"Add those nutrient stimulators to my bag, Ala."
She moved to obey while I remained gazing out the
window.
The view from the window was beautiful. Open sky,
pinpointed by a tiny silvery stars, being orbited by
distant planets. How many of those planets had we
colonised over the millennia? Colonised populated and
now had to abandon, all because of one foolish person
who had wanted to show off what she could do. The
person was dead now, the Council had seen to it. Dead
as a punishment for misusing her power. Still, she had
left the rest of us to deal with the ramifications of
her act.
Ala coughed behind me and when I turned, irritated,
she held out my bag.
"Are you going for a long trip, mistress?"
"Yes, a very long trip."
The longest. Outside of the galaxy, a trip that would
take decades, if not centuries. Rushed into leaving
because of the black hole some idiot had created, a
black hole that was slowly pulling our plant into it.
Or was our plant moving toward it? The details escaped
me, but in the end the result was the same. A
different voice interrupted my musings:
"Ready yet, Tia?"
Only one person would greet me with such informality.
My life-partner, Ric. Sure enough there he was,
leaning comfortably against the doorway, his own bag
slung over his shoulder. Ala had vanished, becoming
scarce as the servants usually did when Ric was
present. Such behaviour helped with our plan, though I
still felt badly about it.
"Are-are you sure that we have to leave them behind?"
Ric looked annoyed at my question but his voice was
gentle,
"Look, I know it’s hard but it’s already been decided
by the Council. They can’t come. There’s barely enough
room on the ship for our own people much less them."
I nodded a reply, not trusting my voice. Three decades
I had been with Ric and I was still surprised by his
reaction to the Council’s decision. He had no qualms
about leaving behind the beings custom bred to serve
us while I...I...
"Hey," Ric crossed the room in two strides and cupped
my chin in one hand, gently wiping away the tears that
had begun to trickle down my cheeks, "We’ll breed new
servants on our new world, love. You can even
give them names again if you want."
I smiled through my tears.
"Really?"
"Really." Ric released my chin and wrapped a
comforting arm around my shoulders, "Now, are you
ready yet? The ship’s waiting."
The ship and our people on it. Waiting for us so that
we could fly off into the stars and colonise a new
world, leaving this one to be swallowed by the black
hole.
I squared my shoulders. "Yes. Yes, I’m ready."
"Good." Ric bent and picked up my bag.
We passed Ala on the way out of the building. Ala, who
bid us farewell and said she would look after the
house until we returned. Exactly like she had been
bred to.
I paused on the ships’ landing ramp to take one last
glimpse of this world, my home for all my life and the
world that had spawned Ala’s kind. Then I continued up
the ramp into the welcoming arms of my people,
wondering only in passing how long it would take for
this world, called Earth by Ala’s people to be forever
swallowed up by the black hole and what would happen
to them once they entered it.
x x x
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