Click waited until he was certain everyone else was sound asleep before crawling out of the dormitory.
He stayed low to the floor, keeping his head down, out of sight of anyone stirring briefly in their sleep. Usually he hated being the smallest youngling, but right now his small size was going to be a distinct advantage. He reached the door, unchallenged.
On tenterhooks, he opened the door and slipped out of the room, moving quickly down the long tunnel and into the vast cavern that housed the food vats and air recycling units. He followed the well trodden path, looking neither right nor left as he hurried along. He calculated he had about six hours before anyone stirred—six hours to explore the forbidden tunnels. And what lay beyond.
The rust-red rock was warm beneath his feet, almost uncomfortably so. He reached the edge of the cavern and slowed his pace, his eyes scanning for the tiny opening to the old tunnel. Ah, there it was. He squeezed inside and paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the low light. The space was small and pale ochre with dust, after generations of small feet wearing away the hard surface.
Despite being declared off-limits, Click knew that most younglings ventured here at least one time in their childhood. It was a rite of passage. He was certain the Elders knew full well that younglings came here, but they turned a blind eye to this relatively safe rebellion, confident that the chamber was a dead end, that the tunnel back to their previous Home had been blocked. Filled with the rubble from digging out their new Home.
What the Elders didn't know however, was that a crack had opened in the sealed tunnel, high up and out of sight of the casual observer. It was so thin that even Click had difficulty squeezing his body through the opening, though fortunately the crack widened somewhat after several mets. Click had made the discovery a few sleep cycles ago and ventured inside only far enough to see that the crack was accessible.
Now though, he was going to explore. Excitement tingled throughout his body. Maybe the crack would lead all the way back to the Old Home, a place he had only heard about. What an adventure!
Click clambered up the wall and squeezed his slim body into the narrow opening. Once inside, it was pitch black but he used his sensors to gauge his surroundings, checking for obstacles in his path. It shouldn't be that hard, after all, there was only one way to go!
He crawled steadily along the fissure, knowing that he was climbing despite the fact that he could see nothing. The rock felt warm to his touch. Warmer than the rock he was used to. Click liked the warmth, but he was starting to feel uncomfortably hot. He tightened his jaw and went on. He couldn't stop now. Just a little further...
It was getting hotter. Heat was the reason his people had moved from their Old Home in the first place. The Old Home had become too hot to live in.
Click knew his people had changed over the centuries, evolving and adapting to their world. Aunty K'erra told him that previous generations would find the current temperature of New Home unbearable, possibly even fatal. And she thought the temperature was rising too fast in New Home and that it was time to move again.
Aunty K'erra had been muttering about the need to move further underground for weeks now, but the other Elders didn't want to move. This had been their home for generations. They knew where things were, every nook and cranny as familiar to them as their own faces. If they moved again, how many times would that make it? A hundred? A thousand? And every time, downwards. Click couldn't help wondering if one day they would come out on the other side of the world.
Trying to distract his thoughts from his present discomfort, Click thought back to the conversation he had overheard only a week ago.
"The Home is getting hotter," Aunty K'err insisted. "We have to start digging before it's too late."
"There's plenty of time," argued Uncle Skitch. "You know the Book as well as I do. 'After nine generations you shall begin to dig a New Home. No less than one Kota down. At ten generations, you shall move to the New Home. Take everything with you that you need to survive and then block the way behind you, so that none may return to the Old Home.'" He smiled patronisingly. "And—as you know—we are only seven generations further on since the last move."
"That rule might have worked well enough in the past, but the world is warming faster than before." Aunty K'err replied, holding back her temper with some difficulty. "Just feel the rock beneath your feet!"
"A temporary aberration, I'm sure," said Uncle Skitch, dismissively. "Why, only two generations back we experienced this very same thing, and it all settled back to normal after a few weeks. You'll see, this is just part of the cycle above the world."
"But this time it's been more than a few weeks, Skitch," replied Aunty K'err, dropping the honorific in her frustration. "If you check the records, you'll find the temperature has been rising steadily for months! We have to start digging immediately!"
Click couldn't remember the Elder's reply, now. He struggled forward.
Hot, so hot... It was hard to move, the heat sapped the energy from his body, confused his mind. What was he doing here, again? He'd just have a little nap until his head cleared...
Then something touched his foot.
~~~
Tokka waited until Click left the dormitory and closed the door, before slipping out of bed and following him. Where was her brother going in the middle of sleeping time? She couldn't imagine, but whatever he was doing, she wanted to be part of it. He might be older by a few seconds, but she was bigger.
She kept to the shadows as much as possible, though she need scarcely have bothered. Click was so focussed on his goal that he didn't even think to check behind. Once she saw him enter the old tunnel chamber however, Tokka halted outside. She hesitated. What in Earth was he doing in there?
Several minutes passed and still Click didn't come out. Tokka couldn't hold her curiosity any longer. She poked her head inside. The chamber was empty.
~~~
Captain Muldroon took her ship into orbit, as close to Old Earth as she could. Her passengers had each paid a small fortune to see the dying planet with their own eyes and she wanted to give them their money's worth.
She was alone on the bridge except for her First Officer, who was standing by, ready to provide emergency back up in the unlikely event that it should be needed.
The rest of her crew was huddled into the holotheatre, along with all ten of the Skylord's passengers. Viewing screens embedded in the outer fabric of the ship were impossible, but inside the holotheatre, everyone could experience the three-D drama of events outside, in as close to real time as made no difference.
The console unit in front of her gave her all the information she needed but the Captain couldn't help wishing she was watching the holoshow with everyone else. There was something magical about being able to reach out and touch a planet, even if you knew it wasn't "real."
She sighed unconsciously. Everything was being recorded, of course—copies would sell like blue emeralds when they returned to Capella. She could experience the replay later, on the return journey, but it wouldn't be quite the same.
First Officer Kenya broke into her musings.
"Look at that, Captain. Hard to imagine anything could ever live there now, isn't it?"
He was pointing at the information on the screen in front of him. "Average surface temperature is around 140 degrees Celsius. CO2 levels are down to 12 ppm." He fiddled with the console unit. "I'll see if I can get a picture for us. There."
Both officers stared at a bleak surface covered in mountains, deep trenches and boiling plains.
"So many shades of brown, you'd never believe it used to be called the blue planet, would you?"
"I thought that was just a myth. Any water at all down there?"
"Not a drop."
"And no signs of life, I suppose? Have you checked?"
"I'm running the scanner now... Wait! Did the scanner just pick something up?"
"Run it again."
"I think it was just a hiccup. What could possibly be alive down there? A microbe?"
"I'll run it once more, just in case. After all, this will be our last opportunity to rescue anything. This is bound to be our last visit. The sun is expanding faster than expected, it will be too dangerous to get any closer than Mars in a year or so, if that. Earth's days are well and truly numbered."
Muldroon waited as Kenya scanned the dying planet one more time. He sat back in his chair.
"No. There's nothing down there—at least, nothing more advanced than a microbe. Or maybe a bug." He laughed.
~~~
Tokka soon discovered the crack in the chamber, up high in the wall of the old tunnel. Click had to have gone inside, there was nowhere else he could be. She squeezed into the opening, making herself as flat as possible.
It was pitch black. Tokka closed her multi-facetted eyes and switched over to her two cerci, her sensors.
Whew! It was so hot in here. Tokka began to feel anxious. This didn't feel safe. How far had Click gone? She scuttled along the fissure as fast as she could.
She smelt Click before she sensed him, his pheromones so distinctive. Tokka reached out with her front leg and tapped Click's back foot.
"Click! Are you all right?"
No answer.
Tokka shook his foot vigorously until he roused, still groggy. "Whassamatta?"
"It's me, Tokka. Come on, we have to go back, it's too hot in here. We have to go Home. We'll be safe there."