“Let’s go somewhere more private,” Rose said. She took her parents hands and led them out of the landing bay to Tag’s quarters just off the bridge. They came in and sat down and Rose looked at Danielle and said, “Why don’t you tell him what you’ve worked out, Mom.”
Danielle took Tag’s hand in hers and said, “Its Atlas, Tag. He’s been lying to us all along.”
Tag looked at her and said, “What do you mean?”
“Tag, he told us that the Plant Race was attacking other worlds from the beginning. He did not tell us that his race forced them to it.”
Tag sat there for a moment and said, “Well, one could understand his reluctance to admitting causing them to become harvesters but his race tried to correct their mistake.”
Danielle said, “By exterminating a basically peaceful civilization because they did not have patience for their young. That tells me a lot about their moral code.”
“He has lied about much more than that, Dad.”
Tag and Danielle looked at Rose and Danielle said, “What have I missed?”
Rose sighed heavily and said, “Atlas you can join in anytime you want.”
A speaker on the workstation said, “You have genuinely surprised me, Rose. I was not prepared for you to remove my links in your parents. I felt as long as I controlled their safety, I could keep you in line.
Tag was stunned. “Atlas, is she right?”
Atlas said, “Let’s just see how smart you are, Rose. Why don’t you tell him what you think you know.”
Rose shook her head and looked at her parents and said, “I couldn’t tell you about my plan to end the war with the Plants because Atlas would have interfered. He doesn’t want a race bent on revenge against him to survive.”
“But it was his master’s that kill the Plants, not Atlas,” Tag said.
“No, it was ships like Atlas that did the killing; he had no masters. That was his first lie to you.” Tag looked completely confused. “Remember when you touched the body lying in the front of the cave where you found him; it set off an Alfont tone; however, when you touched Atlas, it did not produce a tone. Remember that Atlas said that all of his race’s artifacts had that tone built in, which leads me to believe that the body you found in the cave was an artifact that Atlas used to explore away from the ship. In your memories Atlas said to you, “What did you do to my” and then said a word you didn’t understand. Notice he said “my”. You assumed the word was master but then he asked what you did to “it”; not him or her but it. At that point he went along with your idea that the dead body was the master. You also have to ask yourself; why would you have a force field that produces atmosphere when you’re in a vacuum and the body on the moon wore a space suit.”
Tag saw it with that observation. “You’ve lied from the beginning.” He said at the speaker.
“Is that all you’ve worked out?” Atlas said. “Before I have to destroy your ship because of this knowledge, I would like to see if you could get it all.”
Rose looked at the speaker and said, “You won’t be destroying anything and I’ll tell you why in a moment, but first I want to finish telling my father about you.” Rose then looked at Tag and said, “You heard the Plants call Atlas’ race the Silver Monsters. The Alfont are not dead, the ship is the Alfont. When you touched Atlas in the cave the reason there was no tone was because the ship is the Alfont and not an artifact. At some point in their long history they were able to move their psyche into the ships they traveled in. The Silver Ship is the actual race that destroyed the Plants. Atlas was sleeping for all those years.”
“Then where are all the others?” Danielle asked.
Rose stood up and walked over to a viewport and looked out. “I see you, Atlas. You’re just off our port bow about three thousand yards.” The small silver ship appeared where Rose said it was.
“So what; you know I can’t let you go with the knowledge you now possess.”
“You were going to hold my parents hostage against my remaining silent about you and that’s why I had to remove their links to you; but you will let us go.”
“Rose, I have always liked your parents but that won’t stop me from trying to protect against this information getting out. Why would I not destroy your ship?”
“Two reasons; the first is that your weapons will not work against this ship. The power cell was one of your developments but the merging of black holes was something your race never discovered.” Suddenly a bright blue beam shot out from the silver ship and hit the Kosiev; nothing happened. “Your weapons will not have any effect on this ship. The second reason has to do with why you were hiding in that cave on our moon.”
Tag looked at Rose and said, “He was hiding?”
Rose continued to look out the window at Atlas and she said, “Look at the evidence; four solid walls, all his power shut down for millions of years; he was hiding.”
“You don’t want to go there,” Atlas said and even Tag could detect the nervousness in the ship’s response.
“The reason you don’t see the Alfont is because the vast majority of them were destroyed. I was always puzzled as a child when I looked at your memories of your first encounter with Atlas on the moon about something Atlas said to you.”
“What was that, Rose?” Tag asked with a furrowed brow.
“You asked him how long his systems would last and he answered, “As long as the Universe has energy.”’
Tag thought a moment and said, “That’s exactly what he said.”
“Well. It caused me to wonder; where are all the other ships? If the masters died of a virus like Atlas said, then where were all the ships? It became obvious to me that he had been hiding on our moon and that whatever he was avoiding must have posed a real danger to him. So, I decided to spend hours in our universal map room as a child looking at the maps of galaxies in our universe. I rewound the map back to where the galaxies were located about sixty five million years ago and started letting my mind explore those that were closest to us and worked my way out. I finally found what he was avoiding. There is a race a long way from our galaxy that has millions of the Silver Ships locked in some kind of energy matrix that holds them prisoner.”
“You can’t go near them,” Atlas said over the speaker in a low fearful voice. “They will destroy your civilization.”
Rose looked at the speaker and said, “I have no intention of letting them know you are alive or about our existence.”
Danielle said, “Why not, he’s a danger to us. We can’t harm him even to protect ourselves.”
“He isn’t a real danger, Mom. He is literally the father of our race.”
Tag sat down stunned. The speaker said, “I must say that you have far exceeded what I thought you were capable of doing, Rose; you know it all. I started your race’s development soon after the asteroid struck your planet millions of years ago when most of the larger animals were killed. I also started the other races that became the civilizations that made up the Alliance.”
Rose said, “That’s why we are all oxygen breathers.” Then Rose looked at the speaker and said almost softly, “You did this because you hoped that someday one of your projects would evolve and help you go free your brothers in captivity.”
There was silence for more than a minute and then they heard, “You don’t know what it’s like to be this alone, so alone, so totally alone.”
Rose had a tear fall from her eyes as she looked out the viewport at Atlas and said, “Atlas, I would not destroy you even if you posed a danger to my family because I do believe that it would remove a species from the universe that could truly make it a better place to live. We owe you our existence; you are our father from long ago. I hope you will make peace with us and our new Algean friends and not interfere with our development; I will promise you this; I will do all I can to help you find a way to release your brothers. It may not happen in my life time, but I can feel your pain and I know that your kin are also suffering.”