at some of the many consoles. She didn't need long to figure out that this was a control room. This was probably the control room that the queen used if she wanted to do something that required more detail than just a thought comment. But still, it didn't quite add up for Terry. If the ship had wanted her in a control room, it could have led them to the main control room where there were even more consoles. Since the ship apparently could decide whether or not to open doors, a little thing of just from where a command came should make little to no difference.
Finally she said out loud, "This isn't what you wanted me to see. This isn't why you brought me here."
Mere moments after her last words, the room started to change. The consoles seemed to be melting away into the floor and for a few seconds the room was absolutely barren. Finally a chair started to rise out of the floor, but Terry quickly realized that it wasn't a mere chair; it was a throne.
Terry had the feeling that the throne was made just for her, and it had a certain undeniable pull to it; like it was inviting Terry to sit down. But she didn't. Instead she very deliberately took a step away. That pull felt wrong to her, like it was the pull to absolute power. Terry had once heard a statement on TV that she found quite fitting at the moment; 'those that want power, should never get it. And those that give in to the pull of power, will never be worthy of that power'.
Suddenly a light started to shine in a corner of the room. The light slowly changed form from a simple beam of light to representing a human form with no further details to be seen except of the general outlines. One couldn't even see fingers on the parts of the form that were the hands. The face was nothing more than darker spots on a brighter light; shades that gave the illusion of a face rather than there actually being a face. When it spoke, even the voice gave no indication of something as simple as a gender.
"We have been waiting for you for a long time, Terry. We are glad that you finally arrived."
Terry needed a moment to acquaint herself with the fact that a light was talking to her and on top of that knew who she was, what her name was, but eventually she replied slowly, and slightly confused, "I've been onboard this ship from the moment I was born until a few years ago. If you've been waiting for me for so long, then why didn't you contact me before?"
"Because then you were not yet the person we were looking for. You only became the person we were looking for in the last years, and you completed the change of becoming the person we were looking for only moments ago; when you didn't sit down on that throne. You didn't know what your part in the bigger whole was, yet you still felt that it was wrong to take that seat. We've had enough people that were perfect, just that they did take that seat. When time ran out for us, we did select a person that was truly perfect, with the exception that she took that seat; she was the first queen and you know what happened after that."
Terry frowned at the words. "But you're only a... a... um, hologram; a manifestation of the computer intelligence on this ship. Why are you talking like you were actually one of the creators of this, and the other, ships?"
"I'm not a hologram. True, I'm not real, or at least not the thing that you understand under real, but I'm not a manifestation created by the ship; I 'am' the ship."
"You are the ship?" Terry could only repeat.
"Yes. The body of the ship might be made of the material that has become known as Sentient Metal ever since your lover created that name, but I am the essence. I am the 'thing' that the queen contacts when she wants to tell me, this ship, what to do. When the Sentient Metal repairs itself on this ship, it's not because of the computers; it's me. I interact with the sensors and heater/cooler units in the Sentient Metal all over the ship. Like every single sensor in the metal, and every single heater/cooler unit, is a cell of my body. I am that on this ship, but on every single ship in the fleet, from this main mother ship down to the last escape pod, there is a member of my species. And yes, I really am one of the builders of these ships. When there were only a few of us left, we realized that we had to let go of our body if we wanted to survive."
Terry lifted her hand in a stopping motion. "Ho, hold on there for a moment. Survive without a body? What, how?"
"With us the spirit, what you would call a soul, is the important part of a person. That is the part that has to survive. The body is only secondary. We need something that our soul can live in, but just what that something is, is of secondary nature as long as it's possible for our soul to actually live in it. That's why we transferred our spirits onto these ships. Most people think that the thinking part of these ships is an Artificial Intelligence; computers, but it's not. There's no Artificial Intelligence; it's us. Yes, there are computers that we created, but we never made that final step of giving those separate computers an overlaying essence of existence even though that had been our initial plan."
"I'm afraid you lost me," Terry admitted.
"In that case, allow me to tell the true story of these ships from the beginning and the role we had in their creation. Yes we built them. But we built them to serve us. The planet we lived on, evolved on, was about to be destroyed by the star in our solar system. It had entered the last stages of its life. We estimated it to be between ten and fifty years before all living things would be destroyed in our solar system. We created these ships to save what was left of our species. Having said that, just because the star would destroy our planet in years to come, didn't mean that it wasn't already killing us. Huge doses of radiation and particles bombarded our planet day and night. Poisoning us you might say."
"I'm surprised that you didn't already have the ships," Terry pointed out. "As far as was told to us, you already were a space faring species; which these ships prove. Their design is way too good to be a first try."
"We had ships," the being agreed. "But they were not suited for carrying a large number of people. Not in a way that you could live on them in comfort. But we did use all of that knowledge to build these ships. We planned to live on these ships like your people are doing now. As such, for our convenience we built these ships to serve. We were indeed planning to use an Artificial Intelligence on them, but we knew only too well that Artificial Intelligence can also evolve. So to make sure that an evolved A.I. could never force us to leave these ships before we were ready to leave them, we created the ships in such a way that they cannot do but serve; serve us."
Terry merely nodded. As part of her lessons for life on Earth she had watched hours and hours of TV. She had seen one too many movie or series episode where machines turned against their creators, and it had always made her wonder why those people that were so brilliant to invent something so amazing, were too stupid to include an off switch. From what she understood, these beings had been smart enough to understand that an off switch was needed, and that even an off switch can get broken, and therefore had made the design in such a way that the 'off switch' was a simple timeframe in which things needed to be manually reset, or else.
"Unfortunately time caught up with us," the being continued. "When we started the building of these ships there were enough of us alive to populate them with even more people than live on them now; 400 million. But by the time we had finished there were so few of us left that our number counted almost as many as the ships we had built, including the scout ships and escape pods. Since with us the physical body is not important we decided that instead of living in the ships as individual people, we would transfer our soul into the computer system we created on the ships. That way we would be from then on immune to everything but individual damage done to one of the ships by an asteroid or the likes, instead of being tied to a frail and weak body that isn't even immune to most of the universe's most basic of radiation. And thus the Artificial Intelligence meant to be on these ships was never used, instead we took that place. Unfortunately we didn't realize at that time that this would bind us to the same limitations that we had deliberately thought up for the A.I."
"But why even bother to finish all the ships?" Terry wondered. "I mean, if you realize during the building that your people are dying then you don't finish all the ships, but instead only the ones needed to carry the rest of the people left, and then use those to get the hell out of wherever you are."
Terry wasn't sure, but she thought that she had actually heard the being chuckle slightly at her words.
"Get the hell out of there?" the being repeated. "Well, unfortunately we were young back then and though we are highly intelligent compared to more basic life like humans, intelligence doesn't always translate into smartness. We stubbornly stuck to the task we had set ourselves, of finishing these ships. Finishing tasks we started is in our nature just as much as it's in your nature to breath. Unfortunately we didn't understand that sometimes you have to accept that you cannot finish one task if you want to be able to still finish all the other tasks."
"So you built your ships, priding yourself in the fact that you finished your tasks, and then realized that you had maneuvered yourself into a corner," Terry surmised.
"You could put it like that," the being reluctantly agreed. "When we finished the ships we realized that we had an even bigger problem than the fact that we were dying on that planet. Alright, so now we lived in these ships as the sentient part of them, but now what? We needed these ships to be used. Because of how we had very deliberately built these ships there were certain things we cannot do unless the order to do so is given.
We had built these ships to serve so that we could live in them, and now that things had changed we needed people that the ships, and unfortunately by extension us, could serve. We left our planet, doing so while we were basically empty ships that were traveling through space. We prolonged that stage as long as we could; hoping to find intelligent life that we could entrust with the ships, and us. But eventually we ran out of time.
When we could travel only a few more light-years without physical beings on the ships doing things like resetting automated safety devices, we came across a planet that had beings on it that were quite interesting. They were small and really nothing more than what you humans would consider an animal, yet we sensed that they were sentient. Their abilities existed out of nothing more than the knowledge on how to get food, but they were intelligent enough to learn ways of using tools like sticks to get that food. In other words, we discovered the ancestors of human kind."
"You gave the ships to cavemen?!" Terry asked in disbelief.
"They were actually millions of years before what are considered cavemen by the scientists on this planet," the being noted. "You have to realize that what we needed at that point was not a species that was so highly advanced that they knew what the secrets of physics were. What we needed was a species that could be trained easily in what buttons to push and how to do things."
"You needed circus monkeys," Terry surmised.
"Monkeys with an ability to evolve," the being slightly corrected. "And they did. Once they were challenged by their new environment, us, they evolved and started to get the brain capacity that comes close to that of the modern human. What most people don't understand is that once the brain had grown, that brain wise the people then were just as intelligent as they are now. Evolution has been more about the body itself but for the rest it has been basically a case of one invention being needed before the next one could be made."
Terry lifted her eyebrows at that statement.
"You and your people reaching Earth actually proves this," the being assured. "You were far more advanced than them on a medical and technological level. Yet only a few years later their own doctors were improving on the medical knowledge you provided, simply because they're used to trying to see if things are possible. The same with your technology. New inventions have been made by them, using your technology. You and your people were considered more advanced, but in reality the only difference between Earth humans and off-worlders as you have been named, was slightly biological; created by the fact that you evolved light-years apart. The long life of the leaders to name one thing, your more advanced potential for telepathy is another thing."
"Talking about that," Terry said, "small parts of what you just told me contradicts the story that has been told to us by the Council... no surprise there... but what about those ancestors? You said you were traveling through space already when you came across the planet where you found those... monkeys?"
"That's another part of the story that you were told that isn't true, on two points. First, your ancestors never found these ships; we handed them over once we found them. Second, we never bred humans and populated planets with them. Humans were on these ships, yes. But they were there only after we handed the ships to their ancestors, which over time evolved on these ships to beings that one would now recognize as humanoid. And as I said, the only reason why they were on these ships to begin with was because we had ran out of time to find a species to populate these ships. The speed with which those ancestors of the humans learned how to use these ships was simply amazing. It's the people that were then in control of the ships that started to misuse that amazing ability to adapt. They realized very quickly; put humans on a new planet and within several generations they have adapted to the climate, and to the gas mixture of the air."
"Something those early queens made good use of?" Terry guessed.
"They did," the being agreed. "We had left that planet after taking those early humans onto the ship. This so that we would not influence the evolution on that planet more than we already did by removing ten percent of the population of those... monkeys at that time. But once we were traveling again and those monkeys evolved into pre-humans, some of those early humans realized that they didn't like living on a spaceship. We came across a beautiful planet that was uninhabited; a paradise you could say. A few humans decided to stay instead of move on with the ships. That gave the rest an idea; why not do the same with other planets? As I said, you were told that we bred those early humans; we didn't. They did that themselves. They were smart enough to realize that to leave people on planets, you need people."
"And the different kinds of people," Terry asked. "The long and short living ones? How did that happen?"
"Evolution. Any changes that happened in humans was because the base human back then was still evolving by nature. The difference in human species that evolved was also enhanced because back then every ship was its own community. Even though they could travel between ships, they still had the tribal mentality that they had from their ancestors. One tribe, one ship. They communicated between ships and coordinated about in which direction to travel, but other than that they didn't mingle. So over time humans on different ships evolved differently."
"We kinda guessed that the part about finding the ships wasn't true," Terry admitted. "At least, ever since Ben told us what he knew."
"Ben?" the being asked.
"Ben is the leader of the Bundar; one of the Bundar that was here on the ship with us a moment ago. He told us about some legend that apparently had someone like me in it, which is why we knew I was a descendant of the queen. He also told us that the first queen was selected. The queen couldn't be selected if our ancestors just happen to find the ships countless years later."
The being nodded. "We're the ones that started that legend. When we saw what your people had turned into because of what the people in charge were doing, we realized that we needed to get a story out there that would make your enemies realize that not everyone of your people was evil. That way they would be inclined to work with people that wanted to stop the queen instead of just expecting the worst."
"Like it did indeed happen this time," Terry noted.
"Indeed. But that's actually ahead of what I was saying. As I said, these ships are built to serve, but besides that. While the Sentient Metal can do a lot, there are still people needed that do things from as simple as cleaning to as complex as maintaining the energy grid. As much as we can make the Sentient Metal do; we cannot make it do something as simple as replacing a blown fuse. But the problem was, as mentioned, that there was a tribal mentality. Back then every 'tribe', every ship had their own leader and eventually tensions started to build as leaders wanted to control more and more. To prevent a war between tribes, we decided to unite the control of all ships to one ship, and have one clear ruler there. A queen that would rule over all the tribes, you might say. After a stringent selection process we finally selected a woman that would get all the control of the ships; including the control that most others didn't have. We selected a woman so that the traits we found important in her could live on in her children. She was absolutely perfect, with the one small exception that just like those tribe leaders on the other ships, she did sit down in the control chair of the ship; that throne. With that she indicated that she truly felt as a queen. We were unsure about that part, but we needed to prevent a war between ships, and as such one clear leader seemed like a decent alternative."
As the being said this, Terry automatically looked at the throne again. It was weird. On looks it was totally not her taste. And yet there was something to it that was calling her, or more to the point, that was somehow calling to her body.
In the meantime, the being continued to explain. "We were hesitant about that part, but we knew that we didn't have the time to start a new selection process, so we picked her. She was the only human we personally ever did change. We changed some things that would make it possible for her to control these ships; things that from then on would pass on from daughter to daughter. It was not long after, but already too late to do anything about it, that we realized our mistake, as the queen quickly changed to the kind of queen you just met. It seemed that the things we didn't want in a queen but were nevertheless in that first queen also passed on from daughter to daughter."
"Which means that I have those things you don't want as well," Terry pointed out.
"No you don't. With you we finally managed to bring the right character traits together, and prevent the wrong ones from being passed on as well."
"And it took you all the way until now to bring character traits together?" Terry asked in disbelief. "That's a damn long time. Why didn't you simply do something against the queen before? Any of the queens."
"As I said, we may be the sentient part of these ships, but we can't run them completely ourselves. We need people on these ships, and can't act against the queen, other than not listening to her, because of how we built these ships. Besides that, we need someone to be in charge of these ships otherwise we ourselves will eventually die out. That's why, until now, we never could not listen to the queen; it would have meant our own death. What we needed was a person we can select as the new leader so that we finally could stop listening to the queen in charge. However, that's easier said than done. We couldn't do anything physically to create such a person, so it took us until now to 'tweak' situations."
"Tweak?" Terry repeated.
"For instance, when the two right people are in the same room, change the lighting slightly, the temperature, set a favorable setting in the fun room; things like that," the being explained. "But on top of that things were complicated by the fact that we couldn't change the queen herself like this since it might be noticed. Besides, if we had focused on trying to change the queens, it would have taken even longer because of the long life of the queen, and therefore the length between generations. So we decided to start anew, so to say."
"Anew," Terry repeated once more.
"We had to create the right set of characteristics in a normal human, keeping in mind how these changes would affect the child of a queen when the normal human was mixed with the queen abilities. And to make it even more difficult; we might create the perfect mix of a person to infuse into the queen's bloodline, but there's still no guarantee that the queen will actually use that human to breed an offspring. We had several occasions where we had the perfect mix, but the queen at that time never used that human to breed with. It literally does take millions of years like that to finally come to the mix that you are. But creating that mix is the only thing we could do. That, and limiting the speed of the ships."
"What do you mean with that?" Terry asked with a frown. "We know that these ships are very fast; just that we can't fly that because we can't react fast enough."
"You can't, but we can," the being explained. "Luckily none of the queens ever realized that just because a human can't react that fast, that doesn't mean that nobody can. Our natural senses are much more advanced than any electronic sensors we have ever heard of; including the electronic sensors we built ourselves on these ships. We can 'feel' more of the universe at any moment than an electronic sensor can in a thousand year trip. We know where planets are, asteroids, dangerous gas clouds. You're right, if normal sensors are used you can't go much faster than you have been doing until now. But if we're steering the ships they can go much faster because we know which course to set to steer away from any problems. The speeds that you've been traveling at until now aren't really even enough to get the engines running warm; and they can actually run very hot."
"And just what does 'very hot' mean?" Terry asked, wondering just how much technology that they always had assumed had been the height of abilities had actually been curbed.
"Theoretically? If you were to run at the highest sustainable top speed, we could reach the place where our Homeworld was once located in one year."
"What?" Terry asked amazed. "One year for a distance that took millions of years to travel?"
"I said theoretically. Practically it would be more like two years because you have to keep in mind that sometimes a straight line is not the best course. And you also need to remember that once your people were in control of these ships, they traveled even slower than they could have despite the limitations we were putting on speeds. Because they stopped at planets to take them over; that too takes a lot of time. Either way, those two things were the only thing we could do; limit the speed so that your people would get into contact with as few planets as possible, and try to create you."
"I really don't like the sound of 'created'; makes me feel like a product," Terry noted. "Anyway, the fact that you were trying to 'create' someone that isn't a queen, but has queen abilities doesn't explain why I suddenly knew things from one moment to the other; like me not understanding the Bundar language one moment, but being able to speak it flawlessly the next moment."
"True," the being agreed. "But the explanation for that is that this has nothing to do with the genetic mix; with the exception that thanks to the genetic mix your mind was more susceptible to subconscious teaching. The subconscious mind is a very interesting thing in a human. Once you know how to do something, you don't consciously think about it. For instance, take something as simple as walking. How exactly do you walk? Or what exactly do you need to do to run? You don't spent time thinking how to do it; you just do it. This is guided by the subconscious. It actually does tell your muscles that this muscle needs to contract, and that one needs to extend. The same goes for speaking. Once you know a language you don't think about every word you speak; it's your subconscious that translates your thoughts into spoken words, and your conscious mind only acts when it realizes that you said something wrong. Then you get the situations where you speak, only to stop and correct a word you said several words ago. On top of that, with the human brain it's very easy to block information."
"And that ties in with me... how?" Terry asked.
"It ties in by the fact that we used this to teach you while you slept. Since the first minute you were born there hasn't been a single minute that you slept, here on the ship, in which we didn't teach you something. Of course, to prevent the queen from finding out that we were planning something we had to hide the fact that we were teaching you things that even she doesn't know. To do so we also had to hide from you the fact that you knew these things, which is why we hid the information behind blocks. Blocks that would only disappear if certain events we could foresee were triggered. You say that you know the Bundar language; you can only know that if you had to be part of the ritual that removes the limit on their abilities, or were about to get killed by a Bundar; situations like that. There were 19 triggers that we predicted that would trigger the knowledge of the Bundar memories."
"There's even more trapped in there?" Terry asked as she tapped herself against her head.
"More than the queen learned in her 8,000 years that she's alive. Even more importantly, it's much more diverse information. It's not just information about these ships and places where they have been. There's also information that will help you deal with important species you've never met, but might."
"And you're telling me that I know all of that, but might never know that I know it unless a certain situation that triggers the information happens?" Terry asked confused.
"If you were far away from any of these ships then yes. But now that you know the truth, we can lift some of those blockades every time you sleep if you want. So that you'll remember more every time you wake up. If we were to remove too many blockades at once, you would only be overwhelmed by all the information and not be able to cope with it. The same goes for your personal guard, by the way. She too has a lot of information stored in her mind that's still blocked, only with her it's different information than with you. Her information is more geared towards,"
Terry lifted her hands in a stopping gesture. "Whoa, back up there for a moment. What guard are you talking about?"
"Pam Scott. When you were born, and we realized that finally the right mix had been reached, we knew that we also needed someone that is willing to protect you no matter what; ready to give their life to protect yours. Since for this person the genetic mix wasn't 'that' important, it just has to favor in certain directions, we picked the first person that was born after you that had a genetic mix that would suit a protector extremely well."
"Like being able to set herself over the fact that she killed someone, and has a very high pain threshold so that she wouldn't mind doing the hard training that was needed," Terry said in understanding.
"Things like that," the being agreed. "We influenced her for her entire life as well. Because we needed her to be extremely well trained, we steered her to wanting the thing that would mean that she would get the best training."
Terry nodded her head. "The position of A1. The only position where you get taught everything your trainers know. That's why she wanted to be the A1 for her entire life. But if that's so, then why have that memory of the girl's death affect her so much? Surely you didn't need Pam to go through that emotional distress to make her realize that she had to do 'something' against the Council, there had to be other ways."
The being hesitated for a moment, and had it been human, Terry would have sworn that the hesitation had been one of embarrassed ignorance. "That's something we actually had no control over. That girl, we have no idea why she affected your protector so much. That whole affair should have been nothing more than just another order fulfilled. We had indeed other ways set up for your protector to realize that she had to be at your side all the time. I can tell you something rather interesting though; that girl's life energy never left. In that regard she was a lot like us; her body died, but her life energy, her soul, didn't."
Terry frowned at that before suddenly she felt that she might have an answer. "Well, you just said yourself that one of the most interesting things about humans is that they can adapt, and also that the evolution that humans underwent was by nature and not by you. Besides evolving like the humans here on Earth, we off-worlders moved on to evolve slightly more to be the kind of humans of which I'm one; minus the queen abilities for the rest of the off-worlders of course. We also evolved into the leaders, and apparently even into some that can live even longer than that; the queens. Maybe that little girl just happened to be the first in a different evolution. More from my time on Earth than on these ships, I know that no matter where they are in their evolution, humans always think that they're the pinnacle of evolution. I'm willing to bet that even those ancestors of humans that you needed to learn how to push buttons were sure that nothing would ever be more evolved than them. Maybe this is the case here. Maybe this girl was the first of the next. Homo-erectus, then came Homo-sapiens, and then Homo-whatever her step in evolution will be called in history."
"That might very well be," the being agreed.
"But, um, if the girl's life energy never died, then where did it go to?" Terry wondered. "Is she now also in control of one of these ships?"
"No. Though hers and our story sounds alike, we are nothing alike. Her life energy would never be able to control one of these ships like we can. No, that energy never left the presence of your protector. The girl's 'soul' settled in your protector's body like it's waiting for something. For what, we don't know."
Terry's eyes got wide. "That explains why Pam sees the girl in her dreams and talks and interacts with her there."
"It is very possible. We don't know what effect this soul has on your protector, but we did notice that your protector was not affected in any negative way by this soul housing in her body."
"My 'protector' is called Pam, and is my best friend; second only to my lover. Please say Pam, and not 'your protector'. Just like I don't want talk about me to sound like I'm a product, I also don't want Pam to sound like a product."
The being dipped its head a little. "Very well. I'm very glad to hear that she's such a good friend of yours. This is not something we had any doing in. We concentrated more on her feeling a need to protect you no matter what, and not on whether or not she should like you. However, as much as she may be your friend, you also have to realize that she's more than just an average human. We taught her everything she needed to know to become that A1. We also taught her things that she doesn't know yet that she knows them because just like you, we couldn't remove those blocks because that would give away that we were planning something. Believe me, if she's ever in a position where she has to directly protect you, she will literally be the most lethal and unstoppable person of any of the species your people ever came across; including the Bundar. She will also be able to take damage to her body that others would die from, simply because her mind will know how to 'shut off' the damaged parts of the body. Even a bullet to the brain would not stop her, unless there would be so much damage that no part of the brain is able to function anymore. At the moment she doesn't consciously realize that she has these abilities and therefore thinks that all her knowledge is merely from her A1 training. However, she will realize soon enough that there's something going on when she starts to remember things she never consciously learned."
"You could simply not lift those blocks," Terry pointed out.
"We cannot afford for her to not remember these things just so that she doesn't discover that she is more than she really is," the being pointed out. "Also, besides this being a waste of potential, you would also be doing her a disservice. She wants to be the best, and all that will make her better will be very much liked by her."
"Then I'll tell her what the story is, in my way, and after I've done that, you can let her remember."
"That seems like a good compromise."
Terry looked at the light form for a moment, wondering about a very obvious gap in the story she had just been told. "Tell me something, you can show yourself to me; can you do that only here or all through the ship?"
"All through the ship, as long as there's a light source. You called me a hologram before; I disagreed with that because I am not. This form however, is something you could consider a crude hologram. I'm controlling the shape of the Sentient Metal light fixture above me in such a way that the light projects this crude form. Within limits I can do that with any light fixture; though my 'body' will look different according to the main structure of the light fixture."
"Then why didn't you ever show yourself to the people and tell this story? Why didn't you ever tell them about the queen, and when they had occupied a planet and set off again, why didn't you tell the people that the Council and the leaders were about to start a terror reign?"
"As I said; these ships, and by extension we, can only serve. One of the queens forbid us to ever show ourselves to anyone but the queen, and all the queens after her continued that practice. That's why we had to go through the more difficult way of training you and Pam through subconscious training in your sleep. We could do that, because we were never forbidden from doing so, probably because none of the queens ever realized that we could do so."
"You could have done the same to others; train them to be able to rise up against the black troops and the council. You trained Pam to fight; you could have trained others as well."
"Just because someone knows something, doesn't mean they will also act on it," the being pointed out. "For instance, we can train a worker how to be able to defeat a black troop member, but that doesn't mean that this worker will actually use that knowledge to rebel against their leaders. Besides, it would have been of no use. We need a queen. If there's no queen these ships will eventually reach a level of disuse where we will suffer from it, and we die. We might have the ability to show ourselves to your people, but if we don't have a queen then we, as well as your own people, will eventually die out. That's also why we need you. You may not be as long living as the queen was, but you have all the abilities that are needed to control these ships. We could finally stop the succession of queens because we could pick you as the new queen."
"Only one problem with that though; I don't want to be your queen," Terry said right away.
Apparently the being had not been expecting that and despite the fact that there were no detailed face features, it was still plain to see shock on that face.
"But you have to become the new queen; we need to survive."
"Why? Because of errors you made, billions, a countless amount of people, have either been enslaved or died. You play with people like it's a chess game. You create people like me, like Pam, never thinking about the person as a person instead of a product. From what I heard you were only thinking of yourself; wanting to stay alive. Well, how many died because you now live? Maybe it's time you died so that their deaths are repaid. Give me one good reason why you should continue to live."
The being thought about that, and communicated with the others. They realized that the time had come to reveal the last secret as well. This woman that they had created had turned out to be everything they hoped for, and more. Now they had to trust her with their biggest secret and hope that she would only share it with the people she trusted to never tell anyone else.
"Very well. What I'm going to tell you now is something we hope that you will tell as few people as possible. Joanne, Pam, and her partner Max may know. Even Ben does not need to know this, since too many people knowing this could influence the universe; literally."
"No," Terry objected right away. "There have been too many secrets on these ships. No more. Either everyone that lives on them has a right to know all about the place they are living on, or nobody will live on them. Well, maybe the ones that are willing to live in their old home while those homes slowly die because there's no queen to keep them alive."
The being didn't react to that for a long moment, and Terry could only guess that it was communicating with the others. Finally she relented a bit by adding. "After all, even if they know, that doesn't change the fact that you need the help of only one person; the queen. For the rest I'm sure that the others will be willing to maintain the homes they live in."
Finally the being nodded its head in agreement and a moment later the light above it went out. Surprisingly enough its light body didn't disappear though. Instead it started to change. Body proportions moved to where it still was clearly a humanoid form, but no longer clearly human in proportions. It had also formed wings and its knees now folded backwards. Despite that last little detail, the form looked very regal and beautiful. If Terry had been a believer of any of the Earth faiths, she would probably have said that the form looked like an angel. But since she had never taken anything from faith with the exception of using 'god' and 'hell' as emphasizing words, the form merely looked beautiful to her.
"We have to survive because of what will still be," the being said. "We truly are the last of a dying species. Once there were billions of us all through the universe. Our self-imposed task was to change solar systems where no life was possible. Change planetary orbits, take certain things off planets where no life was possible and bring those to the planets where life was possible, with a little help. Here in this solar system the clear evidence of this is Earth and the planet called Mars. On Mars there was water; on Earth none. Yet all in all the conditions for life as you know it were better on Earth, so our parents moved the water from Mars to Earth. We don't actually create life; we don't have that power. But we create the situations that favor life the most. All you were told about these ships and humans being on them was true, but what I hadn't told you is that our parents already visited this solar system two billion Earth years ago. You have to understand that as those beings we don't need ships to survive. In our adult form our spirit needs no body at all most of the time, and when we do, for instance when we need a physical body so that we can reproduce, we can form that body with nothing more than a thought."
"So why do you need those ships now?" Terry wondered. How could beings so powerful be tied down to something as relatively simple as a spaceship?
"Because one of our ancestors made a mistake. Here on Earth there is a saying; 'everyone makes mistakes'. However with us the scale is a lot bigger than what humans can even comprehend. That ancestor was rearranging a solar system with elements we had never seen before, or since. Our ancestor didn't give much care to that, figuring that all in all it would still be the same as normal; it wasn't. His rearranging caused a chain reaction when the unknown elements mixed. An explosion followed that wiped out the entire galaxy that solar system was in, but that was not the worst of it.
The explosion had caused a wave of unique radiation to spread through the universe. Traces of this radiation can still be found today and is often mistaken by Earth scientists as 'background radiation' from the 'big bang'. Well, this is true so far as that there was indeed a 'big bang' and this is indeed the resulting radiation, but this 'big bang' is not what started the universe; it's what changed it forever.
Most living things showed no reaction to this radiation, with the exception of our ancestors. If this would have happened now, even you humans would not feel any affects of that radiation, yet my ancestors died. The wave was unstoppable and claiming more and more of our ancestors lives as it continue to spread through the universe; galaxy after galaxy.
There were only a few that were not affected by this radiation, we; the ones that were in the second stage of our three stage evolution. With us you have what you could compare to babies, then you have the children... which you can consider us, and finally the adults. The 'children' is a stage between what we call sentient and super-sentient. When we become super-sentient we get our powers and no longer need these ships, or any physical form to live in. Because we have a different form with every stage of our life we happened to be immune to the radiation... unlike the babies and the adults who both died. Despite our knowledge, we are still children. It's also the only excuse I can give as to why we made such blatant mistakes with creating these ships and then the queens. We were children that tried to survive.
You could say, just like a butterfly here on Earth creates a cocoon to transform from one stage of its life to another. We are in that 'cocoon' stage. The problem is that in this stage our spirit can die if it's not protected. Normally that protection is given by our adults, but with them no longer alive we knew that we too would die out if we didn't find any 'homes' where we could settle our spirits as we wait for the time to come for us to be adults. So, we created these ships. Again, over all it's true; we were about to be extinct so we built, or better said, created, these ships to prevent that. Just that there was no star dying that caused us to die. We were merely all that was left of our species after the disaster."
"But if you're that powerful, why build these ships to serve? Why build them so that they need people?" Terry asked, not understanding why these beings would set themselves up for that.
"Because at the moment we aren't powerful. We only get our powers when we reach the adult stage. We do have a knowledge you would call vastly advanced, like knowing how to invent what you call Sentient Metal. But compared to our adult stage, we truly are children. We have the knowledge, yes, but we still had to physically build these ships using the hands of our bodies. Bodies that only lasted for a certain time. Normally our parents would create a new body for us when the old one dies off; a new cocoon so to speak, but our parents were no longer there to create those cocoons.
We had the physical body to build these ships, but after we had done that we had to leave that body and enter these ships. This ship is now basically my body. What you see here now standing in front of you may be my true form, but it still is not a real body; it's merely my essence pulled together to look like a body. I cannot pick up a single object or push a single button, and if you were to walk over here you would walk right through me.
We knew that we would need other beings on these ships that could do these simple tasks. That's also why we built the ships with the inclusion of scout ships and escape pods; to give those other beings the impression that they are not trapped on the ships, that they can at any moment take a ship and leave. I know that in theory it would have been simpler to build these ships in such a way that simple tasks like pushing a button are not needed at all. Or even simpler, build ourselves mechanical bodies instead of spaceships to live in. We could have done that, but it is foolish to think only in the most positive way. What if on that ship where no button has to be pushed, a wire breaks? Who is going to repair that? What if that mechanical body falls over and is damaged, who is going to repair that?"
Terry nodded her head in understanding. "I get it. You needed others on these ships so that they can do these things, but the problem is that you can't force them to do these things. After all, assuming that you'll always be able to force them to do what you want is once again that very overly positive thinking that you can't use."
"And forcing people to do something is not in our nature," the being added.
Terry lifted her hand sharply in a stopping gesture. "Don't fucking go there. Just because I can see your problem, that doesn't mean that I'm not still pissed about being a 'product' created for your needs. You forced. You forced me to be something I wouldn't be if nature had gone its own way, and you most certainly forced Pam, a person with the most gentle soul I've ever met, to become a ruthless killer who measured herself as good against how good she can hurt others if she wants. You forced, so don't, fucking, go, there."
The being didn't reply to that, and Terry took the lack of excuses as admittance to her point, so she continued the conversation she had interrupted. "No, you couldn't force and hope all would always be well. What you needed was an incentive. Something that would invite people to freely live on these ships, something that would make them stay, even if they had a chance to leave. You had to build these ships to serve, otherwise people that would eventually populate them would not have felt in control and would never have stayed on the ships."
"That is a part of the bigger whole," the being agreed.
"Alright, so you said that you had to survive so that you can do that which is still to come, my question is still the same; why?"
"Because there's still so much work left. There is life of your level in the universe, yes. There are billions of species in the universe, almost a million in this galaxy alone. But there are also billions of galaxies in the universe. There shouldn't be billions of species; there should be trillions. Billions of species is only such a small part of what's possible. We need to survive to the adult stage so that we can continue to change solar systems so that more life is possible."
"Or send another shockwave of destruction through the universe," Terry couldn't help but add.
"No. We learned our lesson well. We have all the knowledge that our parents had. We know about all the changes they made, and we know which materials are safe to work with. We will from now on only work with materials we know. You say that billions of lives might have been lost because of us. Yes, they might, but if we don't reach the adult stage we can never make up for that. There's still so much to do... we would literally be making up for it by creating millions of life sustainable planets for every single life that was lost because of our choice of needing a queen on these ships. There are so many solar systems in the universe that mentioning the number to you would do no good because it would go above your comprehension. Instead let me say that there are already billions of planets with life that have that life because our species changed the solar system. Here on earth, no life would be possible at all if our parents hadn't made changes. There are so many changes yet to be made, so many new Earths to be created. That, is only a start to the work that is still left."
Terry's head felt light at the realization of the choice in front of her. She had to sit down and did so in the only chair in the room; the throne. However, since the being knew that at the moment the throne was nothing but a convenient chair for Terry, it didn't worry about Terry sitting down in it. The being did worry about what Terry's choice would be though.
That choice however was already made. 'I have to become the new queen,' Terry thought. 'There's no other option. I can't possibly prevent billions of planets from getting a potential for life, just because I want to be on this planet here.'
Then she frowned, but... was that actually needed? The being had never said that the queen had to be on the ship. And who knew, if these ships truly were that fast that other planets could be reached within days, then being on these ships might not be so bad either.
"I don't really have an option here; not really," she finally said. "I have to become that queen you need, and I'll do it. But tell me, does this mean that I have to stay in a certain part of this ship like the old queen did?"
"The old queen's isolation was her own choice," the being assured, glad with the choice Terry had made. "You have the ability to communicate with this ship, with me, and also with the others on the other ships... with a little training. That ability is rather basic compared to how we ourselves can communicate with each other. However, your communication abilities are limited by range, so to speak, and not by walls. You can be anywhere on this ship and you would still be in contact."
Terry's eyes lit up at that explanation. "Hey wait a minute. If that's true, I would also be able to be in contact with you when standing directly outside the ship."
"Yes. While my species can contact each other no matter where we are in the universe, the psychic abilities of humans are rather limited. You'll have to be relatively close to this ship since this is the one that is the command ship. At the moment you'll have to be within a circle around this ship that's about the size of the country we're in now, but over some time when you have grown more accustomed to your abilities, you would be able to be anywhere on this planet and still be close enough. Or this ship could be in space in a geostationary orbit above the place where you are."
"So I can be anywhere within America and this ship wouldn't even have to lift off to get closer to me? If I can be that far away, then why didn't you contact me when I was in the camp?"
"Because you weren't the queen then. Also not to forget, you hadn't passed the last test yet. We didn't know if when the time would come, you would sit down in that throne you're now sitting on. We didn't know how we needed to approach you. We needed you as the new queen, but what we would have told you depended on whether you would heed the pull of the throne. We couldn't take the risk of replacing one bad queen with another. We knew we needed to explain things to you, but it was only in the last few minutes that the choice was made between telling you the truth, and telling you a story about that the lifespan of the ships has been worn out and that they can no longer leave this planet. In the present situation, this lie could have been made easily believable. And on this planet we would not need to worry about people living on the ships and maintaining them, since someone surely would love to live here. If not off-worlders, then humans of Earth that would jump at the chance for such housing."
When the being reminded Terry of the fact that she was sitting on the throne, she practically jumped off it. "You can remove that, I don't want to see it again; ever. Is there a reason why this control room has to be used instead of the main control room of the ship?"
"No, this control room, just like the rest of the rooms the queen used, are there because the queen wanted them."
"In that case, these rooms, all of the off limit areas used by the queen and the Council, will be turned into normal living quarters; family quarters. There will no longer be people on these ships that are hiding away from the rest. Just because they're in charge doesn't mean that they don't have to interact with workers and others."
Terry walked around the room for a moment thinking about all the new things she now knew. Suddenly she asked, "If you were one of the builders of these ships, that means that you've been here for millions of years now. How long does this 'child' stage of your species last; how much longer do you have to stay on these ships?"
"I am the oldest of us, which is how I came to be on this ship. Considering that this meant that I had to be the one to deal with the queens directly, you could call that a mixed blessing at best. For me, I will reach the adult stage relatively soon from now; in 400,000 Earth years."
"But what happens after me?" Terry asked. "I'm a short living; at best I have 70 to 80 years left. Then what?"
"After you the title of queen will go to a daughter of yours, as is normal for the queen."
"And who's to say that she won't once again go back to the old ways?" Terry persisted.
"We are certain that now we finally do have that right genetic mix and that the old ways will not be repeated."
"But you can't be certain," Terry disagreed. "First of all, the genetic mix might have been changed, but those negative queen traits are still in me somewhere, just that with me they're not dominant. Who's to say that they won't become more dominant again in the future? Besides that, power can be addictive. Give someone total power and soon they will, correctly, think that they can get away with everything. I have first, well, second hand experience with that. Even my partner, one of the best and most wonderful people I ever met, once fell under the charm of power. If this can happen to her, it can happen to others. I don't want to rely on 'it will be fine.' I want assurances. But before I get into that, answer me this, after those 400,000 years, then what? Will these ships start to decay then?"
"We will then leave these ships and they will turn into what they basically are anyway; space ships made of Sentient Metal. They will not decay by themselves because the Sentient Metal doesn't decay. But we will also not be there to automatically repair the ships should they receive damage."
"And you would no longer be there to steer the ships at the speeds you just talked about?" Terry asked.
"Correct."
"Which will leave my people stranded wherever they happen to be in the universe at that time, only capable of going the speeds we're used to now; maybe taking a full lifetime just to reach another planet."
"Well, yes, but it will be a gradual process. I'll be the first to leave because I'm the oldest. At that point my place on this ship can be taken by the second oldest, or any other of my species. About 3,000 Earth years later the second oldest will reach the adult state and leave. All in all it will take almost 200,000 years before the last of us leaves the last ship. So you will gradually start losing the ability to go fast."
"Yeah, but if you and the ones coming directly after you are adults by then, don't you plan to have children yourself so that your species continues to grow?"
"Yes, but then we as adults will be able to take care of our children and we no longer need these ships to protect them."
"But that still doesn't mean that they couldn't use these ships as well, just like you're doing now," Terry persisted. "Just that they would have the added protection that if ever someone starts to misuse these ships again, you as the adults can come and take your children off these ships, which would mean that at that point the ships would indeed loose the high speed capability; loose it in one abrupt move."
"Why are you asking these questions?" the being finally wondered.
"Because that sure would be a nice incentive to stop these ships from being misused. Even if you were to leave these ships they can still be misused just like the queens have been doing until now; slowly traveling around. But if these ships were to have the speeds you talked about, because your children would be living in the ships, then there would be a very high incentive against misusing them. Because misusing them would mean that your children would leave and suddenly trips that normally take days would take centuries or even longer. Even if a queen would still like to misuse the ships, the entire population would rise up against that because they know that it would mean that they're cut off from people they love, from their homes; stuff like that. Even in the situation we had until now, if the black troops had known that their choice was between listening to the queen and spending centuries on these ships, or not following the misuse ordered and be at the next destination within a day... guess which one they would have picked."
The being of light didn't answer but it's now clearly defined facial features seemed to light up in understanding.
"Also, you say that you and the others can transfer your spirits from one ship to the other, just that you can't actually live without the ships because a ship is kinda like your body. The body is second placed in importance as you can move your soul around, but all in all you still need a body to live in. If that's the case, we could actually build more mother ship size ships of Sentient Metal and your people that now live in the escape pods and even the scout ships could move to those ships instead. That means that there's actually the potential to have thousands more of the mother ships."
"That would leave the scout ships only capable of doing the speeds you currently travel at, while they too can go a lot faster, and that still doesn't explain why you suggest us housing our children on these ships, once we have those children."
"True," Terry agreed. "First the scout ships. It doesn't matter if they can't go faster. We're used to that now, and the speeds they can travel at with a human at the controls is more than enough for them to be used more as shuttles, or for transport between planets in a solar system, or two solar systems that are close to each other; like the systems where the Bundar live. If we build more mother ships, we can build scout ships as well that will perform those kinds of tasks for that ship without one of your species living in them.
The important part is that by moving the people of your species from scout ships and escape pods to newly built mother ships, and later on have your children take the place of those of your species that are reaching the adult stage and leaving, we would have more mother ships for use, and they could theoretically be used indefinitely.
These ships have been used for evil for too long; let them now be used for good. The distances in space are simply too vast for the normal mortal species to come up with a viable way to travel fast enough, that distances are basically ignorable because they're only days or weeks long instead of decades or millennia. Take the ships of the Bundar. Since they were sent to go after these ships, they used the fastest ships they had, built by the most advanced technology that they had at their disposal, yet it took them over a century to get here. Ben was one of the youngest tribe leaders ever when he left, he's now one third of the average life expectancy age of his species, but if he had to go home in the same way that he got here, he would be considered an elder by the time he gets there. A whole lifetime wasted just for a round trip. We could use these mother ships, guided by you and later your children, to travel between these planets; a bus system of sorts if you want. Your species changes solar systems to make life possible, now these ships could be used to bring the life that evolved into contact with each other."
"Or bring sentient life to the planets where we made the conditions for life possible, but sentient life itself never evolved," the being added. "There are a lot of planets where life did happen, but sentient life never evolved. We would be glad to see sentient life settle there because we consider sentient life that can thrive on a planet an achievement that makes our work worthwhile. We can see something in such a cooperation, especially since then we would be around as adults and could protect our children from misuse might something like the old situation happen again."
Terry smiled. "And we'll have to make sure that this is a very known thing. Misuse the ships and the ships will lose their speeds."
Then she became serious again. "But that's for a long, long time from now. We have to make sure that the present and near future is dealt with as well. Keeping the existing structure in mind as much as possible, some changes are going to be made. You need a queen, and for the moment this can't be changed. But what 'can' be changed is the way things are done. You have to do as I say? Alright, then listen up.
The position of queen will once again become a well known one, and she'll become the symbolic leader of the people. She'll also be the voice of the people; the person that can speak for all, and that will lead negotiations with others when needed. But the daily power will lie with the Council. This council will initially exist out of Ben, Pam, Max, Joanne, and me, if the four others want the position. Otherwise somebody else will be selected, but I have a feeling that all of them will accept the position.
The Council will always exist out of five people and the Council will be taking any and all decisions that have any bearing on the overall governing of the ships. If a decision is made, it always needs at least a 3 to 2 majority, and all voices in the Council count equally in that vote. Despite the fact that I'm the queen besides also a Council member, in the Council my vote, and voice, counts just as much as all others. Though you don't have a vote in the Council, you're welcome to any meeting as an advisor. That is, of course, unless you've been voted onto the Council at some point as a member, then your vote will count as much as the other members while also still functioning as an advisor.
The Council positions are for a duration of 100 Earth years. Which means that for most the position is for life; I don't want people to have to make empty promises every so often to win elections like it happens here on Earth. But I also want to prevent that leaders once again serve on the Council for 1,000 years, or you for 40,000 years if you're voted onto the Council. When their term is up, people can run for reelection, but I don't want them to be in that position for longer than a century automatically. When the time comes that one of the Council members needs to be replaced because they died, stepped down, or their term is up, then an election will be held for that one position in the Council.
Anyone on these ships can then vote, from the lowest worker all the way up to the A1. The result of that vote will count as one third of the actual vote. You, all of your people in all of the ships can vote as well and you combined voice will also count for one third of the total vote. You have the long vision that we lack, so you'll be the ones that make sure that the past is not repeated. Because of that you'll get a part in the decision making about who will be in power. The Council will then make up the last third of the total vote.
Seeing that the voting comes from three totally different directions, the results should pay out to be centralized individuals that don't harbor any radical ideas that can endanger the ships and the agreement we made of your species continuing to be on these ships even if this is no longer needed.
If the queen coming after me is never selected into the Council, she'll also never have any daily say on the ships. As I said, she'll be the voice of the people and person to speak to for other species that want to have contact with us. As such she'll always deserve a privileged position, and within limits we'll establish at a later point, personal wishes should always be granted. But the time that a queen's decision was absolute and final is over as soon as the new Council convenes for the first time."
"The queen could still demand things or otherwise end the contact we need," the being pointed out.
"You have the benefit then that total power is no longer in her corner," Terry countered. "If she deprives the contact in an effort to extort more control, then we see how she feels about spending the time that she's depriving the contact in a room as barren as this one. With nothing to keep her company, no privileged position anymore, and also no contact at all, with anyone, except for the person that comes asking her once a day if she's willing to be reasonable again. And just to prevent any problems... Since I'm making all of this up on the spot, what I said until now will be fine-tuned by the new council in the next few weeks, but for now you should consider it a working situation and the word of the queen that you have to follow. But from the point I leave this room, the total power of a queen is over. From then on, any and all orders from the queen can be contradicted by the Council with a 4 to 1 vote."
She hesitated before adding thoughtfully, "I think that these safeguards will also be better for you. I mean, what happens when I don't have any daughters, or no children at all? Or if I die before that time? You'll have to select a new queen, but this time, because of these changes she won't have to be the perfect mix anymore, she just needs to have those abilities you need so that she can control these ships. Oh, wait, one more queen order. In the future, even if the queen says otherwise, you can at any and all times contact the Council to tell them what the queen ordered. And lastly, from now on, nobody can ever order you and your people to not show yourself to people on these ships or forbid you to talk with them. The choice is yours as to whether you want to present yourself like the light form you used before, or the form you are showing yourself as now."
"We are looking forward to these new times," the being said while inclining its head, at the same time showing its approval of Terry's ideas.
"It will be... interesting," Terry agreed. "Well, we still have a lot to discuss, but we should do that when the new Council is present. Oh, one last thing. Not only am I planning on not hiding in these rooms here; I also have no intention of only leaving the ship if the situation is totally secure. In fact, I plan to live in the resort I've been living in since I joined the Resistance. While I'll go to a lot of places, different planets, that house in the resort will be home; the place I go to when I want to go home for a while. Having said that, I'm not stupid, I know that there will have to be protection for the queen. As of today, the security of the queen is the responsibility of the A1, a position that will be once again fulfilled by Pam Scott for now."
The being smiled at that; the first time it smiled. "She'll be happy to hear that, as are we."
Terry nodded and walked to the door, she looked back and let her eyes drift over the room. "I don't plan to come into this part of the ship again until it's remodeled and in different use. There's a conference room attached to the main control room. Shall we say we'll meet there tomorrow so that we, the new Council, and probably some Earth representative can talk about the 'now what' part that's coming?"
"Very well."
Terry turned to leave, only to turn around once more. "Oh, one more thing, since you can now show yourself, just what is your name anyway?"
"We don't have names; our kind of communication amongst each other doesn't require them."
"Well, since we're going to interact more now, I suggest you pick one. You may not need one, but with our crude and basic way of communicating, having a name is very convenient. Why don't you think about it, and tell us tomorrow at the meeting?"
Terry took a moment to look at the being before adding, "Somehow you strike me as a being who the name Carter would fit very well. Just a suggestion; nothing more."
And with that Terry was gone.
"She has ambitious plans," one of the others said; the one that lived in the 27th mother ship, 3rd escape pod.
"That she has," the being that would soon be going by the name Carter agreed. "These will be interesting times."
"Do you really think it's such a good idea to have our young be in these ships as well, after us?" another asked.
"Yes, I think so. I think the interaction will be good. It will teach them what we ourselves have learned on these ships. Before we merely knew what our task in life would be because our parents told us. Now we've learned how interesting and special normal mortal life like humans and the other species are. Now we know why we have to do our self-appointed job of changing solar systems. It's so that life like this can continue to evolve."
"The humans still evolve at an incredible pace," yet another said. "The spirit that is housing in the queen's protector. She will return."
"She will," the being agreed. "And she will once again change human evolution. That's another interesting thing about humans. Only a couple of years ago a child like her would have been feared for the powers she will possess. Now that humans know that there's more to the universe than just them, and that evolution can be beneficial, like prolonging their life, now the child will be welcomed and her powers will inspire people; knowing that their true role in this universe has just started."
"But are we ready to have those abilities in the queen?" one of the others asked.
"You mean in a next queen? When our queen's daughter and the child of her protector will mate and bring the mix and the new abilities the spirit now already has to their daughter? I think that the changes the queen just made to take away the total power of the queen will prevent any problems. Besides, I have good feelings about our queen's grandchild. I think it will be an interesting, and good, time."
~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~
When Terry left the ship she heard Ben talk about how he would have loved to see his home a final time, but that he knew that this was impossible because the Bundar ships were destroyed and therefore there was no way to return.
"And what would you call this?" Terry interrupted as she pointed to the huge ship beside her. "People I've got a lot to tell you, and tomorrow you'll hear even more. For now, unless anyone objects, I'm the new queen, Pam you continue to be the A1."
Terry smiled at the redhead before adding, "One of the most important tasks of the A1 is to ensure the safety of the queen that from now on sure won't be hiding anymore."
"Got ya," Pam said with a grin.
"Good. Now, I'll give you a longer version later, but since I know you're dying to find out what happened in there, let me give you the condensed version."
Terry told the most important parts that were to tell before saying to Ben, "So you see, you'll see your home again. In about a week we'll land on your planet and there we'll negotiate about us, and maybe Earth if they want, joining your Union."
"Um, can you be sure that you can trust those beings?" General Watts asked. "It might be the next nice story in line. The Council told you and us one story, the Bundar knew another one, these beings told you yet another, and you just said that even in their story they changed their story."
"Not so much changed their story as finally removing the obstructing explanations that covered the real story," Terry partially agreed and partially corrected. "I think... I think we should go with what's best for us. And what is best for us? Well, no matter the reason, the fact is that we'll have spaceships that are capable of speeds that would be called transwarp in Star Trek. We can visit planets."
She pointed at the ship again. "We have that. For us it's best to just accept how it got here, and then use it, use them, for our needs. Tell me, don't you want to go and visit some planet in the Orion nebula for a weekend vacation?"
Watt's lifted his hands in an 'alright already' manner and smiled.
Terry was glad to see smiles all around in fact, with the exception of one person.
"Um, give us a moment," Terry said as she took Joanne by the arm and pulled her away a little. "What's the matter, I thought you would be happy. Is it because of me accepting to be the queen? Or about us spending time on those ships again?"
"No, it's neither," Joanne assured. "I think you'll be great as queen, and bring the changes that need to be made, and I'll be honored to stand at your side and give you my opinion. As for being on the ships again, I really don't mind. Max not so long ago told me that he would go where Pam would go, and be more than happy with it as long as he could take a vacation to the resort every once in a while. I think I feel exactly the same."
"And we will," Terry assured. "The four of us. Actually, I was thinking of having two sets of adjacent quarters on the ship changed so that the four of us could continue to live together on the ship like we now do at the resort."
"I would really like that," Joanne said right away.
"I thought you would. As for going on vacation to the resort... These ships are all in contact with each other and they can be literally all over the universe, as long as this ship here is close to me, and close to Earth or in geostationary orbit, all is fine. We can have the other ships be used for contact between planets while we ourselves are having a nice little vacation here; relaxing at the lake. Having said that, I think I'll like the travel. Just imagine that you would be visiting a totally different area on Earth every week. Different climate, different plants. Now imagine instead visiting a different planet every week. I said that we would visit Ben's planet in one week, well the trip doesn't take that long. In fact, that trip is merely hours. It will take a week because we have to deal with the aftermath of all this. Visit the United Nations and NATO to plant the idea of a united Earth in their ear before we head out while they think and talk about it."
"Terry, you know my hobby; you don't have to sell space to me, I like it. All of that sounds great, and I think I'll like visiting Ben's planet."
"But that's not really the problem, right?" Terry asked.
"No. It's about me being one of the Council members," Joanne admitted. "Terry, babe, you know how power can affect me. I don't want that again. I'll be an advisor to you any time, and I won't hesitate to give my opinion, but I really don't know about being a Council member."
"I don't think you have anything to worry about," Terry assured. "First of all you have me to hit you over the head when needed, but more importantly, you won't have complete control. You'll just be one voice out of five. Any and all suggestions have to be agreed on by the others. At most what can happen is that there's a split vote and you happen to be the fifth and thereby deciding vote. I guess you can see it as how we've been working in the Resistance. We came together, we made plans, we voted on them. That really won't change. Trust me; everything will be fine. Come on, you told me that you wondered about what you were going to do when this is over. How about being at my side as we trek across the universe; to boldly go where no man has gone before."
Joanne had to laugh at that, which had been Terry's intention. "To boldly go where no man has gone before, as we trek across the universe at transwarp speeds? Babe you've watched way too many Star Trek episodes."
"Maybe," Terry agreed with a grin. "But just think about all those places they went, all those species they met. And guess what, now we can actually do that for real. How cool is that?"
"How cool is that?" Joanne agreed before kissing her lover, and willingly stepping into the next part of her life.
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Continued...