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“Hey, look! Dad wet his pants!” said Jeremy Whiskin.

Willard Whiskin was still shaking as he eyed his family firmly. “I don’t care what anyone says.” He glanced furtively at the sky, as if the artifact might suddenly change its alien mind and return to wreak unimaginable destruction on his person. “Next year we’re staying home and going to Bobbleworld.” He spotted one of the ship’s officers, a local from Bahia.

“I’d heard that you people were strict on pollution control, but isn’t this sort of thing going a bit overboard?”

The man tilted back his cap and gazed fondly in the direction the artifact had taken. “Earth’s a living museum, sir. Those of us who live here take great pride in keeping her clean. Since the Drex has agreed to help preserve our little corner of the galaxy while waiting for word from his own, we’ve had fewer problems than usual. Gives the alien something to do and keeps him out of trouble. The leagues don’t try to dictate to us anymore either.”

“I can understand that.” Willard Whiskin spoke with shaky emotion as his family helped him toward the stairs.

Deep within the artifact, ignored by the busy Drex and forgotten by the rest of mankind, four Candomblean assassins survived without bemoaning their fate. Instead they luxuriated in the warm, perpetual artificial sunset, lounged on the beach, and swam in the programmed surf. Had they access to the outside, they surely would have enjoyed witnessing their formal Candomblean military funerals. As it was, these events, like everything else happening outside, passed them by.

The Drex ignored them, but the Autothor did not. In the absence of instructions to the contrary from the Drex pilot, or for that matter any instructions at all, it supplied them with food and water and left them largely alone.

By and by, the female half of the marooned quartet became pregnant. As the galaxy ponderously precessed through the universe the searoom and nearby portions of the artifact became populated by a whole crop of little Candomblean assassins. They had the good fortune to be tutored by both their parents and the Autothor, which took to the task with becoming enthusiasm.

On ancient Mother Earth seniors died and children were born. The leagues quarreled and alliances shifted. Pining for its distant home and lost civilization, the Drex, too, finally took the path all organic life-forms must eventually travel.

But the ship, the epitome of Drex engineering and science, went on: self-repairing, self-perpetuating, watching over its adopted world. Eventually the offspring times offspring of the four Candombleans started building themselves, with the help and direction of the Autothor and a certain modified, re-regenerating serving robot, so that when the representatives of the incredibly distant machine civilization returned, and eventually the terrible ancient Enemy of the Drex as well, they each encountered something orbiting Old Earth that made the Drex and the sciences of humankind and even the miracle that was the Drex vessel itself pale to insignificance.

Exactly what it was cannot accurately be described, but it was bigger than a breadbox and smaller than a quasar.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The New York Times–bestselling author of more than one hundred ten books, Alan Dean Foster is one of the most prominent writers of modern science fiction. Born in New York City in 1946, he studied filmmaking at UCLA, but first found success in 1968 when a horror magazine published one of his short stories. In 1972 he wrote his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, the first in his Pip and Flinx series featuring the Humanx Commonwealth, a universe he has explored in more than twenty-five books. He also created the Spellsinger series, numerous film novelizations, and the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. An avid world traveler, he lives with his family in Prescott, Arizona.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Ian Koviak

ISBN: 978-1-5040-9347-7

This edition published in 2024 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com