Phoenix Starship Andromeda—The Bridge
Back on Andromeda, Mother began receiving survey reports from 3,277,778 search bots. As the reports arrived, she compiled them and generated a holoimage on the Bridge showing the result. Any part of the holoimage could be enlarged up to real-life size. She highlighted any points of interest.
Day after day, Mother added details—forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, prairies, deserts, swamps, jungles, but no cities, no roads, no structures, nothing indicating sapience or intelligence.
From time to time, a bot would fail. Mother grayed out the missing areas, but they were few and far between. One could easily surmise what was missing, unless that was the spot that harbored sapience.
This haunted Thorpe as the days passed, and the survey progressed. This
