The Long Road to Gaia (9 page)

"Now what?" I asked.

"Now you continue to follow
Galactica," answered One.

"For how long?"

"For as long as it takes."

I looked at her, my face indicating how
inadequate I thought that answer was.

She laughed.

Lieutenant (JG) Jon Hunter piloted the
scout ship off the front of the right flight pod.

Galactica had long had a set way of
exploring a system. A scout ship jumped in first to make sure it was safe for
the Explorer ship to come through. Once she had, more scout ships were sent to
find the planetary bodies, while Galactica made a circuit outside the Oort
cloud, looking for jump points. By the time she had made a complete circuit,
and was ready to proceed to where they thought the next logical jump should be
from, the scouts would be on their way back. If they found a habitable planet,
or one which might be terraformed easily, Galactica went there, and the planet
would be surveyed. Then move on to the next jump, and send in the first scout
again. This could take anything from weeks, to months, or even more than a
year. It depended entirely on what they found.

This was Jon's first mission in charge of a
first jump. He was excited, and honoured to be given the responsibility. But he
was also acutely aware he was in charge of other lives. And the nightmare he'd
had the previous night was still on his mind.

He ran the checklist by the book, and made
sure the others had as well. The check in call to Galactica before jumping
showed his excitement, but also his commitment to the mission, and his wanting
to justify his Captain-father's faith in him.

The scout ship jumped.

"Woah!" said Twelve. "That
is sheer rotten luck!"

"It's only rotten luck if it couldn’t
be prevented," I said.

"This couldn’t."

"Yes it could. It just needed one of
us to check the jump first."

"What are we? Nursemaids?"

"Feels like it to me."

"Well we're not. As it happens I did
check it."

I looked at him in shock. The longer I was
locked into this job, the less I liked my supposed supervisor.

The system Galactica was in was empty.
There was nothing but a sun, with not even a stray asteroid out at Oort
distance.

On the other hand, the scout ship had down
jumped strait into a rogue planetoid, which was on a strange elliptical orbit.
It was incredible bad luck, that on the only day in its orbit it was in a
position to threaten a ship jumping in, a ship had jumped in.

They waited a week before sending another
scout ship. This was necessitated by the need to not repeat whatever had
happened to put the scout ship out of touch, or unable to return. Wait a while
so conditions change. Also wait a while in case it was one of those mundane
breakdown sort of reasons why they didn’t jump back on time. The scout ships
were supplied for several weeks, so unless something catastrophic happened,
they would be fine even if they couldn’t return.

The wreckage was found on the side of the
planetoid facing the jump point. There had been no chance of survivors, even if
someone had successfully jumped in shortly after the first one.

The rock was called 'Bad Wolf' by someone
in the crew, and the name stuck.

Before they left, Galactica made an effort
to change the orbit of the planetoid, so it wouldn’t get so close to the jump
point ever again. Later on, when the tech to move it safely came along, it
would be moved even further off its original orbit.

"Are you sure you don’t want me to do
anything?" I asked Twelve.

"No. His kid brother will carry on the
family line."

"What a waste," I said.
"Potentially good lad I thought."

"That’s the way it goes."

I pondered that.

It was increasingly obvious that people
meant nothing to the others. All they cared about was preserving the bloodline
to generate the one person they wanted.

Maybe that meant I'd changed. Somewhere
along this road, I'd started to care more about humans.

I pondered that too.

The Hunter family were still in mourning
when Galactica jumped into the next system. George Hunter was a man torn in
half. He'd lost his oldest son, but he had a job to do. The stress was killing
him, and finding something really unusual wasn’t what he'd been hoping for.
He'd been Captain for a long time, and all he knew was this ship, and the
handful of planets he'd been able to get down to for a few days each. Losing
his son was the straw that was breaking him.

"The journey is almost done," I
whispered to him. "Hang in there."

They found something unexpected. Two jump
points were showing without anyone searching for them, and neither of them were
in the usual orientation, in or around the Oort cloud of the system. It had
never happened before.

"We're here," announced a voice
from the rear of the bridge.

George startled. He hadn't heard this voice
before. He looked around, preparing to yell at whoever it was to get off his
bridge, but the words died in his mouth when he saw who it was.

The Keeper walked slowly up to him.

"We're here," he said again.

"Where?" George couldn’t help but
ask.

"Where prophesy begins."

"Prophesy?"

George started going red in the face.

"Who cares about your stupid prophesy?
Where was prophesy when my son died!"

The Keeper looked at the grief stricken man
desperate to hold on to his professional sanity.

"I'm sorry," he said. "There
is a Jon Hunter mentioned in prophesy, but he hasn’t been born yet."

He raised his hand to stop the outburst he
knew was coming from George.

"Until we arrived here, prophesy was
undefined in terms of when. It still is, but we are now here, and it is only a
matter of time now."

"Damn your prophesy. Get off my
Bridge!"

The Keeper smiled sadly, and withdrew.

George raked his eyes around the Bridge,
and everyone went back to work.

The scouts launched. George Hunter chose a
jump point, and headed Galactica towards it. While the scouts were still
checking out the gas giants, Galactica found another jump point.

The days passed into weeks, and Galactica
found a total of nine jump points. All of them were in a ring outside the
system itself, which was little more than asteroids in ring formations. No
habitable planet was found, the moons around the two gas giants being giant
rocks with zero capability of ever generating an atmosphere.

The weeks passed into months, as they
explored each system and found several more. Against all the odds, in each
system except one, they found a Terran class planet, very close to old Earth.
All but one of them was capable of supporting a billion or so people without
upsetting the balance with nature. The only one which couldn’t, was
predominantly oceans, with land mass occurring as islands instead of
continents. All the same, it could handle several hundred million. On the last
planet, they found nothing but ice.

Each time George started to point Galactica
to one particular jump point, I'd whisper to him to leave that one for last.
Eventually it was the last.

Galactica jumped in.

"Please let this be the end of the
Galaxy," said George to himself.

He got his wish.

The planet was harsh, with the few oasis of
ideal living places scattered around the planet. At most, the planet would
support fifty thousand people. The rest of the system was nothing special.

"Bingo," thought George, and
called a meeting of the heads of the spiritual groups still on board.

Within a week, all of the spiritual groups
had camps down on the planet.

"Galactica has come to the end of the
galactic arm," said Captain George Hunter into a vid. "The final
planet along the spine has been named Outback, and settled by a number of
spiritual groups who seek isolation. It has nothing anyone else wants, and they
only wish to be forgotten now by the rest of humanity. They are sending out
messages to their own groups, inviting them to join them here. However, the
planet simply will not support very many people, so please don’t send anyone here
who isn’t on the welcome list."

He paused for breath.

"The good news is, Outback can be left
in peace, because we discovered a system with nine jump points, beyond which
are dreams made of."

He grinned at the cam.

"I hereby claim this area of space for
anyone of Australian ancestry. There are nine Earth type planets here, so let
the word go forth that the sons of Australia have found their promised land,
and those Australians who settled elsewhere and are not happy, are welcome to
move here. To those Australians still in the Earth system waiting for us to
announce having found the new Australia, I say it is found. Bring as many
colony kits as you can organize, and come join us."

"Galactica was funded by Australians, Americans,
British, and Canadians; and some spiritual groups like the Malaysian Buddhists.
The Americans claimed their space, the Canadians claimed next door, and the
British next door to them, spatially speaking. The dreamers, the science
fiction types, and those wanting to live a weird themed life, all claimed their
own space, leaving just the Australians and the special spiritual groups left
aboard Galactica. The spirituals claim Outback, and we Australians claim this
last area on the tip of this arm of the galaxy."

"To governments everywhere, the new
government of the area of Australia greets you. Our space begins with a system
we have called "Bad Wolf", recognizable for the rogue planetoid which
flybys the jump points. Beyond this system, travelers will be bound by
Australian law. All are welcome to emigrate here, as long as they abide by our
rules, and they leave Outback alone."

He looked serious for a moment.

"Galactica's mission is complete. Its
new function is to police our new home. Please don’t try us. This is our space
now, as others have claimed their chunk of space before us."

He smiled again.

"George Hunter, Captain of Galactica,
out."

He turned the cam off, and leaned back in
his chair. Not one of his better speeches he knew, but it would do.

He played it again, nodded, and sent it. To
everyone who mattered, the length of the spine.

The months went by, as Galactica dropped
people off on each habitable world, except the ice one. Although she had been
equipped to create a single colony at a time, those on board committed to
colonizing, decided to create small colonies on all the planets as fast as
possible, in order to validate the claims for them when others arrived. The
colony kit didn’t go far for each world, but they managed. Full kits were coming
for each of them, colony ships departing Earth within days of the announcement
reaching there. The 'we are coming' messages poured in for weeks after the
announcement.

By the time the first colony ship arrived,
aptly named 'Botany Bay', and landed on the planet already named Sydney, an
Australian area government was already holding meetings, using one of the scout
ships as a courier. A Sydney government was quickly established.

Within six months, all the habitable
planets had received multiple colony ships, and had all established planetary
governments.

Galactica sat in the middle of the central
system, unofficially called Nexus. Her scout ships were being retrofitted to
act as police ships. All but a handful.

George had plans still. There was still
life in the old girl, and there were plenty of unexplored jump points back the
way they had come. As soon as the two stations arrived, he intended to go back
to exploring. In spite of the pest of a Keeper who kept insisting there was one
last find here.

Another month passed, and the station kit
for Sydney arrived. A few weeks later, the much smaller kit arrived for
Outback. Galactica jumped after it, intending to see Outback taken care of,
before they left the area, possibly for good.

While the station took shape, George
prepared his crew for a new mission. Those remaining on Galactica were asked to
commit to it.

The Keepers refused, insisting destiny had
other plans for them. George laughed at them. It was a thin grief covered laugh
which tended to freak people out, but he didn’t care. Not even his wife knew he
was secretly planning on finding a way to join his son. I kept whispering to
him, trying to keep him from actually self-destructing.

He knew his job though, and he did it. He
opened the new Outback orbital station, and became its second customer. The
first was an Earth side freighter with supplies for Galactica, which offloaded
onto the station. The station processed the containers and pallets, getting the
kinks out of its cargo systems, before the same containers and pallets were
shuttled aboard Galactica. The freighter left before Galactica was ready.

The following morning, George gave the
order to head for the jump point.

"What the hell is that?" asked
the JG at the helm.

"What the hell is what?" asked
George, not at all happy to have his orderly departure disrupted.

The navigator bent to his console.

"Jump point sir," he announced
suddenly.

"What?" bellowed George.
"Where?"

The navigator showed him.

"Told you," said a voice from the
rear.

George didn’t need to look to know it was
the same pesky Keeper. He reined in his bellow.

"Take us there," he ordered, and
resumed his seat.

"Tell him retirement in paradise
awaits him," said One to me.

"Retirement in paradise awaits you
there George," I whispered to him.

He smiled.

A short time later, Galactica jumped.

No-one saw her go.

As far as the galaxy was concerned, she undocked
and simply vanished.

* *
*

"Kali," I called.

"Yes?" she said, appearing beside
me in space, standing next to the position of the strange jump point which had
vanished five days after Galactica had passed through it.

I was quite surprised. I hadn't expected
her to answer, let alone appear.

"Why is this jump point
different?"

"It's cyclic."

Of course it was. That explained everything.
Not.

For a moment I was caught off guard by my
own thoughts. It was too human. I'd been in this form too long now. It was
affecting the way I thought.

Kali waited for me to catch up, a smile on
her face.

"What does that mean?"

"You can see sixth dimensional
geometry can't you?"

"Sure, but this isn’t it."

"Yes. It's not. It's eighth
dimensional geometry. You should have been able to figure that out
yourself."

I shifted my perceptions, and saw what she
meant.

And yet, it still wasn’t explained.

"You're dicking me around, aren’t
you?"

She grinned.

"Yes."

The grin grew wider.

"And?" I prompted.

"The system on the other side of that
connection point is special. I built it for them when it became apparent the
species needed to survive. It's important they do, so I made sure the doorway
only opened for a limited time."

"Fine. Did you build this end of the
spine as well?"

"What do you mean?"

"A system with nine jump points
leading to Earth type planets? Surely it was built too?"

She tapped the side of her nose, and
vanished.

* *
*

Six months after Galactica vanished, a beat
up Destroyer arrived over Sydney. The families on board sought citizenship, and
began lives on the planet, after so many years in space.

David Smith and his team didn’t get any
real time to relax. Someone in the government heard they'd arrived, and before
they knew it, the team became the nucleus of the new Australian Marine Corp.