Inside the city of glass, the crystal staff stood locked in place in the decking and stretched up towards the disk of crystal chips arrayed around its upper end like the head of a sunflower. The green droid gestured to the black glass head of the sunflower.

“These forms you exist in will allow you to live here, on the space station. We may have others join us. Under limited power, I was able to continue to keep the cryogenic pods stable. This station does have some complete lifeforms preserved that we can wake to help us if required. My brother Zern will continue to protect us from outside forces that will try to take this tower. But these seeds, these memory chips, each one of them is a mind, a memory, an essence stored. The mind of a lifeform. They will all be fragmented. By improving each one of them, you will improve the odds of our garden, of mankind, and thusly us, of surviving.”

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The ostrich looked at the drone. “Well, mate. Probably time to get started then.”

“And how do we do?” the secretary bird asked.

And outside, the storm raged.