The Last Story by Christopher Pike

faint hum as the engines were brought to full power.

    "Deceleration initiated," First Officer Pareen said.

    "We should reach Earth inside ten hours."

    Sarteen stood up from her chair and strode over to her first officer, noticing the excitement of her bridge crew as they stared at the sun and thought of the glorious destiny that awaited them. Sarteen could remember well her first and only brush with the collective consciousness of the Elders, as her people were now calling them. The feeling of coming home, of completeness, and of a love that transcended ail their ideas of what love could be. It was impossible to think that soon it would be their natural state. Never again would they have to struggle, to be afraid. They would enjoy the

    limitless state of being of those other races that had gone before them and perfected themselves. Not only that, the Elders had assured them that their entry into the Confederation would greatly uplift them as well.

    Mankind was special, they said. Mankind held the keys to the knowledge of the universe.
    It was in their genes, they said. The twelve strands of their DNA. Mankind had been a glorious experiment and now the experiment was going to reach its conclusion.

    Sarteen did not doubt the Elders for a moment. It would have been the same as doubting herself. When the Elders had linked with her mind, she realized that she was them, that she had come from them. And now she was going back to where she belonged.

    Pareen gestured to the crew at her approach.

    "They're excited."

    Sarteen nodded. "Aren't we all? It's not every day that the heavens open up. I still can't believe this is happening for us, after our long search."

    "But the whole time we searched," Pareen said, "we knew we would find what we were looking for."

    "You did, perhaps. You always had faith. But I had begun to think we were wasting our time."

    "Did you?" Pareen asked. "You never said."

    She smiled. "I'm the captain. I can never show weakness."

    She glanced at the screen. "At least I couldn't before."

    Pareen shook his head. "I think your weaknesses are few. If it had not been for you, none of us would have survived to enjoy this day. How many times did your quick thinking save our mission from disaster?"

    Sarteen was thoughtful. "But what was the useful

    ness of our mission? To find what we sought, we have come home. Don't you find that ironic?"

    "No. I find it appropriate." He paused. "Something bothers you, Captain?"

    She shrugged. "It's nothing. It's just that I feel somehow our journey was cut short. That we came to our goal too soon." She touched her chest as she stared at the sun. "I felt in my heart that it would be longer before we reached paradise."

    Pareen chuckled. "A thousand years was not long enough for you?"

    She had to smile. "I agree. It should be long enough for anybody."

    The hours passed slowly, as time was wont to do when the present moment was not as enjoyable as the promised tomorrow. The sun grew in brightness, the outer planets became visible, the gas giants shimmering in the glow of a star that had given life to a race that supposedly could tap into universal truths. Over the long distance from the galactic core, where the Elders resided, had come a partial explanation for the purpose of humanity, and why they had been isolated from the Elders the last million years.

    Mankind was the creation of the creator gods, who had been directed to this part of the universe by the Prime Creator Itself, that glorious being that could only partially be comprehended even by the brilliant Elders.

    The creator gods had been directed to build a biological creation in the physical realm that would be capable of manipulating matter and energy over the entire spectrum of frequencies.
    From the pure inexhaustible white

    light of the Prime Creator all the way down to the most inert matter. The secret to mankind's role was in its twelve chakras, or centers, which resonated with its twelve strands of