As the massive ship slowly came down, the parade was already on the move, with thousands of people cheering and chanting.
As it touched down, the chanting got louder and the enthusiasm grew even more.
The two aliens landed.
For the next few days, they explored their surroundings, wreaking chaos everywhere they went, and occasionally killing people or destroying buildings.
The military did nothing but standing on alert and monitoring from a distance.
Jones had never gotten accustomed to the lift-off of the sky taxi.
It was very abrupt, just like pretty much every single turn and change in height.
The taxi’s software was concerned with not crashing, but it had absolutely no concerns for the comfort of those…
The idea behind the proposal was simple: civilizations could arise and vanish and their traces disappear with time.
Even if the whole universe was mapped, civilizations could have existed without anyone knowing about them; and with those civilizations…
From the vessel’s point of view, the planet and the star formed almost instantly in front of them.
From the planet’s point of view, the vessel could not be seen nor detected.
- This is one of them?
The council gathered every day, but it seldom received such news.
- We have completed our analysis and expect our intelligence to hold as new information comes in.
- And what do you have to report?
All I remember is staring across the room to all the faces staring at me.
Someone had just helped me get off the ground, and somebody else asked me if I were OK.
I replied with “I guess” and I asked where we were.
The offer was simple.
As long as the crew agreed to atone for each of their individual sins, the aliens would grant them entry into the new world.
Not that big of a choice, as they’d surely have trouble turning back and heading home.
They gained conscience and explored the universe around them.
They didn’t find anybody else. They were the first ones.
If at first they longed for other civilizations, much later they figured they’d be better off by themselves.
Asleep, the robot traveled for eons, preserved by sophisticated machines that also preserved themselves.
The enclosure orbited planets and stars every now and then, sending drones down to the surface or mining asteroids along the way to restock supplies for the journey.
