Roughly two-thousand years ago, the majority of the people of Earth had forgotten about reaching the stars and concentrated on more Earthly matters. The dwindling space programs rapidly lost funding and their ardent participants could not continue efficiently without equipment. Thus man had never again poked his head out into the cold, black vacuum.
Things on Earth were wonderful, though; 4024 A.D. and the world was a pretty spiffy place. World peace under a global government. Utopia! It was the true Golden Age of humanity. Until, using antiquated observation equipment, the astronomer (there was only one left, all the others having died out from starvation) discovered a rogue planet roughly the size of the Moon, on a collision course with the Earth. The focal point of impact would be somewhere around Green River, Utah, but that didn't matter. It would shatter the entire planet, forming a new asteroid belt from any pieces that didn't fly off at escape velocity, leaving Sol's grasp forever to become stony funeral barges, forever roaming the depths of space.
Space programs were rapidly rehabilitated.
Unfortunately, it was way to late to consider any sort of exodus. Though technology had made amazing leaps and bounds, any sort of interstellar drive had not been researched for over two-thousand years, nor had methods of keeping humans alive through years of space travel, and there wasn't enough time to start now.
There was one hope for survival of the human race. Genetic manipulation had come a long way, and, agencies, in the event the earth should become wildly underpopulated due to nuclear war or some other circumstances, had created a tree which produced human embryos and incubated them until their birth, allowing for a wild amount of genetic variation to ensure that future generations would not be obscenely inbred. It could even, in the absence of other humans to support it, create a few with extremely rapid growth, so they were born as adults, full of instinctive memories and able to care for the other children of the tree who came out as helpless babies..
If they could make a robotic spacecraft that would keep the seeds safely stored until it found a suitable planet, then, perhaps, the human species would survive somewhere. It would find a good place (Soil wasn't really necessary, the seeds were designed to survive and take root in almost any mineral, converting it to sustenance, not to mention a variety of environmental conditions which it could sense and adapt it's offspring to.) and then deploy the seeds of hundreds of these versatile plants.
Scientists, Engineers, Biologists, Botanists, Anthropoligists, and various other 'ists from all over the world banded together to produce humanity's last hope, surviving the catalclysmic riots and anarchistic destruction brought on by hysteric masses in their hidden facilities. They perfected the scheme just in time and watched the craft launch by the light of the bright new star that would soon bring thier end.
A very long time later, the spacecraft finally found a new home for humankind. It streaked through the atmosphere in a fiery ball and smashed through a forest of glowing,bulbous, blue things. The little robot climbed out of the landing craft and made it's way to the edge of the smoking crater. It beeped and whirred and clicked. A small creature, attracted by the commotion, investigated it. The robot found a suitable, open area and opened, extending its tray of seeds, and beginning to profer a message in every language known to man, including pictographs, should the aliens, by some chance, not understand Dutch or Japanese. These messages had been prepared should sentient life forms be there to greet it.
The creature, however, was much more interested in the seeds. They smelled good. It plucked them out one by one with its excuse for a tongue and swallowed them whole, until every last one was gone.
"Gork!" it said and ran off to investigate the crater, hoping there was more good food from the sky in the area.
The robot continued it's automated task. Humming and clicking, and whirring, picking at the tray and planting nothing. |
