The AI fleet gathered once more at Adan, and John boarded Sevens. Atrata’s fifty immortals boarded a day later.

“Grandfather,” Atrata laughed, “we did it. Everything feels so unreal. I can’t believe you were able to beat Inashta on your own.”

“Droth helped a lot,” John sighed. “We must honor her sacrifice.”

Sevens appeared on the hologram, “we have already begun preparing for her funeral, the way dragons do it. Other dragons will soon gather to the spot where she perished. Don’t panic.”

“What do you all plan to do now?” Atrata asked the rest of her team mates.

“We go where you go, Atrata,” they said, almost in unison.

“I’m going deep into unknown space with grandfather,” Atrata said. “To find a planet called Earth. Are you sure you want to come with me?”

Some hesitated. Ten of them declined, and decided to head back to Adan. Beliar was among them. Good riddance!

“There will be a power vacuum in the galaxy now that Inashta’s gone,” one of them said. “We will help oversee a peaceful transition.”

“That’s a good idea,” Atrata nodded. “You will be missed.”

The dragons soon came. Their roars spread throughout the system for hours on end. This was how they mourned. There were about twenty dragons in all, of various colors, red, blue, green, yellow and gold. As they roared they let out little jets of flame from their mouths. They flew with each other in an intricate dance. The AIs joined them, though they were like ants crawling around elephants. The funeral soon ended and the dragons left.

“Sevens,” John said. “Will the AIs join me on my expedition?”

“We already agreed to.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Time is irrelevant. When we make a promise it is for eternity.”

“How many ships will join us?”

“Seven thousand three hundred and thirty four. Many ships will part from the fleet during the journey when rich new planets are discovered. They will set up infrastructure on those planets to mine and manufacture.”

John wondered if he was letting loose a hornet’s nest. These AIs would increase in number exponentially thanks to his expedition. Without a check to their numbers they would be able to dominate the galaxy in a few thousand years. Hopefully, they would have ascended by then.

“You don’t need to worry,” said Sevens. “We will control our numbers. We will not make the same mistakes we did the last two times.”

“How did you know I was worried?” asked John.

“Human emotions are easy to read.”

The fleet moved out one day later. They went to a planet called Listra where Atrata purchased enough food to last them ten years. Sevens and some of the other AI ships modified themselves to hold the vast amounts of grain and other produce that Atrata had bought.

John first made the AIs fly to his lonely planet. Five AI ships decided to leave the fleet, and turn his lonely planet into one of their bases. There were rich metal deposits and other things that they deemed useful. John flew to his cave and recovered his Astari holocube. Leaving it here was one of the greatest regrets of his life. The cube may have contained the secrets of ascension.

After that, John flew into space and used his ability to scan the hundreds of star systems near him. In each system, he looked at the third planet from the star, studying its geography and trying to match it with his memories of Earth.

Five years passed in this manner. The AI fleet now only contained a thousand ships. Demon princes and hegemons tried to attack the fleet but they stood no chance with John and forty human immortals aboard. And then, John saw Earth. The geography matched almost exactly. There were a few differences. Maybe his memory was faulty.

“Sevens,” he said, ecstatic from his discovery, “display the star map.” Sevens did as he asked. “Jump to this star system,” he pointed at one of the stars.

“Have you found your planet?” Sevens asked.

“I think so.”

The ships vanished into the aether. John felt some unusual rocking while they were moving. Was it normal to experience turbulence in the aether? This was the first time in his travels that this had happened.

As they emerged from the aether, Sevens hologram looked at John. “We have a problem.”

“What problem?” They were so close to Earth now. He could fly to it in a few minutes.

“The aether here is sealed. We can jump in but can’t jump out again. We’ll have to travel conventionally through at least ten systems before we can clear the site of this anomaly.”

“How did this happen?”

“One of the star chasers must have done this.”

Star chasers were space faring creatures that kept traveling from one part of the galaxy to another. They were mysterious creatures, with mysterious powers. They usually left star ships alone which was why John hadn’t bothered thinking of them till now.

“The jelly fish that swallowed my ship during my infancy must have done this,” John said. “How long will it take for this sector or space to heal?”

“Approximately six thousand years.”

John gathered Atrata and the rest in the docking bay and explained the situation. “I’m heading to Earth. What do you all want to do?”

“Of course, we’re coming with you,” Atrata spoke for the group.

“I’m with you as well, John,” said Sevens. “The other ships will fly out of this sector in real space, looking for new planets to colonize.”

“Very well,” John was eager to set foot on Earth as soon as possible. “Let’s go.” This had been his dream for so long. Finally, he was going to accomplish it. Unfortunately, he was two thousand years too late. Still, he had made it here in the end.

They flew to Earth and surveyed the land below them.

“There are primitive cities there,” said Astrata, pointing to Turkey.

Had the Third World War taken place? Would he find the ruins of the Statue of Liberty like in ‘The Planet of the Apes.’

“Let’s go to the biggest city.”

They landed outside the city, scaring a shepherd, and then entered. There was a large signpost at the city’s gate. The script looked familiar. John had visited the Penn Museum once. He had seen cuneiform writing before. They walked through the city, ignoring any people who tried talking to them. Their language was gibberish. John just nodded and smiled when one of the people asked him a question. His clothes were probably attracting their attention. They were very different from the cotton cloth these people draped around their bodies. He saw a building with many idols placed within it.

“This must be the temple,” John said. “I have seen this style of sculpture before. We are in Sumeria. This might be the city of Uruk.” He had always been interested in ancient history.

“How could that be?” asked Atrata.

“The jelly fish that swallowed my ship during my infancy must have traveled back in time as well as in space,” John said. “We must do nothing to alter the timeline. It might result in me never being born.”

“But you are already here,” said Atrata.

“Yes, but we don’t know what sort of paradoxes might result if my past is changed. Nobody has ever played with time on such a grand scale before.”

“Very well, grandfather. I will tell the others.”

John knew that every little action they made would result in big changes to the timeline, but that couldn’t be helped. As long as they didn’t mess with events too much, things would turn out okay.

They couldn’t do things like save Jesus, or kill Hitler.

“Let us build our own city,” said Atrata, “in a remote place on top of a mountain, where no ordinary human can reach.”

“Very well,” said John.

They built their small city on top of an extinct volcano and called it Aliam, meaning New Land. Sometimes they walked among the Sumerians, learning their culture and language. They would often trade for grain and meat. While all this was going on, John meditated in a cave, getting updates from Atrata from time to time.

Sumeria and Egypt grew prosperous, along with China and India. Aliam could now get a wider range of goods. Some of the immortals, married women from among the ordinary people and took them back to Aliam. The city grew. Children of the city were taught the ways of the immortality from a young age, and also cautioned not to affect the world too drastically.

One day, a young man came to John’s cave.

“I am Ninurta. I have heard that you are the strongest of my father’s generation. Let’s have a duel.”

“Very well,” said John, “but all fights must be had in space. I assume you can handle yourself there.”

“Of course,” said Ninurta, flying high in the sky. John followed. He took it easy on the young man, defeating him in five blows when he could have finished it in one. Their short fight created so much light and sound that the ordinary people of Earth bowed and prayed, thinking that this was a sign from the gods.

Many more signs from the gods followed. John could do nothing about it. He made sure that nobody went overboard. About thirty immortals decided to leave Earth with their families, to explore other worlds. Sevens decided to accompany them on their journey, assuring John that he would be back soon. They took the old elven ship and left. John’s headache of managing the immortals had reduced substantially.

Time passed. John walked among the ordinary people when he was bored of his meditation or studying the holocube. He saw Gilgamesh from a distance. He wandered through the streets of Memphis. He walked through the construction site of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. He followed Sargon of Akkad’s conquests with interest, disguising himself as an ordinary warrior. He witnessed Hammurabi inaugurate his stele. He experienced the Hittites conquests and their fall first hand. He walked on the walls of Troy as it fell. He saw the world devastated by nature’s fury at the end of the bronze age.

John witnessed first hand the horror of the Assyrian war machine. He walked in the court of Cyrus the Great. John listened to Lao-tzu as he expounded on Daoism. He listened to Confucius debate. He followed Alexander’s conquests eastward.

While he was meditating in his cave one day, Atrata came to him, along with her brothers.

“Grandfather,” she said, “many immortals have started forming secret societies and are affecting the great powers of the world from behind the curtain. What should we do about this?”

“Create a regulatory body with people you trust,” said John. “Tell everyone’s societies to register with us or be destroyed. Make sure there is a suitable degree of oversight. As long as they don’t change things too drastically, don’t interfere.” John knew that he was not a deep thinker, but most of the immortals still looked to him for direction. Perhaps it was because they were scared of him.

“I’ll do as you say,” Atrata left. She was very capable at managing things.

John heard stories about the gods from the people. Most of these stories involved the immortals of Aliam. The stories were highly embellished.

The centuries passed. John met Buddha under the bodhi tree. He helped build the foundations of the Great Wall. He saw Julius Caesar conquer Alesia, and march on Rome. He listened to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He witnessed Rome burn under Nero. He saw the rise and fall of Constantinople. He witnessed the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. He danced in the court of Catherine the Great. He dodged canon fire at the battle of Waterloo. He looked on as people fought in the First and Second World Wars.

And then finally it was the year 1993, the day John’s past incarnation was going to be born. John went to his old house and found his parents cuddling a baby. They looked so young and happy. He spied on his past incarnation like a relentless stalker, remembering this life all over again. He had been such a feeble minded person. His past incarnation made John cringe. He wasn’t very clever but there was a limit to idiocy, and his past self kept crossing it.

And then came the day he slipped on a banana peel. John hurried into the manhole, and burned his whole body to dust after taking a sample of his DNA. He transformed into his former self and then climbed back out onto the street. He had made it at long last.

John ran to his parents’ house and hugged his mother as soon as she opened the door. He had wanted to do this for so long. He caught his father in a bear hug, and pulled his sister in as well.

“What’s with you today?” his sister pinched his arm until he let go. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“Nothing, just missed all of you. I decided to take a day off,” John grinned widely. For so long he had been obsessed with reaching this moment. For millennia, his obsession with meeting his family again was all that he had looked forward to. Home at last!

At long last, John could now begin on his grand project. Now that he had uncovered many of the holocube’s secrets, it was time to prepare Earth for its ascension.