Life
I walk down to the river, taking care not to disturb the niosj-flowers. They hate it when bipeds trample their seedlings. And I certainly don't want to provoke another incident. Even if I know that it can and will be settled. We have come a long way together, our desperate bunch of humans as well as this worlds indigenous life forms.
We were not called the survivors in vain, after all. Lazily I wonder who came up with the name in the first place. An old citation comes to mind, 'nomen est omen'. Like so many things I have come to understand, it sounds true. Our children don't carry the plague. We left it behind with all the rest of the human heritage, lost and forgotten forever.
I skip another patch of niosj, their blue colouring announcing they are ready to initiate the mating season. I'm sure it won't take long for some siakka-birds to arrive. Then I hear happy voices and can't help smiling.
"Grandma, come here, quickly, granddad shows us how to make stones jump over the water!"
While I take Dany's hand, I watch our granddaughter and her hisaj friend playing the ageless human game. Soon, other children join in, both hisaj and human. For them, this world is perfect the way it is. They don't ask for more and never will need more. Our joined village lies near the meadow where we first landed, and up until now we overcame all difficulties. Our crops grow on the same fields and we share the labour of our hands, sustaining a happy patchwork population.
It helps that hisaj are really placid and curious. And the few humans born on old Earth now left have seen too much to believe in cruelty. With my generation almost gone and no Earth library available anymore, the cursed history of the human race will soon be forgotten. We found a place for our children to grow up, to call home and to share with our hisaj friends.
No one needs to know about the human minds sleeping forever in orbit around this peaceful planet and how this came to be. Ironically, the only way to preserve our humanity was to betray our human roots.
YOU ARE READING
Keeper of the Sleeping Minds
Science FictionThe only solution to save humanity is to leave plague-ridden Earth for good. But can a plan born out of desperation bring back the lost innocence of the human community? Fiona is a survivor, immune to the virus that ravaged the population of Earth...
