Prologue

"Phzbleep, how could you make such a COLOSSAL mistake?!?!?" the angered caretaker roared at his underling. "This is so unlike you! What could you have been thinking?"

Phzbleep nervously shifted his weight from one of his three legs to the next around and around while he endured the criticism of his superior.

"Have you nothing to say for yourself? Not a word in your own defense?"

Phzbleep just knew that his superior was baiting him, but he couldn't help responding, "But your Eminence it is just one small world out of the billions in this universe you've placed under my care. Not that the mistake isn't serious your Greatness, it's just that I've maintained a high efficiency rating for my entire tenure until this point in time; wouldn't it be possible to forgive me just this once your Supremeness?"

"Hmmm. Your past performance is rather noteworthy 'tis true; however, this particular mistake could have wiped out one of our more entertaining life forms Phzbleep. What I fail to see is how you could overlook something so elementary and basic? Every planetary body under your care, except for this one apparently, has received the requisite orbital adjustments as a matter of course. The majority of these have built in safeguards to make frequent minute adjustments as needed. Why you've even placed this type of mechanism on planets completely devoid of life! How then could you have overlooked this planet so full of life in varying forms?"

Phzbleep groaned in agony folding his three legs under him lowering his body in an attempt to more effectively grovel. "I cannot say why your Magnificence. I only know that I have. Whatever my fate is to be, may I not be allowed to apply the necessary protective mechanism and spare the planet from disaster?"

"Ahhh! So you are concerned with the charges placed under your care then! This says much for you Phzbleep! Take the necessary actions to correct your oversight and we will put this matter behind us."

Phzbleep closed his eyes, one right after the other, until all three of his optic organs were idle and concentrated his significant mental powers on correcting his error. Left uncorrected, Phzbleep's oversight would have resulted in the eventual collision of a highly populated planet with a large gas giant. It would not have occurred for quite sometime in any case, but it would have happened and Phzbleep was certain the highest life form on the planet would not have appreciated the end result. Of course it was possible that by that time the residents who referred to their planet as 'Earth' would have mastered interstellar travel and been able to evacuate at least a portion of their population before the tragedy wiped out all life on the planet.

"It is odd," Phzbleep thought, "that subject life forms are allowed to terminate life on their own planets - but that any error on my part is forbidden. Nonetheless Phzbleep focused on his task and had soon developed the corrective agent that would automatically place the residents on the planet in a form of stasis while correcting the planet's orbit for drift. The agent he had crafted would perform its function once for every rotation of the planet thereby ensuring that the drift would always be eliminated before it could cause any disaster.

Phzbleep's entire aura pulsed and cycled through all of the energy forms of the spectrum as he beamed the corrective agent into the very heart of the planet.

"All finished your Worthiness."

"Good then. I won't mention this again if you don't; however, I would like you to occasionally check in on things here. I wish to be notified when this life form advances to the point of interstellar travel. Now let's continue with our review of the other regions under your care."

With that Phzbleep and his superior vanished only to re-appear in some other distant part of the universe under review.

The whole incident would have remained entirely beyond the notice of the life forms on the planet in question except for two factors. The first was that when Phzbleep had cycled through the energy spectrum a fairly strong X-ray pulse registered on many of the planet's military satellites. The second factor wouldn't be noticed for several hours yet and when it was it would change the life of one man. Karl Bosworth felt a momentary flash of heat as the corrective agent passed through his body on its way to the center of the earth. He happened to be standing in line with the path that Phzbleep had sent the agent on and although he didn't recognize the significance of the extreme hot flash and the subsequent disorientation he found himself afflicted with for the next several hours, Karl had been changed forever.