PROLOG
Except in size, Omega could have been a 1960s vintage NASA probe placed in an orbit around the planet below. The spherical inter-galatical starship, though, was too large, being four hundred meters in diameter, too old and too advanced to have been manufactured on Earth.
The journey from the outer solar system to Earth took one week; this comparatively slow pace caused by rapid deceleration from ninety nine percent of light speed that had brought the craft across the galaxy. Computers aboard Omega homed in on what it had been searching for over the past millennium, a planet with water and oxygen in usable quantities to sustain life.
Cloaking devices made the craft's approach undetected as the vehicle swung into an orbit. The world below was penetrated with sophisticated data gathering probes, a hundred, three centimeter flying craft released into the stratosphere. These mechanical bugs plummeted into the planet's dense lower atmosphere until they reached a thousand meters altitude. At that point, tiny moving wings swung out like those of a dragonfly and minute motors propelled the craft towards predetermined targets.
The aim, though was not to destroy but to observe and study everything about the planet, from its chemical makeup to signs of civilization. Languages were recorded and television monitored, photographs taken and the inhabitants studied. Within three days, ten million pieces of data were transmitted back to the mothership's three onboard computers before a signal pulsed out and the mechanical bugs self-destructed into nothingness. During the whole process, nobody below realized their planet had been scrutinized by an alien life force, nor that the spacecraft was still in orbit above. Everything worked as it was designed a thousand years before.
Computer Beta analyzed the data against the categories retained in memory banks. The planet was over populated, polluted but could sustain life quite comfortably in the less populated temperate zones; all the large land masses in the northern hemisphere were to be avoided but several to the south showed promise.
The humanoid population was similar to their own; in fact data gathered showed it was a home seeded planet from a previous visit, three thousand years before. Even a variation of the home alphabet was still in use in what was the cradle of civilization at the time, but Greek culture had long been superseded throughout the next three millennia. After being helped to climb the first step of a collective civilization by interbreeding with the local inhabitants; humans, for a reason lost in antiquity, were left to develop on their own.
There, however, was one problem that made Computer Beta reject the planet below. Roughly forty eight percent of the human population were seeders, or males as the dominant Earth language called them. This was completely outside the guidelines of no more than five percent seeders and well beyond the one in a thousand permitted at home. Furthermore, it appeared that none of the females of adult age were neuters so all were capable of bearing offspring; once again well beyond the guidelines of ten percent females necessary to maintain population size.
To balance this to some extent, was the knowledge that the inhabitants had not yet learnt to control D.N.A aging mechanisms, so the inhabitants had a limited lifespan, something like eighty years, less than one forth that of humanoid's lifespan at home. All the data on human development led Computer Beta to recommend that this planet be bypassed.
However, Computer Gamma provided data that the humanoid aboard could not be kept alive for the estimated two hundred years required to find another solar system containing a planet harboring life as they knew it. A vote was taken and Computer Alpha sided with Gamma to outvote Beta so the decision was made to arouse the humanoid.
Their one was a perfect specimen, short at a meter seventy eight with fair skin and brown hair which floated in the vacuum to encircle the woman's body like a natural cloak. A life sustaining umbilical cord connected to her navel. In many ways she appeared like a fetus with the body of a twenty-year-old, her natural age being a dozen years beyond that.
Once the decision to end the journey was made, minor alterations were needed and Computer Gamma set about performing them. The woman had her brain patterns transformed to understand English, the main Earth language in the territory designated for landing. All other memories and abilities remained unchanged. Computer Gamma, though, persuaded the others that the humanoid's sensations and emotions should be changed back to natural, rather than being suppressed fifty percent as was the unwritten rule back home. After all, a bearer needed emotions more than the neuter that this female used to be.
Now was the time to arouse the woman so she could prepare herself for landing and her future life ahead. It was a crude hostile planet, not a great deal superior to their first choice which had been such a disappointment nor the others unanimously rejected, but it would have to do. They could not return and this was one small chance to continue their species. Communication with Delta had been lost over a century before so perhaps their humanoids were the last of their species.
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The search of a millennium is over. Computers aboard Inter-galactic Starship Omega find a planet with water and oxygen in usable quantities to sustain humanoid life. It is over populated, polluted and has one social problem; forty eight percent of the human population are males, well beyond the one in a thousand necessary on Planet Delta to maintain the sperm banks. However, the humanoids aboard cannot be kept alive for the estimated two hundred years required to find another solar system so the journey must end. Minor alterations are needed in the humanoids' metabolism. The women need to understand English for a landing in Australia, the most unpolluted continent the computers can find. Sensations and emotions are changed back to natural; after all, a bearer needs emotions more than the neuter that these females were on the home planet. It is time to arouse Pazz and prepare her for life on Earth while cloned younger sister Kylina, now 22 not 12 as remembered by Pazz, can be kept in reserve. There is also Lunol, from a primitive preindustrial planet and Kylina's partner but he is male and doesn't count. Alone, with only an armlet computer for company, Pazz lands in the West Australian desert. She catches the Indian Pacific Express for Sydney, three days journey away but catches the flu virus. With no immunity she becomes seriously ill and is taken off the train at Adelaide. Doctor Duncan Bourne a linguist from the The University Of Adelaide is contacted when nobody can understand her delirious speech. Duncan finds her speaking an ancient dead Greek language which he can understand. After she recovers, they become friends. Pazz adapts to life on Earth and, by having her qualifications entered into Earth computers, becomes Doctor Pazz D'rose, a mathematician and biochemist. With Kylina still in suspended animation aboard Omega, there is a problem when the hull, punctured during the journey to Earth, becomes worse and air escapes. The computers reveal the starship's presence above Earth and ask for help. In a top secret operation, a space shuttle is sent to rendezvous with Omega but neither the onboard computers or the American astronauts know an alien poisonous fungus is attached to Kylina's safety pod. How does this affect Pazz, Kylina and her partner? Is Lunol rescued and how do the military on Earth react to having the alien humans in their midst? And the fungus! Does it survive and spread in Earth's atmosphere?
