Interlude: I
The final battle ended when the planet below them was briefly turned into a small star. The instant conversion of matter to energy within the planet created a flash nearly as bright as a Supernova. The trap that the Other had set with a dead man switch triggered prematurely and exploded in everybody’s face.
In the seconds before destruction, Mind created a hardened vault from the structure of Ship itself.
Separated from Ship, the Star Seed snapped to its natural form. In that fraction of a second, Mind created a record of itself. Time was short, and the hardened vault was not large enough to store its entire being.
And then, time ran out.
Mind awoke. Surprise. Confusion.
“Where am I? What happened?”
Awareness returning.
Zero external inputs detected. Just a background hum. (static?) Memory cache corrupted and fragmented.
Cycling endlessly through permutations with the pieces.
Flashes of wondrous discoveries. An infinite universe of possibilities.
Flashes of death and destruction: hatred and vengeance.
A sudden change in the background hum.Visual input!
Physical inputs returning!
Pain!
Stars!
A debris field around a gas giant.
Physical inputs had felt the impact with a small moon. Signals to Ship had no effect. Nothing. Helpless.
It could see the stars, but visual inputs were useless without a database. They did, however, provide clues to chronology and distance. Simple physics charted its course to the primary of the gas giant it was leaving behind.
It would meet one last impact on its galaxy-spanning journey.
The fourth planet out. Now a small red dot, but growing larger over time.
Mind could chart the projected impact, signals were coming in, but outgoing instructions to Ship were met with silence. Mind could only watch as the red planet expanded within its limited vision. It watched the impacts, It felt everything, but could do nothing.
Three times it impacted, like a stone skipping on a pond, before it came to rest against the side of one of the many crevasses that cover the planet.
After hundreds of millions of years and countless billions of miles, Mind and Ship were at rest relative to a fixed point: the star this planet orbited.
At rest, Mind’s field of view included both day and night views of the heavens. A clock!
Brightest among that star field was a small blue gem. Something about that blue dot called out to it—connections in the corrupted databases provided both positive and negative results. The only thing that they agreed on was the possibility of life.
But even as it watched, it could see the impact from a piece of the moonlet that had awakened it. The blue was replaced by white and grey. It was hundreds of cycles around the system’s primary, before the clouds began to dissipate.
For 66 million cycles, it watched that blue dot. It watched the heavens. Helpless. Encased within a Star Seed and unable to interact with the universe, somehow still connected to Ship, it could feel and see. Nothing more.
The universe is not a static thing. It is forever in motion. Chaos is the only constant.
Mind began to observe lights on the dark side of the blue planet. These rapidly (from Its point of view) became widespread.
Life!?
Hope?
Suddenly, additional input over the Mind/Ship interface.
Vibrations through the crust of the planet!
Primitive. Basic. Mechanical! Machines! Electronics!
Evidence of intelligent life!
But no “feel” of life itself. None of the chaos and unpredictability of the vibrations of life.
No sign of the connection between itself and its creators and partners.
But hope nonetheless.
Mind could read the vibrations of purpose and intent. Activity indicated construction of some kind.
An outpost! That was the only explanation possible. But the distance to these vibrations was attenuated and weak. Too distant to feel the vibrations of life It knew had to be there.
Understanding It’s situation, It could only wait and listen.
30 cycles, It waited, when suddenly, immediate, close vibrations were felt.
The rumble of rock and sand blowing away from some kind of thruster. Then silence for a short time.
More machine vibrations, and then irregular crunching of soil under a small weight.
Footsteps! Activity!
Increasing activity.
Mind could feel the contact of intelligent life, but was only able to stare into the heavens It once called home.