Keeper and the Planters

Copyright (c) 2020 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Keeper and the

 PLANTERS

By R. Peterson

Jeff Bland rolled over in the sand and let the artificial sun suspended inside the two-hundred fifty-mile diameter ecosphere warm his back. The ocean water in this part of the sphere was cold, without waves and the filtered radiation felt great on his skin. A boy and a girl, children of married scientists aboard the starship, ran along the beach gathering clams with gold coatings on the flower-shaped shells. Their squeals of delight made Jeff smile. Leika or one of the other organic science officers would later trade the clams for virtual adventures on one of the entertainment levels. The clams would later be returned either to this beach or any of the sixteen others, unharmed.

The breathtaking girl from Astenia 17, was just coming out of the water as Gadonian Finches from Obscurité 9 skimmed the glassy surface looking for rainbow minnows. Her faintly lime-colored complexion glistened with drops of moisture. Astenians didn’t believe in wearing clothing while swimming, in fact they hardly wore clothing at all unless star system etiquette demanded it. Jeff didn’t mind … he was on vacation.

Every crew member, guest and scientist aboard the Centurion was scheduled for a more than ten century period of deep space hibernation. Even at reverse light speed squared, and then squared again seven times, the infinitely far destination they were traveling to would take twelve lifetimes. Sleep during the journey and flying through a time vortex on the return trip was the only thing that would make this critical mission possible.

The girl knelt in the sand next to him. Her beyond-human-light-spectrum hair fell upon his chest as she kissed him. Tiny pulses of exotic pleasure spread out from each hair tip and raced down his arms and legs. “I like this,” she whispered. “When you first showed me this earth custom I thought you were hungry and was going to bite me!”

“I still might,” Jeff moaned. “Better watch out!”

Like a bad dice roll in the casinos on Mogna, Jeff’s communicator beeped. He debated hiding the device in the sand but instead pressed the accept button. Teuth’s face appeared as a hologram floating in the air behind the girl. “I’m sorry,” the land-adapted cephalopod said with his bubbly voice. “I’m instructing a group of cadets from Mateuse 17 about Earth history and they all want to know what a rock and roll is.”

            “It’s not a thing … it’s more like magic,” Jeff sighed.

The girl looked at him wide eyed as he stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Looks like I have to go.”

            “Will you be back?”

            “I don’t think so,” he told her. “It’s lights out for the whole ship in just a few hours.”

            “Time passes quickly in hibernation,” she smiled.

Jeff had to turn away. He felt like he was drowning in euphoria.

            “See you in my dreams,” he told her.

-------2-------

Jeff rode the transporter to the vast command level where Teuth was explaining to a group of space cadets how reverse light speed worked. Bands of light rotating around each of their heads automatically translated his words into their planetary languages. “According to the laws of physics,” Teuth said, “matter cannot move faster than the speed of light …but …”

The strange looking humanoid smiled showing rows of needle-like teeth in his bulbous head. “Science has created a way to break  the laws of the universe.”

Jeff walked toward the group. “I think what our navigator is confessing to is the fact that we’re a bunch of interstellar outlaws … and if you play your cards right you can become one too.”

Teuth ignored the ship’s first officer and went on. A hologram with what looked like a figure eight racetrack appeared in the air above him. “Infinity is a closed structure with no beginning and no end. Imagine an object moving through infinity at the speed of light.” A yellow dot of light appeared and moved about the track. “It is impossible for something following behind …” A second dot this time red appeared just behind the first.  “…to go faster than the speed of light.” Teuth smiled again and several students stepped back as well as Bland.

            “But look what happens when you go much slower than the speed of light …” The red dot racing around the figure eight began to lag farther and farther behind  the yellow until it was actually moving in front of the first dot.

“So simple,” a girl from the planet Kertészium gasped. “All you have to do is go slower than light-speed and you end up going faster!”

“Not so simple,” Teuth said. “Moving slower than the speed of light is one of the hardest things science has ever been able to achieve. And to repeat the process so that you are going the speed of light squared times a number like four-hundred is very difficult and costly”

“It takes the opposing properties of dark energy to move against the path of light,” an orange tinted cadet with a giant pumpkin-shaped head stated after raising one of his vine-like hands. “The instant you fall below light speed you are traveling unbelievably fast and you actually have to slow down to obtain velocities manageable by even the extended laws of physics.”

“We always hit the brakes when we see cops,” Jeff assured the group.

“Exactly,” Teuth glared at Jeff. “It’s a good thing that dark energy and a small amount of particulate matter makes up roughly 99.(999999 ⁴¹⁹ ) % of the known universe.”

“You’d think the prices would come down,” Jeff quipped. Several cadets grinned … a few, including some who resembled earth hyenas, snickered.

The ship’s navigator folded all but the one tentacle needed to operate the holograph light display and explained to the smiling cadets. “For thousands of years, scientists from many galaxies thought of the universe as an ever expanding but somewhat flattened disk much like a very large spiral galaxy. Earth’s cosmic genius, Alvin Sullinger, was one of the first to advance the theory of a global universe. The universe, according to Sullenger’s now widely accepted theory, is like the outside of an almost infinitely large rubber ball being inflated with dark energy and with untold trillions of galaxies on the surface of the ball being pulled apart from one another at the speed of light. The fact that our most sophisticated telescopes can reach out twenty billion light years in all directions to what seems like the edge of the universe does not mean the universe ends there. Because of the curvature of this ball universe we only see that small portion before it falls below the horizon. Much like ancient earth ships appeared to sink at the edge of a flat ocean. The universe, we have discovered, is much, much larger than anyone on any star-system ever dreamed … or even thought possible.”

“Is that where the Planters come from?” a bug eyed student from one of the ocean worlds asked. “From the other side of this ball?”

“That is what we believe,” Teuth said. Jeff thought the two might be related. “How far these entities have journeyed from the other side … we do not know. We only theorize that they have been here before.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” Pumpkin head said. “That’s why we’re going on this six hundred year mission … to see if the Sadinimo are returning.”

Teuth moved a sensory tentacle close to Jeff’s ear and whispered. “I need to speak with you in private … it’s very important.”

“I’m sorry but that information is classified by the military committee on Mateuse 17,” Teuth told the cadets. “I think it’s time for some recreation. Why don’t you spend the next few hours before hibernating on one of the virtual adventure levels?”

“First officer Bland was supposed to explain rock and roll,” Pumpkin head objected. Several cadets looked at Jeff hopefully.

“I’ve got some recordings in my cabin,” Jeff told them. “Maybe I can let you listen to some of the best ones before they put us all to bed.”

-------3-------

“What is it?” Jeff asked when he and Teuth had moved into a secluded chamber.

“Clarence was right,” Teuth said. “Mateuse military command believes the Sadinimo are on their way.”

“Clarence?” Jeff gasped. “Wasn’t that huge orange head enough of a distraction when the poor kid had to go to school? Who the hell are his parents?”

“His father is Admiral Wortha and his mother is the current ambassador to the Gorwanian Defense League.”

“Oh,” Jeff said.

“We have discovered an anomaly at the edge of the universe,” Teuth said. “Hundreds of thousands of stars have increased their velocity beyond light speed and are disappearing into the cosmic horizon. Something, or perhaps an infinite number of somethings, is coming … and the massive gravitational field being generated is pulling this side of the universe apart.”

“Exactly who are these Planters?” Jeff asked.

“Many of the brightest minds in our part of the universe as well as those who study ancient myths believe that these beings populate dead and lifeless planets, sometimes entire galaxies, with life and an atmosphere for their own uses but we don’t know exactly what those uses are,” Teuth said. “They speculate that the Sadinimo created all the life on all the worlds we know of …and are considered by many theoretical biologists as the universes’ farmers.

“Then we have nothing to fear?”

“Depends on why they came,” Teuth said.

“Why is that?” Jeff had never seen the ship’s navigator look so pale.

“Some scientists speculate they’re coming to our side of the universe,” Teuth whispered, “because we are their crops … and its harvest time.”

-------4-------

Jeff saw the girl he’d spent the day on the beach with climbing into a deep sleep chamber on the next row from his own and she smiled. “How about breakfast in the morning?” he called.

She nodded her head just as his own cover closed. There was a hissing sound and he felt drowsy. And just like in an ancient fairy tale … he found himself fast asleep.

And the years went by … and then the centuries.

-------5-------

            In the year 2089 a civil war erupted between all twenty-six planets that made up the Mateuse federation. The war lasted one hundred thirty nine years and cost more than a billion lives.

            A massive asteroid struck Jeff Bland’s home planet in 2160 radically changing its solar orbit. The western coast of North America sunk into the Pacific Ocean.  It took eighty years for Mateuse scientists to restore the orbit and correct the plunging temperatures. By that time, three generations of those left on Earth had grown up as savages in an ice-age world.

In 2284 interstellar insects, able to navigate space, ravaged at least twelve galaxies before vanishing as suddenly as they came. Humanity throughout the universe almost went extinct during the infestation … but somehow survived.

The year 2413 brought biology’s greatest achievement. Doctors were able to separate humanoid and animal spirits (souls) from their exterior shells replacing worn out and defective bodies with artificial ones … and extending life spans into infinity.

In 2460 the first spirits were salvaged from decomposing bones buried in in Earth’s graves  five thousand years ago.

In 2501 the Dark Matter element, Delila, replaced gold as the universe’s standard of currency.

Time travel using portable vortexes was universally outlawed in 2519, but was almost impossible to enforce.

A robot and humanoid war in 2612 ravaged much of the Milky Way and other galaxies. The artificial life-forms achieved a great victory and ruled most of the universe for over one hundred years.

In 2643 the first travel between dimensions occurred with a disposable human aboard a special equipped ship sent by android scientists. The ship did not return.

The great android warlord Tusk fell in love with a human woman in 2721 and relinquished to her his galactic throne thirty years later … just before destroying himself. It was the universe’s greatest love story for more than two centuries.

In 2888 the last of the robots with rebellious artificial intelligence were re-engineered. The then acting Prime minister of Mateuse 17, a half android mutant named Boris Click, resigned after it was discovered at least one-hundred million of the most affluent androids were missing and unaccounted for.

-------6-------

And in 2902 … First Officer Jeff Bland woke up. After a shower that seemed to take years to wash off the hibernation fluids, Jeff went looking for Keeper. The entire ship was quiet and appeared to be sleeping. He wondered if he was the only crew member awake.

Jeff found the ship’s captain and navigator on the command level.

“We have very serious problems,” Teuth said.

The colored lights flashing where Keeper’s feet should have been were a color Jeff had never seen before.

The captain shook his head and pointed … and Jeff looked up at a hologram showing the ship’s exterior at the very edge of the universe.

“Planters!” Jeff gasped.

TO BE CONTINUED ….