The Plants have ordered a temporary halt to their attack. As soon as you see them start stopping, order all of our forces to cease firing until you see them move again.”
Dorg was stunned, “How did you do this?”
“Not right now Admiral.”
Dorg keyed his com and placed the orders. He looked at his display and said, “They’re stopping. Cease fire, all SR forces cease fire.”
While Dorg was stopping the SR Fleet, O’Donald contacted Cade and patched Tag thru, “Cade cease fire on the penetrators immediately.” Cade looked at him with dismay and Tag said, “This is a direct order, do it now.” Cade turned and pressed a button on his console. “Commodore O’Donald will notify you if we need you to continue so keep your channel to her open.”
The Algean Fleet Leader received the order to stop and hold his position and did not believe what he was hearing. “You want me to do what, Eldest?”
“Stop and hold your position until I notify you. The strangers are here at the home world threatening to destroy the Sacred Grove. Now do as you’re ordered.”
The Fleet Leader felt fear course thru his body. Not the Sacred Grove, please, not the Sacred Grove. Then he ordered his ships to stop.”
Both the Algeans and the crew of the Kosiev watched the battle come to a stop. Rose then thought, “Thank you, Eldest. Now we have an opportunity to try and resolve this conflict we find ourselves enmeshed.”
“I am being forced to communicate with you and I do not see any way to resolve our issues nor do I have any desire to do so.”
Tag thought, “Danielle, please join me in what is happening.” Tag felt Danielle come into his mind and both of them listened as Rose talked with the Algean Leader.”
Rose paused a moment and thought, “Eldest, is your reluctance to resolve our issues because of what happened to your race long ago?”
“That is a major part of it. I do not trust any race outside of my own and I think that any resolution that you would want us to come to would include not harvesting any more worlds. I think this because of your past efforts to stop our efforts at gathering food for my race.”
“What if you no longer needed the food you’ve been harvesting?”
The Eldest became very silent and said nothing. Then Rose said, “You didn’t always need to harvest food did you?”
The Eldest still remained silent and after a long pause said, “No, we didn’t. My race did not originally consume organic materials.”
Tag and Danielle were shocked but continued to listen to the conversation.
“What changed that, Eldest?”
“The race that originally destroyed us released a disease on our planets that destroyed our food source. Without it, we were forced to consume organic material. This small land of golden soil here is all that remains of our food.”
Rose nodded and said, “And since organic material is not your normal diet you are forced to consume huge amounts of it to live.”
“Yes we do and my race always feels hunger no matter how much they consume. The food we need only remains here in this small area that is only large enough to develop the leaders of my people. Your threat is the only reason I stopped our attack.”
“Why do you think the race released the disease on your worlds?”
The Eldest said nothing then Rose, Tag, and Danielle could hear the heavy mental sigh that came from him, “Because of our children.”
Danielle could not restrain herself, “What do you mean your children.”
The Eldest thought, “Who is that?”
Rose said, “She is my mother.”
The Eldest said, “Then she knows the importance of raising children properly.”
“What do you mean, properly?” Danielle asked.
“We had four stages of life before the Silver Monsters destroyed us; birth where our babies would put their feeding tubes in the food source and grow for ten cycles absorbing the energy and nutrients for their next sixty cycles; the second stage they would remove their feeding tubes and go out to explore the universe around them; the third stage is where they would return from their explorations, discuss their discoveries with others, reproduce and start their families; the final stage is where they plant themselves in the dirt and give back the things they’ve learned to their race in new ideas or inventions. To properly raise a child it must complete those four stages.”
Danielle thought a moment and realized that human development was very similar to the Plants. Then Rose said something that got her full attention. “It was your adolescents that caused the problem with the Silver Monsters, wasn’t it?”
The Eldest paused again and then said, “How did you determine that?”
“They wouldn’t leave the monsters alone.”
The Eldest’s thought turned hard immediately, “You don’t understand, they couldn’t leave them alone. Our adolescents were driven by their curiosity; it’s part of their makeup that drives them, and they could not stay away even if they wanted; the Silver Monsters were too much for them to resist. Unfortunately, the Monsters would not be patient with our children. We tried to stop them from following the Monsters but they just could not contain their curiosity. The Monsters didn’t even communicate with us about controlling our seedlings; they just destroyed the means for them to exist; then they released a disease that killed us all.”
Rose said, “They destroyed the food you needed to develop first.”
The Eldest remained silent showing his agreement.
Danielle thought, “That’s terrible; what happened after that?”
The Elders could hear the anger in the Stranger’s thoughts and wondered why it was there. These strangers just did not make sense to him. The Eldest said, “Our young became the tools you have seen attacking and harvesting planets. Their entire life is ruled by hunger and their intellect is stunted from improper nutrition. They are little more than savage predators with little or no mental skills. Our leaders are from here where they develop so that our children can be led to food sources to keep them from starving.”
Rose said, “I ask you again, if we could restore your food source, would you stop harvesting other worlds?”
The Eldest said, “We have tried for millions of years to bring back our food but nothing has worked. We could not trust you even if you could restore it. You would eventually try to eradicate my race.”
“Is it impossible for you to trust?” Rose asked.
“No, we trust each other; not outsiders.”
“You can’t understand someone willing to help you without an ulterior motive.”
“It’s there; you’re just not revealing it.”
“Eldest, I have just one more request and we’ll end our conversation and go about destroying each other again.”
“What is that?”
“I would like to bring someone here and take him to the surface to communicate directly with you.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“It will answer some questions about us that you would not even think to ask. I know you can guarantee our safety while we meet and after we talk I will leave your planet and allow you time to bring in enough ships to defend it.”
The Eldest thought for a moment and said, “I’ve seen your ship in action and I think it wouldn’t matter how many ships I brought in, would it?”
Rose paused and said, “No, we would still be able to destroy you but at least it wouldn’t be today.”
The Eldest smiled and said, “You’re right, not today. Bring whoever it is you want to bring and I’ll guarantee your safety.”
“Eldest, he will be coming in one of our older ships so you probably could destroy it but he will exit the ship in a shuttle and the ship will then jump away. He will have his screens down when he jumps in.”
“Fair enough, you know where we are.” The Eldest quit communicating with Rose and sent a message to his fleet surrounding the Kosiev.
Tag looked at Rose and said, “You are not going down on that planet without me with you.”