“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
The planet was so bright and blue. And the stars… I’d never seen so many stars. There were so many in the sky. It’s like they were right there in front of us. It was incredible. I was in awe.
“What is it?” I asked Doctor Smith.
It looked like Earth. It was Earth. But it was not. There were so many differences.
“That, is our new home,” Smith smiled.
“What’s wrong with Earth?” I asked. “Doesn’t it have more space? More resources?”
“In theory, yes,” he nodded. “But our science cannot fix what has happened to old Earth. I know this may be hard to believe in the short time we have been here. But you will see that this planet may offer what we need in the long run for mankind. Our world now is limited. And where we are going will offer a golden opportunity.”
I could feel his confidence. I thought he was exaggerating. But I wanted to believe that this place was where we were meant to be.
“Besides,” he added with a smile. “Our old planet was dying. This was our ticket to a better place. We’ve taken it.”
I felt bad for Earth. I wanted it to live more. I wanted to protect it. I wanted to help it live more. I wanted to change it. But I understood the need for what we were doing. We were protecting mankind. We needed a new world. A new place. The planet we were on now was not enough to sustain the human race.
“Yes sir,” I said.
I wanted to believe everything he said. I wanted to believe that this was our home. That this was where we were meant to be.
We flew back in the next day. I didn’t want to leave. The planet was so beautiful. There was so much more land. I wanted to believe that this was where we needed to be. I didn’t want to go back to Earth. There was no way that Earth could support what we needed. I felt like I was leaving more than just Earth. I felt like I was leaving a piece of my soul.
The only way we would make it was if we took all of the Earth with us. But that was impossible. No one wanted those old parts of Earth with us. It wasn’t fitting for the world we knew we would soon be living in.
The world was different now. It was time to change.
It was time to begin the journey to a new world. And it was time to start by leaving the old world behind.
“We need Earth,” Doctor Smith explained to me. “We need her resources. Many of the resources we have here are going to run out soon. We need to know how we can sustain the human race on this planet. It is imperative that we begin to do this as soon as possible. Beyond that, we need to know how we can better space travel and more importantly, how we can better protect ourselves during our journeys. We cannot allow the same things to happen on our new planet. The human race depends on it. We cannot afford another accident.”
Doctor Smith had always been my role model. He was so smart. He knew so much. He was also a very nice man. And he was leaving with us to our new home. It made me feel better about the idea. He wouldn’t leave anything behind. He would take it all with him. I wanted to go with him. I really needed the safety that he would be able to provide us. There was so much more to the planet than just what we could see. Our first stop was the city.
Once we entered the city I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Everything looked so different. Everything was completely different. I wanted to leave. It was weird. I wanted to stay home.
The city, was a huge labyrinth. It was difficult to navigate. I had never been so lost. I wished we could stay there forever. But there was no such thing as forever. I knew that this planet would run out of resources. That it wouldn’t last forever. That we had to find a new home. They had to have a supply of wood. Everything we needed to build our houses on the new home needed to be materials from the old one. But it wouldn’t be forever. Not yet.
“The city is completely destroyed,” Doctor Smith pointed out. “It is an utterly depressing place. I’m afraid to think that the rest of the planet has been destroyed as well. There is no way we could have lost this much land. We must be able to find more. We just need to look until we do. If the city was as bad as it looks like it is, then the rest of the planet is worse. We must be prepared for that. Let’s just keep looking. We’ll find what we need soon enough.”
“Yes sir,” I said, agreeing with him.
I looked up into the sky. I thought I could see the stars. I thought I could see our new home. But, I had to be wrong. I thought I was seeing what I wanted to see.
Doctor Smith walked ahead of me. I wasn’t supposed to leave his side. But I didn’t understand what was going on.
“What does that mean?” Doctor Smith asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” I answered.
“So much for that theory,” Doctor Smith sighed. “I suppose we’ll just keep looking for now.”
“This is our home,” I said.
“Yes,” Doctor Smith answered back with a touch of uncertainty in his voice. “But not for long. We need to find a place where we can live properly. A place that isn’t so sad.”
