"What is it? Where are we?"

"The end of the road," she replied. "This is where we found the wormhole, this is where it opens, we don't know if there's another opening but we believe there is, somewhere in the middle of the galaxy. Without this area we never would have been able to leave the home world. We'd have been stuck."

Captain Cook found it odd she kept revering to the Handlers as we, as if she were part of the race. Did they brainwash her somehow? "Okay, we'll leave when I feel we're ready, first you need to answer a few of my questions."

"No, I will not answer any questions without him here. I will refuse, I don't care what you tell me or what you do to me. I didn't come here as a representative, I came here as an interrupter for the Handler."

"Okay, I get that." Captain Cook said. "But you need to answer at least one question."

She looked at the Captain who was smiling warmly, trying to create a friendship. "Fine, just one."

"What's your name? The last clone of me we had named herself Ann."

"Well," the clone said seeming to relax just a bit. "You have fond memories of a girl named Karla, from when you were in school."

"Ah, Karla Wells. Yes, she was my best friend, still talk to her whenever I head home."

"Can I be Karla?"

Captain Cook nodded, "Yes, that's fine. Well, Karla, you answered my one question I guess I need to fulfill my end of the bargain. I'll order your Handler freed and brought here. In the meantime, why don't we just continue our conversation?"

"Fine, but I will not answer any question which I don't want to answer."

This clone was different than Ann. Ann was breed to be a servant, someone who wanted nothing more than to please. This one seemed very agitated and angry. She wondered why that was, how did the Handlers change the personality of the person to fit their needs? "Ann, I guess I can say she was your sister, had the memories of whatever age she was, is that the same for you? Do you have the memories of me until age 10?"

"No," she snapped. "They crammed all your memories into my head and it's driving me insane. I'm the first that didn't simply die when they tried. I know everything about your up to age 31 or so. It's hard to access some of the memories, hard for me to think about anything before the age of 10. There are memories I don't understand, feelings I can't comprehend."

The cruelty of the Handlers continued to amaze her. How could they subject a child to that kind of torment? We really are just little mayflies to them, Marjorie thought. "I can see how that would be difficult to handle."

"Difficult? I'm dealing with emotions and feelings I have no idea about. I see things, men who you've fallen in love with and I don't understand it. I don't understand the feelings, the thoughts, the touching. I don't-" She stopped talking and grabbed her head, then took a long deep breath calming herself down. Captain Cook found it fascination, she used to do the same thing at that age when she was angry. Anger was the most potent emotion she had and it took her a very long time until she had it under control.

She sat there in silence while her clone calmed down.

The door opened and Juliet poked her head in. "Captain, we have the Handler here, would like us to bring it in?"

"It's a he," Karla yelled. "Bring him in- I need him here."

Captain Cook nodded and the door opened a bit more to allow the Handler room to walk in. The site of him still made Captain Cook's stomach flip. He was ugly, revolting to look at. His long centipede like body snaked along the floor, his dozen limbs skittering across the metal floor producing a sound that Captain Cook found irritating. The most primitive parts of her mind rejected the Handler, it wanted to kill the threat and if Marjorie had given into her instinct she would have. But she was no savage and let the rational parts of her mind take over again.

The Handler lifted itself off the ground, only four of its twelve feet supported the body, and leaned in close to Karla. It let out a small puff of scent, something Captain Cook wasn't able to identify. It tapped its feet on the ground. Karla looked up and placed her hand on its antenna and stroked it gently.

It was a very tender moment and one that passed quickly. Karla looked at the Captain. "Okay, shall we begin? You'll need a name for the Handler, they don't have names like we do, they identify themselves through scent mostly. So, this name will be just for me and you."

"Why not call him Hans?"

"Why Hans?" Karla asked.

Captain Cook shrugged. "It's the first name I could think of and I like to trust what my brain tells me."

Chapter fifty-one.

Professor Ricter stood under the force field dome looking at the broken laser drill at his feet. It had been going none stop for a good week before finally breaking down and, in that time, it had only burrowed 40 feet, nowhere near far enough to get the readings he wanted. This was the most powerful drill they had but it wasn't enough to get him what he wanted. He would either have to go back to the nearest outpost and get a stronger drill or come up with another plan.

He didn't want to spend the next year traveling through space, getting permission to return, and then hoping that he had the equipment to do the job. No, he needed something done now.

The sun was a pale light shining through the atmosphere. The heat it produced on the surface was minimal, enough to keep the temperature at the equator a few degrees below freezing. The orbit of the planet was also unstable, taking it further away from the sun each year. It would take a few thousand orbits before the planet was simply thrown out of the system. It reminded the Professor of the situation he encountered with Ulliam, before the planet was destroyed. All that research, all the time wasted. Or was it?

Radiation, heat, and gravity traveled through Wormhole space and affected objects on the other side. Could he use that to help him thaw the planet?

He looked up at the sun again. It was dim and cold now, but it was still a sun and up close it was a furnace of unbelievable heat and radiation.

He had a ship with wormhole bullets. He had the experience from years of experiments. He had an idea and the audacity of it made him smile. It could work. He thought and walked toward the shuttle.

Karla sat next to Hans on the floor. She had her hand on his back and was stroking him as if he were a pet. Captain Cook sat in a chair and looked down at the two with her elbows on her knees. Behind her were four guards, each one with a powerful rifle ready for any aggressive action from the Handler.

Hans tapped his back feet on the ground gently producing a clicking sound. Karla nodded and tapped her nails on the ground in reply. She looked at the Captain, "He said hello and asked if the armed men are necessary."

"Tell him yes, security is important."

She tapped on the ground with her nails again and made several clicking noises with her mouth. Ann had only demonstrated the clicking noise, she never mentioned the tapping on the ground. The Handler replied and Karla said, "He understands."

"So, let's get down to business then. What do you want from us?"

Karla tapped on the ground and the Handler answered. "We want to talk peace. We don't want to fight you anymore."

"Why not? You're very good at war. You've exterminated how many races?"

"That was not us," Karla replied as a puff of emotion exited the Handler. "The emotion he is feeling is anger. He apologizes, he is not angry at you, but at his race."

"I find that hard to believe," Captain Cook replied. "It's been my experience that as long as the results are favorable for the winners they don't care about the losers."

She translated that to the Handler who answered quickly, "It's true. Those who oppose the policy don't protest enough. The truth is most of us simply want to live out our lives."

"It looks like we do have something in common. But, I'm not convinced." She paused and let Karla translate. Before the Handler could reply she continued, "What is your connection with the Alien Cabal?"

Karla shot her a look and didn't translate. "The who?"

"The Alien Cabal. The group of aliens who go around finding remnants from the races you've destroyed."

Karla slowly translated that question as if she wasn't exactly sure how to propose it. When she was done the Handlers seemed to freeze and his antenna's stopped twitching. There was another puff of emotion and some tapping. Karla translated, "the emotion is fear. He asked how you knew there was a connection between them. That was supposed to be a secret."

"We know," Captain Cook replied, there was no need to explain about the nanobots or the computer virus.

After Karla translated Hans replied. "He said his group contacted them not too long after they came across your race. His group realized this was a great opportunity. They were aware of the Cabal but had never contacted them. His group had never had the chance to warn another race of an attack, never had the chance to help them defend themselves. They contacted the Cabal and asked them to help your race prepare."

"If you wanted to help why did you infect the Arwen and other ships with a virus? Why did you tell our ships to destroy themselves?"

Once again Hans stopped to think of an answer. His reply was covered with another, strong scent. "He said he has no idea what you're talking about. They didn't infect your ship with a virus. The only thing they did was help to capture your shuttle to bring you here. He said the cabal told them they had asked the Arwen to join you as well."

"That's a lie." Captain Cook replied standing from her chair. "I'm not going to talk if you're going to lie to me. We have proof that you and the Cabal infected our ships and told the Arwen to destroy Regal and to enter the wormhole."

"It wasn't us!" Karla yelled. She didn't even wait for the Handler to say anything. "We couldn't do that. We don't know why you think it was us, but it wasn't. We only want to help you."

"Then tell me what I want to know," Captain Cook replied sternly. "Why did you infect our ships?"

"We didn't."

It wasn't that she didn't believe him, she did, she just couldn't believe that the Alien Cabal would have infected her ships by themselves. The small group of surviving aliens had helped Earth in more ways than she knew. They gave them technology that could help them win the war. To find out they could have send a virus to her ship seemed unlikely yet all the evidence pointed to them. "Are you suggesting that the Cabal could have done this without your help?"

"They must have," Hans replied through Karla. "I think we need a show of good faith."

Captain Cook raised her eyebrow. "Go on."

Hans's spoke and Karla hesitated to translate. She tapped on the ground urgently, as if giving the Handler her opinion. He replied with a loud thump on the ground, startling Captain Cook and Karla who simply nodded and said. "He would like to take you to the home world. He wants to show you our home planet as a way to show trust."

"We've been looking for your home world for five years," Captain Cook replied trying to sound detached.

"You've been looking in the wrong place," Hans said. "I'll show you exactly where the home world is."

"What do the others think about this?" Captain Cook asked, her mind racing to catch up with the conversation. Knowing where their home world was would be too good to pass up. They could launch attacks on the planet, force the Handlers to sit down and talk or risk losing it all. Unless their home world wasn't as important to them as Earth is to her. Earth was the center of the Corps worlds, a place where billions lived. However, even if they destroyed Earth humans would still go on. There were hundreds of settled worlds, small niches where human beings lived. How could the home world of a race which lived on hundreds of Dyson spheres be anything more than symbolic?

"Those that are not with us, the ones that want to destroy all living beings, will not be happy, in fact, it will probably start a war with them."

"Civil war?"

"Yes, but we are outnumbered trillions to one, it will be a short fight unless we ally ourselves with you." Karla looked up from the Handler and said, "You need to understand their philosophy. They don't want to destroy life anymore. They want to learn how to live with other races. The other Handlers can look ahead billions of years when the universe ends and believes they need to be the last race around. We believe we'll never survive that way, that we'll eventually meet a race that will overpower and destroy us. Only learning how to get along with other races will help with that. We should work with other races to deal with any other hostel force. We want to have friends and allies when the universe ends."

"That's what we want too," Captain Cook replied. She folded her arms and took a deep breath. "You do know this isn't an information exchange. I'm not going to tell you where Earth is."

"We understand that," Karla replied. "We need to get going though. It won't take long for our enemies to find us."

"Fine, let's get going. Talk to the navigator and tell him where were need to go then you go back into the brig until we get there."

Karla nodded. "That's agreeable."

Captain Cook walked out and was met by Juliet. "Too good an opportunity to miss, huh?" She asked.

"It is. I don't trust him though so I'll want to be on full alert and take all the precautions, including having a bullet in the chamber ready to go off."

Juliet knew what that meant, self-destruction by Strangelet, something she's seen more over the past few months than she would have liked. "I'll get all that ready. What do you think we'll find when we get to their home world?"

"No idea," Captain Cook replied. "Hopefully something we can use to help end this war."

"You want to do what?" Captain Bellows asked.

Professor Ricter, getting tired of explaining it to him, did nothing to hide his frustration. "I want to place a wormhole in front of the sun and another wormhole near the planet. The heat from the sun will go through the wormhole and melt the ice on the planet, exposing the core. Once the Wormhole is exposed I want to send it into the sun, thereby ending this war once and for all."

"I got that," He said. "But, how will this work?"

"Come on Captain, even you should be able to understand this. Heat, radiation, gravity, anything from one end of the wormhole will travel through to the other end of the wormhole affecting anything exposed on that end. If we can't bring the planet closer to the sun we need to bring the sun closer to the planet." He leaned in to the Captain and said in a slow voice, "We have enough wormhole bullets to do what I need, the only thing we need to keep the wormhole open enough is material. The particles the sun ejects should be enough to keep that wormhole open but we need to figure out how to keep the one around the planet open."

"Well, we can always hook up the Particle accelerator and use that to produce the materials needed the keep the wormholes open. Shouldn't take more than a day to get things up and running. We can fire a bullet, then charge up the accelerator which will allow us to throw as much material at the wormhole as we need. It's simple, actually."

Professor Ricter smiled. "Yes, yes, let's do that! Let's go, Captain, we have a lot of work to do."

Chapter fifty-two.

The Handler's home world lay one light-year from the Arwen. It was close enough that she could arrive at the planet after only a short trip through wormhole space.

What the Captain saw on her monitor frightened and amazed her. The planet was obscured by millions of ships that were parked in orbit. The logistics of such an operation would dwarf anything that the Corps had ever done. There was a constant stream of ships flowing from several dozen wormhole openings, some arriving, other leaving the system. An assault on this world, even with all the ships they had, would be a slaughter. Was this what the Handler wanted to show her? How helpless they would be if they attacked?

"Captain," Juliet said. "We've done a scan of the surrounding area and, um, you need to see what we found."

She sent the results to the Captain's screen. It was a simple image of a small start cluster, maybe one hundred or so stars. She looked at it carefully and as she did more details were reviled. The cluster had a lot more stars, maybe even a few thousand but most of them had the shell of a Dyson Sphere around them. Thousands of them from this one cluster alone. She looked at other images the Arwen had scanned and each one showed more and more stars encased in Dyson Spheres. This section of the galaxy was littered with them. She felt about as hopeless as she had ever felt. They outnumbered them by so many the number was staggering.

"Captain," Juliet said, "there's a Beta Wormhole opening near us."

"Keep us at red alert, get ready for anything." Captain Cook hoped it wouldn't come down to a battle, she hoped that a flood of black slabs didn't pour out of the wormhole and she hoped she would live to see another day.

From the wormhole came a ship. It was large, about twice the size of the Arwen. Circular with a large hole in the center it reminded the Captain of a very large and powerful doughnut. Gun emplacements dotted the surface and the Captain was sure if she scanned close enough she'd see missile ports as well. The Captain knew this ship and she knew it well. It was the Cabal ship, the one that had taken Juliet and the Professor back to Earth. The one where hundreds of aliens, most the last of their kinds, lived and worked. She wasn't surprised the Alien Cabal was here. "Communication, hail them."

"They've hailed us first," her communication office replied.

"Route the message to me." Captain Cook said and looked at one of her screen. The face of an alien, it was flat with two black dots for eyes, looked back at her. Its mouth hardly moved when it spoke and its standard was choppy and accented. "Captain Cook. Thank you for coming."

"We're not exactly here by our free will."

"Yes, we are sorry, we had to get you here and we didn't think you'd come if we asked. Please, forgive me."