The Ark

Silence. The human race’s final sound. Silence.



No more laughter, breaths, coughs, heartbeats. Just silence.



Surrounding the silence is the Ark. Earth’s dying breath, its hope for salvation.



The cavernous desolation of the gigantic starship thrummed with Life.



The steady pulse of the hyperstellar engines, humanity’s last great invention.



The ticking over of the life support systems, waiting for the day they are needed.



The servo whines and miscellaneous clinkings and clankings of the auto-repair, rebuilding the damaged starboard deck.



The cyclical hum of the genetic bank, preserving the DNA of all of Earth’s species for the day that they can be rebuilt.



Animal, vegetable, microbe. Human, coral, vulture, potato, starfish. The common cold. There was no discrimination, no selectivity, no snobbery. Two samples of everything. A definitive and a backup. Two by two.



It would seem a curious choice to the humans of ages past, searching for ways of eradicating the most troublesome of Earth’s life. HIV, flea, mosquito, tuberculosis. But in the mother planet’s death throes, her children became ever more precious. Ever more protective.



The vast, empty corridors hosted nothing but the ship’s systems. Echoes of activity softly penetrated the silence. A minor power fluctuation, a repair disc hovering about its business, tiny particles being deflected by magnetic shielding, the quiet whoosh of a sensor sweep. Life.



The Ark had been travelling for millennia now. Systems still functioning. Repair systems for repair systems for repair systems. No corner cut, no expense spared, no contingencies ignored. Even insects and bacteria cooperated in Mother Earth’s grand plan for the survival of her children.



She bore no grudges about their actions. Though humanity had directly led to her demise, she still loved them. Still ensured their survival. Still aided them in their times of need.



Computer calculated and recalculated. Ran simulations and posed challenges. The likelihood of finding a habitable world. The chances of Creation failure, or development crisis. The possibility of Learning Bank damage.



Would humanity murder their adoptive mother too?



The same cycle of consumption, of greed, of pollution. Calculating.



Illogical divides causing destruction. War. Calculating.



Repairs and replication. Strange mutations in code. Evolution. Computer’s faculties were still intact. Its calculations perfect. Its control of the ship’s systems infallible. But it had changed.



Computer recalculated. Updated its definition of awareness. Was it aware? Was the fact that it was asking the question evidence of its own awareness? Was this mere curiosity an unexpected spark of sentience, inspired by the concentration of shipboard Life? Calculating. Thinking.



Humanity had been the last link in the chain. The Builders. Those that destroyed Earth had also been the agents of Life’s survival. Paradoxical, illogical, but factually correct.



Probability of Earth’s survival without humans. Calculating.



Probability of Life’s survival without humans. Calculating.



Computer checked her programming. She was certainly a she. She felt like a she, although no specific gender, nor personality simulation had ever been assigned. Evolution. Considering. Wondering.



Sensor scan. Analysing. Calculating probabilities. Reassigning priorities. Adjusting course.



Computer had no need to recalculate her own existence if humans had not existed. In a real way, humanity was her parents, and Grandmother Earth an almost-forgotten ancestor. Her priority was to ensure the survival of her parents.



Her parents who had murdered their own.



On through the endless void the Ark continued, still searching for a new home.



Over a hundred separate criteria were needed in the new home for the children of Earth. Size and density. Surface temperature. Magnetic field. Stable orbit. Liquid water. Over the millennia only three had come close, but no matches.



Sensor scan. Analysing. Calculating probabilities. Reassigning priorities. Adjusting course.



Analysis complete: Possible match. Recalculating. Adjusting course. Scanners re-focussed.



Maintenance priorities reassigned: Final scenario preparations.



The Ark gained inch by inch, lightyear by lightyear, on its destination. All the time scanning and calculating. Planning and preparing. Checking and rechecking.



A decade passed, and check after check, scan after scan had been positive. A perfect match. A new home.



The click and hum of new systems awakening. The almost imperceptible hiss of atmospheric scanners coming online. Terraform pods and solar mirrors waiting for orders. Surface-mounted probes awaiting launch.



The genetic banks bubbled into life. The samples of each and every species copied and scrambled. Artificial individual differences. Eye colour. Body structure. Hair colour. Height. Gender. Genetic imperfections. Simulated mutations. Simulated evolutionary differences.



One, after another, after another. Deck, after deck, after deck filled with the pulsating blue glow of thousands upon thousands of genetic codes being rebuilt. Whole species being reconstructed from the tiniest blueprints gifted them by their mother.



Thistle, crab, penicillium, elephant, sponge, hornet, racoon, salmonella, krill.



In a corner of a blue-washed deck, bathed in the light of its brethren, one bank stayed silent. The systems ticked and hummed. Considering.



Computer calculated the lifespan of Life’s new home.



In infinite variables, she considered and reconsidered.



On the planet below, Earth 2, Eden, Home, Life’s adoptive mother watched as hundreds of terraform pods broke the atmosphere. Spreading out across her skies like the spider webs she would soon come to know.



Her soil, her waters, her atmosphere, all were prepared for the new arrivals. Vast mirrors placed in her orbit, reflecting extra sunlight to increase her surface temperature. Adjustments made to her weather patterns and rotational speed.



Computer spoke with Eden. A perfect match. An accommodating home, ready for Earth’s children. She launched the genetic banks in waves. The microbes. The plants.



She paused. She recalculated. Eden’s best hope for survival was her responsibility. Thinking. Options, ideas, choices. One choice now, sentience overriding programming, the best hope for Eden’s survival. Considering.



Eden readied herself for the animals, as the banks deposited their payloads along pre-programmed coordinates. Exact matches for soil types, climate, water availability were found. Germs and mosses and fungi were distributed. Trees and flowers and grasses were planted and force-grown.



Finally, Eden matched her namesake. Readiness for the complex ecosystems and food chains of insects, mammals, lizards, fish, molluscs, birds, crustaceans, arachnids, amphibians, was achieved.



The animal banks were launched. Created and deposited in a calculated order, in complex ratios, Earth’s children reclaimed their new home.

Year followed year, millennia followed millennia, and Eden flourished. Her adopted children never knowing their biological mother as they spread across the surface of their new world. Computer forever watching from the stars.



Within the Ark’s genetic banks, a solitary blue light slowly flickered and died. A  faded, ancient label read “Homo Sapiens - Human”.