The wife of Arlow Tsai told us that he was more silent and withdrawn for days after the Mechanoid Arlow dispersed.
Something to expect of humans that had lost parents and families.
The Lan understood. They would also become withdrawn for fifty years at the loss of someone dear.
The original Arlow Tsai and his wife were just then trying to arrange their new lives. Arlow had inherited his grandparents' estate. It was a large inheritance.
After they met in the park that day, Arlow changed careers. He became a conflict resolution specialist. His wife had always been charitable food bank manager.
They were planning a worldwide effort to reduce the expansion of private wars and for-profit security conglomerates. The charter was about eliminating known sicknesses. The areas of conflict for resources were often hotspots for known deadly contagions.
There had been serious and methodical planning for the trip. Two other wealthy families would attend and meet up on the other side of the planet.
Arlow Tsai had a high temperature when he arrived for the flight. They denied him access to the airplane.
A half a day later, he got the news. The plane was shot down. No survivors.
He was silent and detached for months. He had weekly visits from his father-in-law. Neither could spend too much time with each other. They liked each other, but unwanted memories were too real when they were together.
As a human on Planet Earth, Arlow was not authorized to leave the planet.
He invited any space alien he could to his house.
He rented alien cryo-stasis machines to experience how that would feel.
It took years, but Arlow Tsai got license to leave Planet Earth on an acceleration galactic spaceship.
His human biology cleansed. Full documentation of his nutritional requirements (it was a secure document).
Most aliens thought it was risky and ill advised. Arlow's life span could not be more than a fraction of a century.
Any lapse in cryo-stasis would leave him dead of old age in the middle of any space trip.
It was not something advisable for any human of Planet Earth.
There were hints that some other humans elsewhere might do better. It only convinced Arlow more that he had to go.
He also needed to go an unusual route. He had to avoid a nearby Galactic space station. It was their regulation that kept the Sol system in quarantine and under supervision.