Morning Song: A Seeders Universe Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

the forming seeded civilizations.”
    Everyone again nodded. All basic stuff that Roscoe understood. Clearly Maria was trying to put down a foundation of what she was going to say.
    “It takes around fifty thousand years to just do the initial seeding of each normal galaxy, give or take depending on size and numbers of suitable planets.”
    Roscoe knew that as well, but always had a hard time imagining covering an entire galaxy such as the Milky Way in only fifty thousand years.
    “So I extended out the pattern outside the Local Cluster,” Maria said, “going from closest to closest galaxy and this is what I got over a one-point-eight million year period of time, assuming the pace of Seeding remained about the same as it has through the Local Group.”
    The scale of the image of Local Group floating in the air in the diner came down slightly as other galaxies and galaxy groups were added like steps ending in a large spiral galaxy that looked a lot like the Milky Way and Andromeda.
    Roscoe had no idea how far that was away and he didn’t want to ask. Even if someone said the number, he wouldn’t be able to grasp what it meant. He just knew it was a very, very long distance, but yet that galaxy was in the relative neighborhood of the Milky Way in comparison to the entire universe.
    Still, the number of years she was talking about just stunned him. Did he really belong to an organization that started almost two million years before?
    Chairman Ray was nodding, so Maria went on.
    “This is the track of the big ship.”
    She put a dotted yellow line showing the track of the big ship entering the local cluster.
    “The ship is actually turning slightly, but at such a small amount that it takes just at one thousand years to make a one degree shift in course.”
    “It’s turning?” Fisher asked, clearly as surprised as Roscoe felt.
    “Not enough to be noticeable over a year, but over one hundred years, yes.”
    Roscoe looked over at Chairman Ray and Tacita, but both just sat listening.
    “So if we extend out the line the ship is traveling on,” Maria said, “we get this. Again, note, in one-point-four million years, the big ship comes near no other galaxy or star cluster until it hit the Local Group here. That had to be planned.”
    Again the scale of all the galaxies came down as the dotted yellow line went out near the edge of the room, slowly turning until it ran smack into the middle of the big spiral galaxy that in theory the Seeders had come from.
    “That’s one-point-four million years of travel for the ship,” Maria said. “One-point-eight million years ago, the Seeders started on this seeding path, which would be sure to lead to the Local Group and the Milky Way if they continued onward.”
    Everyone was silent. Roscoe just stared at what she was showing them.
    Then Ray spoke softly. “So about one-point-four million years ago, from that galaxy, they launched this big ship to intercept the leading edge of their seeding.”
    Roscoe didn’t know what to think. He was having a difficult time grasping time and the scale of distance.
    But he did have one question he needed to ask. “With the time deletion that ship is experiencing, we know from an outside take, it took one-point-four million years if it was launched from there.”
    He pointed to the spiral galaxy that intersected the path of the big ship.
    Maria nodded and Roscoe could see both Fisher and Callie’s eyes get big as they caught his question ahead.
    “If someone, or a group of people are inside that ship,” Roscoe asked, “how old would they be?”
    Ray just stared at him, as did those wonderful golden eyes of Maria.
    Finally Fisher answered his question. “About two hundred thousand years old, give or take.”
    “Younger than we are,” Tacita said bluntly.
    Roscoe just couldn’t imagine that, so he pushed the idea of even trying to imagine it out of his mind.
    “But why would anyone undertake such a journey?” Callie asked, “assuming