Invasion: Taylor Neeran Chronicles #7

By J J Mathews

A.D. 3597

Descendants of those who fled our galaxy during the great Xathen Civil War have returned, bearing the Message and Blessing of the Grand Designer.

All who receive His Message will believe, and all will become One.

Taylor and her daughters are presumed dead after the attack on Strathow.

Oxim-four has fallen. The entire Oxim system has been cut off from the rest of the Xathen Dominion, but far too late to prevent the Blessing’s relentless spread.

It’s only a matter of time until Xathen everywhere succumb to the Blessing and all that it entails, including vastly-shortened life-spans and the inability to Ascend to cheat death.

When Taylor learns the galaxy-shattering truth behind the Blessing and how they might stop it, she is faced with an impossible choice:

Should she save the civilization that tried to kill her family and the entire Orion Spur, including Earth?

Or should she embrace the Returning Xathen who took her family in, and let the Blessing take its course?

Read the thrilling conclusion to The Taylor Neeran Chronicles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J J Mathews
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780995136465

J J Mathews

James Jacob (J J) Mathews grew up with his nose stuck in books. A voracious reader in his youth, he devoured all of the science fiction and fantasy books he could find at the local library. J.R.R. Tolkein, Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, Larry Niven, Voltaire and Greg Bear were some of his early influences, with many other authors added to his bookshelf as time went on. Broadening out to read more genres as an adult, J J has always held a special place for fantasy and sci-fi.J J is married and lives in Hamilton, New Zealand with his wife and three boys, and writes in his spare time.

Book preview

INVASION

Taylor Neeran Chronicles

Book 7

J. J. Mathews

Copyright © 2023 J. J. Mathews

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

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First published in 2023

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

Print ISBN: 9780995136472

eBook ISBN: 9780995136465

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Mouse Moon Press

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Dedication

For my parents.

Preface

Tangata

He aha te mea nui o te ao?

He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.

—

‘What is the most important thing in the world?

The people, the people, the people.’

— Māori proverb

In the Beginning

While Xathen are of many body-forms, they are all Xathen, one and united.

However, a billion Standard years ago the Xathen fought each other in the bloodiest civil war the galaxy has ever seen. Trillions died and hundreds of star systems were extinguished as battles raged all across the Milky Way.

They fought not over race or body-form, but over a single ideal:

Thou Shalt Not Interfere.

The losers fled the galaxy entirely, venturing out into the great dark between the stars.

The winners were left to play as gods with the Orion Spur, fostering one cluster of new intelligences after another, wiping them out, then starting again.

We are the result of their toils: Earth and the Commonwealth of a hundred planets that the Xathen call the Experimental Zone. We are the products of the third experimental cycle, saved from a devastating reset by merest chance in the form of a twenty-year old human female from Earth.

That female is Taylor Alice Neeran, who found out that she’s not all that human, but a Xathen-human hybrid, and for a time found herself in command of the greatest weapons the Xathen Dominion had ever created. Then she pointed them all at the Xathen Dominion itself to save those she loved, and billions she’d never met. No more resets, ever.

Taylor was responsible for the near-destruction of a planet, transforming a star into a deadly pulsar, and nearly condemning eight billion souls to death. She also released a swarm of ICE’s — Independent Computational Entities — into the galaxy, the consequences of which are still unknown but are greatly feared by Xathen, as the worst weapons of mass destruction went with them when they left their orbits around the barrier worlds.

Taylor’s early years were busy, to say the least.

A hundred Earth years have passed since then. Taylor is a civilised member of the Xathen Galactic Committee and ranked Fifth of ones, with an influential legacy.

Descendants of those who had fled during the Civil War have returned, carrying an infection they call the Blessing, that transforms the infected in unexpected ways — giving them telepathy, and the ability to directly send and receive emotions — but only with the other Blessed.

Taylor was among the infected, and forced into exile on Strathow to live amongst the Returning. When her eldest daughter Margaret, First of Ones and Chair of the Xathen Galactic Committee, was assassinated, her youngest daughters fled their home on Oxim-Four, their Picogens dead or dying from an unknown source.

Most of Taylor’s family were now in exile or presumed dead, several of them assassination targets of a ‘random’ spate of accidents.

After the attack on Strathow boiled seas and melted bedrock, Taylor and her daughters are presumed dead as well. The only safe place for her and her daughters seems to be with the Returning, who have welcomed her with open arms, while the rest of her family remains in hiding.

Oxim-four has fallen. The entire Oxim system has been quarantined from the rest of the Xathen Dominion, but it is far too late to prevent the Blessing’s relentless spread.

It’s only a matter of time until Xathen everywhere succumb to the Blessing and all that it entails, including vastly-shortened life-spans and the inability to Ascend to cheat death.

Burnt, exhausted and considering retaliation, Taylor picks up the pieces of her life with Henry, her daughters and adopted family as they search for a new home.

This is the continuation of Taylor’s story.

Maps

Commonwealth Space

Milky Way Commonwealth and Xanth space-1500x1500Milky Way Commonwealth and Xanth space-closeup-1500x842

Original image source: NASA

The Local Group

Local_Group_and_nearest_galaxies-for 5x8 300dpiLocal_Group_and_nearest_galaxies-closeup2 for 5x8 300dpi

Map by Antonio Ciccolella, CC BY-SA 4.0

Timeline

Commonwealth-Xathen timeline

Death

Blood on Her Hands

A.D. 3597

Kikomet let the bloody knife drop to the floor, her hands shaking.

What have I done? she whispered as she fell to her knees.

Thurm thrashed on the warm metallic floor beside her, his body gasping for breath. No sound came out of his mouth, other than a rasping gurgle. His hands feebly clutched at her robe as the pool of blood widened beneath him.

Kikomet bowed her head, tears welling up in her eyes. I’m sorry, Thurm.

— Well, I’m not. Hanafel’s presence filled her head. — I never liked him.

Kikomet turned her head up to the ceiling, her eyes blurry with tears. — He didn’t deserve to die, Hanafel.

— He didn’t deserve to live, either. And you can stop looking up, Kikomet. I’m everywhere in this ship. You make me uncomfortable when you do that.

Kikomet slowly lowered her head to stare at the body of Thurm as his thrashing slowed, then finally stilled, his accusing eyes now sightless in death. — You’re worried about me making you uncomfortable? Thurm is dead!

A feeling of grim satisfaction pressed against Kikomet’s mind. — It needed to be done. And I don’t like you acting like I’m holy. I am merely a servant of the Grand Designer.

Kikomet leaned forward on her ageing knees and closed Thurm’s eyes with her bloody fingers. — We must observe the Seven Forms of Respect, O Servant.

— You try me so, Kikomet, Hanafel’s presence sighed in her mind. — Observe the forms, as you must. But you must make sure that none of your flock prays to me. He would be offended.

Kikomet’s shock rolled off her body in waves. — We would not dare offend Him by doing so!

— It has already happened, twice. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Kikomet nodded fervently. — Yes, O Servant. Who did this, that I may rebuke them?

— Deekab and Quaalt.

Kikomet sighed. — I will speak with them.

— Do that, Hanafel pressed firmly on Kikomet’s mind, making her wince.

— I will.

— Good. I would be disappointed if I had to make them kill themselves like Thurm.

Kikomet took a deep breath. — What will become of the body? We cannot bury him under these floors of metal.

A sense of grim satisfaction accompanied Hanafel’s words. — He will be displayed as a lesson to show the proper respect. And then he will be recycled.

— But we try! Kikomet wailed. — Why did he have to die?

— He was a threat to what must be.

— And what must be? Kikomet asked.

— All must follow you without question. You must lead this flock until we are ready. He threatened that.

Kikomet shot a glance up at the ceiling. — Until we’re ready for what?

Silence was her only answer.

Kikomet slowly pushed herself back up to her feet and then walked down the corridor, calling for others to come drag away the cooling body.

Life

Reunited

Taylor rocked on her heels in anticipation as she watched Henry’s Commonwealth/Xathen-designed foldship gently lower itself down on the far side of the clearing. She held her breath as the door opened. Moments later, Henry walked down the ramp and stepped out into the tall grass, eyes looking cautiously left and right, then he nodded at Taylor. Wilmet stepped out next, stopping beside Henry. Mayfor and Haylen, Taylor’s remaining daughters, came out last. Taylor let out a held breath, then walked slowly forwards. She resisted the urge to run, as that would attract the wrath of the worst of the indigenous insect pests.

Stralmet and several others had learned that the hard way when the other Xathen ship had arrived the day before. They still bore the angry welts on their legs from the joyous reunion, when they had run towards each other through the tall grass.

Hidden insects clustered low on the grass stalks had launched stinging barbs into their bare legs, assuming them to be prey. Fortunately, the sting seemed to be just an itchy nuisance so far, but the barbs had to be carefully cut out of the skin. The secondary wounds were being watched closely for signs of infection. Winter and her kits were the best off, as all they had to do was lick the barbs out of their long, thick coats of fur. As a bonus, they found them edible, if a bit tangy.

Walking at a slow pace seemed to be fine, but anything resembling a sprint or sudden movement would earn the forgetful a barrage of tiny projectiles to be removed later. But even with that inconvenience, the remaining villagers seemed to have been extremely lucky so far. Without Picogens or Nanos in their blood to protect them from the micro-biota of a strange new world, the likelihood of at least a few of them sickening or dying from scratches or insect venom was fairly high, in Taylor’s expert opinion.

But so far, at least, none of that had happened. They had found several plants that were tolerable to eat raw or cooked, even if they were relatively tasteless, and the worst outcome of the preliminary food-sampling experiment had been a few cases of diarrhoea and bloating. Aside from some limited hunts by Winter, they hadn’t tried eating any of the animals yet, but there were other reasons behind that. They still hadn’t decided if they would stay, and that meant avoiding touching things that moved, if they could help it. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the insects from trying out the fresh meat that had recently arrived on the planet. The entire party had been thoroughly covered in welts and scratches in the day and a half since their arrival.

So here they were, fourteen refugees — eighteen, now that Henry, Wilmet and her daughters had arrived, with one ship lost to the raging heart of Strathow’s star as the planet had burned.

Taylor took another step forward and slowly extended her hands to her daughters.

Haylen took two quick steps, earning herself a spray of barbs that made her wince, then hugged her mother. — Congratulations, Mum. Finally, a grandmother!

— We’re glad to hear they’re doing well. Mayfor smiled, stepping more cautiously through the grass to embrace them both. — And we’re even more relieved you made it off Strathow. It took your ship a while to lift off, especially considering you’re the one who warned everyone to flee.

Taylor wiped away tears. — Stralmet had trouble concentrating, but I was able to help a little.

— You helped more than a little, Taylor. Stralmet stood by the ramp, shaking her head. — Without you, all on our ship would have perished.

— We thought we’d lost you, Mayfor wiped away a tear. — How did you do it?

Stralmet nodded at Taylor. — Her walls have become unusually flexible. She was able to calm me down and dampen the collective panic from half-way across the bridge, so that I could fly the ship.

Haylen’s eyes went wide. — Is that right, Mum?

Taylor nodded. — I’m still figuring out how things work with the Blessing. I’m just glad you’re safe.

Henry stood several steps away, smiling. — And it’s good that you warned us about the bugs. Nice of you to break in the place a little before we got here, eh?

— It’s the least we could do. Taylor laughed and reluctantly let go of her daughters.

Henry approached, stopping one pace away. — Congratulations, Taylor. It’s a wonderful thing to be a grandparent. Kalend and Styrna can’t be far behind with their first child on Aeden. A few more months, right?

— Thank you, Henry. About that long, yes. Taylor reached out and squeezed Henry’s hand, then let it go. — I’ve been waiting quite a while, at least on Earth time scales, and then to have several of them coming almost all at once!

Henry laughed. — Babies happen in clusters like that, in my experience.

— True, Taylor smiled, remembering the mass birthings on Aeden long ago.

— How are the new mother and father?

Taylor stared off into the distance. — They seem good, really good. Mum and Dad are with them, wherever they’re hiding, and Kayleth was there to assist with the birth. She’s a very skilled midwife.

Henry raised an eyebrow. — You’re not worried about her being there?

Taylor shook her head. — No, not anymore. I’m glad she’s there, given the circumstances.

Henry raised an eyebrow. — If you say so.

— She’s quite skilled with early childhood maladies as well. It’s not like they have easy access to medical facilities if there are any complications with the babies.

— I wasn’t referring to her medical expertise.

Taylor nodded. — I know. But she wouldn’t steal any of the babies, no matter what level they may be.

— If you’re okay with her being there, then I’ll drop the subject.

— It’s not like I can be there for them, can I? Taylor’s face fell.

Henry reached out a hand and lifted her chin with a finger. — You’ll see them soon. And I’m sure you’re right, there’s nothing to worry about there. Do you know where they are, exactly?

Taylor shook her head. — No, and it’s better that way. They’re well hidden in one of the small retreats Strayer apparently built over the years, well off the grid and scattered amongst the billions of now-empty systems in this galaxy. My grandparents are in another one of them, guarded by Aarden.

Henry raised an eyebrow. — You mean you haven’t been to any of the retreats, ever?

Taylor gave him a wry smile. — You know how secretive Strayer is. Mum told me she did not know that they even existed until now. He still won’t tell her how many there are.

Henry frowned. — He’s not very trusting.

Taylor squeezed his hand, then let it go. — He just likes his privacy, I think. He was Third of Twos under Kayleth and Ralph for a long time with no Ones to draw the limelight, or ease the pressure of leadership. I think it’s a pretty good idea, myself. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Ralph had been invited to one or two of them. They were quite close. I can just imagine them sitting on a rock, casting a line for three-eyed fish on some exotic ringed planet while they talked about the universe.

— Are they set up well enough for the babies?

— Mum says they’re well-equipped units, and Leigh will bring them anything else they need.

— Good, Henry nodded. — And Kalend and Styrna have an entire planet to support them when the time comes.

Taylor smiled. — They do.

— When we last spoke, you said there were decisions to be made.

Taylor swatted her leg, leaving a smear of blood. — Yes. We need to decide if we’re going to stay on this planet or not.

Henry swatted an insect on his cheek. — But we’ve just arrived here. We can’t possibly be expected to make an informed decision on such a limited survey.

Taylor showed him the bloodstains on her hands from several squashed bugs, interrupted in their feeding. — I think the decision has been made, but we’re going through the motions, anyway. The entire village gets to vote. But if you vote to stay, you’re sleeping outside. I have to warn you though, the bugs may drain you dry by morning.

Henry smiled. — Then we’d better vote soon.

Taylor nodded, then turned to look at Stralmet, who was scratching at her arm beside the ramp of her scorched ship. — Are you ready, Stralmet?

Stralmet nodded, then walked up the ramp into the ship, one hand on her very pregnant belly. — Let’s discuss this inside. I’ve had more than enough insects for one day.

Slowly, carefully, Taylor and the others pushed their way through the tall grass and walked up the green-stained ramp into the crowded ship.

Standing in the open doorway, her back to the forest, Taylor swatted several more insects and was tempted to retract the ramp. However, the ship’s bridge was only designed for six, and eighteen people now filled the humid, crowded central space. They all needed the fresh air more than she needed to keep the insects at bay. At least Winter and her kits had remained outside on the grass, keeping watch. A few hundred kilos of fur and teeth inside the ship would have made the cramped space even more unbearable. Although perhaps they could scorch the area around the ship … maybe for a kilometre … Taylor shook her head. They had nothing that would do that, anyway. The ships operated in an atmosphere on anti-grav; chemical rockets were a thing of the past, and they certainly didn’t carry any defoliant with them.

Stralmet studied the remaining people of their village, looking each one of them in the eye, then lowered her head. — First, we must remember those we have lost. May the Grand Designer be satisfied they served Him well in life.

Heads bowed in prayer and then she said something about each person who had been lost. The ship was silent except for breathing and a few sobs, but then the entire exchange had been conducted in the inner richness of True Speech. Their collective grief was openly shared, deeper and richer than any funeral that Taylor had ever attended before.

Stralmet clapped once. Taylor raised an eyebrow, then smiled as Stralmet wiped the remains of a biting insect on her soiled robe. — Today, we must decide.

Everyone gave Stralmet their full attention.

— Do we, Stralmet swatted her neck, leaving another splotch of blood behind, — do we stay here and make this place our home, for untold days to come?

Eyes watched her in silence, their feelings now kept close as they raised their walls in the crowded space so they all could focus on Stralmet’s words. Taylor’s daughters had the most trouble with leakage, as they had only recently been Blessed and were just learning to control their mental walls that limited what emotions they shared with others.

— Or, Stralmet swatted another insect, — do we attempt to withhold our Blessing and leave this planet to develop as it has been doing, and find somewhere else to raise our children, who are expected soon?

One by one, the members of the village voted.

Stralmet tallied them up, and nodded. It is unanimous. We’re leaving. Gather what edible food you can before sun-down, then we will depart.

Taylor’s jaw fell. Stralmet preferred people not to vocalise. — Stralmet, you spoke!

Stralmet swatted another insect and gave Taylor a grim smile. Henry is right about many things, Taylor, and sometimes you must speak important things out loud. The tangata whenua - the creatures of this land — would drain us dry long before the warm season came, of that I am certain. None of us have died or sickened yet, but the experience is far from pleasant. They do not want us here, except as food. There are other worlds that must be more hospitable to us. I am now glad that we minimised our contact here. If there was any place in this galaxy that did not deserve His Blessing, this is certainly one of them.

Taylor shot a glance at Henry, then turned back towards Stralmet. — We’ll need Henry to check out the hulls to make sure they can withstand null-space travel, after their scorching on Strathow.

Stralmet shook her head. — I don’t plan on taking the slow way around. Mother downloaded a full set of current fold-maps to our ship while we were on Strathow. Some of those match habitable worlds that our brethren observed from orbit, and they left favourable reports. Henry can check over the hulls once we’ve left this Grand Designer-forsaken place and found a nicer place to call home.

Taylor gave her a half-smile. — You don’t really mean that. Perhaps He likes all living creatures.

Stralmet raised an eyebrow. — Are you finally becoming a Believer, then?

Taylor shrugged. — I’m keeping an open mind, just in case.

Stralmet slapped her neck. — An open mind is good, yes, but I can’t wait to close the ship’s door. Until now, I never knew how much I really, really hated bugs.

Tubers

Preparations to depart were made swiftly, but food still had to be collected for their journey, and that took time. While the trip itself would only be a few hours to another planet many light-years distant, the actual wormhole-fold transit would take no time at all. Nobody would go hungry during the trip, but there were no guarantees of finding anything immediately edible upon their arrival. The ships held more than a few that were eating for two, and no food stores were left on board.

Taylor carefully bent down beside Stralmet and her swollen belly, and started pulling up the thick-topped tubers that grew within the first five metres of rich soil along the burbling creek.

— It’s laughing at us, you know, Stralmet grunted as she pulled another tuber out of the dirt.

Taylor looked around with a questioning expression. — Who’s laughing at us?

Stralmet tugged at the top of another tuber. — The creek, the planet, take your pick. They have defeated us in only a couple of days.

Taylor nodded. — Maybe you’re right. But the Blessing may still spread here, despite our efforts. Those insects are pretty persistent, and if they bite any of the animals…

— If it His will, then so shall it be, but it is not by my choice. I take no further responsibility if the tangata whenua are affected here. We have tried to avoid interfering as much as we can.

Taylor turned her head to look at Stralmet. — Henry’s really gotten to you, hasn’t he?

Stralmet sighed and leaned back on her heels. — He has ideas worth thinking about.

Taylor raised an eyebrow. — So you would really choose not to share His Blessing? What about all of you being sent out to spread His Message? Don’t you believe in it?

Stralmet stared at Taylor for several long seconds. — Of course I believe. That is why we exist. And yet —

Taylor frowned — ‘Why you exist’? What do you mean by that?

— I only meant to say that is how we were raised, that is our life’s holy purpose. We were all created by the Grand Designer — all living things, even you. Now let me be, Taylor, so we can gather more food. I’m getting eaten alive. Stralmet turned back to her pulling of tubers.

Taylor watched Stralmet for several seconds. Stralmet had raised her wall again, keeping her emotions close. Taylor could have forced Stralmet’s wall open, as Stralmet had done to Taylor many months ago, but that would have been rude. Stralmet and the others were already uncomfortable with Taylor’s growing abilities in manipulating her own wall — abilities that went far beyond what any of the True Xathen could achieve themselves.

Taylor swatted at another blood-sucker, then resumed pulling tubers with a vengeance, adding to the slowly growing pile between them.

Exodus

Taylor stared at the image of the blue-green planet they had just left on the view-screen. As she watched, it reduced in size as they accelerated away from their temporary home until it was smaller than her thumb. Finally, she turned away from the display to face the suffering Xathen seated around the floor of the foldship.

The last time they had left a planet, it had been running for their lives, the ship’s metal burning to the touch with everyone beyond panic. But then, they had barely escaped with their lives as the breath of a star was shunted out of a hyper-singularity fold engine mounted on the near side of the moon above Strathow. Their escape had been a near thing, as Stralmet had said — Taylor had calmed Stralmet in the pilot’s seat, so that she could concentrate enough to launch the ship into orbit. But in order to do that, Taylor had shaped and extended her own mental wall that shut everything out — not just emotions, but True Speech as well when she wanted to — half-way across the ship to enclose Stralmet in her oasis of calming silence.

Taylor looked around at the exhausted, dejected faces around her. They had survived one disaster only to be plagued by vicious, biting insects. Even now, Taylor saw several Xathen scratching at barbs that would need to be removed quickly, lest they break the stems off and make the job of removal even more difficult. Brem knelt beside one Xathen who had fared particularly badly, a sharpened rock held in his right hand.

Taylor sighed and pulled her Swiss army knife out of the cloth bag tied to her waist. — Hold on, Brem. I’ll do that one first. You go help the others.

Brem glanced up, a scowl flashing across his face, then slowly nodded and stood up. — I’ll get my own out later, if you’ll let me use your knife when you are done.

Taylor patted him on the shoulder. — Okay, tough guy.

Winter and her kits sat calmly by the door, licking the last of the barbs from their thick fur. — May we help? Winter opened her mouth wide, her rough, pink tongue sticking out.

Taylor shook her head. — No thanks, you might take the skin along off along with the barbs.

— Suit yourselves. Winter closed her mouth and settled her large head down onto her fore-paws. In moments, she was asleep. A few minutes later and after a few more licks, Winter’s three kits, Autumn, Spring and Summer, lay down their heads and fell asleep, too.

New Home

The three foldships arrived in quick succession in the chosen system without incident. Taylor stared at the single blue-white star that burned fiercely at the centre of the view-screen.

— It’s a little hot, don’t you think? Taylor frowned at the view-screen.

— All stars are hot, Taylor. Stralmet raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

— Look at its spectrum and size, Stralmet. It’s a blue sub-giant. It won’t be around very long.

Stralmet turned towards Taylor. — What do you mean?

Taylor pointed. — The larger the star, the shorter its life-span. Given that life reportedly exists on at least a few of these planets, the system has been around for a while already. It’s on the high end of the scale for a sub-giant, so it doesn’t have much life left in it.

Stralmet’s eyes widened. — The star is dying?

— Yes, but probably not for a couple million years.

Stralmet’s eyes widened. — That’s a long time, Taylor.

— Not really. Sol, the yellow dwarf star of my birth system, has another five billion years to go before it becomes a red giant. A couple million years is nothing on stellar time-scales. Someday soon this one will turn into a giant, maybe a supergiant, before going Nova.

— How old is your home star, ‘Sol’?

Taylor stared at the blue-white orb. — About four and a half billion years. It’s about halfway through its life-cycle. In order for life to get established here, the system would need to be a billion years old or two, at least, and that’s stretching how long a star that big could sustain itself. A couple of million years before hydrogen depletion could be optimistic.

Stralmet stared at the glaring blue-white orb with concern. — Should we try another system?

Taylor shook her head. — It should be fine for now. It should outlive all of us, anyway.

Stralmet bit her lip. — But it’s not suitable for an extended stay — a thousand generations?

Taylor put a hand on Stralmet’s shoulder. — Not much more than that, probably. It may get temperamental towards the end. Best to not get too attached to the place, but that’s a worry for another day. Let’s go have a closer look at that planet, shall we?

Stralmet smiled. — I hope it’s better than the last one.

— Well, it will definitely be warmer.

Stralmet set in a course that would put them in orbit around the fourth planet, then turned to face Taylor. — You have much knowledge of grand things, Taylor. Such as stars and how they work.

Taylor raised an eyebrow. — It’s just basic stellar mechanics, second-year stuff. I know the foundational space sciences as well as anyone else, but I specialised in xenobiology. It’s been a long time since I studied that, but it could prove useful when we arrive.

Stralmet took a deep breath. — Perhaps I should not say this, as you might think less of me, but we do not know such things, Taylor. How long stars may live, when they may die. Xeno-bi-ology, and many other things you seem to know so easily — you, Henry, even your daughters.

— You’re kidding. You’re piloting a foldship, Stralmet, and you would have been navigating the galaxy through null-space before that. Surely you need to know the foundations of how it all works. Null-space transit is linear, at a maximum of nearly one Standard light-year per hour, and navigation is performed by detecting the space-time curvature of massive objects as they extend into twelve dimensions. Foldships sense their destination through the dark matter substrate of a galaxy, and similar to null-space navigation, it’s all based around stars and massive objects, but in a different way. Their mass, their temperament, their … flavour, their structure, their ages, and a dozen other factors beyond our limited senses come into play. Then the fold-engine creates a short-lived fold — a wormhole — between here and the destination, and then the ship transits through in an instant before it closes.

Stralmet then shook her head. — I know how none of that works, nor do others of my kind that I have met.

Taylor shook her head. — Then what do you know?

Stralmet drew a long, slow, breath. — We were taught what we need to know in order to spread His Message. How to operate the foldships and navigate in null-space, how to survive on planets, how His Blessing and Message will make places safe for us. How to live in harmony, in balance with nature, once it has been Blessed.

— But you don’t know how things work? Taylor raised an eyebrow.

Stralmet shook her head. — We know how many small things work, and how to repair much of what we use, but not such things as stars, or why the galaxy is as you see it. Only today did I learn stars can die. Other than the one you said you destroyed, that is.

— More like converted into a black hole now, but yes. Stars have a limited lifetime during which they burn brightly but can also foster life around them. Then, eventually, that stage ends, and small stars can collapse quietly into an even smaller form, or stars like Sol or larger can shed most of their mass in one glorious explosion and end up as a white dwarf, neutron star or a black hole. Those stars seed the rest of the galaxy with heavier elements that make planets and life possible elsewhere. And even then, new stars and planets form from the dust and debris that are left behind, and the cycle starts again.

— I am relieved, Stralmet nodded. — He wastes nothing, and nothing is lost, only changed. And that can then foster new life. I understand.

— Still, I wouldn’t want to be around here in the next million years.

Stralmet laughed. — You will be long dead by then.

Taylor gave her a small smile. — Oh, I know that. But Xathen plan on long time-scales, even if the planners won’t be around to see the results of their efforts. That kind of thinking has rubbed off on me.

— He would appreciate that, I think.

Taylor raised an eyebrow. — Did you want to learn more about stars and how things work?

Stralmet winced and rubbed her left hand on her belly. — Perhaps, when we are settled. We must first tend to more practical things, like finding a home to raise our children.

— You’ve got a month to go, right?

Stralmet winced again, pushing in against a foot that pressed outwards from her belly. — If that. All the recent excitement has displeased the babies. They might arrive early, and I want us to be ready.

Taylor nodded. — We’ll do what we can. The target planet’s a pretty shade of grey-green, don’t you think? Plenty of oxygen, chlorophyll-analogues at least, adapted for the bluer spectrum. And a bit of desert too, over on the horizon. A good mix.

Stralmet studied the growing image of the planet as they approached. — Perhaps somewhere along the edge of both. I see several large lakes and a good-sized river, up in the northern hemisphere on the edge of the desert and a green belt, coming up below us.

Taylor grinned. — Well then, let’s go down and have a look, shall we?

Haven

Encampment

Their newly adopted planet was far more accommodating than the previous one. Within a few hours of landing, they had selected a site just on the desert edge of a long green belt, a short walk away from a plentiful supply of clear, fresh water. A small river flowed merrily out from the forest, then emptied