The Last Planet

"Hey, Joe, have you seen the latest job spec?" Lee twisted round painfully to watch as Joseph Harmon came forward and eased himself in stages into the engineer's seat.

"Give me a break. I'm still stiff from cryo," said Joe. He wriggled slowly, testing his muscles before allowing his body to settle into the seat. "Okay, let's have a look at it."

"It's a strange one," said Lee. "Well, the job looks routine but they've added a bit that doesn't make much sense." He passed the transcript to Joe.

SETI-9 Sector A9016: Planet Rosco795. Standard Robot Investigation. Arrival 3052-12-06-2318. Report 48 hours. Authorization code 901B. Special instructions: This one is the last.

Joe frowned and read the final sentence again. "What the hell does that mean, 'This one's the last'?"

"I couldn't make it out either," said Lee. "Do they mean it's our last and we can go home afterwards? Or is it the last in the sector? Dunno why they have to be so cryptic."

Joe shook his head. "Can't see it being our last. We're way short of our quota. I'll just have to ask them."

"Great. That means we won't know until we've finished the job. Takes at least four days to get a reply out here."

"Yeah but can't be helped. Can you go check on the robot while I get a message out?" Joe turned to the keypad and flexed his fingers while he considered how to phrase his query. Get it right first time, he thought; any ambiguity and they'll misinterpret and it'll be weeks before we sort it out.

Outside the ship, the gray planet came ever closer and striations of blue coalesced around its equator. His routine maintenance of the robot completed, Lee studied the planet through a viewport. Rosco795, only the second Rosco they had been asked to look at. He thought of the millions of names assigned to these orbiting chunks of rock, of how mythological names had long ago run out and they had been forced to resort to numbers as well as names. If this was the 795th Rosco, the mind could not comprehend how many other planets there must be, hundreds of Omegas, Plutos, Junos, Harveys, thousands of names and hundreds of numbers. It was too much for the mind, numbers without meaning.

And still there was no sign of life, let alone the intelligent life they were looking for. This one, Rosco795, looked possible; that blue color might mean water and the striations must surely be clouds. Yet Lee had seen plenty of planets that seemed even better prospects, only to yield the same bare sterility he had come to accept as the norm. With a sigh, he hit the comms button and announced: "Robot's ready when you are, Joe. On my way back to the bridge."

Over the next two days they watched as the ship's computer processed the streams of data from the robot. How diligently the robot worked, sifting, sampling, sniffing, analyzing, always searching for that organic footprint, the first sign that life might be present in some form. Very early on they knew that there was no chance of carbon-based life on Rosco795; the chemical mix was all wrong. But they let the robot continue as it worked through the other possibilities.

When the job was done and the answer the usual blank, they ordered the robot back to the ship and did not hurry through the usual docking and cleansing procedures. No new instructions had come through and they still awaited an explanation of that strange final sentence on the job spec. Joe prepared the usual report and sent it on its way; Rosco795 - life: no evidence.

Normally they would have gone back into stasis at this time, allowing the ship to receive the next co-ordinates and to make the jump without their interference, but they wanted to know what was meant by "the last one". So they passed the long hours in quiet conversation or watching the gray planet roll by the viewports. The lack of new co-ordinates seemed to make it more likely that they had completed the tour for this sector and they allowed themselves a little hope that they might be going home early.

It was exactly 48 hours after they had completed the Rosco795 job that a message came through. They read it on screen as it appeared, character by character, as though exhausted by its journey through the endless distances of space.

SETI-9 Sector A9016: Re your query. Rosco795 was the last planet. There are no more. If no life found, get into stasis. You're coming home, boys!

Lee turned from the screen to look at Joe. His mouth opened to speak. At that moment the ship filled with blinding white light and the words remained forever unspoken in Lee's mouth. Instead it was Joe who said, "What the...?"

So bright was the light that they had to hold their hands before their eyes as they stumbled against edges and corners on the way to the viewports. They peered between their fingers at the brilliant brightness that now filled the emptiness of space.

"Jesus," breathed Joe.

"You're right," said Lee, his voice filled with excitement and joy. "We've done it, we've finally done it..."

Outside, the man, robed in light and shining as brightly as a thousand suns, beckoned to them.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Mt. 24:14 NIV

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