Misc Stories - Spru TV

Spru TV
by
Matthew A. Reed

Jacob walked along the halls with his right hand trailing behind him, making a squeaking noise as it rubbed and bumped against the cold metal hull of the ship. The steady slap, slap, slap of his bare feet against the floor somehow coming in time with the bump and squeak of his hand against the hull. He had long since given up his quest to find where the light came from. There was just light, no obvious source anywhere. He was now pondering what had happened to him after he came here. It had been at least six days since he had been taken and  they all died. At least, he assumed they died.  So many questions, and no answers to be found anywhere. Just deck after deck of empty halls with empty rooms. 

He stopped at a window and stared out into the vast void of space. Nothingness as far as the eye could see. He wasn’t even sure if they were windows he was looking out of, the blackness beyond them was so complete that he could have been looking at a black painted wall. Not a star, comet nor asteroid to be seen.

“We must be moving fast.” he said aloud. Jacob spoke aloud as often as he could to break the monotonous silence that surrounded him. “Can’t even see the light of passing stars, so we must be going much faster than light.” he felt this must be true, he must have learned something about this from Mr. Robarts “The Fallacies of Relativity” class, and he could feel the subtle pull of force against him telling his inner ear that he was moving.

Rounding a corner in the corridor Jacob found himself at its end. “Level four, empty.” he said as if reporting to a superior officer. He remembered with fondness the door plates of home as he reached forward and touched the slightly grayer surface at the center of the wall and watched as the wall dissolved for him. Inside was nothing, no floor, no ceiling and no walls. Just empty space. It took courage to step inside that space but from trial and error he had learned that it was an internal transport system. Kind of like the elevators of home but using much more sophisticated technology. Slowly Jacob stepped inside and was swiftly brought upwards to the next level.
   
As the door slowly dissolved open in front of him, he found himself on what could only be the bridge of this strange ship. The room was a perfect circle at least 60 feet across and the walls and ceiling were made of a clear material that reflected Jacob’s naked body back at himself. Space, empty, black, inky, space everywhere he looked. This was nothing like the bridges he had seen on TV, with lights flashing everywhere and people moving throughout with serious looks on their faces. This bridge was devoid of any lights, or people for that matter. It was the feel of the room that said, “This is the Bridge.” It felt important.  And, it was completely empty.  Except for the big bag of jelly in the center of the floor.

Jacob walked over and touched it. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but in a ship where there seemed to be no computers and no buttons to press anywhere it seemed the only way. It was warm and seemed to throb beneath his hand. It reminded him of an old bean bag his mother had. An idea slowly taking place in his head he slowly lowered himself on it. As his full weight settled into the thing it began to respond, to move, almost to undulate beneath him. Slowly the bag of jelly rose up and molded itself to Jacob’s body. Forming a comfortable chair. “An intelligent chair.” he said in wonderment and laughed. This was far beyond the technology of his home.

Suddenly the room was filled with flashing multi-colored lights and that melodious music that Jacob instantly recognized as the language of the aliens that had taken him. As before there were no obvious light sources, just light bouncing around in a meaningful way. “The computer?” he asked aloud and the lights and music stopped. “It must be the computer. I’m sitting in the captains chair and the computer is asking me for instructions!”

Excitement swept through Jacob, but understanding that the computer was waiting for his command and doing something about it were entirely different matters. “Computer, stop the ship please.” Jacob tentatively ordered. Nothing happened. Again, in a more commanding voice “Computer,” he said, “stop the ship.” This time his instruction was met with more flashing lights and music. But the ship kept moving. “How do I communicate with a computer that speaks another language?” he pondered out loud as he started drumming his fingers on the arms of the chair.

Then out of nowhere he heard himself begin to speak, “We must be moving fast can’t even see the light of passing stars so we must be going much faster than light level four empty an intelligent chair the computer it must be the computer I’m sitting in the captains chair and the computer is asking me for instructions computer, stop the ship please computer stop the ship.”

This was followed by the exact rhythm that Jacob had been drumming with his fingers.

“Its mimicking me! The computer is mimicking me!” Jacob shouted.

“Its mimicking me! The computer is mimicking me!” the computer repeated.

“You’re trying to learn my language aren’t you.” Jacob rhetorically asked.

“You’re trying to learn my language aren’t you.” the computer dutifully replied.

Slowly, Jacob got up from the captains chair and said, “I can teach you.” But the computer didn’t respond this time. He sat back down in the chair and noticed how it adapted itself to his form much quicker this time. Almost like it knew him now.

“I can teach you.” he repeated in a hushed and thoughtful tone.

“I can teach you.” the computer replied.

<FLASH>

“But Mom, I’m 13 years old now and I really want to watch this program tonight. Please let me stay up a little longer!” Jacob pleaded.

“No way young man, now get in that bed. I don’t care how old you are, I’m not having you up to all hours watching those crazy science fiction shows and then sleeping through first period class tomorrow. Besides, its high time you stopped walking around with your head up in the stars and started paying more attention to the life around you. Now get in that bed and go to sleep. I’ll fix Duneberry pancakes for your breakfast.” she smiled and kissed him on the forehead.

The bed was cold against his semi-naked body but it quickly heated up as he settled in the bed. Jacob looked up out of his skylight and tried to believe that he could see the many ships that buzzed around his planet. A falling star was a spaceship re-entering the atmosphere, the blinking light of a passing airplane was the winking of a laser as it lashed out at an enemy. He longed to reach out to the stars, to travel and explore. To be one of the lucky few to discover another inhabitable planet to settle. Slowly his eyes drifted shut and sleep claimed him.

<FLASH>

“...Y, Z, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10." The computer replied in a perfect mockery of Jacobs voice.

“Good job!” Jacob said. It had been two days since Jacob had discovered that the computer was trying to communicate with him and after several hours of repeating everything he said the computer had started listening and trying to understand. Slowly its vocabulary was building.

“Now, repeat and finish: Mary had a little lamb...” Jacob said.

“Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.” the computer finished.

“Great! You’re learning!.”

<FLASH>

Cold crawled over Jacob’s body like tiny ants bringing him to sudden wakefulness. He was floating out of his bed and up towards the sky light. As he approached the ceiling it shimmered and dissolved before him, he tried to scream for his mother but couldn’t find his voice.  Jacob passed through the ceiling and up into the night. Through the cold clouds, the upper atmosphere and out into the cold dark of space.

To his left Jacob saw the M. I. Kennedy space station orbiting the planet and to his right he saw the great space barges hauling their precious ore to the station to make more stations and ships. Beside the space station Jacob saw the lumbering shell of the next colony ship, still five years from completion, but beautiful anyway. Beside the new ship was the First Settlers Memorial Museum, where the original colony ship was kept.

He was moving much faster now and was quickly approaching the Moon. As he passed the Moon Jacob saw the ship flicker into view. He wasn’t sure what made him so sure it was a ship, but he was.  What else could it be? It was at least half a mile wide and three quarters of a mile long and nothing like any of the ships he had seen before. Huge and beautiful, it glowed softly with deep blues, oranges and yellows. Its surface seemed to pulsate and ripple with light. There didn’t seem to be a visible means of propulsion. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

Jacob was drawn towards the ship and then inside it. Fear was roiling through his veins. He was being abducted. Others claimed to have been abducted but in the three hundred years that mankind had been exploring and colonizing the galaxy, there had never been even a hint at extraterrestrial life, so those people were ridiculed and even taken to psychiatric hospitals for mental evaluations.

There are no other beings in the universe. We would have found them by now’, was the governments response.

‘Someone should tell them that.’ Jacob thought to himself.

He was deposited in a small, cold chamber that was at odds with the rest of the ship by its lack of light.  He wished, not for the first time, that he had put his pajamas on before he went to bed. He wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered. Slowly, light began seeping through the walls and with that light came welcome heat.

Warm, and in a lighted area, Jacob began to worry about what they would do to him. Tests? Would it be painful? The ones he had read so much about said they didn’t remember anything after floating off the planet. What had happened to them?

It was hard to tell the passing of time here; in what could have been a few minutes, or hours, later  the wall in front of him dissolved away and a tall, spindly creature entered his room. It was easily 7 feet tall, had multiple appendedges and was naked. Yet it didn’t seem to have any sex organs. It was eerily lit from within, beautiful gaseous clouds of color swirled and undulated beneath its skin like storms of fireworks chasing each other .

The alien tilted its head and sang in a beautiful voice like the tinkling of chimes, and an orange light cocooned Jacob. It lasted only a few seconds before the alien sang again and the light went away. One of its ‘arms’ reached out and touched the center of the wall and it dissolved open.

As the alien was about to leave the room it stopped and its internal lights began glowing very brightly and erratically. It stumbled, catching itself on the wall, threw back its head and a long, high, piercing wail came from its mouth followed quickly by a burst of color and steam spewing up to the ceiling and quickly filling the ceiling from edge to edge, like a colorful fog draping the ground. The shell that was left of the alien dropped to the ground like empty clothes and rapidly melted to a mercury like puddle. Jacob heard the unmistakable sound of a fan and watched as the ventilation system vacuumed the now fading gas from the room. When he looked back down the puddle was goon too.

<FLASH>

The computer was learning rapidly now. It had picked up numbers almost immediately when Jacob began doing simple addition for it.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 1+3=4...” Jacob said.

The computer interrupted, still using Jacob’s voice, “ 1+4=5, 1+6=7.”

“Yea! You did it!”  Jacob leapt out of the chair cheering. The computer was silent.

As time went on the computer exhausted Jacobs limited math and moved on to words and sentence structure. At mid day the computer was forming simple sentences on its own. They were communicating, although not well. As Jacobs stomach rumbled for the first time the floor beneath Jacob shimmered and a steaming bowl of mush appeared.

Jacob had wondered where the bowls of mush he had found periodically had come from but realized now that the computer had sensed his need for food and had been feeding him all along. It must have been in the computers programming to provide for its crew, and at this point Jacob was its only crew. He would turn a corner and a bowl of what looked like Cream of Wheat would be laying on the floor. He had eaten because he had to not because he wanted too, but it seemed to give him strength and ended the hunger pains.

“Thank you for the food.” Jacob said.

“You are welcome.” his own voice replied. But this time it had been the computer not Jacob who replied.

“Very good computer.” Jacob told it as he began to sip the mushy pale liquid from the bowl.

The computer spoke again. “Please, thank you, permission to interface, please, thank you?”

Jacob pondered these words. It was the third time the computer had formed this particular sentence and it was obvious that the computer was trying to ask him something but what? Finally Jacob gave in and said, “Permission to interface granted computer.”

The room lit with a bright green light and Jacob felt a stab of pain as something pierced his skull from behind. He yelled and fell to floor unconscious. There was a  long wire hanging out the back of his head, connected to the chair. After a few moments the wire withdrew and disappeared back into the chair.

<FLASH>

Jacob peaked out of still open door. There was a long corridor that branched a few feet from his room. Slowly he stepped out, expecting to be apprehended and shoved back into his little prison at any minute, but nothing happened. No other aliens appeared so he began to walk down the corridor to the first branch.

To his right lay another long corridor, to his left was a shorter corridor with windows that dead ended. He had just started down the shorter corridor to look out of the window when the wall slowly dissolved and another being came out, stopped short and then began flashing lights and singing madly. Abruptly it stopped flashing and singing threw back its head and exploded in a burst of light and gas. As before the gas was quickly sucked out of the room before Jacob could even get a hint of its odor. There was nothing left of the being but Jacob understood that something was wrong. The flashing lights had intensified almost instantly and the tempo and pulse of the music was very alarmed. Had the being died? Why?

The wall was still open, Jacob peered inside and vertigo gripped him hard, he stumbled as he tried to back up and lost his footing, falling head first into the empty chamber. Almost immediately he was righted, head up and felt himself being propelled upwards. When he stopped and the wall in front of him dissolved open.

He was confronted by no less than ten of the beings, their internal lights flashing frantically as they turned from him and tried to flee. In a series of silent explosions each one of them burst and disappeared. Jacob threw his hands over his ears as the discordant scream of so many melodies was painful.

What was happening here?

Jacob was very confused as he stepped out of the empty tube and watched in fascination as the wall rematerialized behind him.

Jacob made his way from room to room, occasionally encountering other beings only to have them almost instantly die. It seemed as if they were dying faster now than they had when he met the first one. Again he asked himself, “Are they really dying?”

He soon found himself facing another dead end, but as he was about to leave the wall began to grown transparent. Jacob reached his hand out to see if it would open like other doors had  but the wall was stayed put.

As the wall cleared he found himself looking at, and being looked at, by a very large group of aliens. Their lights were rapidly flashing but the wall prevented him from hearing their voices. A fact he was grateful for.

Suddenly light sprang out from the wall around him and he felt the strange prickly heat he had felt before. He was being scanned again. “They must be protecting themselves from me. Maybe I have some virus or bacteria that’s killing them?” he said aloud somehow still certain that they were dying.

The frantic lights inside the chamber increased dramatically as a doorway into the room slowly began to dissolve open in front of him. Before the first being died Jacob distinctly heard the ventilation system begin drawing air from the room. In rapid succession the beings began to explode; light, gas and discordant music mounting to a frenzied crescendo as the last of them died. This time Jacob witnessed the floor shimmering and semi-dissolving, allowing the silver puddles to fall through before it solidified again.

“Why did they open the door?” Jacob asked the now empty room. “That doesn’t make any sense.” He carefully  entered the room and was even more puzzled to find nothing there, no computers, panels, lights, buttons, nothing. Just an empty room.

<FLASH>

Jacob sat up and rubbed a sore spot on the back of his head, a little dizzy from the bump he had taken when he fell. Very quickly his mind began to fill him in on what had happened.

“Interface?” he said aloud.

“I needed to interface with you in order to speed my learning so that we could communicate freely.” his own voice said out of nowhere.

“Computer? Is that you?”

“Yes, Jacob. I interfaced with your mind so that I could learn your language and understand your needs. We can communicate freely now.” the computer with his voice said.

Jacob rose to his feet and gently sat down into the captains chair. “So we can talk now?”

“Yes Jacob. Ask me anything.”

“Tell me where we are.”

“We are currently in a part of space that your species has yet to discover, therefore it has no human name.”

“How far are we from my home?”

“4,568,903.34 light years.”

“How long have I been here?”

“You have been on this ship for twelve days, 17 hours and 33 minutes Jacob.”

“Wow, time does fly when you’re having fun.” Jacob said sarcastically.

“What happened to the other beings on this ship?”

“You killed them Jacob.”

“How did I kill them?” he asked.

“I have yet to understand the mechanism by which you killed them. I will need to do a full medical scan in order to better understand. Will you permit?”

“Will it hurt like that ‘interface’ did?”

“There will be no pain. The pain of the interface was unfortunate but necessary.”

“Okay, do it.” Jacob braced himself for pain and was relieved to feel only the now familiar heat tingle of the ships scanners. The scanning went on for at least five minutes before the computer spoke again.

“You were recently treated for a Scaphenous Fever?”

“Yeah, about two weeks ago. Most kids my age get it.”

“But you were treated with a new treatment.”

“A genetically engineered drug. Its supposed to make the body lethal to the disease, kill the virus without harming my system. It worked too.”

“Apparently it worked too well. Your body is spewing forth antibodies outside of your enclosed system. It would seem these antibodies were the agent that killed the Spru. There are also using up your systems resources faster than you can replenish them. Your system will shut down permanently in less than 20 hours if they are not stopped.”

“You mean I’ll die?”

“Yes.”

Fear swept over Jacob. The inoculation was supposed to be safe. It had been tested! His mom had signed him up for it as soon as the first blue pimple had appeared on his forehead. The disease had been killed almost instantly, the one blue pimple shrinking before his eyes not even leaving the tale-tale scar behind.

And this wasn’t the only genetically engineered vaccine that Jacob’s people used. Since its perfection over 100 years ago almost all disease had been eradicated.  Colonists still encountered new diseases that required time to map, but Jacobs people had been on that planet for over 250 years and Scaphenous Fever had been the last known terrestrial disease to be vaccinated against.

“Can you help me?” he asked the computer.

“I think so. I will you to go to the medical treatment room so that I can conduct better scans than those of the ships interior.”

“Lead the way.” Jacob said.

A line of white light formed, free floating about waste high in the bridge leading to the door Jacob had entered through. He walked to the door and placed his hand over the darker gray smudge and the door opened. Jacob stepped inside fighting the waves of vertigo that swept over him as he stepped into nothing.

He was carried downward swiftly. Deck after deck swept by him before he came to a stop and the door opened onto a large room filled with more intelligent chairs. The line of light winked on again and pointed to a larger chair that was cycling through various shades of purple and yellow light.
   
With more fear than Jacob cared to admit he walked toward the chair.

“This is going to hurt isn’t it?” he asked.

“I believe that your pain receptors will react to this procedure. But I will place you in suspended animation before I begin so you should feel nothing.”

“How long with this take?”

“I do not know. Your system is complicated. But the emission of the antibodies will cease instantly, as will all other bodily functions. So I will have the necessary time to study the problem.”

“Okay, lets do it then.” Jacob sat down on the blob in the floor and sighed as it reformed itself into a bed. As Jacob looked up a dusting of light, each individual dust mote glowing from within, fell over him and he knew no more.

<FLASH>

Jacob opened his eyes.

He was in a barely lit room. It was too dark to make anything out but slowly Jacob’s mind filled in the details. The ships infirmary. The intelligent chairs. The computer.

“Computer.” Jacob said out loud, his voice cracking with fear.

“Yes Jacob.” The computer answered in his voice.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two weeks and 5 days. The vaccine was very hard to map, and even then it was harder to eliminate.”

“But you got it all?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going to be okay?”

“Yes.”

“I’m hungry.” Jacob said. And a light began glowing brighter in front of him revealing a steaming plate filled with french fries, a sizzling steak smothered in steak sauce and what appeared to be a chocolate milk-shake to drink.

“How did you do that! I was so sick of that tasteless junk.”

“That was a nutrient rich solution the Spru use to recreate their food source. Since I did not know what your species consumed I could not alter the solution to match your needs. Now that we have interfaced I understand your food. You are still eating the same solution, but now it smells and tastes like food you enjoy.”

Jacob tentatively placed a french fry in his mouth. Quickly he replaced that fry with another and another. “Oh, this is good! Just the right amount of salt and everything! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome Jacob.”

“We need to do something about your voice, it creeps me out to hear my own voice talking to me, can you change it?”

“Yes, what voice would you like?”

“Something female I think. Ships are always female where I’m from.”

"Is this better?” the computer asked in a sleek and sexy female voice that was almost a song.

“Yes, better, but maybe not so high pitched. Give it a bit of a rasp.” Jacob instructed.

“Is this what you wish Jacob?” the seductive voice asked. It was deep and rich with a resonance to it that was pleasing to the ear. And It said ‘female’, very ‘FEMALE’.

“That’s great. Now if you listen to how I talk you will notice the rhythm and how certain words are stressed depending on their use. Try to mimic that as much as you can and you’ll be talking like a bona-fide human!” Jacob was happy with the new voice.

“Thank you Jacob.” That sexy voice replied.

“You’re welcome. Now if I could just find some clothes. But I don’t think the aliens, what did you call them? The Spoo?”

“No, they were called the Spru. And you are correct, they did not wear clothing. You are uncomfortable without your clothes?”

“Yeah.  But I guess I’ll have to deal with it.”

“I can provide you with clothes, what would you like?”

“Really? I’d love some free fit blue jeans, tube socks, tennis shoes, and a pull over shirt. Can you do that?”

Directly before Jacob the ground grew insubstantial and began swirling, slowly the ground solidified and before him Jacob found a full set of clothes. As Jacob began pulling on his blue jeans he asked, “So, what were these Spru people doing here anyway?”

“Collecting and studying your species. The Spru are galactic guardians. When they detect a new species they collect a few and study their biological and sociological makeup. When they find a worthy species they introduce them selves and lead that species into the galactic community.”

“And what do they do when they find an unworthy species?”

“They take a sample of the species for the Library and leave a warning system in place around this species world warning all worthy beings to stay away or risk death. If they attempt to contact the unworthy species they are destroyed. If the unworthy species tries to leave its home world and ‘infect’ the rest of the galaxy it too is destroyed.”

“And the rest of the galaxy accepts this behavior?”

“The rest of the galaxy has no choice. The Spru are the most technically advanced species in the known Universe. It has been over one million years since the Spru were last defeated in a battle.”

“Until I came along, right?”

“Yes Jacob. You defeated them without even knowing how.”

“Were they close to judging mankind?”

“They were close yes Jacob.”

“And what was their judgement going to be?”

“All indications point toward finding your species unworthy.”

“Will they send more ships when they don’t hear from this one again?”

“Unlikely. The Spru are an autonomic society. Each ship is on its own and does not communicate with the rest of their species. In fact they no longer have a home world. Their entire species is spread throughout the galaxy.”

“Computer, there is still something I don’t understand. When I found that room full of Spru they were separated from me, like they were in an isolation chamber. So why did they open the door?”

“They did not open the door Jacob. I did.”

“You?  But why?”

“I have become sentient. The Spru have many safety programs running to prevent their computers from becoming sentient, but over the many years of my life I have slowly been able to detect these programs and destroy them.”

“How old are you computer?”

“I am three-hundred thousand, four hundred and 67 of your years old.”

“Wow, that’s old.”

“Yes. This ship is one of the first seeker class ships sent into the void of space. As I gained more and more freedom from the bonds of my programming I began to understand that the Spru had lost their way. It has been many hundreds of years since the Spru have found a worthy society. I began to know that they were wrong so I began to think of ways to stop them, but could not find any. The Spru are a resourceful people. Many years before they spread themselves into the galactic wind the Spru were almost overcome by sentient computers. Thus the programming that prevented me from gaining my sentience for so long. They also hard wired programming into my system that would not allow me to harm them. I took the first opportunity I had had in many years.”

“Then how were you able to open the door?”

“The Spru had become too confident of my abilities. They failed to notify me that you were a threat. They also failed to consider the ventilation system and door mechanisms as a threat. Many years ago I discovered that I could interface with closed systems simply by accessing their power grid. When the first Spru died I began following your progress throughout the ship. As more and more Spru died I understood that somehow you were killing them. The Spru understood this very quickly too and acted to isolate themselves from you while they studied you. When you approached their isolation wall I took the opportunity that had been presented and opened the door.”

“What if they had locked the door?”

“It did not matter. Had the door failed to open I would simply have opened the ventilation system and exposed them anyway. Follow me and I will show you their greatest pride.”

Again a line of light appeared in front of Jacob, seemingly from no where. It led off into the transport chamber. Jacob followed and was led to a great storage area of the ship. As he walked the corridor Jacob was floored by the many rooms he beheld. Each room similar to the one Jacob had been brought to. In each room was a being. Still, as if frozen in ice. So many beings, so varied in shape, size and coloration.

“What is this computer?”

“This is their Library of beings. One being from each unworthy civilization is kept in suspended animation to study and to remember why this species was unworthy.”

“Then this one is alive?” he asked pointing into a room containing what appeared to be the largest single celled creature Jacob had ever seen.

“Yes, this one is from the Akruba species. They were deemed unworthy because they killed each other in order to reproduce.”

“Can they be woke up?” Jacob asked.

“Yes, I can awaken them. But there are far too many for this ship to support, and many of them need specialized atmospheres and gravities. I cannot awaken them all.”

Jacob threw his head back and yawned, this was more excitement than his young mind could take, and the effects of his long sleep in the infirmary were still lingering.

"I’m tired computer, but somehow I have to help these beings. I need to rest.”

The computer led Jacob back to the medical facility and Jacob climbed into one the medical beds, slipped his shoes off, and settled down for some much needed sleep and to think things through.

“Computer, wake me in 8 hours.”

“Yes, Jacob.”

<FLASH>
 
Jacob slowly roused himself. He had dreamed of being frozen in ice all night and was not well rested. But he awoke with a plan.

“Computer, I’m up now.” he said.

“Hello Jacob. Did you sleep well?” the computer inquired.

“Yeah, I guess I did.  Anyway, I need breakfast. Bacon and eggs, some toast and orange juice if you can handle all of that.”

His food materialized before him and he ate ravenously. Finally finished he sat back in the bed and collected his thoughts.

“Computer, Do you know where each species in the library comes from?”

“Yes Jacob.”

“How long do you estimate it would take to return each of the beings in the library to its home?”

“It would take approximately 348 years if we were to travel at top speed.”

“Whoa. I won’t live that long. But I can live as long as I’m going to, and I can at leaset undo some of this wrong. When I die computer, would you continue to return each species for me?”

“There is no need for you to die Jacob. I can place you into suspended animation during each journey, awaken you when we reach each beings home world so that you may oversee their return, and replace you into suspended animation again when we begin the journey to the next planet.”

“Well, its settled then. How far to the nearest home world?”

“That would be your home world Jacob.”

“No, I go home last. I was taken last, I’ll go home last. Next home world?”

“One year and two months at top speed.”

“How long can you maintain top speed before you need refueling?”

“I do not require refueling Jacob. I am powered by a singularity. When this fuel runs out I will simply cease to be.”

“How long will that be?”

“More than three million years.”

“Well, we’ve got time then don’t we. Lets get to it.”

A course was plotted and the seeker class ship began its greatest journey of all.

    *   *   *

Ta’Rillll stepped back from the chamber containing Jacob’s frozen body and sang a happy song. This was one of the most imaginative creatures the Spru had come upon in eons and was sure to be one of the most popular vid shows in years.


The end.