65, Dozen

Lucie continued her story. There are several theories of what caused this mess. Some say that someone here became able to ignite a star and tried it. Some think that someone alien tried it. Some think that the star itself exploded. But none of the theories holds. Do you know what they now think is most likely? Lucie did not wait for an answer and Klype knew it soon would come anyway. Have you ever heard of the missing Dozen, the half a billion years old myth? Here they are, Lucie said.

Klype could not hide his curiosity any more and Lucie noticed with satisfaction. She waited till he had to ask. What do you mean? Lucie started. Half a billion years ago, twelve implanters disappeared. No one knew what happened. Suddenly, they simply were gone. One thing was of cause the loss itself. However, the suspicion of motives was harmful. It’s true that everyone should think the best of any other. But I know better than that, for I was there.

Klype knew very well that Lucie was immortal. So calling here a she was merely a formality. Lucie had no own body and no sexes. Klype was mortal. His androgyny had become a kind of compensation to his mortality. Androgyny was the result of a very erroneous resolution to the sex-wars at his home-world. However, self-pregnancy was extremely inbreeding and not really any option. Furthermore, he had lost his lust for life, so being reborn that way was no realistic alternative.

Do you remember any of this, Klype asked doubtfully. He knew very well that Lucie’s memory was limited by nature. She could not remember more than any other humanoid, even though she had experienced much more. I do not remember much, she admitted. But the issue was raised at several occasions at high level and used with consequences. Angels fell because of this. The missing Dozen was no myth. It really happened. However, the stories were silenced and various versions made the story into something quite different.

What happened, Klype asked? Lucie ignored the question and continued; The Dozen was designed for terra forming a star system. It was a prototype that was not yet fully developed. In fact, there were several voices that opposed, because terraforming is believed to happen naturally without any interference. It is a very controversies issue of whether to start such processes or not.

But what did happen, Klype repeated. That is not certain. But it seems that a wandering star passed our arm in the Milky Way. Such an event was not foreseen. When the Dozen registered a potential star, they simply took of automatically, without being noticed. They simply disappeared. You know the story and the myths. But here they came and started the process. It did not quite go as planned, did it? Klype asked. It is a major mess, as you can see. Then half a billion years later, there was an explosion. Its radioactive signature seemed a lot like a failed attempt to light a star. That was alarming. No-one knew whether alien specie had gained superior technology. A probe was sent, but the information it collected was unbelievable and interpreted as an error. They waited 100 million years, till the star reached our arm in the Milky Way again, so the journeys would not be that far, she added. When a set of biots finally confirmed the information, things happened fast.

OK, Klype said. Consider the missing Dozen is here. What are we to do about it? Why are we here? First, we are going to investigate in further detail, Lucie said. Then we are going to find out what really happened and what the situation is. Conclusions and actions are for higher powers to decide.

They started to work. First they send several probes with cameras in several directions. They were controlled remotely with the speed of light and gathered information at command. Then they sat the course to the asteroid belt. Several stones were investigated thoroughly. Later they set the course to Mars. They mapped the planet and gathered several samples from the surface. When they sailed to Terra, they made a stop in the atmosphere. Several probes were sent out to scan the surface thoroughly. While they were waiting, Lucie concluded that Venus was not of any particular interest. She wanted to spend the rest of the time at Terra.

The probes returned images from the surface. With great interest they investigated the information thoroughly. Lucie broke the silence. I am speechless. All the surprising information made it hard to concentrate the thoughts. But after a while, she tried a temporarily conclusion. Terra is fully terraformed. Life have been seeded, gone and returned several times. Today, there is a global multicultural environment, where dragons dominate. Klype listened and added, unstable. I do not know what more to say at this time, but it certainly supports The Dozen theory.

Lucie returned to all the other information that was collected about the star system. They investigated every planet system in depth. After a while, she lent back and tried to gather her thoughts. I can very well see that something have crushed almost all the planet systems, but what? And what in this star system could possibly crush a planet into pebbles? It certainly was not the Dozen. Klype was not intersected in Lucie’s frustrations.

Klype made several simulations at the rocks in the asteroid belt. He liked working with computers. These computers were particularly interesting to work with because he could trust the information they presented. That was no longer a certainty at his home world. After double-checking, he concluded that it was not the rests of merely a planet, but  much more. The rocks are of very different nature, he said. Lucie was tired; please do not complicate the issue. Klype, waited for Lucie to draw the conclusion herself. She did not. It stayed a mystery to her.

We are going to investigate the second planet further, Lucie said. And for order sake, we will call it Terra because it is terraformed. Klype had no objections, he cared less. Lucie continued; in this case we do not need to be particularly discreet, because there are no humanoids. We can arrive in the open like in a zoo and act as we find appropriate. Our main mission is to document what we already know; Terra is a zoo without any intelligence or other qualities.

What other qualities are you thinking about, Klype asked. Well, Lucie hesitated, how can I explain to him, she asked herself loud. It has to do with wholeness, spirituality and conciseness. There are entities like souls, which can attach to bodies and connect them to a universal awareness. But don’t you bother about that, your kind are not fit for such and can not understand such concepts. Klype felt even smaller than ever when Lucie hit him with such comments.

Anyway, Lucie said, we are to ensure that such is not present at Terra, that nothing has tried to light a star and that life here stems from our selves and no alien beings. So let’s get started with the investigations.