Read Online Orphans of Earth by Sean Williams, Shane Dix - Free Book Online

his copy from Athena more than he had expected to. They had met on only a couple of occasions, but that had been enough to cement their relationship. The same but different, they had both struggled with Overseer processing problems and were trying to keep their thoughts together as best they could. Their plans to discuss Sol’s intention in more detail had been put to a dramatic end by the Starfish, and Alander sometimes wondered if his other self had experienced any blinding revelations at the last moment, if suddenly everything had become clear.
    Hatzis instructed Pearl to take them to a medium polar orbit around the fourth planet and, moments later, the hole ship had relocated smoothly to this location. They performed a cursory sweep for transmissions of any kind from their new position but quickly gave it up for a lost cause. Instead, they concentrated on gathering data about the planet, adding it to the many other examples they had of worlds that might one day be capable of supporting human life.
    The globe was unevenly split between land and sea, with only a few small oceans in the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere was richly vegetated, relying on deep reserves of groundwater to preserve the water cycle. They christened it Ea, a Babylonian deity whose realm had been the sweetwater ocean under the Earth. It seemed appropriate, Alander felt, as did claiming it in the name of Sol, rather than either of the UNESSPRO missions. Alander didn’t know when there would next be an active government residing in the human home system, but he wasn’t prepared to give up on the idea just yet.
    The familiar ringing of the ftl communicator brought an end to their brief survey of the planet. The broadcast was scheduled to coincide with midday on Sothis, although it might be broadcast from anywhere, and more often than not, it contained little of interest to their mission. But they listened to it when they could, anyway, to see if anything had changed.
    Caryl Hatzis, the voice of hope for many, began the transmission with her usual spiel: “This is an open broadcast from McKenzie Base, Sirius, to all UNESSPRO missions within range of this transmitter. Do not reply until you have read the entire contents of this message. We are the sole survivors of the human race, and we are united by the goal of rebuilding. Our primary task at the moment is to locate those colonies that have survived and been contacted by the alien race known as the Spinners. All life is precious. All resources are valuable. To ensure that nothing else is lost, we must cooperate in this venture—even if it is to be our last.”
    There followed the standard introductions to new colonies that might have received the gifts but not been contacted by other survivors, warning them not to use their communicators except from their hole ships in positions well away from their home systems. After that, there was the plea to both Spinner and Starfish, requesting the opening of diplomatic channels as a matter of some urgency. Until either of the aliens talked to the humans whose paths they were so dramatically crossing, there was little the survivors could do to prevent the ongoing catastrophes. The long-term goal for all species was peaceful coexistence within human-surveyed space.
    Attached to the message were data files containing the current state of the human survivor network. Alander glanced at it and saw that their last update had been included, along with data gathered from the fringes of surveyed space, where other missions were exploring. A handful of new Spinner drops were also highlighted. Starfish attacks were noted, too, as was their change of tactics, although not in any great detail. A careful perusal of the latest attacks suggested that three more systems had fallen to surprise invasions, one of them the mission found in Beta Hydras, the Carl Sagan, yet there was no talk about evacuation. Alander wondered if Hatzis was trying to play down the new