Seed spent a lot of time in the lab. New knowledge gave a lot of interesting ideas to the black ball as well as ways of their realization.

Thanks to the eaten computers of the sect's spaceship, Seed had created his first biocomputer. It was an organic brain inside a meat cube. The biocomputer was an alive organism and had a limited self-consciousness. As well, Seed had added some psy-cells in the biocomputer to give it an ability to manage his unintelligent creatures. Later Seed had conducted an experiment. He allowed the biocomputer to take under its control a pair of centipedes. An outcome wasn't what Seed had expected. No, the biocomputer could manage the insects, and it could manage them well, but as an alive organism the biocomputer could get tired or get hungry. It needed to have some rest, and it needed to eat some nutrients regularly.

In the future Seed found – to the ball's utter shock - that his biocomputers could make mistakes, especially if they were tired. The biocomputers were imperfect – no, they were even dangerous - but Seed hadn't anything better.

Soon the first batch of biocomputers were made and placed in a specially excavated room, next to the lab. Some new-made small insects were tasked to service them. The biocomputers were connected in a network and began to work together. They managed all insects in the base and helped Seed with his experiments.

Seed had some ideas about his future spaceship, but he couldn't realize this project due to the abai's presence on the planet. He was afraid to attract their attention.

They will need to leave Katak before I return to this project, the ball decided and concentrated his attention on other projects.

One of those projects was a large cluster of psy-cells. When it was grown, Seed connected that cluster to his body through one of his tentacles. It strengthened his mental ability tremendously. Now Seed could feel the presence of other intelligent beings on the gigantic territory. Unexpectedly Seed had discovered some groups of intelligent beings who weren't mouchi or the abrai, and who lived somewhere far in the jungle.

Interesting, who are they? The ball thought.

It was a chance that those intelligent beings could be the descendants of those primitives who were destroyed by the sect members.

I will grow more clusters of psy-cells. They are useful, Seed also thought.

Some of those future clusters the black ball decided to connect to his biocomputers. It would allow Seed to boost his number of insects.

+++

A male mouchi had been working with a terminal of the galactic communicator for a long time. Other mouchi could only glance at him with interest and admiration, but no one dared to disturb the busy hamster. They knew that this hamster was being controlled by their creator.

Nowadays Seed preferred to stay inside the lab. Seed's body got bigger as some tentacles were connected to the biocomputers, to the cluster of psy-cells, and to other useful devices. The centipedes continued to bring him food.

Currently the black ball was surfing the galactic network through his fluffy puppet. The galactic network was huge. No, it was an endless ocean of information.

A galaxy was gigantic; too gigantic to be occupied by any race alone. Even the so-called “elder races”, the most powerful and technologically advanced states, could occupy just a minute part of the known galaxy. They lived in their own star sectors, gradually – very gradually - expanding their borders outside.

On the galaxy map those star sectors looked like tiny islands in the gigantic ocean, with a lot of space between the star sectors. In those unclaimed spaces lived numerous so-called “young races”. As a rule, their technological level was low.

The elder races had the most advanced technology, because they had many labs of superb quality. Only the best scientists worked there. In fact the elder races had a monopoly on high-tech. The so-called “young races” could only expect to get dribs and drabs from them.

As could be expected, the elder races – as intelligent beings - didn't live in peace with each other. Conflicts, conspiracies, disputes, and sometimes even wars happened among them. As a rule, the elder races didn't wage wars themselves. For this purpose they had vassals - who were young races - with the acceptable level of technology and power.

The abrai were the elder race. Their star sector was called “Li'ii'ira”, the smallest star sector among others. But it didn't mean that the abrai were weak. Some information channels stated that the abrai – as a race of scientists - had the most superior technology even among other elder races. Seed didn't know if that was the truth.

The black ball learned that the Li'ii'ira star sector had the most number of anomalies. Almost every anomaly was dangerous, as information channels stated. They said that even living close to an anomaly was dangerous. But those anomalies were of great interest to the abrai. They studied them.

The planet of Seed was located in the known part of the galaxy. Katak was a part of the Pirono region. This region had a small number of its own anomalies.

The nearest neighbor of Ka'tak was some kind of bird race. They called themselves “Piripi”, whatever that meant. As well as the mouchi, the birds were primitives when unexpectedly - about a decade ago - one of the young races had brought them into a space age and then left the birds alone. Seed couldn't figure out why that young race did that. Perhaps, it was done on a whim?

The black ball had even spoken – through a galactic communicator – with the piripi's representative. During the talk the bird looked timid and a little afraid. It even looked at its own terminal as if it was some kind of a magical machine.

It seems that the birds can't adapt to their new life yet. Seed thought.

Another neighbor was some kind of military race, which had some small colonies on other planets, and – if the information channels were right – had an ambition to conquer all of the Pirono region. Seed didn't contact them. He wasn't ready for any possible conflicts.

Seed continued to surf the galactic network and realized that he understands nothing in a commerce. It wasn't his thing. But Seed read about all ongoing war conflicts in the Pirono region with great interest.

As reading about the war conflicts Seed's instincts awoke, even his numerous tentacles trembled with excitement. The Great Devourer had destroyed many worlds, bringing death and despair to their inhabitants. A destruction was a part of Seed's nature. The ball was so excited that he had even lost control over the mouchi who worked with the terminal.

In a while Seed calmed down, and his tentacles ceased trembling. He didn't like what had happened to him, because his instincts took control over him.

It's not good. I need to better control myself.

+++

A week later

A gray spaceship left hyperspace and headed to the planet that was designated on the galactic map as “Katak”.

A being – which looked like a giant gray toad – clicked on the interactive monitor with the help of a pair of metal manipulators. He – the toad's gender was male – didn't pick up any signals in the system or from the planet. Also, he didn't see any vessels or stations except a sole abrai's spaceship. The being wasn't surprised. He had already read all available information about this “Mouchi Autocracy” in the Galactic Network.

“A primitive world” he muttered.

The toad – or “Quak” to friends - didn't expect much from this planet. It would be nice to fool some primitives to sign a contract with his client. The Quak's client was one of those mercenary companies that provided so-called “meat”, cheap and forgettable mercenaries, to their clients.

Currently Quak looked for such fools everywhere; his main targets were some wild worlds. But thanks to the ongoing wars in Pirono, even those worlds couldn't provide Quak with enough recruits anymore. Now he had only about fifty recruits in his spaceship's cargo bay. It was a small number. Quak would earn almost nothing. That disturbed him a lot. That's why he decided to visit this “Mouchi Autocracy”. He hoped to recruit some fresh meat here.

Gradually the gray spaceship was approaching its target.