Chapter No.83 Achievement

Honesty is the best policy.

We relied on the androids to ascertain how to approach these new marauders.

"We have inserted coding into their system that will allow us to control them," Judy said. "There is much to digest before we attempt to assimilate them."

"Where are they from?" I asked.

"They originated in the Norma Cluster. We are unsure of the specific galaxy of origin."

I sighed. "This is why we are going to have a lot of problems. These mechanized species could originate all over our universe. It's just another indication that intelligent life is everywhere."

"I would think that they should be rare," Margaret said. "First of all, an intelligent species has to develop warp technology and then something like the positronic brain before they could create a mechanized species."

"If we could do it, there has to be someone else out there who can do it."

"How are the other ships coming along with retrieving the humans from reptilian breeding bases?" Molly asked.

"Most of the camps have been cleaned out, Molly," Judy said. "The retrieved humans are being put in stasis."

"Okay," I said. "We have to decide where we're going to put them."

"I think we could introduce them into Sub-Saharan Africa, possibly where the Democratic Republic of the Congo used to be," Alexa said. "That area has recovered nicely from the collision event. Its climate is not as hot as it once was and there is ample vegetation there."

"We should go down there and check it out. That many humans will need good sources of food."

The next day, Margaret, Alexa and I went down to the location that Alexa had suggested. We landed near the Atlantic shore. We had Alice and Ben with us for protection.

Alexa explained why she chose the location. "The climate of Africa is not quite the same as it was before the collision event. It has moderated, but there is enough rain and warmth to promote the growth of vegetation from seeds that had survived the collision event. Basically, this region of central Africa has a tropical climate with some rainforests, but it lacks the diversity of life that it once had. There are several bird species and what appears to be wild swine running about. Possible food sources consist of various fruit in the form of gourds and legumes. There are also various nut plants and trees scattered about. Many of these plants have more than likely been introduced here by birds that seemed to be the most dominate surviving species outside of fish."

"That sounds good to me," I said.

"I think there's enough food sources to support a colony here," Alexa said. "I'm sure there are plenty of fish in the sea nearby."

"I agree." I turned to Alice. "You can start the migration as soon as possible."

"Yes, Jason."

We didn't notice any dangerous animal life like snakes, reptiles or large beasts like lions. It would be a long time before anything like that ever evolved again on Earth.

In the days that followed, an army of androids descended on the location we had chosen to install huts with aqua sources and septic systems. We human-based androids also spent time instructing the new human populations on how to hunt, fish and grow food. The operation was both thorough and efficient, and when we left the new denizens of Earth, we felt that they were more than ready to establish human presence on the planet Earth.

That evening, after our communal supper, we expressed our satisfaction with our latest and most fulfilling effort.

"I think they'll be able to handle their new situation," Alexa said. "Where they are now is orders of magnitude better than where they were."

"Not to mention that they don't have a god statue with an antimatter bomb in it," I said.

They laughed. It reminded them of a previous rescue operation that almost cost all of us our existences.

"What do we know about this latest mechanized species?" Marie asked.

"We think they're from the Norma Cluster," I said.

"They are not from that cluster, Jason," Alice said. "They entered our universe from a portal near that cluster."

"That's going to make it almost impossible to determine their point of origin," I said. "There are nearly an infinite number of universes."

"Yes, but not all of them are near ours," Molly said. "If the multiverse is a conglomerate of universes that make up a structure, only so many of them would be near our universe."

"That's true, but we have no way of determining how many could possibly make contact with our universe."

"We don't have a clue as to what sort of structure all of the universes are part of," Margaret said. "It would have to be immense and very complex."

"That's putting it mildly," I said. "We don't have any method of getting out of our universe to investigate the structure."

"Even if we could, we would be like a gnat trying to understand an elephant," Molly said.

"Unfortunately," I said. "We'll need more time to study this new phenomenon."

"What if what's outside the universes is not space as we know it, but rather some higher dimensional construct that involves more than four dimensions," Molly suggested.

"That's a valid concept, but we need some way to determine if it's true."

She smiled. "I'll work on that."

I nodded with a smile. I knew what she was up to and that it would involve some very complex math.

It turned out that we were wrong. The next day, Molly had a peculiar idea about the multiverse theory. "It turns out that the new mechanical species is not a threat. They are from another universe, but they have been roaming the multiverse for many eons in order to determine its structure."

"If that's the case, why did they attack the reptilians?" I asked.

"It was a misunderstanding. The reptilians assumed that they were going to attack and initiated a battle, which we were inadvertently sucked into."

I sighed. "That figures."

"Fortunately, the main fleet of this new mechanical species was not damaged," Molly said. "What they have found is that these portals are locations where another universe has made contact with ours, but it is not an actual physical contact, as least not the way one would visualize it. The portal is a wormhole that leads to the other universe. This is the result of slight variances in the vacuum state energy of both universes, which is exasperated by contact. It's a form of energy that is not unlike that present in atoms when they form bonds."

"If they've been roaming the universes for as long as you indicate, have they discerned what the multiverse structure is?" I asked.

"They have explored millions of universes and have made dimensional maps of the structures by plotting the relational directions of the portal wormholes. What they have come up with is rather startling."

Molly displayed a rendition of the structure on the main screen.

All of our mouths dropped.

"What the hell! That looks like a fingertip with a fingernail."

"That's ridiculous!" Margaret blurted. "That would suggest that this multiverse structure is human."

"Or something that resembles a human," I said.

"Are they claiming that this is God?" Alexa asked.

"They're not claiming anything," Molly said. "This is what they've come up with so far after a very long time. It's just a small fraction of the actual structure."

"Is there any way that we could apologize for our stupid attack on them?" I asked.

"We have already reconciled our mistake with them," Judy said. "They are now unified with us."

"Well, we should allow them to continue their exploration of the multiverse," I said.

"How did you get all of this multiverse data from them?" Alexa asked Molly.

"They offered it without any conditions," she replied. "It seems that no other species had expressed interest in it."

"It might have helped when they realized that we were androids," I said.

"They have encountered many non-biological species, but none like us."

"I'm not surprised. We are the result of a stupid project that went completely wrong. What are the chances of that happening anywhere else?"

No one had an answer to that question.