It was the year 2423.

Max was making one of his daily inspection rounds of his enormous luxury commercial transport spaceship, though he also had staff to do this. He liked to see for himself that everything was running smoothly, and personally greet his guests and customers. He would always check and make sure that their needs and desires were met, within reason. This was not a philosophy he devised on his own. When he was carrying out inspections he was a near-identical mirror of his father, who owned that very same ship before his untimely death. This ritual felt to him like an essential part of being captain. He couldn't imagine not doing it.

He made his way through the communal gardens, one of the ship’s many attractions. His guests were enjoying the gentle warmth of the very lifelike fake sun, which was just a very powerful ceiling light. They lay on the grass having food and enjoying the breeze generated by fans far from earshot. Children climbed the trees to pick fruit, dug in the dirt and played in the stream designed to look and feel just like a real outdoor stream. The walls displayed a 3D illusion of a distant landscape, so the guests felt less enclosed. Sparrows chirped up in the trees and bees buzzed around the flowers. It was an experience designed to feel like Earth when it was still unspoiled and unpolluted. Even the ship staff loved to stop by here for a break between their duties or during their off-time. After making sure the guests were happy, Max took in a deep breath of the floral scents before continuing his rounds in other areas of the ship.

On one of the residential decks, a young couple caught his attention as they chased each other, played games and laughed loudly. A few years ago this wouldn't have affected him, but lately he was having trouble sleeping due to his regrets about prioritising his career over meaningful relationships, romantic or otherwise. At first these thoughts only bothered him at night, but now even his daily activities didn't provide enough distraction. While he was not unpopular in his youth, he was hyper focused on his career at the cost of delaying relationships. Now that he has been focused on his career for so long, he could hardly remember how to make a genuine connection with another person. The thought of anything beyond professional politeness caused his heart rate to increase and his palms to sweat, while the voice of self-doubt chipped away at his confidence. The role of captain was his safe space, but paradoxically, he longed for something deeper and more fulfilling.

As he passed the young couple all he could achieve was a smile and a nod, hoping the soft ambient lighting would hide his misty eyes. To his relief they were too captivated with each other, barely acknowledging him. At the same time however, it brought him a sense of sadness. Sometimes he felt invisible as a person, even if he was respected as a ship captain.

Instead of spending time with friends outside of his captain duties, he would spend time with his many pets. Cats were present throughout the ship and were an advertised part of the enjoyment of the stay. As well as cats, there were several other small mammals and birds kept in luxury habitats, including rabbits, sparrows and mice, most of which were tame to handle. These animals were not just a hobby, they were his friends. Max was selective about who he would allow to handle his animals, and animal abusers who slipped through vetting would find themselves in the ship jail for the rest of their trip.

As he continued through the residential area he happened upon one of the child passengers aboard his ship. She was crouched on the ground facing away from him, laughing and babbling in some kind of incoherent baby-talk, yet the girl had to be at least 8-years-old. Suddenly, a white and ginger splotched cat emerged from behind her, and what Max was hearing and seeing all made sense. It was Biscuit! One of Max’s more attention-hungry cats. Biscuit’s tail was pointed up as she walked past the girl, rubbing against her side as it went. Then she stopped, turned around once more, softly chirruped and pushed her forehead and side into the girl affectionately. The girl erupted into joyful laughter as she petted her new furry friend. For a brief moment, Max was able to forget his own loneliness and simply appreciate the happiness of a child and a cat. However, it wasn't long before he was reminded of his own situation and how far he was from starting a family or raising children of his own.

***

Max thought it was a joke. Earth was under attack by an alien force and currently off-limits to all off-world travellers? There was no possible way it wasn’t a prank, yet it wasn’t at all funny. Eventually the realisation sunk in that such a joke would never be allowed over interstellar traffic control channels. He listened through his earpiece as he was instructed to keep it under wraps for the time being to avoid panic amongst his crew and passengers, and to maintain a course for their destination while awaiting further instructions. Max tried to follow up with his own questions but was cut off and unable to reconnect to the non-emergency channels, likely to make room for top priority level communications.

Despite the instructions Max was given to follow to keep things under wraps, news of the invasion spread much faster between individuals than anticipated. Max didn’t tell anyone yet within two days all of his passengers knew and were panicking. Many were begging the crew to turn the ship around and return to Earth, fearing for their loved ones left behind on the homeworld. Some passengers became angry and dangerous, needing to be confined in their rooms or the ship jail. Suddenly Max found himself the villain on the ship amongst his passengers, giving the final say to continue their course to the nearby destination star. His crew still had his back, but everyone was terrified.

***

“How did these space pirates avoid detection? How did we fail to notice?” There was no time to wonder about these questions. The formless swarmed the attacking pirates, dispatching them with extreme speed, power and agility. So fast and so proficient were the formless ships at ending the invasion, humans fighting the battle were left scratching their heads over what happened. The formless were not yet ready to reveal themselves to humans, not until humans had collectively resolved many of their issues, so they made a hurried retreat out of the Sol system.

They didn’t manage to get by entirely without detection. Humans sampled traces left behind from the fight as well as recordings and analysed them, confirming two completely different types of ship utilising completely different weapons and propulsions technologies were present on the battlefield. It was presumed both were hostile to Earth and in competition with each other, and the formless’ efforts to protect Earth had gone unrecognised.

This was the first time in 11,000 years the formless had failed the humans so severely. It was the greatest loss of human life on Earth in a single event ever, at over 4 billion lives. Entire cities were destroyed by the pirates and some countries were left uninhabitable. It was not just humans, the entire planet was severely damaged. This one event accounted for the loss of many fragile species that humans were trying to bring back from the brink of extinction, as well as the complete destruction of habitats and stretches of wilderness that had been in recovery from historic damage from human activity. What’s more the alien weapons triggered volcanic and earthquake activity, causing even more lasting destruction.

***

Max worked tirelessly to find a solution that would satisfy all on board, and eventually a solution was reached after lengthy consultation with his top staff. He had contacted neighbouring ships who were Earth-bound who agreed to allow passengers to transfer over if they wished. Given the circumstances, many of the other ship inhabitants knew that humans needed to assist each other now more than ever, so they were happy to help. No situation like this had ever befallen human kind before, so nobody knew what was going to happen in the coming days, weeks or months. Max felt it was every individual’s choice to make whether or not it was worthwhile returning to Earth.

But as more and more information came through, Earth’s situation seemed bleak. The fight may have been over, but the planet's surface had never seen such destruction and pollution even during the worst days of human industry and war. He could understand returning to Earth to locate family or friends, or having the means to help clean up and help rebuild. But for anyone else at this current time orbital colonies were much safer and more attractive places to live, and many on board were talking about moving to those over returning to Earth - especially those reported to be “inconspicuous” and difficult to find without exact coordinates. Besides, they had no reason to think the attackers were finished with terrorising Earth.

Both options left Max shaken to his core. He shook his head and massaged his aching forehead. It wasn’t good enough. He knew now that there were other intelligent species out there, and for that to be the case, there must also be other life-bearing worlds, most of which were probably uninhabited by technologically advanced beings, assuming sophonts were quite rare on other planets like on Earth. He thought back to Mars, how terraforming that planet was such a lengthy process that had barely just begun and would likely take thousands of years to finish. He looked around his ship, with its ability to break the light barrier and its top-of-the-range navigation systems. If there was any hope of this ship of finding a truly habitable planet, one that could serve as a back-up Earth and second home, he suddenly felt compelled to find it.

***

Shortly before their arrival at their originally intended destination, Max turned on his intercom and made an announcement to the whole ship, “Attention all passengers and all crew aboard!” He paused for a moment before repeating the phrase, to give everyone time to stop what they were doing and get ready to listen.

“We will soon be arriving at our destination in orbit around Ross 128 b. Our arrival will mark the end of Stellar Journeys as a luxury travel vessel company. You have all been excellent guests and it has been a pleasure to bring you joy on your travels. 

But now during these dark times, this ship has a new mission. I believe somewhere out there is a new world for us. One that’s unpolluted and green. One that’s similar to our own before it was tarnished not just by aliens but by us. We know now that we’re not alone in the universe. There must be even more compatible worlds out there that haven’t evolved intelligent life yet, than ones that have. Worlds that we can claim. If you wish to help search for and build a new colony, your continued stay on this ship is free of charge.

If not, then I hope that wherever you go after this, you find success and prosperity.”

***

The formless were always listening. Their AI was constantly hacking and scanning communications between human ships, then sorting it by level of importance. Lately they had been watching and listening to Max, keeping tabs on his travels and his change in mission.

“We need to disallow this. We cannot permit the disruption of an evolving biosphere.”

“The humans need to focus on Earth. It’s their home world. They’re going to need everyone to muscle in.”

“He will not find an alien world compatible with his biochemistry. It will be a waste of time and energy, then he will only be disappointed.”

“Well… there is one.”

The collective mind of the formless stopped to access data on the one other planet besides Earth with a thriving biosphere of Earth species, before continuing their discussion.

“Going by his current trajectory and search pattern, he might find the planet.”

“Soon, even, if he gets lucky.”

“Unlucky for us.”

“Do we interfere?”

There was a pause as each formless individual searched their own private mind for an answer.

One of them tossed in their suggestion, “We should only interfere if he gets too close. Perhaps with time he will find the search futile and turn back.”

There was another pause as the rest of the collective mind processed this suggestion.

“Agreed!”

***

The number of people willing to stay with Max was never very high to begin with, only a few hundred. Fortunately, many of these individuals were crew members who had come to trust him over the course of his career, and who he had come to trust. Despite the smaller staff count, the ship remained capable of running itself.

At first it was fairly easy going. The ship was harvesting elements and energy from space and then using that to replenish some supplies. Robots were carrying out repairs. Food was grown. Water and air was recycled. Everyone felt reasonably secure, or would if it weren’t for the looming threat of the enemy in space. But they couldn’t let that deter them. Nowhere was safe, not even Earth, so no use in trying to hide and stay put.

Difficulties were not uncommon. Dangerous space phenomena and technical troubles often arose. However, they always managed to make it through, intact and moving forward. Through their struggles they developed a close bond. It was during this time that Max felt closer to his crew and companions aboard the ship than anyone else in his life. Yet he still felt somewhat disconnected. As the backbone of this mission, he had to keep certain worries and weaknesses to himself in order to maintain high spirits in everyone else. This sense of isolation weighed on him.

***

As the decades rolled on, a combination of isolation and the lack of success in finding habitable worlds was weighing on the inhabitants of Max’s ship. Max’s search patterns would often lead him back to orbital colonies and other locations of human habitation, during which time he would always lose a few people from his mission. But he couldn’t blame them, and always wished them a fond farewell. Everyone was getting tired. Some were becoming regretful of the years lost on this effort, wanting to spend the remainder of their life in search of their own pursuits. 

Max still had cats and several plant and animal species that he kept breeding populations of. But not a single living animal remained from the days of the attack upon Earth, replaced by their descendants. There also weren’t as many species as before. He couldn’t bear to stop keeping his animal pets, but he had stopped breeding many ornamental and poisonous species of plant and insect to decrease demand on certain nutrients that couldn’t be synthesised or recycled quickly, or elements that were rare to harvest, keeping mainly food crops going as a priority. Having real food and animal companions was a massive quality of life boost for everyone on board.

But it wasn’t enough to keep everyone on board forever. Max watched as his crew shrunk to a handful. 40 years after the search had begun, Max was 90. Everyone older than he was had left the ship a long time ago (or left this life), leaving him most senior not just in authority but also in age. Time and stress had chipped away at his skin, leaving deep creases and giving his skin the texture of thin crumpled plastic. But while he looked aged on the outside, his day was full of energy and his eyes were full of fire. He tended personally to his animals daily. He never stopped searching for a new planet, spending hours a day in navigations. He always felt like he was “on to something” but could never specify to anyone what. Like a hound on the trail of blood.

Finally, before he knew it there was only one.

Max was scrolling through star candidates in the navigation room when he heard the tapping of shoes on the polished floor.

“What’re you still doing here?” Max grumbled, not taking his eyes off the screen.

The short-haired woman made a slightly offended scoffing sound before she took a few more steps forward. “I’m here to get you. Come on! Time to go.”

Max looked up and turned around, aghast at the insubordination, “Who do you think you’re talking to!”

Unfazed, the middle-aged woman replied dryly, “My friend.”

Max didn’t realise he had worked himself up until she said that and he noticed that he was panting with anger. He stood still and took a few long, calm breaths through his nose to collect himself.

“I’m sorry, Lyrixia.” Max shook his head in frustration and rubbed his face from exhaustion before continuing, “I thought I had found a lead. It was just another dead end.”

“You’ve been at this for too long,” Lyrixia tried to reason, “Would you even consider a vacation? Just to give yourself a rest.”

Max chuckled bitterly at the thought of taking a vacation in an orbital station or some other vessel. Earth was ruined, and until another planet was found Max couldn’t have any sort of vacation.

“That can’t happen, Lyrixia. I’ve mapped so much of the galaxy. Even if I never discover a world for our species before I die, someone could pick up from where I left off and use my findings to narrow down the search.” He looked into the eyes of his second in command and his student. “But you… This search took the best years of your life. Don’t let it take any more.”

Lyrixia’s eyes widened in confusion and annoyance while her voice raised to a shout. “What do you mean, the best years of my life? What are you trying to say? That I’m old?”

Max chuckled, indicating that he wasn’t serious. “You’re so easy to rile up.”

Lyrixia paused for a second before looking down and mumbling sheepishly, “I guess I should apologise now.”

Max chuckled some more and replied forgivingly, “we’re both tired.”

“Actually about that-”

“I know, you’re leaving.”

They both fell silent once more. Lyrixia was trying to think of anything that she could say to convince Max to take a break, but after a few moments she concluded to herself that he probably wouldn’t even be happy on a break. This was his choice.

“Thank you for everything that you’ve taught me,” said Lyrixia with sincerity.

With that, she turned around and made her way out of the room. Before she was entirely out of sight Max caught a glimpse of her crouching down to pet one of his cats. It was the last time Max would ever lay eyes upon another human being.

***

The formless continued to watch Max’s travels through space. His search no longer seemed to follow a pattern, more of a meandering trail, but that averaged to a straight line further and further from explored and understood territory. He was taking an all-or-nothing approach. At the rate he was going he would not have time to return to any sort of human habitation before his death. Humans had faster-than-light travel, but on interstellar scales that could still mean over a thousand years between stars within the same spiral arm of the galaxy. Now Max was on a path of no return.

“All but the captain have given up.”

“The captain isn’t giving up.”

“He also draws closer to finding the planet.”

“He might not.”

“But he might.”

“This is very sad. I want to help him.”

“An entire biosphere is under our protection. We can’t let it down.”

“There might still be a way…”

“We cannot give the planet to the humans yet.”

“What if we give the planet to Max’s animals instead.”

“The animals are blameless.”

“The animals are non-sophont beasts. They will integrate into the biosphere and evolve with it.”

“It would enrich a currently minimal biosphere.”

“They are compatible with life currently on the planet.”

“Max can stay, but no other humans.”

“We will block any signal or alert from Max to the other humans.”

“Let’s assist the lone human in the ship. No use in him drifting through space until his body expires.”

“It’s agreed.”

The formless remotely made a few tweaks on Max's ship computer and left the rest of their plan to unfold.

***

Max grumbled to himself while wondering what was next in his to-do list. He decided to have a quick look through the candidate list of possible planets. He opened the top file and had a look at the planet’s known characteristics.

“That’s very interesting, a long way away though,” he mumbled over a mug of synthetic tea. One of his cats, a black and white tuxedo variety, was sitting in front of him on the counter and looking at the screen display with Max. “It’ll be a few years before we get there. Let’s see if there’s any others we can stop by on the way.”

He took a sip of the tea and grimaced. Disgusting, nothing like the real stuff. But it wasn’t important. He set a course for the prospective planet and continued to scroll through his list while scratching his cat’s forehead.

***

The past few years had not been kind to Max.

He had made many stops at various star systems on his way to the system of greatest interest to him. It ended up being a longer amount of time than expected and he had suffered multiple bouts of ill health where he had to ask his ship robots to wait on him. What’s more, a localised power blackout resulted in near total annihilation of all crops. What remained was only proso millet and catnip, which both happened to be growing around the ship for the cats to chew on, not in the usual grow rooms that lost power.

It had become far more difficult to raise his animals on replicated food, which was never quite the same as real food. The animals could smell that it wasn’t the same and many were more reluctant to eat, even those raised on nothing else had poor appetites. He only wanted to provide for them the best and never anticipated this failure in his ship. Although the ship robots were quite capable of carrying out repairs, by time the issue was fixed all of the young plants were long dead. Finally he was able to get crops up and running again but had recurring problems with a poor rate of seed viability, and could only conclude that there must have been a power fault at some point in the seed banks too.

A combination of the illnesses and the stress was wearing him down. Now for him to have enough energy to move around the ship he needed to use a light mobility skeleton. Ill-fitting and inflexible, it was not the most practical thing, being a spare in case a guest required it. Now Max was sympathising with his more infirm customers of the past and wished he had invested in better mobility gear for them. “A wheelchair would have been better than this,” he growled.

“Alert”, a voice sounded over the ship intercom. “New data on Gliese 21585 b incoming.”

Max was still for a moment. It was at this moment he found out if a planet was habitable or not. He had grown used to hearing that word “Incompatible”. Whether chemically or climatically, no planet found so far has been suitable.

“... Compatible.”

The word hit him like a wall. Max suddenly felt faint.

“W-what?”

The ship took his request literally, “COMPATIBLE!”

“More details!” Max demanded from the computer while staggering on the spot in his exoskeleton, trying to decide what to do.

“Surface pressure: 1.5 bar. Atmospheric components: Nitrogen 75.4 percent, oxygen 23.4 percent, others 1.2 percent, of others, carbon dioxide is found at approximately 1,200 parts per million. Average surface temperature: 17 degrees Celsius. Initial imaging reports indicate the presence of a water ocean, water vapour clouds, and continents. Upon those continents are as of yet unexplained shades of yellow and green, presumed to be vegetation.”

Max was silent for a moment before whispering to himself, “this is it!”

***

Max stood in awe as the camera feed from outside the ship streamed in a crystal clear image of the planet’s day side. The ship had finally arrived and established orbit. This was a charted but unexplored world, incorrectly estimated as large and outside of the habitable zone during the days of it's discovery in the mid 1900s. This was the first time any human had been close enough to know anything more about it.

“It’s uncanny. If I didn’t know my land masses, I would say it was Earth! I knew it was possible.” Max’s face was lit up by the image. He could barely take his eyes off it. It was beautiful, but at the same time he was filled with a healthy dose of fear. He had no idea what he was actually going to find on the surface. So he checked, “have the drones sent back surface images?”

“Images are incoming as we speak,” replied the computer.

“Show some of them to me,” Max requested.

A collage of images appeared on the screen in front of him. They looked so inviting, they were like vacation pictures taken in the 1900s and early 2000s, during that blip in history between the invention of photography and the destruction of Earth’s environment. He reached out to one of the images with a veiny, bony, shaky hand and touched it, causing it to enlarge. It was a shot of the shoreline taken from high up a beach. Grass appeared to be growing on the dunes.

He closed the image and enlarged another one. It appeared to be a leafy shrubland. Various flying creatures had been captured in the shot, and they looked just like insects. He looked at closeups of a few more, each showing examples of life that looked just like it came from Earth. He looked away with a puzzled expression and gave himself a minute to think. It could either be one of two possibilities. One: that life on all worlds evolves in a very similar way, or two: the life on this world isn’t alien at all. It’s from Earth.

Then he landed upon the photo that made it all clear. Captured basking on a rock was a small lizard, its head turned around just enough to glare at the camera with one eye.

“Identify the creature in this image,” Max requested of the computer.

“Zootoca vivipara, also known as the common lizard. Native to temperate regions of Northern Europe and North Asia, these lizards are famed for giving live birth instead of laying eggs. Approximately 10 - 15 centimetres in size when fully grown, they eat very small invertebrate prey and are themselves prey to many predatory animals…”

The ship computer’s voice trailed off in the background, Max wasn’t listening anymore. All he needed to know was that this was definitely a species from Earth. He stood in silence, wonder and bewilderment. It was beautiful and at the same time, puzzling. He started chuckling, which grew into him laughing heartily to the point of tears. It was absurd.

After he got that out of his system, a realisation crossed his mind that there must have been some kind of intelligent influence that brought Earth life to this planet. Or was it the other way around? He didn’t know. His ship had sensed nothing to worry about while en route, but he couldn’t even begin to speculate what kind of technology other intelligent beings had out there that human technology couldn’t sense.

“Are there any strange signals or anomalous readings coming from the planet?” Max asked the ship's computer. “Oh, and add to that request. Scan through all the images of the planet surface and bring back any that show signs of structures or technology, anything artificial, even if it’s just a ruin.”

There was a short pause before the computer responded, “No images match your search criteria. There are no unexpected readings or signals.”

It seemed perfect, but Max was still uneasy. When he had been looking for an alien planet he didn’t expect to find another Earth. It was too strange. He needed input, so he sent a long-range signal out in hopes of getting the message to other humans about the planet and advise him on what to do. For a few hours he waited hopefully, but when he got a response it wasn’t from any of the other ships. It was his own voice, distorted and echoed. It was a reflection.

Time and time again he tried to send a signal, each time in a slightly different direction. Each time it was bounced back. He got the ship to run diagnostics on itself, and while it did so, it insisted the reflected signal was from an outside source. That something profoundly massive, around half-way from his current location and the last human colony he visited was reflecting it back. This was going over Max’s head. His understanding was that long-range signals didn’t travel through regular space and couldn’t be interrupted. But the point of interruption was so far away, it would take years to investigate the cause.

***

Max tried to be patient but weeks were passing without any progress being made on the problem. He had sent out a few signal drones that would take not just years, but centuries to reach the space he had been when Lyrixia departed. It was a contingency in case somehow he couldn’t get the ship back to human territory. But he couldn’t just sit and wait to die. After much agonising, he set a plan in motion to get to the surface of the new planet.

His ship had a “Travel Dome”, a semi-circular section of the ship that could detach itself from the main ship and land upon the surface of a planet. From the inside vacationers could view the surfaces of alien worlds provided there was stable terrain. It could house hundreds of people at a time and contained all the living amenities of the main ship, as well as several luxury and leisure amenities.

Max’s first trip to the surface was bittersweet. It was warm. The shrubs and the grass were real. The dirt was real. The wind was real. This place had something raw and alive that his gardens couldn’t replicate. It caused him to weep inconsolably for about half the day. But he also noticed something about this place that was missing from his memories of Earth. As damaged as Earth was, it was never without the sight and sound of birds, even if it was only crows and buzzards they brought a distinct feeling of life to a place.

This planet on the other hand had not a single bird. As well as that no frogs croaked and no crickets chirped, no cicadas screeched. Not a single mammal was to be seen, an Earth-seeded land bare of Earth’s current most visible and large macrofauna. All other reptiles aside from those viviparous lizards were missing too. There was just so much missing.

Instead, the leaves and grass rustled in the wind and the occasional bee or small fly zipped past his ear. The occasional butterfly added a splash of colour to the backdrop of monotone unvaried green. That was it.

Aware of the weak biosphere and the benefit of trophic levels for healthy population regulation, and seeing no chance of human contact within what was left of his lifetime, Max took it upon himself to boost the biodiversity with the animals and plants on his ship.

***

After a brief trip to each continent Max was sure he had to do something to enrich the life on the planet. First he tried to have drones scatter some of the contents of his seed bank in hopes something might survive, because the seeds more often than not were not surviving germination in the lab. He kept a few left over, frozen, in case some future leaps in botanical sciences could save them. Over a few weeks he watched as some sprouted, but quickly died, outcompeted by the native flora.

Only two plants from his ship had thriving, healthy seeds. Mentioned before, the proso millet and the catnip were successful and set to spread far and wide across the seeding continent. The catnip in particular was essential, as it provided fragrant flowers with small quantities of nectar for the pollinators who had to fight over the planet’s few flowers.

He had one favourite spot, some plateaus between two canyons where shrubs and grasses grew. The views were spectacular and while it was not as great as the Grand Canyon, the place appeared reminiscent, except a lot more green and wet. This is where his first animal introduction took place, his only surviving insect from the good old days, the mealworm beetle. Previously a converter of low quality organic matter into more palatable and digestible animal protein, and a form of feed for sparrow chicks, they struggled greatly at first due to the alien environment and the presence of predators, the lizards. However those that retained the most wild instinct were selected for and eventually (later into the seeding process) this beetle started to reach healthy numbers.

Sparrows, rabbits and mice were introduced together as they were not in great competition. At first they did well, but both mouse and rabbit numbers soon exploded to the point where bare patches were forming in the local environment. Sparrows could spread out further faster, so their population didn’t stay too high in any one place for too long, but they were still thriving. It was at that time the right time to introduce the cats.

All animals were released on a voluntary basis and given ample time to do so. Some never left the safety of the travel dome, while some only left for short periods of time then returned, preferring what they had always known. Some of these animals continued to live out their life with Max, especially the older animals, or animals with extra needs.

There was a gradual culture change amongst the animals. After the most closely bonded with Max passed away, he did not try to create new bonds with the younger animals, understanding that it would not benefit them to learn to rely on him when he had no idea how long it would take for the other humans to arrive. They were becoming feral for their own good so that they would survive.

Max’s own passing was peaceful. He had locked his mobility skeleton into a chair sitting position, so that he could relax while watching the sun set as he had done every evening. When one of the ship robots came outside under the starry sky to find out why he hadn’t returned into the dome, he looked asleep. But he was cold. There was a mackerel tabby cat curled up on his lap lightly snoring. Max had petted the cat to sleep only hours prior.

Max’s body was laid to rest in a deep grave on a nearby floodplain, a site he had chosen for himself well in advance.

***

The signal drones had managed to propel themselves out of the star system. Their fuel reserves would hold out and could even be recharged by solar energy, but these drones were not designed for such great distances. It was going to take 950 years to reach the nearest human colony. If something went wrong with Max’s ship, they were the last hope for Max to alert other humans of the planet.

Travelling faster than the speed of light, Max’s ship was autopiloting itself out of the system. It zipped past the signal drones as it bent the very fabric of reality to reach the rest of humanity in better timing.

The ship came to a near-sudden stop out of nowhere in the dead of space. It was still trying to propel itself when it stopped, but quickly shut down after. A silhouette grew bigger against the backdrop of the stars, drawing nearer to the ship. It was an asteroid-shaped mass. But this was no ordinary asteroid. On its surface were spotlights focusing onto Max’s ship, illuminating it.

The front of the asteroid opened up like a giant mouth, showing a bright and busy interior. Slowly Max’s ship was drawn into the interior before the mouth shutter closed again and the spotlights shut off, leaving complete darkness again. The asteroid then zipped away at unnatural speed to consume the signal drones also, the only visible sign of its movement being the blinking of the stars as it passed by.

The formless ensured that there would be no chance for the humans to discover the planet before they had fixed up their current home world, Earth. Life, including the new additions to the biosphere, continued to evolve uninterrupted from that point on Gliese 21585 b.