Population: One, Me by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

Outward travelers

The time has come, we have sighted the immense ship from that world. We hailed it but there was no answer. That is almost what we expected so we did a scan of the ship. To our horror, the scan shows that there is no life aboard.

It was debated whether to board it but then the final scan report showed that a virulent pathogen was aboard. The report stated that it was an engineered one that its probable use was for global destruction as a final act of a leader that was losing the war.

How ignorant could you be. They must have planned for just that, shouldn’t they have?

Looking at the construction of that ship. Their water supply had died, no, not died, they recycled the dead. What those died from was still in those materials rendered. They were doomed from the beginning.

We have had death but we would , with respect, eject the body so the soul could continue it’s journey to the afterlife. Recycling the body is just disrespectful. Even though there may not be anyone else outbound, we chose to destroy that ship to prevent anyone from succumbing to the pathogen.

Our ships populations paused and paid their respects as we destroyed that ship. All prayed the same prayer that we say for our dead.

“May your journey be short. May you find the final world of peace for eternity. Be at peace with all those who went before you.”

Now we are close enough to see that solar system with its young yellow sun. The world we want to go is in sight of our telescopes. It looks inviting especially to our aquatic side. There is an abundance of land to be able to accommodate we land people.

There are some things left in the air and water that will harm us but we can compensate for that. We also have the ability to protect the indigenous life from our things that would hurt them. Those were done with those probes that we sent.

The first scanned and passed that to the second. The second probe gave the life there our immunity. The third returned to us and gave us their immunities. This way, if we land, neither of us will infect and kill each other.

It surprises us when we detect only one active electronic device that we could communicate with. Now at the outer band of an asteroid belt, we come to a halt and call out to that device.

“We are travelers. Our system has gone super nova. Our dual populations have traveled for a long time. As owner of this world, may we have permission to meet. For now, if you would allow us, please turn your camera on.”

That person does and calls out to us. Much to our delight, the being looks like us but it is clear that he is a land dweller.

He tells us that he is the only person on this world. “I only want someone to talk to that will answer me.”