The Niobe Compendium: Isolation

Epilogue

The Keeper watched and waited. The keeper waited and watched. The strange Tasker seemed to have shut down.

The call of the key was throbbing, pulsing, strobing. Pulling, pulling, pulling. The Keeper had felt the magnetic pull of the key before it had even crashed to the planet in that massive case.

The Keeper found such a large case appropriate, such pivotal tool deserved the trappings of excess.

It was time.

The galaxy would live again. The Vahel would awaken from their watchful rest.

The Key pulled. The Keeper watched. It had waited this long, hours were eye blinks to it now.

The Keeper had been uncertain about the new models of Taskers that had returned the Key. They all seemed to have faulty programming. The Keeper had recycled one that seemed the most off task when it had wandered off from the others, in the opposite direction of the Cortex. The others had destroyed each other. The Keeper thought perhaps it was by design, once a Tasker had served it's primary purpose, the others destroyed it. That seemed terribly inefficient to The Keeper, but it was not his place to question designs of the Vahel.

The Key pulled. The Keeper watched. It was still uncertain of the Tasker that had climbed the Cortex only to shut down. Why would it come so near, then procrastinate its purpose? This perplexed the Keeper. If the Keeper had been less humble, it might've thought this was by design. That maybe the Vahel remembered it, and designed this Tasker to shut down here so The Keeper could do the final honor. But no, that was vanity. The designs of the Vahel were far above appeasing the lowly ego of a long forgotten Tasker like itself.

The Key pulled. The Keeper watched. It had become more certain of the foreign Tasker when it had utilized the revitalizers on the way up the cortex. The Keeper watched and waited. The Keeper waited and watched. The Key pulled. The Keeper Watched.

Then, the Keeper decided.

It crept forward on degrading limbs, the revitalizers had worked just as the Vahel had designed, but they could only do so much against the ravages of lengthening eons. The Keeper crept forward. The new Tasker did not move. They Key pulled, and pulsed, and throbbed, drawing the Keeper closer.

It plucked the Key from the odd compartment the Tasker had used to transport it, and found it was only yet another compartment, this one a cube. The pulsing was so strong now that it was shaking the Keeper. It dashed ungracefully away from the inactive Tasker. When it was an acceptable distance away, The Keeper opened the box. The Key did not pull. The Keeper dropped the cube and held the Key in front of him. His Task was nearly complete.

The Keeper lumbered to the center of the cortex and inserted the Key. It's long wait was over. It's Task complete. Now The Keeper watched for pleasure, not purpose. On ever side down the Cortex, the revitalizers began to charge, glowing first brown, then grey, then green.

Then they fired the bolt in unison, igniting the sky with the light of a dying sun, and continuing out across the vacuum to their destination.

The Keeper's task was done. The Vahel would awaken.