Jen looked at the main screen and wondered why the Old One seemed so pleased with what was to be his new home, for the duration of the rebuild. It was a giant heap of fused silicates that had never really got started. All its atmosphere and water had been swept away by the solar winds and now it was an ugly, airless dump, with all the appeal of a fungal infection.
"This is the first planet I've seen," said the Old One, "I must analyse everything about it."
His first planet! Of course he'd been in the void for so long and all memory of his home world had crumbled with his aging circuitry. Alyz could understand why a few brown stains of life around a volcanic vent were so exciting to him. Perhaps they should have taken him to an inhabited planet ? But it was too late now, his engines had been taken offline and the engineers brought from across the multiverse.
"If you need any other devices to examine this system, you only have to ask." She said.
All the indicators were in the normal zone and Jen was sure she could hear the ancient craft humming.
"Yes, of course. I've asked Chlo for a DNA analyser." He said.
Jen had the defences of Mendera to manage when Sikush went to Annill, so she was happy the Old One was keeping himself occupied. She moved herself to the outside of the ship and into the fifteen mile wide force dome that Chlo had put over the craft. Normally Chlo would have done all the work, but Sikush had called in other creatures, with other skills and most of them required an oxygen atmosphere. Not all though and Jen noticed one or two methane breathers walking around in atmosphere suits.
"Ideally I'd bring them here in shifts," said Chlo, "and give them all a perfect atmosphere, but the Aumashy won't be here long"
A blueish skinned version of Chlo she'd rarely seen appeared next to Jen.
"So he really has brought in experts from the forbidden worlds Chlo ?"
"Their technology is beyond even mine and the Old One needs to be able to operate independently of any contact with the empire, or me."
