Once they reach to outer shell of the huge spaceship, Sir Girard leads them to corrals where some of the other aliens take care of their horses. He leads them up a long ramp where they enter an enormous cargo area. There are many different kinds of space ships sitting around this bay but they are dwarfed by the enormity of the cargo bay. It looks practically empty in spite of all the many ships parked there. Sir Girard directs them to an area where many small electric carts are parked and bids them all board one. He takes the wheel and begins to travel down one of the many long corridors of the vessel. As they travel, Sir Girard tells them of the vessel's history as much as he knows. 'The space man directed us to this vessel after we escaped our doomed planet.' says Sir Girard, to Archie, Reed and Skylar. 'He discovered it way out in space sitting alone and neglected on one of his many forays around this galaxy. There is much about it that he knows but he is letting us discover its secrets on our own. He calls it a learning experience. So far, we have deciphered the language of the original creators of the vessel and have had a field day studying the incredibly extensive library on board. The race that built this vessel have been extinct for many eons. They had a fleet of them they used to seed new planets throughout the universe. All the extensive labs on board are capable of splicing genes and growing just about anything in the cloning vats you could possibly imagine, plants and animals. The genetic samples on board almost seem limitless in their variety and complexities. Long extinct creatures from all over creation reside in there and the creation of new varieties are only limited to your imagination. From what we have been able to deduce looking at the most recent Captain's logs, the last pilot of this vessel was formerly an itinerant lowly space merchant who had traveled the galaxy peddling what meager wares he could find from one planet to the next. He was hired by some ambitious and evil people to seek out this vessel of legend. One of the group was a galactic archeologist who had discovered references to this kind of vessel and its possible location in one of her archeological explorations. During the course of claiming the ship, everyone but the merchant got killed. Since he had a natural aptitude for learning new systems, he was able to figure out how to activate enough of the ship so that he could get it into a repair facility at a distant space station/planet. Eventually, he traveled this galaxy quite extensively and did quite a bit of good with the tools of creation on board. But eventually, he died while traveling between planets and the vessel once again was lost and placed itself into stasis till the space man found it. It has been several thousand years since it had occupants. The space man has done an extensive examination of the vessel and has determined it is no longer safe for space travel. We were fortunate that it was able to bring us to this planet. While enroute here, the space man came ahead of us and created the landing spot you see it sitting in now. He has entrusted us with learning as much as we can from its contents.' Archie can't contain his excitement after hearing what Sir Girard has told them. 'I wish I could have some of my botcydroids visit here for a length of time and see what they could learn!' 'I was hoping you would make the offer.' Says Sir Girard. 'We would welcome the opportunity to add their expertise to our current endeavors. When do you think we might arrange that?' 'Well, after we get back to the moon base, I will discuss it with them and let them decide what they need. I know Hermanus has already been here. He told us quite a bit about what he had seen, but hearing about it just doesn't compare to actually being here to behold it first hand!' [Read "Tuf Voyaging", by George R. R. Martin for a full description of this vessel. I got the idea to use it for this part of my story about Archie and his gang.] M4 characters. Rendered in Poser Pro 2014. Post work in Photoshop 7. Thank you for taking a peek! Your support is greatly appreciated!