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January in the year 7047
"Oh please, tell us that story." the children begged the old man.
"Oh you don't want to hear that one again, do you?" the old man replied as he eased himself into the chair.
"Yes, yes we do." The children chorused as they settled on the floor around the old man. "Please!"
The old man was a storyteller. He told stories of fantasy, of animals that flew in blue skies and animals that swam in water that was miles deep and tasted of brine. He told of a time when the people walked on terra firma - they were stories of a planet called Earth that orbited around a bright glowing star. A star that made things grow green from the ground, a star that gave warmth and light. He told the stories the way his grandfather had told him.
As the old man told his stories, he would recall his grandfather and the way he would always tell him, "Remember, the people must remember." He hoped that just one child would remember and pass the stories to another generation. "The people need to remember," his grandfather insisted.
"It was a very long time ago," he began as the children quieted, "Long before any of you or your great great grandparents were even born. There was a planet the people called the Earth. More than 3 billion people lived on this planet. Most of them didn't know each other, until that one day…"
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January 7, 2047
The crisis had been escalating between the East and the West for some time now. Last week when that surveillance plane went missing was the tip of the iceberg. Noone was willing to claim responsibility and now noone was even talking to each other.
The government had been planning for this for nearly a century. Since the beginning of what the people called The Atomic Age, the people had feared and planned for the day when someone would push that button and annihilate the human race.
The pods had been built sometime during the 1990's. Not many people knew about them. There were 100 in all, scattered throughout the Americas. Each pod held about 500 people.
The pods were made to fit together to form one large ship that could sustain human life for 10 or more years, enough time to find another habitable planet. Or so they thought…
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"Dear God, What have we done?"
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Murmured prayers were heard as the pods lifted and the people could see the devastation taking place below them. Mushroom clouds were forming all over the planet. Huge fireballs appeared where major cities once thrived.
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"Is this the same ship?" a young child interrupted.
"Most of it," replied the storyteller, "Parts of it have been replaced with other parts and pieces have been destroyed, but yes, part of this ship is the same pods that lifted off that planet so many centuries ago.
Only 72 pods actually made it off the planet that day. Most of them had far fewer people aboard than they could actually support. In all, about 20,000 people survived the demolition of the planet Earth." The old man continued, "At first it wasn't easy for the group of unseasoned space travelers, many people became ill, some even died and were jettisoned into space. Eventually the strong survived, to continue to explore and travel and hopefully find a new planet to colonize. These men and women were your ancestors, the original Travelers."
"I don't believe in this place called Earth!" one little boy interrupted, "If there is such a place, why haven't we gone back there to live? I think we have always been travelers; I don't think Earth ever existed at all; I think you're making it all up; just like your stories about animals that fly and a glowing star that makes things grow; it's all just a story!"
"Believe what you want," the old man sighed, "But remember the stories, you may need them someday."
"I'm tired now children, I need to rest." The old man eased himself out of the chair and made his way to the door. "Just remember," he said quietly as he left the room, "remember."
The old man made his way back to the suite of rooms he had called his home for all of his life. He had long ago lost his wife and even outlived his two sons. He now shared the space with his grandson, Mykle. Mykle looked after the place and took care of him. Although he would never admit he needed to be taken care of, he liked it when Mykle would scold him for not eating right or for not taking his medicine, and he appreciated the company.
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Mykle worked on the ship as a navigator, just as his father had before him. There really wasn't much to his job, mostly just keeping a lookout that the ship didn't accidentally run into an asteroid belt and get pelted to bits or get caught up in the gravitational pull of some unknown planet or star.
They had never had any real trouble. They bumped into a couple of pieces of space junk once, left over from the space race of the twentieth century, which they promptly salvaged for the replacement parts. A couple of times they thought they might have spotted a new planet to colonize only to find out that the atmosphere just wasn't quite right for them.
But mostly Mykle just sat and looked out into space, watching and waiting…