Marooned


After six months in the caves, food reserves grew critically short and Captain Burton imposed strict rationing. Professor Farnsworth found a data bank in the computer memory describing Vela II's flora and fauna. Burton felt her spirits soar as Farnsworth pointed out several plants and animals that could be harvested for food. The most likely sources of meat were the red-brown Libixx, animals that looked like winged rabbits, and the six-legged Ortogs, 2,000 pound beasts with pendulous udders that resembled a cross between a cow and a lizard. Both had cell structures, internal organs, and flesh remarkably similar to mammals on Earth. The Precursor data also indicated that several plant species -- especially the giant blue-flowered Iccamullon -- had the same protiens, sugars, and starches as crops humans had been raising for centuries. Captain Burton assigned teams to hunt wild animals and harvest food plants, allowing them out of the caves only under cover of dark for the first year they were there. Then, gradually as the years passed, the marooned Earthlings grew confident they were safe from discovery by the Ur-Quan on this out-of-the-way little planet. They began to see themselves as colonists and most moved out of the caves to settle on the surface. Still, with Captain Burton prodding them, the humans remained cautios, building camouflaged houses and planting crops in purposefully chaotic patterns. Eventually they gave their planet a name: Unzervalt. It meant, simply, "our world."

Ten years slipped past, marked by the deaths of a dozen colonists from accidents or old age, and the birth of 42 children. Several of the scientists had now become full-time farmers. Others fabricated old-fashioned bullet-firing rifles and disappeared into the Unzervalt wilderness, appearing months later clad in Ortog skins and bursting with tales of strange landscapes and even stranger life-forms.

Farnsworth's Breakthrough


After more than a decade of hard work, Professor Jules Farnsworth announced with considerable fanfare that he had finally succeeded in unlocking the secret of the Precursor Control Computer. Without Captain Burton's permission -- indeed without even knowing what would happen -- Farnsworth commanded the computer to initiate its prime function. The resulting near-disaster almost got the professor put in the stockade.

Suddenly, the immobile machinery within the cave roared to life. Huge electrical arcs shot between massive electrodes, incinerating a wooden storage shack. Robotic vehicles began tearing across the cavern floor along pre-programmed paths -- paths which led them right through several man-made buildings. A 30 meter tall crane-like machine detached itself from one wall and swiftly rolled through the cave, nearly crushing a group of panicked scientists. It was a miracle that no one was killed in the ensuing chaos as humans fled the caves in terror.

The next day, robotic vehicles emerged from the cave and cut down a nearby forest. They leveled the ground, covered the surface with some kind of metallic plastic, and then returned to their cave.

Bronzed from the Vela sun, her straw-colored hair pushed up under her commander's cap, Captain Burton led a squad of volunteers back into the caves on a cautios reconnaissance mission. Inside the main cavern, the squad came upon the robots assembling the spine of a huge ship -- a starship! Although the robots clearly knew the humans were there, turning to focus benign scanners on the volunteers several times, the obviously did not consider the Earthlings a threat. Captain Burton decided it was safe for humans to return to work in the caves, so long as people kept out of the robots' way.

Days later an abashed Farnsworth was finally coaxed back to the Precursor Control Computer to continue his research. Almost immediately, the professor discovered two signifigant facts. First, the contruction process would soon transition out of the caves and assembly of the starship would continue on the planet's surface. Second, as far as Farnsworth could tell, the contruction was going to take a long time.

The "long time" that Farnsworth predicted turned out to be nearly a decade. The colonists grew accustomed to the framework of a great starship looming over their tiny village. Day after day, a hundred robots moved across the surface of the vessel, welding and fitting, assembling an fabricating.

Then one day, without warning, the contruction robots stopped work and returned underground. They assumed their original positions in the cave and shutdown completely. The cave was exactly the way the research team had first found it -- silent, motionless. A flustered Professor Farnsworth frantically asked the Control Computer for an explanation, and got an immediate answer. There were not enough raw materials left to finish the vessel, nor were there suitable substitutes anywhere on the planet. A week of tests by Burton and her team proved the ship was complete enough to blast off from the surface of Vela II. But it would have to cruise slowly through HyperSpace, lightly armed, and with only enough room for a skeleton crew.

There was another problem. The controls for the vessel were not designed for humans. It became obvious from the interior layout of the starship that the Precursors were giants and seemingly not bipedal. Levers were almost impossible to move, three people were required to actuate a single switch, and the chairs, beds, and other furnishings were better suited for a wooly mammoth than a human.

Some kind of automated control system was needed. After mulling over the problem for several days, Captain Burton decided that the only answer was to remove the Central Control Computer from the cave and configure it to run the ship. Surely Professor Farnsworth knew enough about the Precursor computer system to give it whatever commands were necessary to take the ship back to Earth. Despite vehement protests from Farnsworth, the Captain ordered the Precursor's computer installed in the vessel. After 20 years marooned on Vela II, the colonists were at last ready to return to Earth.

Or were they? Pressed to begin programming the computer, Farnsworth broke down and admitted he didn't have the foggiest idea how to do it. It turned out he had never understood the incredibly complicated system. Instead, for yeats he had secretly employed the natural computer talents of a precocious young genius. This gifted child, now a young man, had been born on Unzervalt -- the son of an officer from the Tobermoon and a Research Team engineer. Each night, after Farnsworth left the Control Computer console, the young boy had crept into the caves and tinkered with the computer. Within a few months, the child had established a rapport with the computer far beyond anything Farnsworth had accomplished. When the Professor discovered the boy's nocturnal activities, he used gifts and phony promises to win the child's confidence, then talked the young genius into activating the entire complex.

This time, the Captain did throw the Professor into the stockade.

Then Burton called the young man into her office and proposed a plan. She would command the starship, and he would serve as pilot, acting as the interface with the starship's Precursor computer.

With trepidation, you accepted.

-Part 1--Part 2--Part 3--Part 4--Part 5--Part 6-