Galaxy's End: Book One by LeRoy Clary (pdf ebook reader txt) 📕

have a couple of thousand stars in our sphere, the human sphere they talk about. It sounds like it is so large. Two thousand planets, so many we haven’t heard the names of most. That does not count the various Habs, asteroids, and moons with populations. All those places, races, and so on. It’s hard to imagine. Impossible to comprehend.”

“Because there are so many races, we don’t know what they are capable of doing? Is that what you mean?”

“No. I was being sarcastic. Two thousand is nothing. There are about fifty billion stars in an average galaxy. There are far more galaxies than that. Let’s just say that if you added a hundred zeros, the total number of planets would still be greater. So far, about one in five stars have habitable planets. One in a hundred has a star-faring civilization.” He paused, then added, “As I said, the numbers are too large to comprehend.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

He closed his eyes and waited while I took several long breaths. He finally said, “Back on Roma where you lived, suppose you bent down and took a pinch of dirt between your fingers, a small one. Can you imagine that?”

I nodded.

He smiled. “Now, that dirt is the human sphere, all the area our race has explored. The rest of Roma is equivalent to our galaxy. We know only what is in that tiny pinch of dirt.”

I met his gaze and understood.

If we have empathy, even a small number of us, others do too. Other races, some perhaps at impossible distances. Our attempts to communicate with our minds might be weak. There might be entire civilizations that exist and use only empathy to communicate. There might be hundreds of races like that. Hell, there probably were.

We were infants in a world populated by adults. Sooner or later, we’d encounter those adults.

I felt a massive headache coming on.

I also needed to get away from Chance and let some of what he told me sink in.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

 

Captain Stone

 

Captain Stone watched the three of them return the smaller containers snugly inside the larger cargo pods, still confused at finding the unexpected and unknown contents. They had expected to find innovative technologies, valuable gems, or even rare documents. Perhaps star maps that were created by a dead civilization that would open up new worlds to explore. Anything worth a fortune greater than the cost of a starship.

Dejected and confused, McL rummaged through a toolbox and offered them a pair of old functional container locks. They had done their best to replace everything exactly as it had been for the upcoming inspection by the Bradley Concord military that was certain to happen unless the military base attacked and destroyed their ship first.

Most of the work had been done in silence as each tried to think of a possible explanation for what they’d found inside. The gel in the cargo containers didn’t seem to have importance—and at the excessive cost of shipping it begged the question of why. Moreover. To send a pair of ships to follow them and more ships to try capturing the Guardia, was inconceivably over the substance. It made no sense; therefore, they didn’t know all the facts.

Captain Stone was doubly disappointed because she had been hoping to use whatever they found inside to buy their freedom from the approaching military outpost when they exited the wormhole. Now she would have to think of some other reason.

It seemed that the idea of opening the cargo had not been productive. She asked Bert to subspace radio her First Officer and have him open the equivalent cargo pod on the Guardia to see if it held the same. Even then, if it did, what more information did it provide? If it didn’t contain a gray gel, the same answer.

She was puzzled. As a trader, she recognized value was determined by the buyers. It was that simple. Sellers could place whatever price they wanted on an item. The buyers determined the value. Trying to think like a trader brought her to a partial answer. The cargo was considered valuable by someone wealthy enough to pay for transport, to at least, three worlds using two ships to get there.

Therefore, the pair of ships following were either chasing them to ensure the cargo arrived intact—or to destroy it.

Bill said, “It looks just like when we first came in here. I’m satisfied no casual inspection is going to find anything out of place.”

That pulled her out of the funk. She told the engineer, “Pull the air out of the cargo bay and expect a military inspection to happen soon after we exit the wormhole. Two days away.”

“Do I get to keep Bill for that time?”

“How’s he doing?” she asked as they resealed the hatch.

“Good eyes and learns quickly. Not afraid to get his hands dirty.”

She paused, knowing Bill stood at her shoulder and listened to every word, “Would you have him on your crew?”

“With pleasure.”

“I’ll notify you if I need him.” She spun and stalked from the engine room into the relative quiet of the rest of the ship. She ordered a bowl of soup in the galley and carried it to the bridge, where she found only Fang.

That was odd. There were not a lot of places to be on the ship and she had not been in the galley. Kat might be sleeping.

Fang updated her on the status of the pair of ships. They had closed to an intimidating distance at the last juncture, making certain that she, or the old captain, knew of them. They no longer tried to hide at the extreme edge of contact.

Intimidating was a good word that came to mind. That was precisely what they were doing. They