The Station, Part 75

I’m floating. I don’t know where I am, but it does not matter. I don’t even know how I am communicating to you, if at all. Perhaps these are my thoughts being transmitted through means unknown to me. Or perhaps I am insulated from all forms of interaction. Regardless, I feel completely free and content. Every muscle in my body is perfectly relaxed, my mind is clear, and I do not have a care in the world. Yet there is another presence here. Something that does not require eyes or ears to detect. This is something that has been with me for some time now, my companion on the long journey here. They are within me. An intelligence that has made my body stronger, more capable of handling the rigors of the many environmental challenges I have faced. This presence is throughout me, and now in, within this fluid state, it and free itself to make its presence known. Without eyes I can see it, a complex of many billions. They permeate my body and now float freely within the fluid as other parts of it build still more. They tell me they are going to help me. Make me whole. I do not understand what they mean, but I am willing to let them go about their task. It is irrelevant in any case; I do not know how I would go about giving them a response. I would like to say that I have given my companion permission to go about its task; it is simply not aware of it.

As I wait and wonder, I am being shown a virtual kaleidoscope of images and information. They rush by, and somehow I am able to discern individual events of which must have occurred long ago. There was a race of beings here once, in this chamber. I suspected as much. The crew of the Leviathan. They operate the vast complex of machinery that comprises this Leviathan. The many displays show the chambers of which I am now so familiar. But this is an earlier time. They are all but empty containers yet to be used for their most altruistic purpose.

The crew centered their attention on the central hologram—their first charge, a small desert world with patches of precipitation. I can see that this world is a very old one; its sun has dwindled into a weak dwarf star. One of them touches a control and the Leviathan descends down, down into the atmosphere of this ancient world, into one of the dense cloud formations. Once on the surface, I can barely make out the surroundings. Then they seem to materialize out of the rolling fog. Huge, mollusk-like creatures, each with a single stalk tipped with light. I have seen them before. So close to us, yet unaware of our presence. They frightened me then. Now I feel sorry for them. They are noble, intelligent species, on the cusp of forming a society. Through no fault of their own they are also a dying race, being driven to extinction because they had achieved sentience near the end of their world’s lifespan. But they deserve the chance to continue, to contribute to the universe. They are, after all, a kind of people. They have not lived to their full potential.

I have been told that the interface between myself, my companions the nanites (that is what it…they call themselves), and the Leviathan is nearly complete. I can now comprehend even more. This dying race will be saved. They need only be taken aboard. Their habitat is nearing completion. Once finished this small society will be brought aboard, and once settled into a place all but identical to their soon to be former home, all will be delicately and fully explained. And here they will remain, able to live their lives in freedom while being cared for, until a suitable new world can be found for them to be fruitful and multiply. This species is far too young to understand the impact, and so they will not interpret their home as captivity. The concept would apply to a more advanced race, one that is less innocent.