Chapter No.52.

When the Avenger arrived near Earth, everyone was surprised by what they saw.

"The major cities look deserted," Evan said. "There's no evidence of travel on the oceans as well as in the air."

"I'm not surprised," Ryan said. "Earth is in a phased conversion to being uninhabitable."

"The space ports are unoccupied," Myra said. "There are no vessels in orbit. I'm not detecting any signals from the surface."

"There is evidence of human activity," Alma said. "This looks like agricultural activity." The display on the main screen exhibited a plowing operation. Several tractors pulling wide plows were moving in unison across a large level plot in the Midwest plains of what was North America.

"Infrared scans indicate that they are being operated by humans."

"Well, it appears that some humans have survived," Ryan said.

"There is no evidence of any threat to our vessel," Myra said.

Everyone on the Command deck intently watched the main screen as the Avenger moved around the planet to the night side.

"There are some lights on the dark side," Alma said. "But they are isolated and much less than normal."

"Assuming there is a normal," Ryan said. "We can assume that Earth has a much smaller human population." He turned to ask Chara something, but what he saw made him cringe.

"Oh my God! Chara has shut down!"

"So did Alma!" Myra said, her voice cracking.

"What the fuck is going on?" Evan yelled. "My console indicates that all of the androids have shut down!"

"I think I might have discovered a reason," Myra said. "I'm detecting a sub space signal emanating from a location in the Rockies."

Ryan got up out of his seat behind Chara and turned to Gary. "Help me get Chara out of her chair."

Gary came over and helped Ryan pull Chara out of her chair and lay her on the floor. Ryan sat down in the pilot's chair and began arming a small missile. He turned to Myra. "Give me the coordinates of the sub space signal."

Myra sent that to the pilot's command system. Ryan programmed the missile to launch and travel to that location. The missile exited the ship and began a powered course to the target, a bunker deep within a mountain in Colorado.

Everyone on the command deck watched the missile reach its target and detonate in a brilliant flash of blinding light.

"The signal stopped," Myra revealed.

Ryan went to Chara, but she was still inoperative. "I believe this must have been a shutdown signal. We're going to have to go through the android system programming to find it. I'll need you to help me."

"Why do we need these androids?" Evan asked. "They only need us to repair them. If they're all inoperative, we don't need them."

"I beg to differ. The androids control the nanobots that are keeping us alive, and they are the only ones who can program them. Without their constant contact with the nanobots the tiny bastards will eventually kill us and believe me our deaths will not be pleasant."

"Why in the hell did they program them like that?"

"Because they have the same nanobots running through their fluidic systems to keep their electronics working properly. They adapted them to work in us, but those tiny devils must be under their control at all times, or they will malfunction."

Evan didn't react to his statement. He realized that it was a serious situation.

"Keep close watch," Ryan told his human crew. "There could be other attempts to destroy us."

He and Myra rushed down to the android lab. Myra sat down at the main computer system that contained the android operating systems.

"I think this might have been a last-ditch attempt by Space Command to stop rogue androids from taking over," Ryan said. "Obviously, they didn't shut the system down before they all died off."

"They must have sent a signal that initiated a fail-safe shut down to their operating systems. Even if I could locate it, it might be too late to reverse its effects."

"It's our only shot at a success," Ryan replied. "Otherwise, this fantasy journey of ours will end badly."

Myra didn't like the fact that success depended on her. However, she was determined to find the problem no matter what it took.

Ryan helped her by working through the main android command programming. He was somewhat familiar with the original methods that were used, but he was dealing with much more advanced coding.

After several minutes of intense work, Myra found something. "I think I see what they did. The signal triggered a complete shutdown by incorporating a zombie worm into the main operating code."

"An appropriate description. Let's make sure they didn't introduce a destruct command in that worm."

That required several minutes of searching though millions of lines of code. Myra eventually found something that would have destroyed all the android code, and she eradicated it.

Ryan entered a command to restart all the androids, but it would take time to work, so he headed back up to the command deck to see how things were going there.

"We haven't detected any new threats so far," Evan said. "Did you figure out what happened?"

Ryan noticed that Chara's eye lids were fluttering. She looked up at him from the floor. "What happened?"

"Space Command had installed a subspace signal generator in a bunker in the Colorado Rockies. It detected your presence and that initiated a shut-down zombie worm infecting the android operating system code. Myra and I eradicated that code and restored the primary system code before we rebooted it."

Chara stood up. "I am grateful for what you have done. It is clear that we must act together to maintain our existence."

"I concur. We are now one in all things."

Chara smiled and then took her place at the pilot's station. "I am taking us to the ninth planet."

Ryan knew why she wanted to go there so he remained quiet.

Myra returned to the command deck. "I made sure that nothing can alter the main code by putting a lock on it."

"Good idea. We don't need any more surprises."

The Avenger moved out of Earth's orbit and began a protracted burn to go to the ninth planet. This action settled everyone down.

However, it wasn't until that evening when the humans gathered for their communal supper that the big question emerged.

"What's so important about this ninth planet?" Masha asked. "Did the remnants of Space Command go there to survive what happened to Earth?"

"I don't think so, but we'll have to see," Ryan replied. "A more important question to ask is how this planet is in a stable orbit with Earth."

"I thought that Chara figured that out," Myra said.

"I don't think her solution is valid," Ryan said. "I did a traditional computer simulation of the many bodies problem as it applied to Earth and Planet Nine, and it wouldn't have lasted for more than a hundred million years."

"Then, how did it last?"

"I believe there's something else out there, a large body of some sort that we can't see that maintain this orbital situation."

"Are you referring to a tenth planet?" Evan asked.

"I don't think it's a planet. I think it's something alien that's invisible in normal light."

"Why in the hell would an alien species come here to insert some object that we can't see into our solar system just to support an Earth like planet in the same orbit as Earth?"

"That's a good question," Ryan replied. "But it could have something to do with these androids becoming sentient."

"Are you suggesting that it's a robotic species who did this?" Myra asked.

"I don't know, but that's a possibility."

"Why would they do that?" Evan asked.

"Maybe because they want the universe to be ruled by artificial intelligence."

"That's crazy!" Marsha said.

"Yeah, that's true, but it might be what's happening. Think back to our last interaction with an AI based species. They warned us about AI based life being dangerous."

That sounds ominous," Marsha said.

"Yep," Evan said. "Maybe when we get to Planet Nine, we might be able to find evidence of robotic alien interference in our evolution into AI based life."

That made everyone shudder. They recalled what Ryan had said about how the nanobots in their bloodstreams were programmed by the androids. It meant that they were evolving into something that was not entirely human.