THREE

 

 

Laverne looked at all four of us and smiled. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Patty said.

Imagining was the least of my issues at the moment. I just wanted to get my brain working to even have a thought that made sense.

“There is something I need to show you all,” Laverne said.

A moment later I found myself standing next to Patty in a dark space that smelled faintly of cleaner.

The lights came up slowly until the massive space was bright with light. What was around me made no sense at all to my poor poker brain. There were a good fifty chairs at what looked to be some sort of futuristic computer station.

All the stations were coming to life as well, showing readings in a language that looked like something from Egypt to me.

The gigantic room had a high, domed ceiling and was layered in half circles all facing a massive front wall that was blank. Most of the panels and chairs were around the walls on the top half circle.

There was a secondary circle of stations on a slightly lower level and then down in the center was a station with four chairs. Two big ones sort of melded together and one on each side of the big one.

Everything seemed to be focused on the massive blank wall that filled a third of the room in front of the lower level.

It looked like a control room for a massive power station or something.

“This is the bridge of our ship, Olympus,” Laverne said.

Ship! What kind of ship?

Again my poor brain was going back into lockdown. For being a hero who had helped save the world a bunch of times, I was sure having trouble today just keeping it together.

“Welcome back,” Chairman,” a soft, female computer voice said. “Welcome Commander.”

The huge screen in front of the massive room came alive, but it showed nothing but a faint light.

“It is good to be back,” Laverne said.

“Agreed,” Ben said.

Laverne was called Chairman and Ben had been a commander. Confused didn’t even begin to describe how I was feeling. Numb seemed to be closer to accurate.

“Status of Olympus?” Laverne asked.

“All systems are active and on standby,” the computer voice said. “All are tested regularly and any issues repaired.”

“Good,” Laverne said.

“Any crew on board at this point?” Ben asked.

“None of the crew has returned in over seven hundred years planet time,” the ship said.

Laverne nodded. “Please recognize these three new arrivals as official members of the crew.”

“Understood,” the big ship said. “Welcome.”

I think my brain got my body to say “Thank you.”

Patty did the same.

Stan just nodded.

“Olympus,” Laverne said, “Can you give us an image of space outside this ship on the big screen please, aimed sunward?”

So we were on a spaceship? In space.

Good to know.

It sure didn’t feel like I thought space would feel.

A massive image of stars spread out over the screen. Beautiful didn’t begin to describe it. Millions and millions of stars filled that screen.

“Oh, my,” Patty said.

“Please indicate the sun we orbit,” Laverne said.

A line was drawn around one tiny star that looked only slightly brighter than the others. Wow, we were a long, long way out in space if that was the sun.

Laverne turned to the three of us. “We are in an orbit just outside the system where Earth lives. The ship is hidden among debris here and made to look like a small moon on the outside. It is completely shielded.

“Why?” Patty asked a half second before I could. “If you have this ship here, why didn’t you just move on? Or go home. Or whatever?”

“Our home has always been Olympus,” Laverne said, a touch of pride in her voice. “This ship is about the same size as the Earth moon and can hold hundreds of thousands at any given point.”

“Were you born on this ship?” I asked Laverne.

She shook her head. “I was born in a distant galaxy and recruited with my husband to have the honor to be the Chairman of this wonderful ship. Olympus was my home for sixty thousand years before we arrived here through a series of accidents.”

“So Olympus is working?” I asked.

“I am working, Poker Boy,” the ship’s voice said.

“We chose to stay and live on the planet,” Ben said. “At least for a time.”

A time? I had a hunch that forty thousand years was more than the time they had planned to start.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because we found aliens,” Laverne said. “Three different races, actually, all growing and expanding in the same galaxy. Titans, Elves and Dwarves, and Silicon Suckers.”

“Normally,” Ben said, “it was rare to find even one alien race in the billions of worlds in a galaxy. We did not mingle with alien races in any way. We just gave the galaxy a wide pass and moved on. The universe is a very empty place out there. Alien races are very rare and seldom survive, let alone move between stars as the three in this galaxy have done.”

“But this one planet and a dozen others, through complete error and circumstance, we had already seeded with humans in this galaxy,” Laverne said. “Some of our seeder ships got out ahead of us and this galaxy was not well scouted, clearly.”

“Seeder ships?” Patty asked, again a second before my brain could ask the same question.

“That was the Olympus mission,” Laverne said. “To seed human cultures through the different galaxies.”

“So once we discovered the mistake, we decided to stop,” Ben said, “pull in all our ships, and go into hiding here and help the planets with humans survive.”

“And thanks to this team,” Laverne said, indicating me and Patty and Stan, “We are continuing to do that on the last human planet left in this galaxy.”

“What happened to the others?” Stan asked.

“We lost many battles in the war,” Laverne said.

There was no chance in hell I was going to ask more about that.

“Do you see a time when many of you will return to Olympus and move on?” Patty asked.

Laverne nodded. “At some point, in the distant future, we hope to do just that. And with many new crew members.”

Laverne looked at the three of us. “But first we need to keep this planet, this last human world in this galaxy, safe for as long as we can.”

That much I understood.

Saving the world made sense to me. Spaceships on the other hand were another matter altogether.

Laverne turned. “Olympus, would you please ask my husband to join me. We need to check in with Chairman Wade if it has been seven hundred years.”

“I will be glad to, Chairman,” Olympus said.

Laverne turned to me. “Now, we have answered the question as to our origin. But you three will need to keep it to yourselves. Most of the new gods and superheroes do not know of Olympus yet.”

I nodded, completely understanding. “May we visit Olympus again to get a tour, if that would be all right with Olympus?”

“Yes, please,” Patty said.

Stan nodded.

“I would be honored,” Olympus said. “If the Chairman gives permission.”

“They will always have my permission,” Laverne said.

I nodded to Laverne. “Thank you for being honest with us.”

She nodded and a moment later I was sitting next to Patty in the booth in my floating office over Las Vegas.

My half-eaten part of our cheeseburger still actually looked good.

Ben was smiling, staring at all of us.

Stan just shook his head and dug into his remaining fries and cheeseburger. I hoped someday to be that calm and collected about world-shattering news as Stan was.

“Thank you,” I said to Ben.

“For exactly what?” he asked, smiling.

“For answering what seemed to be a silly question with respect.”

“Our history should always be respected,” he said. “Here and on Olympus.”

“There is a lot to learn,” I said.

“We have time,” Ben said, smiling.

I nodded and went back to working on my cheeseburger. Before today I had thought the history here on Earth of the gods and superheroes was complex and a lot to learn. Now I also had thousands of years of Olympus history as well to try to figure out.

I was going to need a lot of years.

More than I could probably imagine at the moment.

A whole lot more.