The Ship

The Ship glided quietly through the emptiness of space. The sleek body of The Ship passing unnoticed through the large asteroid belt. Occasional flashes as the protective shield came into contact with the minuscule particles of dust that always accompanied belts like this one. The Ship making adjustments to avoid the larger remnants. The human occupants sleeping soundly in their cryogenic compartments, oblivious to the light show their Ship was putting on. The Ship did not know for how long or how far it had traveled. The journey had been expected to take 300 years, but a meteor storm 200 years into its journey had damaged many systems. The Ship had drifted in space for many years while repairs were made. When all the repairs were finished, the Ship accessed its memory and found that its destination information was gone. Again it drifted in space while the computer searched its memory banks for the missing information. Finally is had found it, and the Ship resumed its course to New Earth. For 400 years it traveled to its destination, all the time the Ship's cargo slept, all the time taking notes of what it saw.

As the ship neared its destination, it began to warm, the temperature controlled outer hull began to change colour. The ship hue changing from a silver to a vivid red as it entered its programmed orbit around the barren planet. The planet spun silently in space. The Ship scanned the surface and found a barren planet. Even the oceans were devoid of the smallest microbe. The ship found traces of a long gone civilization. Ruins abandoned and crumbling. The planet showed signs of recent asteroid collisions, maybe as recent as 700 years before. The Ship surmised that it was these collisions that had caused the extinction of life on the planet. The Ship recorded the amount of water compared to habital land, and found it to be slightly less than what was expected.

For the next 30 years the Ship maintained its orbit. First the Ship sowed the clouds with the seeds of life that would eventually support its human cargo. At first the vegetation would not grow, so the Ship sent down a probe to find out why. The Ship then altered the seed so it would grow. After a while, the Ship decided that the vegetation was doing well and could support life. The Ship started the program that would allow the embryo's of the animals needed, to grow. The Ship then deposited the animals on the planet surface. But they did not do well, and soon died. The ship sent down another probe. Having altered the vegetation, the Ship also altered the animals. Again the Ship sent down the animals, and this time they survived and flourished.

The Ship watched and waited.

Finally the Ship decided that the time was right and so he awoke the leader of the humans. The man and the Ship talked. The man watched as the Ship showed him the progress it had made. The man went down to the planet and looked it over, and decided it was good. So the Ship awakened its human cargo and they prepared for their landing.

The Ship glided down through the atmosphere, and landed at the chosen place. The people stepped from the Ship and for the first time walked on the land that would be their new home. For many years the people lived in the Ship while building their new life. Finally the day came when the Ship was no longer of use to the settlers. All its resources were gone. The Ship was now nothing but a shell and a computer. Its mission was finished, the settlers would survive and would thrive. Maybe, in the years to come, the children of the New Earth would meet the children of the Earth.

The Ship bade farewell to its form cargo and lifted off into the starry sky. The Ship settled itself into orbit around New Earth and started its search for the Sun it called home. It searched and searched but could not find it. Then a possibility occurred to the Ship. The Ship searched the data it had been collecting for the last 100 years about the System it was in.

The gas giant that was losing its atmosphere to another planet. The asteroid belt that was mysteriously thick. The stray moon falling towards the Sun. The eccentric orbits of two minor gas planets. The Ship measured and theorised. Then it found the stray brown dwarf wandering just outside the solar system limits.

A brown dwarf that 750 years before, had strayed into the solar system. Planets, pulled by the gravity of the dwarf, changed orbits. The moons of the gas giants being pulled into the brown dwarf's wake. A near collision with the largest gas giant in the system, pulling it slightly towards its Sun. Sweeping through the asteroid belt and sending asteroids plummeting into the inner solar system. It would never be known just how many asteroids actually hit the 3rd planet before the brown dwarf left the system.

The Ship noted what it had discovered and pondered what to do. The ships programming said it must return to Earth and wait for further instructions. But by the Ships calculations, it had already returned to Earth, only to find the planet dead. The civilization destroyed by a wandering brown dwarf.

The Ship settled into a high orbit around Earth/New Earth, and waited. Knowing that one day, the people below would reach for the stars again. Knowing that one day, they must be told the truth.