Tan closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the yacht. He heard the ocean slapping against the hull, the hum of the engines, and the clanging of a loose deck chair against the railing outside. The nausea hadn’t returned and his stomach had settled. He’d been in the Navy on a Carrier, but then he’d had the convenience of the patch issued by the ship’s doctor to help with sea sickness - and a Carrier didn’t bounce around as much in a storm as a small yacht did. He had been a cook on the Carrier, and had stood fire watch before, but standing watch on a helm was a whole new game. They were ahead of the storm now, but just barely. The hurricane couldn’t decide if it wanted to make landfall, or stay out at sea. Tan glanced down at the control panel, the autopilot was engaged and coping well now that they were no longer in the heart of the storm. Jack had taken them out of the storm before declaring he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. It had been Luca’s turn to stand watch, but was sleeping so peaceful, Tan had let him sleep. He glanced at the sleeping boys. Jack was stretched out on the floor, and Luca curled up on the bench seat. Tan smiled. The boys looked so normal while they slept, but these two boys could make the brightest scientific minds on any human world seem dull in comparison. Tan explored the knowledge the A.I. had inserted into his mind so far. The information he was receiving didn’t make him smart, but instead was more like having a few sentences memorized from each chapter. If he wanted to understand the context of the knowledge he was receiving, he would still have to sit down and take the courses with the A.I. He tried to search for information on how the Gates worked, but couldn’t understand the concept. The whole thing had something to do with quantum mechanics and entangled particles. It was giving him a headache just thinking about it. No, not a headache thinking about it, a headache when he tried to access the knowledge. He glanced at Jack. The boy was from a species much further along the evolutionary path than humans. Of course! The human brain was close to being able to assimilate so much information, but wasn’t quite ready. And the technology hadn’t been made to interface with a human brain. He imagined the Aedens had probably suffered headaches when they had first invented this technology. A thought came to Tan’s mind and he chanced asking the A.I. about it. “Aya, where do humans come from?” The A.I., or the subconscious of the A.I., since Tan was fairly certain the A.I. wasn’t intentionally feeding Aeden technology to him, replied immediately. “Humans are a sub-species of the Aeden, derived from Aeden DNA and seeded across the fifty galaxies of the Aeden Empire.” Tan’s breath caught in his throat. Were all the conspiracy theories about humans being seeded by aliens true? Was this why he could access their technology? He was an Aeden as they were millions of years ago. Another question came to him. “Aya, where do the Aeden’s come from?” “The Aeden’s are the descendants of the Zilinth, a non-corporeal species that crossed into this dimension at the moment the Universe was created.” Tan bent over and put his hands on his knees. “Aya, are there any species that formed in this Universe?” “Yes, there are five known origin species; the Ruk, the Atan, the Eroden, the Pyra, and the Sunth.” Tan sat heavily on the ground and inadvertently nudged against Jack. Jack's eyes fluttered open. “Huh... what’s wrong… is the ship okay?” “Yes, everything is okay, I had a leg cramp and sat down to work it out, go back to sleep.” Jack closed his eyes. Tan waited for Jack’s breathing to indicate he was again asleep. “Okay, Aya, let’s start with the first one, who are the Ruk?”