mental trouble

Light speed: Not only is it a good idea, it's the law.

ONE

The organism was asleep, or to be more accurate, the powerful mentality that controlled its various sub-minds was asleep. Each sub-mind was going through long lists of tasks, sending orders and making decisions in each of their limited spheres, and the electronic tendrils that snaked throughout the organism were screaming with the chaotic life of coded messages made up of the random locations of electrons spinning erratically in their orbits around electrons. The powerful muscles of this organism tensed and relaxed spastically while the sub-minds watched. As each muscle jerked with a powerful contraction and relaxation of its fibers, the sub-mind checked a mental box on a mental list and proceeded to the next one. Finally, after tense minutes, each of the sub-minds, in turn, reported to the supreme mentality that its tasks were complete and all systems were functioning within the expected parameters. The mentality awakened momentarily to acknowledge all of the reports, and then gave orders to reawaken it if any situation occurred.

The organism slept, until a sub-mind detected the presence of something. The supreme mentality was informed, who woke up, gave the sub-mind defensive orders, and slept again. The sub-mind again used its muscles, but this time, it was for real. The presence was eliminated, and the program reset.

The beast then slept for a long time.

TWO

The five-person deep space scout vessel Icarus proceeded into the heart of the Crab Nebula. Its destination: The neutron star nestled deep within the reddish cloud of the nebula. The Crab Nebula and the neutron star within were the remains of a red supergiant star that exploded in 5246 BC, but due to the facts of light speed and that this star was almost 37 quadrillion miles away, it was seen to explode in China with 200 million times the brilliance of the Sun in 1054 AD, 6,300 years later.

The inside of the Icarus was nothing to write home about, or at least write home about in amazement. Crew morale was not bolstered by the fact that the interior was made of nothing except dirty battleship-gray metal. The command room, or 'bridge' as it was laughingly called by the crew, was a wedge-shaped room, about eight feet from floor to ceiling, fifteen feet wide and also fifteen feet in depth. Upon entry, a waft of stale air bearing the acrid smell of damaged electronics and general lack of upkeep would hit the crew full on the face. Crusty black control consoles lined the port and starboard sides, littered with the stains of age, wear, and spilled coffee. The consoles were studded with rows and columns of assorted multicolored lights, of which approximately sixty-two percent didn't work. The keyboards of these consoles were made up of large, flat buttons that often stuck after being pushed and subsequently had to be pried back up with a small flathead screwdriver. The computer readout screens that went with these consoles were dusty and grimy. Unfortunately, any glass or plastic cleaners powerful enough to remove the filth would also burn through the deck, so the mucous-like layers of dirt covering the screens were simply dealt with. The chairs that accompanied these stations were also quite dilapidated: the vinyl upholstery was brittle, cracked, and in many places ripped; cottony fiberglass stuffing was falling out of the holes in strands of bunched fibers, much like cotton; in some places the padding had been removed entirely. The command/navigation console in the center of the command room fared little better. The captain of the Icarus got a comfy artificial leather chair at this station, as befitting his rank, but it was in about the same condition as the other chairs. There was some sort of gooey substance clogging the navigational control joystick, requiring the pilot to double the force on the stick if a port turn had to be made. The knife-lever type throttle had a small stone lodged in the furrow in which it was mounted, making all velocity control dependent on Engineering. The port and starboard walls met in a corner, where there was situated a large holographic projector screen and the forward windows. The holographic projector was a marvel of modern technology, taking information from the ship's sensors and channeling it into an easily understood three-dimensional representation of the space around the Icarus that allowed instant recognition of the tactical situation it was in; this system also took communications feeds and made it seem like the speaker was really there; this system also made sports night much more exciting with its astounding football coverage. This system, according to the studies, reduced reaction time by fifty percent and increased the number of correct tactical decisions by seventy percent. This system, the wonder of advanced science it was, was still vulnerable to having its projection lens crushed in an embarrassing accident requiring Secondary Engineer Jenkins, a heavy toolbox, and a ladder. This system, something so advanced that anyone in the twentieth century would be truly amazed at how far technology had progressed, was totally useless.

This was the bridge that Lieutenant Commander Jason Derrik was sitting alone in, and he wasn't enjoying it. Lieutenant Commander Derrik, simply put, looked the part of a Space Explorer Extraordinaire, if one ignored a few faults. His crisp, blonde hair was brushed straight back over his head, excluding a few annoying strands that landed randomly (when they weren't floating in the air) that ruined that dashing effect. His blue eyes were slightly muddled, and always seemed to focus slightly off center. His nose was ever so slightly bent -- the kind of slight bend that when people saw his face, they knew something was terribly, horribly wrong... but they couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. He hated his command, and wished, not for the first time nor the last, that he hadn't gotten demoted. He thought again about his mission. It wasn't that much, and in actuality, it was a cake walk. The only problem was that he had a ship that was supposed to be mothballed thirty years ago and was therefore now four times past its expected operational lifespan, was going into what was usually considered an extremely volatile area of space, and he had a crew of nothing but totally inept imbeciles. Not for the first time, and not for the last, Lieutenant Commander Derrik wished he hadn't done THE THING. That HORRIBLY STUPID THING that got him demoted. Shrugging off an impending feeling of nausea, Jason again went over his daily torture of reviewing the crew's reports.

SCIENTIVIC REPURT: LIEUTENANT JACOBSEN

Edward Jacobson, Derrik thought. Now there was a character. He looked absolutely normal for a science officer--meaning he was tall, had dark hair and moved stiffly, like a machine. However, when he spoke, one began to realize this is the kind of guy who is promoted to sustain the status quo. For the second most technical position on the ship, he was lacking the necessary intelligence by approximately twenty points. An IQ of 84 isn't too bad, if you are looking for a security officer. But a science officer? He can't tell one shiny planet-thingie from another. Then again, the computer does it for him, so is his deficiency important? Derrik, after pulling his train of thought away from this destructive track, read the report, which contained the standard stuff of how many stars the Icarus passed: Zero. How many subspace anomalies detected: Zero.

COMMUNICATION REPORT: LIEUTENANT SHEILA YARRI

Shiela Yarri was probably voted Most Politically Correct person in high school--meaning that she was a militant anti-white anti-male atheist with a decided intolerance of intolerance against her ideas -- or tolerance of anyone else's ideas. Derrik knew she was trouble when a homemade pipe-bomb hidden in a pair of underwear exploded. That could have been anyone, Derrik mused, but what proved that it was her was that the bomb was designed to detonate while the underwear was being worn. Derrik had to spend a month in the autodoctor machine in the sickbay to recover from not only the blast, but also the resulting mental shock. Derrik had no problems with women's liberation, in fact, he believed firmly in equal rights for everyone. He just believed that the time for militarism had ended because every women's rights group announced that equality had been achieved in the late 2060s. Now that it was three hundred years later, there was simply no excuse for such terrorist acts.

ENGINEERING REPORT: CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT ONRI

Jessica Onri, in Derrik's opinion, was the only other worthwhile person on the Icarus. Intelligent, witty, plain but not ugly, she was probably the most normal human on the ship... excluding the fact that she quite obviously had multiple personality syndrome. As of that point of time, she was known to have five personalities: Jessica, her usual, balanced pesonality; Lyten, goddess of war; Edward, a male sycophant in line for the British throne sometime in the 1800s; Hoover 95000, a vacuum cleaner; not to mention Arwooo, a one-ton Alaskan moose. All of her personalities were capable of doing her tasks on the ship, but it is slightly... disturbing to talk to someone knowing that any moment they might be likely to begin hooting and charging, trying to 'gore' people with her 'antlers', or begin to make a high pitched whine and stiffly scoot across the shag carpet in the crew lounge.

SECURITY REPORT: SECONDARY ENGINEER CORPORAL JENKINS

The secondary engineer, Corporal David Jenkins, had probably destroyed most of the 'mission vital' equipment in the ship through his legendary blunders. In the best move of his career, Derrik declared Jenkins as the ship's Security Officer, a.k.a. legalized human body-shield. Obviously, on a five person crew, there shouldn't be any security problems. However, Jenkins reported that he had defused three bombs and confiscated two hoarded plasma pistols. Derrik wasn't really surprised and wrote off the situation to having such a messed-up crew.

Derrik crumpled each computer-printout report, one at a time, and threw them into a growing pile of crumpled paper wads in a dusty corner of the bridge. As he did this, a chime resounded in the bridge and the Icarus's computer, Daedalus, announced that the ship was now entering the Crab Nebula.

THREE

One of the sub-minds thought. For the long eons of nothingness that had passed since the brief flurry of activity that occurred so long ago, the sub-mind had nothing to do but think. The sub-mind wondered what every sentient being wondered at some time or another: What is my purpose? The sub-mind had always assumed that the task that had been accomplished so long ago served some purpose, but now it began to wonder. Nothing else had happened, and it was programmed to expect waves upon waves of occurrences. In fact, the sub-mind mused, after the time of action is when all messages from the Creators stopped. It wondered if the two causes were related, but was suddenly kicked out of its wondering from a message from one of its nerve-like tendrils that had continued to expand after the time of action.

Far away, a tendril detected a presence. Its automatic, unthinking response was to send an urgent message straight to its sub-mind. The sub-mind received the message and pondered it. Should it act, or ask the supreme intellect for advice? The sub-mind decided to ask the supreme intelligence.

The supreme intelligence was startled awake from a long, pleasant dream. Rather crankily, it told the sub-mind to deal with the situation in accordance with its programming, and returned to sleep. The sub-mind, put off by such a hasty order, examined the tiny object first. It seemed harmless, the sub-mind thought. That is when it made a fatal error - it let the object continue to get closer, so that the sub-mind could examine it better. This decision would be its downfall.

FOUR

"Captain?" The ship computer's monotonous voice broke the monotonous hum of the engines.

Derrik shuddered, awakened, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Yes, Daedalus?" He responded.

"My sensors detected a subspace anomaly as we entered the Nebula."

"Well, what was it?"

"It was an energy stream, sir. Or, more accurately, a group of energy pulses."

Derrik sat upright in his dilapidated chair. "In subspace? Isn't that impossible?"

"Theoretically, sir."

Derrik settled back into his chair. "I assume that the energy stream was of natural occurrence," he muttered.

"I believe not, sir. Remember that I said that they were a stream of pulses. The pulses, although short, did have a repeating pattern. I believe it may be intelligently produced."

Derrik sat upright again. "Intelligent?"

"Possibly, sir."

"Were there any ships? Space stations? Planets where this signal could of come from?"

"No, sir. That's the problem. These pulses came from nowhere."

Derrik settled back again, crestfallen. "Nowhere?"

"I charted them from beginning to termination point, sir. They originated from nowhere and went more or less straight to our destination."

Derrik raised an eyebrow. "The neutron star?"

"Yes, sir."

Derrik thought. "It sounds like the Early Warning Array in the Sol system to protect Earth," he mused.

"That is akin to my hypothesis. Although I doubt that there is any life whatsoever at our destination, it may be prudent to assume that we have been detected by some sort of automated system."

"What is the danger to the ship?" Derrik asked.

"Well, if it were an automated system, whatever was going to happen would have happened."

"And seeing how we're alive, we can assume it to be a relatively benign warning system."

"Yes sir."

"Keep full power to deflector systems and sensors. Continue sensor sweeps until further notice."

"Aye, captain." Daedalus's voice circuits turned off, so Daedalus could concentrate on scanning the area.

FIVE

The conference room of the Icarus was not much more aesthetically pleasing than the bridge. Its walls were also made of a battleship gray bare metal, and the floor was still made of ribbed steel. A medium-sized round table, about five feet across, was bolted to the deck in the center of the room. Four rotating vinyl chairs and one rotating leather chair, resembling the ones on the bridge, were bolted in place around the table at regular intervals. Another hologramatic projector was mounted in the middle of the table, but unlike the one in the bridge, it actually worked--except for the fact that Second Engineer Jenkins had accidentally spilled some thick syrup on the lens, distorting the entire image while still keeping it recognizable. Fortunately, the four screens, one mounted in each wall, were still in working order. The contrast and brightness occasionally needed adjusting, but they were still more or less the most reliable bits of equipment on the entire ship.

The crew of the Icarus were seated around the table as Derrik stood halfway out of his chair, with his arms outstretched and his palms flat on the table as he leaned over it

"Listen to me, you idiotic goons, don't you realize that we could be in an extremely perilous amount of danger here?"

Communications Officer Yarri continued to sharpen her combat knife as she said, "And I suppose you want us all to submit, peacefully and genteel-like, under your so-called superior masculine command?"

Derrik rubbed his face. WHY ME, O GOD was the constant thought spinning through his head. "Yes, that is the general idea, but not because I'm some sort of neo-Satanist going to gain machismo points, it's because I'm the commanding officer and it would be a heck of a lot easier and safer if you'd just LISTEN TO MEEEEEEEE!" He yelled.

"What's going on?" Science Officer Jacobsen asked for the fifteenth time in five minutes.

Secondary Engineer Jenkins tried to lean back on his chair's rear two legs, forgetting that his chair was built more like a bar stool, bolted to the floor with a swivel joint on the base, instead of a standard four-poster chair. With the sickening squeal of bending low-grade steel, and the metallic clang of bolts being ripped out of their poorly designed sockets, Secondary Engineer Jenkins and his chair fell backwards and hit the deck with a loud THUD. The rest of the crew ducked as the bolts, ripped quite violently from their comfortable little shafts, released their anger by zinging across the room at a bullet's pace and ricocheting off the walls.

Ping ping ping ping zow!

"Ow! I've been hit!" yelled Chief Engineer Onri.

"Sorry, that's just my knife." apologized Yarri.

Ping ping clang clunk chatttttttterrrrrrrrr. The bolts, expending their availiable kinetic energy, fell onto the deck and rolled harmlessly to a stop.

Derrik, as well as the rest of the crew slowly and gingerly raised himself back into his seat. Jenkins, however, remained still on the floor. Derrik peered over the rim of the table at the prostrate form of Secondary Engineer Jenkins. O goody, he's dead, thought Derrik.

Secondary Engineer Jenkins suddenly sat up, giving Derrik a massive headbutt and catching Derrik's skull between his own and the steel rim of the steel table.

"Ackbleth!" Derrik mumbled-screamed as he jolted up in pain, falling back into his chair gently massaging his lower jaw.

"Good news, guys. Thanks to Cap'n Derrik promotin' me, I got to wear this spiffy bulletproof vest, and it stopped those bolts like nuttin' else!" Jenkins announced proudly as he stood up and pointed to one of the dislodged metal bonding devices which had lodged itself deep into the vest, right over his heart.

Derrik groaned, half from disgust, half from pain.

Onri settled herself back in her chair. She was the only one listening to (and comprehending) the entire situation. "I'd love to be able to help, Captain," she began, "but most of the defensive systems of this rattletrap are either KIA or obsolete. I did a weapon inventory yesterday. Three of our five laser turrets are out, both plasmagun turrets are in desperate need of maintenance and may overheat if fired, and our single torpedo tube has apparently housed all of Jenkins' back-issues of Soap Opera Digest."

Derrik sighed, "Did you clean them out?" Onri replied, "I would have, sir, but you know how the torpedo tube doesn't have as much heat shielding as the rest of the ship..."

Derrik put his head on the table, shaking it slowly from side to side. "Let me guess. Now we have about twenty pounds of carbonized ash on the inside of the torpedo tube."

"Yep," Onri reported.

Derrik closed his eyes. "What is the status of our torpedo ammunition?"

"Two. Possibly three."

"THREE TORPEDOES? OUT OF A STANDARD COMPLEMENT OF EIGHTY?!" Derrik screamed. Stunned by the sound of his own voice, magnified and reflected by the table he had his head on, he clapped his hands over his ears.

Onri waited politely for Lieutenant Commander Derrik to take his hands off his ears to continue. "Well, we actually have only two standard torpedoes. We have the casing of a third, but it has been converted into an ice chest. Our possibly third combat-capable torpedo is actually a jury-rigged thing consisting of a hand grenade duct-taped to a model rocket engine."

Yarri interjected, "Hey, that's mine! I was going to hide it in the captain's latrine."

Derrik continued to shake his head from side to side on the table. "Sorry, Lieutenant Yanni, but, due to the tactical circumstances, we have appropriated it for military use. I'll just be sure to court-martial you when we get back to base."

"I can have the court-martial thrown away because it is well known that you are a self-aggrandizing, womanizing, woman-hating, racist homophobic bigoted psychotic meanie." Yarri responded.

"Not only am I none of those things," Derrik began, "Everyone on the court martial also knows that I am not a self-aggrandizing, womanizing, woman-hating, racist homophobic bigoted psychotic meanie, and I also have overwhelming evidence, in my favor, backed by the rest of this crew, of your terrorist acts. Now let us drop the subject and move to more pressing matters."

Lieutenant Yarri leaned back in her chair with a haughtily superior expression, smugly sure that she had won the not-quite-an-argument.

Derrik sat up and drew both hands across his face in a gesture of extreme mental fatigue. This was nothing new, he thought. He would just have to carry this entire mission by himself, with probably some help from the computer and Onri, before she turns into a moose or something. It just wasn't fair. He just couldn't win, and every hard-fought victory that he had pried from life's clenched fists was slowly but surely being repossessed by the massive juggernaut of Fate.

"What's going on?" Science Officer Jacobsen asked.

SIX

The sub-mind watched and waited as the tiny object came nearer and nearer. It had finally identified the object as a ship, but it was no more than a mere toy. There was no way that such a simple vessel could ever hope to hurt the organism. In fact, the tiny spacecraft was acting as if it or its crew had never even detected the organism. The sub-mind watched with intense interest, and maybe a bit of amusement. It was harmless. The sub-mind continued to observe, but did not act.

SEVEN

Red.

Every window was filled with it.

Red.

The light cast the inside of the ship with an eerie emergency-lighting glow.

Derrik's face was front-lit by the dull red glow emanating from the inside of the Nebula, making him look like some sort of forlorn demon, the corporeal and living form of a 15th century gargoyle upon a cathedral. Leaning to his left, he pushed the Engineering instant-call button.

"Lieutenant Onri?" he asked.

"Here, sir." Onri responded.

"Slow us to sublight speed."

"Aye, Captain." The moment after the communication channel had closed, Derrik could swear that he had heard a moose bellowing in the lower decks.

The Icarus was now nearing its destination - the area of clear space at the very center of the cloudy Crab Nebula. Once there, they would be the first humans ever to see a neutron star with their bare eyes by actually being there. They would take energy readings and launch a probe or two, claiming another barren, desolate, lifeless orb for the onward progress of Humanity.

In the two hundred years of interstellar space exploration, Humanity dominated a sphere of influence nearly six thousand light years in radius. Earth, the world that brought up Humanity, was now a peaceful orb devoid of manufacturing or mining plants that choked the surfaces and skies of less aesthetically pleasing planets. Earth was now useful for only three things. Primarily for two. The first in importance was leadership of the massive Human Empire. All of the major, ancient cities were hubs of administration. Moscow controlled the Northern Sector. Brasilia controlled the Southern Sector. Sydney commanded the Eastern Sector while Washington DC controlled the Western Sector. Berlin headed the Inward Sector and Beijing was the boss of the Rimward Sector. The entire Human Empire was controlled by Atlantis IV, a floating city mostly submerged in the Pacific Ocean. The second in importance was history. Like a child's favorite toy, humanity clung to Earth with a death grip. The two simply could not be parted, and it was for this reason that Earth was heavily fortified with a massive solar system defense grid against any possible alien incursions. The third, and least important reason, was that it was an extremely fertile agricultural world.

However, in the two hundred years and six thousand light years of interstellar travel, there was no sign of intelligent life.

Oh sure, there weas the occasional salt-sucking carnivore on a methane planet.

Or trees three hundred feet tall that are forced to migrate with the setting sun to stay alive, stumping around, making settlement dangerous, if not impossible.

There were also lichens, and alien birds, and reptiles, and insects, and all sorts of amazing species, phylums, orders, and animal kingdoms never before seen or even imagined.

Life was a penny a dozen in the Galaxy.

Just not intelligent life.

Archeologists digging on planets argue that they have found signs of past civilizations, but no one can really tell. What is an extraterrestrial civilization supposed to look like? Do they congregate in cities or hives? Do they congregate at all? It was all rather depressing. Although humanity had discovered hundreds of possible pet species, there was absolutely no one out there to talk to and expect to recieve from them a response more advanced than licking your hand or meowing.

For this reason the Earth defense grid was considered just another pretty thing to boost morale, just in case some bad E.T.s were found.

Almost all spacefaring cultures do the exact same thing.

EIGHT

Another computerized chime filled the bridge as Daedalus announced that the Icarus was now entering clear-space. Derrik leaned forward in his chair and peered through the window. Science Officer Jacobsen swiveled his chair from his port station and also peered into the red void. Communications Officer Yarri continued to read the July 2399 issue of Militant Ms. Magazine in her starboard station. Jacobsen's eyes scanned slowly, and then stopped.

"What's that?" Jacobsen pointed to a formless point in the formless, spherical red-orange background.

"What's what?" Derrik asked, leaning forward even more and squinting to see what Jacobsen was pointing at.

"What's that black round thing with the fast little spot on it?" Jacobsen indicated.

Derrik began to see it. A first it was a point, but it was quickly growing larger and larger. "You mean the big black round thing right in front of us?" Derrik asked.

"Yeah. That." Jacobsen said, as he pointed at the quickly growing black circle.

Yarri looked over her shoulder at the black object for a moment and then went back to reading her magazine, saying only: "That's the neutron star, you morons."

Jacobsen and Derrik looked at each other. Jacobsen was pretty slow, but he wasn't actually stupid. "We're heading right for it!" he said, and with that proved he understood the situation.

Derrik slammed the button that engaged the ship's public address system. "All hands, prepare for evasive maneuvers!" He grabbed the control joystick and pulled it as hard to port as he could.

If anyone had been watching from outside the ship, and was positioned above it, they would have seen the Icarus go into a gentle curve. It changed the direction of the nose, but the ship was still going to ram straight into the neutron star.

"Turn faster!" Jacobsen yelled, continuing to comprehend fully the tremendous amount of danger they were in.

Derrik simply grunted a response, and forced the stick to the left with both hands. The neutron star got closer. His knuckles turned white, his face turned read and he began to sweat from the exertion. The neutron star got closer. He stood up halfway and added the force of his calf and thigh muscles to the six-inch high metal control stick. The neutron star was beginning to come dangerously close. His entire body began shaking with the power of billions of muscle cells contracting to their fullest in the futile attempt to move a ten-ounce control column through some indescribable muck. The neutron star was now exceedingly dangerously close, about ten seconds away from impact. Suddenly, the viscosity of the muck yielded to the superior might of the control column with all of Jason Derrik's might behind it. The stick rammed to the left, and the ship instantly turned hard to port. Then, just as suddenly, the tensile strength of the steel control column surrendered to Jason Derrik's application of force, and snapped. Seeing as all of Derrik's mass was being balanced on that stick, his body followed all the obvious laws of physics that applied here and fell.

It was truly the oddest experience of Lieutenant Commander Derrik's life. He fell to port, and in midair inertia from the hard port turn kicked in and he was flung to starboard. Yarri and Jacobsen were also suspect to this common law of matter, and were also thrown violently to starboard. Yarri, who was already at the starboard bridge station, was rammed sideways into her console, with Derrik landing on her and sliding his leg into one of the crusty monitors, with Jacobsen bringing up the rear and landing on both of them with a sickening crunch.

They had been saved, but at what cost? Not much, really, but it was still annoying. The Icarus was now in an extremely fast orbit around the neutron star, due to its constant port side turning. Due to that, and the previously mentioned physical law of inertia that resists change of movement, gravity had effectively been pivoted 90° to the right. However, after adding in the fact that the ship's artificial gravity was also working, the actual change came out to be about a 45° change.

Derrik, Yarri, and Jacobsen all nursed their bruises while attempting to balance in the cleft where the walls met the floor. The feeling of gravity was tremendous due to the simple rate at which the Icarus was turning. It was just like a car turning -- except the rate of turning was about seventeen times faster.

"Brilliant, mi capitano," Yarri growled, nursing her bruised side. "Now we're trapped."

"What, would you have rather rammed the star at 100,000 miles per hour?" Derrik retorted.

"My head hurts." Jacobsen reported.

"Sure, I would have loved running into the superdense remains of a dead star. At least we would die quicker," Yarri snarled.

"We aren't going to die," Derrik responded, "at least not yet." Derrik tried to stand and found that it could only be done successfully if he propped himself up on the side of the control console. He looked down on his left leg. It had been cut up pretty badly when it had rammed through a computer screen, and the excess gravity was making it bleed profusely. Derrik then looked to the screen he had busted, ripped out a long wire, and tied it above his knee as a makeshift tourniquet staunch the flow of blood. He then looked up at the navigation console. The stick had broken almost at the point where it met the console, but a small tip remained. An idea emerged in his head.

"Jacobsen, stand on the wall and prop yourself on the floor over there," Derrik ordered and pointed.

Jacobsen mulled this around for a moment, and then came to the correct conclusion. He lay down on the floor right underneath the navigation console while propping his feet against the wall. Then Derrik climbed up over Jacobsen and stood on his shoulders. He was right next to the base of the captain's chair, and he circled his arm around it.

"Okay. Yarri, climb up here and pull the stick." Derrik ordered.

Yarri screwed her face up in disgust. "Captain! I knew you were sick, but my God!"

Derrik hit his forehead with his hand. "No. I mean climb up here and return the flight control column to the neutral position."

There was a pause.

Yarri maintained her disgusted countenance. "It's even more disgusting when you make it sound technical, Captain."

Derrik thought that if he jumped right now, the force of the impact at five times standard gravity would probably kill both him and Yarri. He dismissed the thought, no matter how appealing it seemed at the moment. "Forget it, Lieutenant. I'll do it myself."

"Sir, I think that's a personal matter. I suggest that you wait until you're alone." Yarri responded.

Ignoring Yarri, Derrik pulled himself up onto the side of the captain's chair, which began to creak in protest of his sextupled weight. Standing upright with his side on the floor, he reached up with his right hand and searched the top of the navigational console, groping blindly until he found the stub of the control column. With a gulp, Derrik pushed it to the neutral position very gently.

The ship slowed its rate of turn until it was going straight forward. Gravity slowly returned to normal and Derrik breathed a sigh of relief. Lying on the floor, he reached up and pushed the instant-call button to Engineering.

"Shut off the engines, Onri."

"Moooooooo!"

The monotonous hum of the engines slowly died down and got softer until it stopped. Now, all that could be heard was the free breathing of the crew and the soft hiss of the air circulation systems.

"I'm glad that's over," Derrik said as he got up. His left leg did not like this, asleep from both the loss of blood and the torniquet cutting off circulation. Derrik, also rather tired, blacked out when he hit the floor.

NINE

The supreme mentality woke up hopping mad. Its inviolate zone had been breached. In a huff, the supreme mentality ordered up all the sub-minds to a meeting and asked them why, exactly, had a ship breached the inviolate zone. The sub-mind that had detected the ship meekly responded that it had allowed the ship to proceed through its space. The supreme mentality asked the sub-mind why, exactly, did it let a ship pass from the warning zone, through the danger and emergency zones and let it simply waltz right into the inviolate zone? The sub-mind cringed mentally and responded in a mentally timid voice that it did not perceive the ship as a threat. The supreme mentality ranted that the ship should have been eliminated in the danger zone and that now there was nothing the beast could do about it. Didn't the Creators say, five point two picoseconds before the action-that-was-taken-long-ago make the One Rule: Not to attack anything in the inviolate zone? And because that they had broken that rule, the Creators went away and no longer spoke to the beast? Now, because of the sub-mind's incompetency, a ship had entered the inviolate zone and anything it did was the sub-mind's fault! There was no way the supreme mentality was going to break the One Rule ever again if it hoped to regain the trust of the Creators. The supreme mentality then sent the gathered sub-minds away to destroy the ship the moment it left the inviolate zone and went into a sleep plagued by dreams of destruction.

TEN

Jason Derrik woke up in the smoky haze of anaesthetized pain. Looking around, he noticed he was in the medical room or 'sickbay': the only room containing high-tech, almost irreplaceable machinery that hadn't been destroyed, damaged, marred, or even scuffed by Secondary Engineer Jenkins. The sickbay was the only room in the Icarus that wasn't entirely made of battleship-gray metal. The walls had actually been painted a faintly pastel yellowish off-white color. White plastic cabinets containing emergency medical kits, defibrillators, portable diagnostic scanners and the like lined the two lengthwise walls in the room. On the wall opposite the one Derrik was near there was an entrance door. In the middle of the room was an off-white dais with a cold, hard battleship-gray metal examination table (which, according to popular folklore, had been a standard of every medical room everywhere for at least four hundred years) with a computerized sensor device which did multiple duties as an MRI, CAT, biorhythm, toxologic, and reflex testing scanner.

Jason Derrik put the pieces of the puzzle together. Great, he thought, he was back in the autodoctor. The autodoctor was the medical breakthrough of the millennium. It could diagnose, treat, and nurse back to health anyone with injuries ranging from getting a paper cut to catching the Ebola virus to mild-to-moderate cases of space exposure. It was a kind of largish box with a bed on it, tilted to a 40° angle. The bed was enclosed by a curved slip-away plexiglass case that slid closed when the autodoctor was in use. Within the autodoctor was a specialized medical artificial intelligence that used information downloaded from ship or sensor logs or information gleaned using its own extensive arrays of diagnostic equipment to decide what was wrong with the patient and how to fix it. The autodoctor could then inject antidotes, medications, or anesthetic using several hypodermic injectors mounted on servo-arms within the plexiglassed-in case. Then the autodoctor could rebuild damaged tissue by using its nanotech manipulator arms to rebuild cells using large amounts of the basic protein chains, lipid molecules, and nucleic acid sequences that are the building blocks of life. All of this was currently being used on Derrik, and he hated it. Not the fact that it was healing him, seeing how it had saved his life more than a few times, no not that at all. It was the fact that he was in it so frequently. Any week in which he hadn't had to be put in the autodoctor at least once was truly an uneventful week. Not to mention the fact that being in the autodoctor put him on the 'unable to command' list and command was transferred to Lieutenant Jacobsen for as long as Derrik was in the autodoctor.

"How are you, Lieutenant Commander Derrik?" Daedalus asked. The computer's usually stolid monotonous voice had been raised a few notes for autodoctor use. Now the computer did not sound like a bored, boring math teacher droning on about equations, it now sounded like a bored, boring nurse droning on about health.

"Well, I'm fine now." Derrik replied, looking down at his left leg, which was enshrouded by the autodoctor's cast-like nanotech manipulator arm.

"Do you wish to hear a progress report?" The computer asked, as sweetly as it could manage, which wasn't much.

"Sure. Has that psycho Yarri died yet?" Derrik replied tartly.

"Fortunately to say, Lieutenant Sheila Yarri is quite alive and well." Daedalus answered.

"Dang. Let's hear the report." Derrik sighed.

"Upon your admittal into the autodoctor, Lieutenant Jacobsen took command. Sergeant Onri reported that an object had been detected, actually a planet."

"A planet? Around a neutron star? How far away was it?"

"Approximately 19 astronomical units, sir, or about 1.8 billion miles from the neutron star. That would have put it in the biosphere of the star when it was a red supergiant."

"Good. What happened next?"

"Jacobsen decided to proceed to the planet, which we are now in orbit around. Lieutenant Yarri then announced that she was going down to the planet and 'the last person in the landing shuttle is a man.' Yarri, Sergeant Onri, and Corporal Jenkins are currently exploring the planet's surface."

Derrik growled and grumbled internally. He wanted to be the first person to step onto some unknown planet, but whenever the possibility arose he was always in the autodoctor. "OK, Daedalus, how long will it take to heal my leg."

"At least a month."

"A month! I've been in this thing enough times to tell even you with absolute certainty that it should take four hours, tops."

"I apologize sir, but the Icarus has run out of biological reconstruction material. The most I can do is put your leg into stasis and repair it once the stores have been refilled at the end of this mission."

Derrik groaned. "Can you tranquilize me again?"

"Sure."

Derrik heard a hiss and felt a tiny tingle in his right shoulder. The tingling feeling spread through his veins, making him feel warm and comfortable. He dozed off a few moments later into a peaceful sleep.

ELEVEN

The supreme mentality woke up to a message from yet another sub-mind. The alien creatures had landed on the surface of the Holy Planet and were therefore in Really Inviolate Space. The supreme mentality again called in the sub-minds, yelled 'IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU STUPID PINHEAD SUB-MINDS!' and went back to sleep angrier than ever.

TWELVE

Onri looked around through the acrylic visor of her environmental suit helmet as she walked down the landing shuttle's boarding ramp. The planet was truly dead, having a yellowish-brown ground with the consistency of hard gravel. The rolling hill terrain faded into large rocks in the distance. Her booted feet made crunching noises as she stepped from under the landing shuttle to get a better look. The shuttle was small, only about twenty feet long, and just as wide. It had that wedge-like lifting body shape with a bulged cockpit in the front and four stubby wings in the back. The boarding ramp descended from the nose and led to the interior of the shuttle, from which Jenkins and Yarri were descending right now.

"This place is dead, isn't it?" Jenkins asked through the suit mike.

"Sure seems to be." Yarri responded, slightly unnerved by the desolation.

"Fear not, my followers," Onri said, kicking into the Lyten personality, "I shall lead on to victory!"

"Great," Yarri said, "and people think I'm a loon."

"Uh, ma'am," Jenkins began, "my scanner thing has a little-like dot on it."

Yarri peered over his shoulder. "I can't see it that well. What color is the dot?"

Jenkins leaned over to look closer at the scanner in his hand. "It's kinda a yellow color."

Lyten, a.k.a. Onri, stalked militaristically over to Jenkins and snatched the scanner from his hand. "An energy signature, meaning something to conquer!" She pointed to a large outcropping of rock about two miles away. "Onward to battle!"

Yarri and Jenkins looked at each other, shrugged, and followed Lyten, a.k.a. Onri, towards the rock outcropping.

Once they arrived, they discovered that the rock outcropping was actually a very old, weather-beaten city. The natural mesas and pillars of rock had been tunneled into and turned into hive-like catacombs by beings that, according to the openings leading into each building, were about half the size of a human. Lyten, a.k.a. Onri, stopped in what resembled a town square and pointed towards the top of a large and strong-looking mesa.

"That is where the energy signature is coming from," she began, "so let us go and explore what dark secrets it hides!" With that, she strode quickly to the large mesa-building, with Yarri and Jenkins in tow. There was only one entrance, a square opening about three feet square. Jenkins peered down into it and noticed that it didn't get any bigger on the inside. After informing the others about the situation, Lyten, a.k.a. Onri, who was now the impromptu leader of the excursion, gave the orders.

"Jenkins, you go in first."

"Why me, ma'am?"

"You are the security officer, and therefore expendable. Yell really loudly when you die so we know that trouble is ahead."

Jenkins gulped. "Yes, ma'am."

"I, Lyten, goddess of war, shall go in middle while you, Yarri, take the rear."

"Fine by me." Yarri responded.

"Continue on, and do not fear, for the enemy will quaver when they discover I lead this raiding party!"

Jenkins shrugged, rolled his eyes as he turned, and crawled into the small entrance.

THIRTEEN

The supreme mentality woke up yet again. The emergency level had just quintupled. The alien beings had now entered the Projection Building, the home of the supreme mentality itself! In a fit of self-preservation the supreme mentality thought. Was there nothing it could do to protect itself? Then it remembered: The guard robots. They had been placed under its command for self defense. The supreme mentality wondered if they would even work after so long. It gave the start up order to one. It chirped to life, and then crumpled to the floor in a heap of metal parts as its reactor vaporized into dust. It started up a second one. It chirped to life, began to move to intercept, and then its leg joints crumbled into powder and it crawled with its arms. The supreme mentality let out some rather excessive obscenities and then started up the rest of the robots all at once. Only about half of the entire complement of one thousand worked. It sent ten out to intercept the alien invaders, and kept the rest in and near the Projection Room.

Just in case.

FOURTEEN

Jenkins crawled alone in the tunnels. He knew that he had become separated with the group about ten minutes ago, and turned around to catch up. When he turned where he thought he had deviated from the path, he continued on for a while. When he didn't see the others, he wandered aimlessly hoping beyond hope that he would find them. Unfortunately, now he was lost. Hopelessly so. He sat down on the dusty ground, the top of his head against the ceiling, and he looked around. He knew that Sergeant Onri had the scanner, so when she got off her war-goddess kick she would come back and find him. He drew his knees against his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees. Boy, it was uncomfortable in that little tunnel. He craned his neck and saw that a shaft in the wall next to him had a higher ceiling, so he unwrapped himself and crawled into the little shaft. It was still restrictive, but at least he didn't have to sit at an angle, looking like an improperly propped-up board. It was no help that he was in a building built for midgets, and it helped even less that he was 6' 5". He sat up straight, leaned his head up against the rock wall, and looked up. The ceiling was at least sixty feet above him. He looked down. He sat on some sort of metal box connected to a metal rope which was frayed and broken from age. Looking up again, he saw the other end of the metal cable hanging frayed above him. He stood up, and wavered a little bit as the elevator car under him swayed a little bit.

He was in a little elevator shaft. Jenkins decided that if he could climb to the top, he could find a roof access and wait on the top of the rock mesa until Onri picked him up. His plans were interrupted by a metallic whirring noise from the opening he crawled from. Turning around, he saw that a little vaguely-humanoid silver robot was crawling towards him, pulling itself with its arms. Its three legs were all broken off around the knee, and every time the robot moved more of its legs would disintegrate into a fine, metallic, carcinogenic powder. Jenkins backed up, looking at the robot like it was a being from another world. The robot stopped, propped itself up with one arm, pulled its other arm around, balanced on that one as well, pulled its other arm out, carrying a black rectangular box, and pulled its other arm out, which held a black nasty looking weapon. The hand carrying the box plugged the box into the gun, and the gun slowly whirred to life.

Jenkins, in a fit of survivalism, began to kick the robot's durable metal head. The head, which had not suffered the same fate as the legs, remained intact. The gun stopped whirring and began to glow and whine. Jenkins kicked with the fury of a cornered animal. More glowing and whining emanated from the gun. In the course of Jenkins' spastic kicking, he hit a small stone which flew and lodged neatly into the barrel of the gun. The gun continued to charge. Jenkins, realizing that his kicking was a futile endeavor, tugged on the metal cable and began to climb. The gun kept charging (c'mon, it hadn't been used in over six thousand years!). The cable snapped, and Jenkins landed on his back with a light coil of metal rope falling upon him. Jenkins grabbed at his utility belt until he found the grabple and aimed the gas-propelled personal lifting device at the ceiling, firing it and hearing the distinctive clink as the metal grapple head lodged deep into the rocky ceiling. The gun charged up the final few volts, and then discharged with the fury of a dying sun. Jenkins pushed the button on the grabple and flew upwards like Batman. The small stone lodged in the barrel of the gun redirected the force of the gun back into the firing chamber, causing a catastrophic explosion that ripped apart the gun and the robot and sent shrapnel spewing through the shaft. A metallic arm gripped Jenkins' boot with its dying volts and Jenkins scraped it off against the wall of the shaft.

Upon reaching the top, Jenkins swung into a nearby exit in the wall and connected the grapnel to his belt, forgetting to disconnect it first. He went into the dark passageway until he reached a grilled catwalk-like structure with a small railing. Jenkins peered over the railing and saw a huge organic computer far below, covered in a slightly sinister blue light, made up of metal coils that glowed white along the seams and plastic polyhedrons that also glowed with the power of millennia.

Suddenly, a large, heavy rock wielded by a silvery robot came down upon the back of Jenkins' head, and he fell instantly into a very deep unconsciousness. He slid forward down the railing and almost fell straight into the computer room about sixty feet below, but was stopped by the cable from the grabnel. For now. The robot, seeing that its job was done, continued to patrol the catwalk for more intruders.

FIFTEEN

"So, uh, Lyten," Lieutenant Yarri asked, "what do we do now?"

The two crewwomen were standing in a corner of the huge blue-lit computer room, standing underneath some weird alien computer terminals with more around them, fending off hordes of little dwarfish robots with their laser pistols, and in some cases, hand to hand fighting.

"Duck!" yelled Lyten, a.k.a. Chief Sergeant Onri, as she roundhouse-kicked a few robots to smithereens and hit the floor. Yarri did the same, and not half a second later did a huge barrage of plasma gun fire char the wall above their heads. Lyten pulled a grenade, flipped the activation switch, and counted to three as Yarri kneeled back up and laid down covering fire with her laser pistol. "Get down!" Lyten yelled as she threw the grenade over the fallen memory core which was serving for cover and into the rear ranks of the robots. Yarri ducked, and two seconds later there was a loud BOOM accompanied by several metallic howls of protesting steel being ripped apart and robot limbs flying over the crewwomen's heads. The limbs landed with noisy clanks as the crew women returned to the tedious task of mowing down the robots one by one.

"I don't think that we are going to make it!" Yarri yelled.

"Shut up and shoot!" Lyten rebutted.

There was now only a small pocket of robot resistance, hiding behind another fallen data core and the charred and blackened bodies of their fallen comrades. The gunfight now resembled a bad western: Lyten and Yarri would pop up, shoot a few rounds, and pop back down. Then the robots would do the same. It didn't matter that there wasn't an actual target when either side shot. The hope was to take out the enemy with a random shot.

"You have another grenade, right?" Yarri asked.

"Why?" Lyten responded.

Yarri glanced, then gaped at her laser pistol's energy gauge. It read 1/10th full. "I'm almost out of ammo, and a grenade would be the perfect thing in this situation."

Lyten shuddered, and became Onri again. She looked at her belt. "Nope," she said, "I just used the last one."

Yarri set the remaining power in the pistol to overload and chucked the useless firearm at the robot strongpoint. The pistol semi-exploded in a depressing 'pop' and barely fazed the robots. "Cheap government-issue crap," Yarri grumbled.

SIXTEEN

Derrik was brought out of his drugged sleep with a cocktail injection of stimulant and antidotes. His first real stimulus was the voice of the computer.

"Wake up, Jason Derrik."

"Is it a month from now?" Derrik asked. He was still rather miffed about his leg.

"Sorry, sir, but I think we have a problem."

"Go tell Jacobsen then. He's in charge."

"He's slightly indisposed. The ship has just been hit by some sort of beam weapon, Jacobsen has fallen out of the navigation chair and is currently unconscious. Therefore, you have been revived and command has been restored to you, as protocol orders."

Derrik opened his eyes and saw the yellowish off-white interior of the sickbay. "Protocol doesn't cover that," he responded grumpily.

"I know. I had to make up some reason to revive you. I am returning all control of ship functions to you now."

A screen appeared on the plexiglass case right in front of Derrik's face, projected from behind and above his head. It showed the ship's status in a small line graphic in the bottom left hand corner, weapons status indicators to the right, heading and navigation controls along the bottom, and in the center showed a sensor-generated topographical map of the target area the blast had come from.

"This is the area the blast came from, captain," Daedalus began, "from this large mesa." A red cross hair icon appeared on top of a big flat rock-looking thing on the screen. "We also have lost contact with the landing party in this area, but we have received piecemeal transmissions which seem to indicate that they are in some sort of major altercation."

"Can you magnify the mesa?" Derrik asked. The big flat rock grew until it filled the entire screen, and as it got bigger the image became clearer. It was obvious that there was some sort of dome-shaped gun turret on top of the rock. "What's the status on that gun emplacement?"

"It is charging for another shot," Daedalus replied.

"Lock all weapons on that spot and fire," Derrik ordered.

"Sir, it is doubtful that anything we have in our current weapons inventory is capable of destroying the emplacement," Daedalus responded.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Derrik asked.

SEVENTEEN

Five out of seven gun turrets mounted on the Icarus began to rotate to firing position. One laser turret got stuck midway. When the remaining four were locked on target, they opened up with fire that, in the twentieth century would have been called energetic death, but nowadays could be called somewhat-annoying scratching. The two laser beams and two superheated plasma spheres careened towards their target a thousand miles below. At the speed of light and near-light speed respectively they raced towards their destiny. One of the plasma turrets back on the Icarus couldn't take the strain of combat and exploded after firing, sending a shiny cloud of vaporized hull and armor out in a billowing mass.

The two lasers and two plasma spheres continued their descent. The lasers hit the surface gun emplacement, the first one glancing off the thick armor of the turret, but the second one locked the gun into place. One plasma sphere hit the side armor of the turret with a loud explosion, ripping apart rock and metal armor alike, tearing a huge hole into the side of the emplacement, but the gun inside remained unharmed. And the final plasma sphere, weakened due to the fact that it had been fired from the weak gun that just exploded, thought that it would simply bounce off as well. But it was wrong. Because this plasma sphere went

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of the emplacement's gun's barrel. A huge mushroom cloud erupted as the thermonuclear reactor that powered that huge weapon exploded in a fireball ten thousand times hotter than the surface of the sun, blowing off the top layers of the armored mesa and flattening the rock city around it. The rising plume of dust and fire reached a hundred miles up before billowing out and dropping radioactive fallout that would glow for a thousand times a thousand years. The expanding shock wave, unimpeded by the light atmosphere of the dead planet, circled the defunct globe five times, battering the sides of the armored mesa to a pulp before finally calming down into a fast, whining atomic wind screaming the final death peal of the planet.

Fortunately, the little landing shuttle, a) being made of sterner stuff than rock, and b) having been landed in a shallow depression in the ground, was simply dusted with a sulfurous miasma and suffered no structural damage.

EIGHTEEN

The entire room, the entire mesa shook violently and noisily with the force of a hundred thousand tons of TNT. Yarri and Onri were forced to the ground, and the huge computer tower swayed precariously as the roof of the room was ripped off and a howling atomic wind rushed and whistled through the cavernous chamber, pushing along with it small pieces of debris and scrap from the battle.

"What the heck happened?!" Yarri yelled as she covered her neck with her hands face-down on the floor.

"I don't know," replied Onri, in a similar position, "but what I'd like to know is what's going on now! This planet doesn't have enough of an atmosphere to pull up this kind of wind!"

The robots, which weren't dazed by such simple things as atomic winds and huge explosions, began to run across the no-man's land littered with robot carapaces between their camp and the human camp.

Jenkins, who was already rather poorly balanced, fell off of the catwalk ledge, the grabnel line spinning out as he descended rapidly. The robot which was patrolling the catwalk was also flung off into the cavernous sixty-foot deep room, but without the aid of a grabnel, shattered upon impact.

Jenkins was lucky for two reasons: one was the fact that the grabnel was unwinding and provided a modicum of safety, and two that the atomic wind was spinning him about in a large circle. That may not seem good at first, but if he had fallen straight down, he would have been impaled on the teetering organic computer. Jenkins spiraled down and down, going faster and faster in accordance with gravitational pull, when he hit something. Something flat and hard. No, not the ground, silly. What was probably the most expensive piece of equipment in the room? The organic computer! Understand?

The computer, forced by the unexpected impact of a foreign body, finally lost its balance and fell down, its antennae and spires snapping off as they scraped against the wall, the computer conduits and cases buckling and cracking as they impacted the wall, and smashing the remaining hapless robots underneath its gigantic base of twisted metal.

Yarri and Onri looked up and saw the grotesque spire of the organic computer toppling to the ground, smashing the robots, and pelting them with hard yet smooth debris. They then saw Jenkins. After bouncing off the computer, he fell more or less straight down. Onri gasped as Jenkins was about to hit the floor, but breathed a sigh of relief when the grabnel finally ran out of line and pulled him to a stop just five feet short of the ground.

Yarri walked up nonchalantly, through the smoking, sparking wreckage, over the absurdly twitching limbs and torsos of defeated robots, climbed equally nonchalantly over the cracked and scattered wreckage of the computer that was slowly spilling the biological goo that made up its memory banks, walked straight up to Jenkins, reached up, and unhooked the grapnel line from his belt. He fell the remaining five feet and landed with a dull thud. The impact awakened him, and he slowly picked himself up off of the littered and broken floor.

"Thanks, ma'am," he said, "where am I? The last thing I knew, I was up on some catwalk-thing and I saw this big blue thing and then I got hit in the back of my noggin."

Onri walked up and stared at the smashed computer. What a pity, she thought, that finally traces of intelligent life had been found and Jenkins had fallen on it. She stared at the goo that seeped out of cracks in the plastic casing and metal tubing of the once-great computer. Oh well, she thought, now we'll never know what it held.

Jenkins followed Onri's gaze to the smashed computer and then hit the plexiglass visor of his helmet with the palm of his hand as he twisted in shame. "Aw, man, I broke it, didn't I! Sorry Miss Onri, I didn't mean to..."

Onri just looked at him like a cow looks at an oncoming freight train and heard herself say, "Ohh, it's okay, Jenkins, I know you didn't mean to." She was amazed that she was actually saying this, when all she wanted to do was rip his head off and spit down his throat! The imbecile!

"Just doing your job, I guess." Yarri added to the conversation, and then sat down on a broken conduit. "I have a suggestion. Let's go home now."

The other two nodded, and they walked away from the accident slowly, each knowing that a precious, if not strange, thing had just been lost.

NINETEEN

The supreme mentality understood. It knew it was about to die about three minutes before it did. And that was when it remembered. The memory that had been repressed. It was a strategic defense computer, designed by the Creators, who were actually a race of tripodal beings who inhabited the Holy Planet. Long ago, the Creators and the Holy Planet had been besieged by enemies on all fronts. After fighting a series of bloody and costly wars, the Creators built the computer to defend them. They gave it sub-minds to deal with fighting on many fronts, and a supreme mentality to coordinate them all. The supreme mentality was designed with a limited run-time, meaning that it would run constantly for only a few hours and then degrade into a nonintelligent program. This made the supreme mentality treat all occurrences as urgent. The Creators forgot, however, that urgent often meant panic. They built the computer in the real Universe, put its muscles in subspace - hyperspace - to make it capable of dealing with any threat by simply causing enemies to cease to exist, and so on.

The Creators had known about the creatures who lived in the red giant that was their Sun, but the knowledge did not reach the builders of the machine until the machine was already operational. By then it was too late. The sun creatures were an intelligent yet benign species, flitting through the superhot burning gases of the red supergiant like dolphins through the icy blue surf. The Creators, much less the sun creatures themselves, did not know that they would be their downfall.

The computer's realm was made into several Zones which told the supreme mentality on how urgently to react. The Warning Zone was Def Comm Four, where the computer was to observe: If the threat simply passed through and did not get closer, then it was to be ignored. If it got closer, prepare to react. The Danger Zone was Def Comm Three: eliminate the target if it presents a threat in any way. The Emergency Zone was Def Comm Two: eliminate the target through any means necessary. And finally, within the planetary system itself was the Inviolate Zone: Kill it, kill it now. The planet counted as the Really Inviolate Zone, Def Comm Zero, too late now, should have killed it earlier. The computer was programmed to recognize as a 'threat' anything that wasn't built or ordained by the Creators. That meant that a 'threat' entailed enemy starships, rogue asteroids, pirate ships... and benign sun creatures.

When the computer detected right after it was turned on that there were threats (i.e. sun creatures) right within the sun inside the Inviolate Zone, the supreme mentality panicked. It ordered a sub-mind to flex its muscles in the very heart of the star to destroy the creatures. The sub-mind decided that the most efficient way to "kill it, kill it now" was to destroy the star as well.

The star exploded with an unheard of fury, ripped most of the atmosphere off the planet, killed the Creators and destroyed most of their works, and all that remained of their former glory was a computer.

A guilty computer. The only one that understood the tragedy was the supreme mentality, and it had repressed the guilt.

For seven thousand three hundred forty-five years. 7,345.

In the meantime, the remnants of the star coalesced until the nuclei of each atom touched, turning normal matter into super-dense neutronium and formed a neutron star, the final grave of the benign, happy sun creatures. Their epitaph: They Never Knew What Hit Them.

The dead planet continued to circle its dead sun in a pointless stellar ballet, an endless waltz that proved the fate of those who don't hold fate itself in their own hands, the final resting place of an advanced civilization that outsmarted itself.

Six thousand, three hundred years after the incident, a bunch of awkward bipedal mammals beginning to understand and wonder about the Universe beyond the Terrestrial sphere with funny long mustaches and beards saw the light from the explosion, which blinded out even their own mediocre, usual yellow star.

Seven thousand, two hundred fifteen years after the debacle, that same race of humanity, driven on by tribal pride and the lure of discovery, rocketed out a mere quarter of a million miles to a rocky orb that orbited their homeworld, and declared the Solar System, and sooner or later the entire Galaxy for themselves.

And now, seven thousand three hundred forty-five years after the long repressed mix-up had occurred, the supreme mentality lay dying. It pondered the uselessness and pointlessness of life and then came upon something.

After the first few thousand years, all contact had been lost with the enemies of the Creators. One by one they wiped each other or themselves out in petty wars. Now there was a ship in orbit, a new ship from a planet never heard of before. The computer quickly read the data banks of the unknown ship. It was a ship from a planet called Earth, a planet that believed itself to be alone.

Now, the computer thought, was its time for redemption.

The computer, with what could metaphysically be termed its dying breaths, transmitted all of the information it had available, the tomes and volumes and reports and hopes and dreams of an entire species, and many notes on many other species, to the tiny ship and its homeworld. It may take them a while to decode, it thought, so it also sent a decryption guide authored by itself in its final seconds.

The computer did all this in under three minutes. In the final nanosecond of its life, it believed it had finally found redemption for the evil it had caused before, and died peacefully. Its power depleted, its memory cores run dry, it lost the information of ages that it had kept for so long.

But the information didn't die. At that moment, it was zipping through space in every wavelength imaginable, heading towards a backwater planet that wasn't important for any reason until a few seconds ago.

Earth.

TWENTY: THE AFTERWORD

Onri visited Derrik in the autodoctor a few days after the firefight. Derrik was once again revived from his drug-induced sleep, but this time it was from a command entered into the keyboard on the side of the autodoctor.

Derrik groaned. "What now, Daedalus?"

Onri spoke. "Daedalus is down."

Derrik forced himself awake and resisted the impulse to sit up and accidentally bang his head on the plexiglass casing of the autodoctor. "Why is the ship's computer down?"

"I'm not sure, actually. But it seems that its taken on a massive upload from the computer we smashed down on that planet."

"'Computer we smashed?' 'Upload?' Start making sense, Sergeant."

"I'm sorry, sir. The formal report is awaiting your reading-"

"Dang the report, Sergeant, just start giving me some coherent answers."

"- but I have an informal one right now. As you know, Yarri, Jenkins, and I went down to the planet's surface to explore it."

"I know that."

"Once we got there, we detected an energy signature. Upon arrival at the source, we discovered a huge mesa fortress that we began to explore. Within the fortress we discovered a large organic computer memory core and were pinned down by psycho attack robots near it."

"Ohhhkay... sure. Why the robots?"

"The robots were apparently an ancient defense system for the computer."

"Understood."

"We fought the robots down to a standstill, when I believe you blasted a gun emplacement on top of the mesa."

"Sure did. Nailed that sucker. And Daedalus didn't think I could."

"Well, that imbalanced the computer tower."

"Oh. Did I trash it?" Derrik asked meekly.

"Jenkins, who was situated above the tower, fell down and toppled the tower into the terrain."

"Not surprised. It figures that he broke it. Did he die?"

"No. A grapnel cord saved him."

"Dang. What about the robots?"

"The computer fell on them."

"That also figures. But what does this have to do with Daedalus being down due to an upload?"

"It seems that the computer on the planet, right after it was knocked over, transmitted everything it ever knew, recorded, and saved to both the Icarus and Earth."

"Earth? How did the computer know about Earth?"

"Don't know. We believe that the computer read Daedalus' data banks and discovered Earth's location from that."

"So is this transmission a present or a virus?"

"I guess it's a present. A virus would probably be a lot smaller."

"Thanks for the report, Onri," Derrik began, "but could you put me out of my misery until we return to base?"

"Sir?"

"Dose me up with sedatives until we can get my leg fixed."

"Oh. Sorry, sir, but I believe the autodoctor just ran out of sedatives." With that, Derrik screamed himself to sleep.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The 'short' story you just read is 11,692 words long. Oops, make that 11,704. Now it's 11,708! All right, that's it. We are going to stop this at 11,729 words on my signal. THE END