“Do it just that way, Newton. You might also get those teleporting away to move to the other side of the planet to leave. Notify the planet and make sure they know the plan.”
The Director of the Keepers Fleet watched his board as his ships moved in-system from the jump limit. He could see the huge population’s mental signature and knew there were billions of Green Creatures. Two intervals into the system the population’s mental signature appeared weaker. He directed a thought to his sensor operator, “I think the strength of my signal has changed.”
“It has; about ten percent weaker.”
“What caused that?”
“I’ve checked the sensor system and it appears to be operating normally, but there is no doubt; the signal is weaker.”
An interval passed and the Director saw another signal reduction, “What is happening here?”
“I cannot account for the change, Director. It is now twenty percent weaker.”
The Director watched his board all the way in to the planet and the signal dropped ten percent every interval the fleet moved closer to the planet. At one interval the signal disappeared completely. “Scan that planet visually.”
The sensor operator scanned with the ship’s optical system, “There are no inhabitants on the planet.”
“But I see buildings and vehicles and everything that would indicate this planet is heavily populated.”
“Perhaps, but nothing shows up on my scans.”
“Send ten scouts down to the surface. Now!”
The huge fleet of a hundred thousand brown ships waited in orbit as the ten scouts flew down and scanned the surface. “They report nothing, Director.”
“Have them land and check the buildings.”
The ten scouts landed and the fifty Keepers moved into the buildings. “Director, there is no one here. The buildings all have power and appear to have been occupied, but there is no one here now.”
The Director was at a loss as to what was happening. Who would construct an entire planet with buildings, vehicles, and all the other elements of an advanced civilization just to deceive our scanners? That would also suggest that his fleet was expected.
“Edison?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“My Searchers have been looking closely at those ships as they moved in-system and report that their drives seem to have a different color on the edges than the hull.”
“Show me what you’ve recorded, please.”
Joseph Gardner pushed a button on his console and Edison saw the close up of the ships’ drives. “It is a different color, and now that they have stopped in orbit I can see that it appears that the inner wall of those drives is also a different color.” Edison thought a moment and said, “I know you are probably tempted to fire a penetrator up one of those drives to see if we could disable one of their ships, but if we do we will give away the fact that we can hide from them. We need to use this when we can do the most damage, and that would not be now.”
Joe smiled, “I agree. We’ll plan how to use this, but for now let’s try to keep them jumping around. What do you think they’ll do next?”
“Why, go to another planet and try again. Do we have Searchers at all of our planets?”
“Yes, and they have optical scanners placed far enough in-system to see if any stars have their light disrupted. We may not see them initially, but we’re confident we will see them. The problem will be if they decide to go to a planet of another race. We only have the Spider planets covered now. There are not enough ships coated yet to use for all our members.”
Edison continued to look at the picture of the brown ship’s drives, “I feel reasonably certain that their instructions are to eliminate us first. I will be surprised if they violate those.”
“We have also placed some stealth probes to follow their jump tracks, so we should be able to know where they’re going. Between the probes and the Searchers we should be able to keep the populations of most planets safe for the moment.”
“What about those planets that are not members?”
Joe was silent for a long moment, “Then there will be a huge loss of life. Those populations will not be able to teleport away. Let us hope that doesn’t happen.”
Edison looked at his screen again and agreed with Joe Gardner. “We can only hope.”
The Directors of all the invading Keepers ships were connected telepathically and had a common intelligence. “How do we account for this event?” After a few minutes of reflection the consensus of all their opinions replied, “Either all of our sensors are defective, which is highly unlikely, or the beings in this universe have a way of deceiving our scans.”
A secondary consensus commented, “Or the population evacuated as we approached the target planet.”
The sum of the Director’s thoughts reflected on that thought. “That would indicate a level of technology that is so far ahead of us that they would not need to evacuate. It also begs the question of how a population could jump away inside the barrier to star travel. It must be a means of deceiving our scanners; notice that as we moved closer the true surface of the planet was revealed. The Sensor Operators consensus asked, “Then how do we find a planet with a real population? I cannot distinguish the difference.”
The Lead Director ordered, “Pick another planet and we will go investigate.”
“The selection is on your screen, Director.”
“Edison?”
“Yes, Einstein?”
“What happens when their fleet moves out of the system and they don’t see any population on the planet? Won’t that give them a suspicion to believe the population was moved?”
Edison jumped up from his board, “Contact the leader of Hallago and have him teleport the population back in at ten percent per hour.” Edison looked at his board receiving the feed from the Searchers in the Hallago system, “They just started moving away; we have fifty minutes to get ten percent back on the planet.”
Einstein pushed his com.
“Director, my scan shows the population rising on the planet as we move away.”
“Then it must be caused by a technological device.”
“Should we send a ship back to investigate?”
The Director thought a moment, “No, we saw there was no one there. Keep me informed if the numbers increase as we move away. That will confirm a mechanism that deceives our scanners.”
After five hours the Sensor Operator thought, “The population is now at the identical level when we were here on the way to the planet.”
“We are going to have to find a way to defeat this technology. Perhaps it is only this planet that possesses it. How long before we jump to the next target?”
“Five intervals to move outside the star drive barrier, two more to organize for the jump. The next planet is fifteen intervals inside the barrier.”
The Director leaned back on his four legs, “This has been a waste of time so far. Perhaps the next target will offer an opportunity to destroy the ancient enemy.”
Jackson Grant was puzzled. The community had replaced all those taken with new births and now the population was fifty over the limit set by the Keepers. The population had never grown more than twenty over the limit without the Keepers coming to take the surplus. This was unheard of in the community’s history. How was this happening? He found his thoughts kept going to the Good Luck Man. There was just no way the two could be related, but nothing different had happened. He thought about it for an hour, then sent a messenger to bring Kathea. Kathea arrived and Jackson said, “Sit down, Kathea.”
Kathea knew Jackson and highly respected him. All the Humans gave great respect to their chosen leader, and Jackson was one that everyone liked immensely. Kathea sat down on a rocker outside Jackson’s quarters and smiled, “Hello, Jackson. Why have you called me to come here?”