Chapter 5 Previous

Spinna’s mind reeled, inundated by images from the metal monster living inside the Star Egg. Long ago, a race of hairless apes arose from the trees of a small blue world orbiting a warm yellow sun. As the memories are implanted, she feels her own being copied as well. The bright point of light streaks through the sky of her world, to crash in the dirt near her home.

The blue planet spins around its star, at high speed. A child is born to the apes, so similar looking to her own Starchilde. Eighty revolutions, ninety, one hundred. The child ages, grows old, dies. Spinna recoils in shock. She would be long dead before her child would even begin to become an adult.

“They live so long, they see so much. The perspective of many lifetimes, and it is theirs by birthright. They are as gods!”

The species grows, develops. They name themselves humans and they discover more about their world. They create science, build mechanical wonders, great metal cities, and in time, they lift those cities off of the ground and place them in the sky, on their single moon, around other worlds also spinning around their sun.

Spinna picks up the child, the Gift, the Promised One, her precious boy. She holds him to her, brings him to her home.

The humans build great metal ships, that fly the void between worlds, searching for other species to welcome with open arms and joyful hearts.

“They only wanted to meet us. To commune with their sibling species in peace and camaraderie.”

Contact is made. A flighted, insectoid race called the Arathin. Joy fills them all, followed quickly by sadness. They are fundamentally unequal, the Arathin live lives of similar length to a Lago or an Arache. Pitifully short in comparison.

Spinna plays finger games with her Starchilde. He giggles merrily as he tries to catch her fingers, or mimic their movements. The impression of an Arache smile. The fluttering of maternal love in her hearts.

As the humans continue to explore the void, they encounter more species, more different ways of looking at the universe, more siblings in the family of sentient beings. Their joy is tinged with an ever present sadness, none live nearly as long as they. They are forever doomed to watch the brief, brilliantly flickering lives of their friends ignite, burn and then gutter out.

The humans encounter a race of fanatics, radicals who despise them their long lives. Their home world is razed, the human species is decimated. Billions reduced to a mere thousand. The remaining humans are consolidated under an emperor, a philosopher-king, a man of vision who gives the remaining humans a purpose, a reason to continue living. The human race transforms into a race of guardians. Their superior technology and long lives dedicated to preventing the tragedy of their world from ever befalling another.

The emperor’s mate presents him with a child, a son, his only progeny. Human births, like human deaths, are a rare and special occasion. A birth is one of great joy. In an effort to share that joy, the child is presented to the various worlds of space faring species, many of whom have lived generations between the birth of a human infant.

Tragedy. The infant’s ship is attacked. The child is placed in an escape pod, and sent out to save him. The pod is damaged in the fight, the onboard AI comes online too late. The child is gone.

“SO. YOU HAVE TAKEN THE YOUNG PRINCE IN. YOUR MEMORIES SHOW THAT HE IS WELL CARED FOR. STILL, YOU WILL NOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO ENSURE HIS SAFETY. I SHALL REPAIR YOUR BODY, GO FORTH, MULTIPLY AND PASS HIS SAFETY ON TO THOSE WHO WILL COME.”

“Wait wait wait. So a king of the heavens sent his only begotten child to stand between the races of the universe and certain death?”

“WELL, SORT OF…”

“These humans, they’ve died for all of us? To protect us from evil? You just said they fought a war in the heavens against a great evil. Now we’ve been sent the only son of the emperor of the heavens to raise and protect?” Spinna feels a reverent awe steal across her soul. “All hail the prince of the sky! Savior and protector of us all!”

“OH DEAR.”