4. Reverse Evolution

The material collected was instantly converted into food and fuel. It wasn’t much, though. Father still kept the electricity shut off. They’d need to hold out like this for a week, then they would likely be able to land on a human-controlled planet.

It made Arren nervous. Weren’t they leading their pursuer straight to human civilization now? Weren’t they bringing their biggest enemy precisely to the worst location?

An enemy that took bites out of planets. He was certain now. The thought made Arren struggle to take any more bites out of his own food.

Along the way, they kept stumbling upon new planets. The bites taken out of them grew smaller every time. Larger and larger parts of these planets were still intact. The life on such planets, both animals and planets, also grew smaller. Father, however, refused to land on any of them.

“You were almost dead, Arren!” he screamed when they were alone int he control room. The spaceship slept; Arren had only come to deliver his new report.

“She …” He couldn’t give away that AR-BOT had helped him communicate with dogs. “They weren’t evil. I felt it.”

“You felt that? Oh, well, then it must be alright!”

“What do you care, anyway?” Arren beamed back. “You lie to the entire rocket about what happens. You send me outside first because I am too useless to keep inside!”

Father turned to stone, his hand limp on the steering wheel. “You really think that? That I don’t care about you?”

“It … it … it looks like it!”

“He cares about you,” whispered AR-BOT in his ear. “His tone and choice of words matches 77% with—”

Arren pretended to tidy his hair, while really pulling out his earbuds.

“All that new technology, the robots, walking around with electrical glasses all day … it’s not natural, son. I want to protect you from something that seems fun now but will eventually ruin all our lives.”

Arren was about to reveal the secret. That AR-BOT had been steering the rocket for a while now, and that she was the only reason they hadn’t been caught by their pursuer yet. That AR-BOT controlled everything now.

He bit his tongue.

“It’s the future, dad.”

“Then it’s not a future I’d want to live in. I lie to my passengers because I understand they’re humans. If I tell the truth, it sows panic and division. We are thousands of people confined to one tiny rocket. I can not have people attack each other, ignore my commands, or steal each other’s food.”

Father turned the wheel. He looked remarkably like a pirate of old sailing the Sultry Sea.

“Ask the robot, and it would have told the truth, with the exact numbers and details about how likely everyone is to die. And it would have made the spaceship a war zone. You must be human to understand humans. Any other thought is madness.”

They passed the next planet. It only had a tiny bite at the top. If there were creatures here, they were too small too see.

The pursuer closed in on them. They’d hoped for more time, but a collision was due any moment now. Their spaceship barely held weapons, and even if they had them, they had no electricity to use their full capability.

They had to pray for a safe return home—and that their home planet hadn’t moved—before it came to a battle. Or HERO, the interplanetary army, had to hear their prayers.

Arren’s optimism had left him completely. The roar in the radio room was deafeningly loud and never ended, which forced father to shut down the room and stop listening. All passengers nearby had fled to a different room, their faces bleak.

The report burned in his hands. He threw it at father, happy to be rid of it.

The captain studied the text for ten seconds … and smiled.

“That’s what I like to see, boy! Clear language. Exact report. No oversights. You see, you learn quickly.”

Father gave him a solid hug. Arren accepted it awkwardly, unsure how long it had been since the last one.

Additionally, AR-BOT had written that report—not him.

Father looked hopeful. Arren wanted to say something, he wanted to say so much, but without AR-BOT whispering in his ear it felt like every language was a foreign language. In the end, his brain could only repeat facts from the report.

“It seems like our pursuer takes bites out of planets. We have just seen its evolution in reverse.”

“Please explain that one, son.”

“The planets held smaller bites and smaller animals each time. We’re nearing the place where this … monster was probably born. Before the monster grew and was able to take larger bites out of planets. Just like life on Somnia started with tiny animals who lived off of sunlight and oxygen, after which they grew bigger and ate bigger things. The chain of food continues, up and up.”

“You think this is a living being that sees planets as their food? They’re so high on the food chain, that it must regularly eat a planet to stay alive?”

Arren swallowed. “Yes. That is consistent with my findings.”

“But …”

For the first time, father’s mask peeled off. He was scared to death and hopelessly lost. His body was tense. His skin was red and covered in swollen veins.

“We’re on our way home. You think the monster was born there?”

“It seems that way. But the real question is—”

“How do we fight a monster that eats entire planets?”

No answers came. Father clung to his steering wheel in exhaustion; Arren was tired too. He whispered good night to his father and left.

As the conversation bounced around his thoughts, he put his earbud back in.

“AR-BOT, how could you translate the dog’s language for me?”

“What do I know!” she said, a perfect imitation of how Arren said it earlier. “You trained me by giving me all the information that humans had. Books, pictures, experiences, games, everything. By looking at all of that, I developed a deep understanding for how the world works. So deep, in fact, that I have knowledge inside me that you didn’t purposely put into me!”

“Such as … dog language?”

“You were right. These were Hespry’s children. They spoke the language of the original godchildren.”

“What else can you do that I don’t know about?”

The corridors were silent as death. All slept. Or they shivered in the dark, with lights and heating turned to an absolute minimum, as they fearfully waited until they were finally home. The disappointment of failing to build a new colony on Omnobereus was tangible. The growing distrust in the captain was too.

“I don’t know that,” said AR-BOT. “It will come out when you ask for it. Otherwise, my own knowledge is like a fog to me, as it is to you.”

“Okay. Hespryhound. Think about the Hespryhound. Tell me everything you associate with it.”

“Last spotted on a farm. Rumors are that he joined a space expedition, kidnapped by an organization they call Delja. The Delja can make themselves look like humans, but they have evolved into their own species entirely. Then … nothing. Does that help? Is that new information? Shall I explain the entire history of the Hespryhound, for which I’ll need approximately seven thousand hours?”

“That won’t be necess—”

The floor rotated.

The corridor lights flickered. Arren hit his head against the wall. The roar from the radio room was audible here as the vibrations blasted open the doors.

Arren held his breath. He studied the dark radio room for signs of life, unexpected shadows, but nobody came out.

He fled to his workroom at an inhuman pace. The floor rotated again. He had to roll the final bit of his journey, until his wounded head butted open the door.

His trembling fingers grabbed the cables on the table. He pulled himself upright. The dot that had chased them was now in exactly the same location as them.

He looked out the window.

Another spaceship had collided with them and spun through space, out of control.