"Christopher?" she whispered the name softly. "Christopher? Are
you all right?"
"Phea? Is that you? Wait a minute. Don�t move." he fumbled in a
pocket and brought out a white handkerchief and under cover of
blowing his nose with great ado, wiped the tears from his eyes.
Yes, she was there in front of him. Real at last-or was she? He
had dreamed of her for so long...and he was old...so old. Had he
cracked at last? Why..She was so young! She hadn�t aged at all
that he could see. "Phea? Is that really you? Come closer and
let me touch you. I imagine you so much these days my dear. No
matter, your ghost is just as welcome."
"Poor Christopher. Was it so long for you?" she asked gently, as
she slowly knelt in front of him and placed both hands very
gently on the frail old knees. Just as slowly he let one hand
very slowly creep forward to touch hers and tenderly carress it
while his mind acknowledged the truth of his touch. His eyelids
dropped over his eyes as if a great load had suddenly become
released and he could let it fall. That sigh that followed was
gently released.
"I�m so tired Phea. Can I go now?" What else was there for him to
say? The road had been long. All the thoughts and feelings he
had waited all these years to say to her were too late. He was
too old for the passions he had held once, long ago. Maybe she
would understand the things he couldn�t say anymore.
Dimly, through the foggy mist of his eyes he saw Phea motioning
to someone behind him and felt gentle hands lift him up and
deposit him on a soft platform or mattress, chest high to Phea,
who came quickly to his side. He turned his head to see who had
moved him and beheld two young people, man and woman, gazing at
him with expressions of adoration on their faces.
He was about to speak to them, but they raised fingers to lips
and indicated silence. He was grateful not to have to speak as
it seemed like such an effort all of a sudden. He dimly seemed
to realize he was on some kind of an air-born pallet being towed
by the two of them. They must have wings, he thought as he
watched the blur of trees pass by. Sometimes he was at ground
level and other times, when the earth dipped slightly, they were
at treetop level. Very strange.
He was drifting, movements and physical events passed him by in a
dream. Heat and cold were felt, experianced and slipped past in
dreamlike quality. There was no discomfort, no pain. Only the
feeling of time in which he drifted ghostlike.
When at last he opened his eyes he was looking at the familiar
sight of the night sky and the moon, riding like a watchful
sentry to his dream, above him. His moon! His sky! So he wasn�t
dead yet!
He tried to sit up but found Phea there beside him, holding him
down.
"Lie still Christopher. Your very week still. If you want to see
where you are I�ll adjust the bed. We�ve set up a special
Hospital tent for you in a field were you can see the arrival of
the children."
He was silent while she adjusted the form he was lying on in
mid-air. As she moved about him his eyes took in the room he was
in. It caught his breath. It was huge and filled with equipment
and machines. But they were all below him?? Then he saw that he
and the bed were on some form of round platform under the middle
of a large dome of what appeared to be glass.
Damn!! He was being manipulated by something down below the
waist. There was a sheet covering him and he couldn�t see what
was going on. "Phea,� he yelled feebly. And was surprised at the
old man tone. He was so sure it would have come out stronger
than that.
"I,m here, Christopher."
"What�s going on? What�s happening to me?"
"Shhhh, shh. Now don�t be alarmed. It�s only a body functioner.
It�s taking over some of the jobs your own badly aged body can�t
do anymore. It�s only temporary. But that�s up to you. I�ll
explain later. I want you to rest awhile and I�ll talk and tell
you what�s happening.
"First of all, we reached you just in time. We almost lost you
there for awhile. If we hadn�t delayed to set up the tent first,
you wouldn�t have made it through. You can thank your young
Doctors here for that." and she nodded to the two he had seen
earlier who were hovering in mid-air now just beyond the
platform. "This is Healer Ti and his field-mate, Ais. Their
skills will keep you going for as long as you wish them too."
And then it all came back to Jamison with a rush. Over the long
years every little detail he could ever remember of this woman
had been remembered over and over in his thoughts. The quiet,
speculative look she was giving him now held more than her words
did. This was one of her statements that bore every ounce of
truth within its framework but was not the whole fabric. That was
always something beyond earth�s ken. But he had grown patient
with old age. He could wait.
She nodded and continued."We have set you up in this dome so that
you may see the arrival of the first ships of space as they come
into your skies. The council was against it at first as they
felt it would be breaking the truth of my words, that we would
not come back until all on this planet had ceased to exist. But
somehow I couldn�t get it out of my thoughts that we owed you
this much. Call it ethics if you wish. One human at least to see
the culmanation of all the sacrifices.
It might be an old,often repeated sight to our eyes, but it will
be the firt time in many, many centuries that the sight has been
seen on Earth and it is glorious Christopher!"
"Thank you, Phea, for that. I just hope that I can hold out for
it."
"Are you feeling weaker? You shouldn�t be!"
"Strange, now that you mention it, I do feel a lot better. But I
thought it might only be a temporary effect from the rest. Phea,
you must know I can�t last much longer."
Her distress at his words made Ti and Ais rush in to the pallet
and fuss around him. When they had finished they exchanged
glances with Phea, and Christopher realized dimly that they were
speaking mentally to each other. He had a strange �left out�
feeling to this.
"Christopher, I am going to leave you for just a little while and
Healer Ti and Ais are going to put you to sleep for an hour or
so. You need rest and food. They are feeding you with machines
but I would like to prepare something for you that you can see.
I feel it might help. When you wake up I�ll be here and I will
personnally feed you myself."
The last two words blurred in his mind and he fell into a deep
dreamless sleep.
When he awoke two hours later his senses were more alert than
they had been in a long while. For the first time he could feel
the machines that were keeping him alive, sense the unheard
activity beneath him. Even his eyes were less clouded than he
remembered them being. Phea�s face looking down at him was sharp
and clear and distinct with no fuzzy edges like before. He drew
in his breath as he looked at her. For one minute the air around
her head was one glowing halo, making spun gold of her hair.
Then she moved and he realized it was only the dawning Sun
rising on another day.
Before he could protest the brightness in his eyes the dome
became a deep blue, filtering the sunlight. �Now how did they do
that?� he thought. �Clever people!�
The tray that Phea presented was beautifuly prepared and while he
didn�t feel especially hungry he decided to try to eat it for
her sake. The taste of the food brought with it an appetite he
had long forgotten he could have.
As the day crept slowly by, for Christopher Jamison it was spent
in two hour periods of healing sleep followed by two hours
talking with Phea who gave him progress reports of how far out
the ships were that would bring the first of the children home
to Earth. Some of them where old and would be coming to spend
their last years on their home planet. These were the ones that
either hadn�t responded well to genetic altering of the kind that
had aided Christopher to stay alive for 185 years, or had decided
not to prolong life, as was their privilege in this new society.
Others were those that had responded well and were the advance
technicians that would be setting up the �Cages� that would act
as doorways for the rest. While they had been traveling through
space for ten years, the others were still on their planets
preparing or waiting the Diaspora date to arrive.
At noon the fleet was reported entering the orbit of Pluto. They
were to arrive at midnight in Christophers area. Of course it
made no difference to them if it was midnight there or not as
they would be circling the globe and then each one landing at
the designated site so it would be daylight in some area�s. They
didn�t need to circle the Earth before landing but it seems
�Phea� had more say than she let on to Christopher, as it was to
be a fly past over his bed in a salute to the last man of the
�Old Earth�.
The sleep and the attention from Ti and Ais brought about a great
change in Jamison. He was more alert than he had been in some
weeks past. He wasn�t sure that it was all the Doctoring that
did it. Each time he awoke to find Phea�s hand in his he seemed
to feel her strength pouring into him. He was sitting up now and
holding her small hand in his.
"Compared to how I felt two days ago, I feel like a fifteen year
old, thanks to Ti and Ais. I�ve been looking at Ais. She
reminded me of you. Is she one of your children Phea?"
Without answering him right away, Phea turned and called to the
two �young people� to join them at his bedside.
There was a long silence between the three of them as they
communicated with each other telepathically. At last Ti came over
to Jamison, bent low and spoke; �I greet you, father!" Before he
could finish, Ais was hovering beside him with a gamin grin. "I
too, greet you, father!"
Jamison smiled at them warely. "If you mean that �father� bit as
a term of respect for my old age, youngsters, forget it. I�m
more in awe of you and your skills. But I thank you for it, never
the less."
At this they both looked to Phea, who bore a suspicious tinge of
pink about her cheeks, and then back at him. Finally Ti spoke;
"No, father, we mean the term litarally. You are our natural
father and Phea is our birth mother. When you underwent
alteration of your genes and cell structure to enable you to
outlive the others, Phea had some sperm removed in order to keep
your line going, since you were the last of yours on earth and
were without offspring. Our Mother was very honored by the
council when they allowed her to be our birth mother."
Jamison turned and gazed out of the dome over his head. He was
overwhelmed by Ti�s words. He had never married before the
dissappearance of the children and after his encounter with Phea
his heart was lost to her. No earth woman had ever taken her
place. And then, like many men of his caliber in those days he
had had himself sterilized to prevent the tragedy of a child.
But how often over the years he had fantasized a union with Phea
and children by her! Now this! He was too deeply shaken to
speak. He could only hope they would have sense enough to read
his thoughts.
He held his thin bony hands out to the two of them, who grinned
at him in delight. "May a father ask the age of his son? You
look mighty young to me! And this Daughter! I can tell Phea was
mother to both of you, but not this homely old goat for father.
Oh, Not that I�m doubting your word, mind. You�d never want to
fool an old man. But just the same you do look young!"
"Oh, I�m only 70 myself," said Ti, "But Ais is going on 92,
father, as she is first born."
"But...that means they must have kept you on ice for quite
awhile! It�s been over 143-44 years since I was altered." He
looked at Phea as he said this. �So she hadn�t had his children
out of love after all! Love doesn�t take 53 years to make up its
mind.�
Ti was about to reply when Phea came over to his side and waved
them gently away.
"I feel your hurt, Christopher, but it is unneccessary. I would
have been overjoyed to have had them at the time you speak of.
It was the councils orders that it be delayed until we could
insure longevity for them. I also had to fight the council for
the right to bear them as I was not young anymore. Because I
loved you they gave in to me. Do you remember how we sat
together on a log and I let you live my life through telepathy?"
"Yes, I remember. It seems more real to me than all the rest of
my years."
"Then let me hold you again and save words, my love." And gently
Phea lifted Jamison to a sitting position and held him in her
arms. Once again Jamison was taken on a journey into a strange
land where he was Phea and strove with her over the years. He
lived again for Phea her long hard battle with the 'Inner
Council' for the right to bear his children. The long years of
self imposed exile while she studied genetic engineering. Her
triumph as she discovered the reason for aging in the men and
women of earth and her solution that finally won her the right to
have his children. The knowledge that every race known to the
galaxy had also been given the same right. His offspring were
numerous.
When it was over he was put to sleep again. It would soon be
midnight.
Jamison woke abruptly, feeling those same manipulations in his
lower body. He was gaining strength from the food and medicines
and with the strength came a clearing of his mind. The dome was
silent and just the hint of a glow behind him. He was on a large
comfortable bed hanging in the space below the dome, which was
clear and showed the starry night sky.
For many years now the last remnants of humanity had been
enjoying the clear night sky�s of earth. No city lights, no
smog. Now he lay in silence and watched the sky above his head.
He thought of the children out there in space and hoped that
they knew the terrible sacrifice made for them. If they knew
would it affect them? How much were they being told? Strange?
He�d not noticed that while he was part of Rhea�s life? A
strange disquiet tugged at his inner mind. He pushed it aside.
"Good evening Father," Ti had quietly come up beside him and
took his hand. Ais was nowhere to be seen, "I have been given
instructions to give you some juice to drink. Just tell me what
you want."
"Can I have some tomato juice?" He asked. He hadn�t planted any
tomatoes for two years. With no Fridge around and no stores left
he had lived the last years on the last of the dried and canned
foods left in stockpiles. And the foods that grew wild or
propogated themselves.
A great sigh left him as he took the glass of juice. I�m not
even going to ask where they got it, he thought. It went down
smoothly. He heard a rustle behind him, and then the sound of
Phea�s voice calling out a greeting to him from across the void
of the dome. His smile was involuntary.
And then he could sense the Dome filling up with others. He
could sense the change but none came within his view. Then he
began to recieve greetings by a number of minds. Phea let him
know that the fly past was about to commence in his honor.
Jamison was amused by this. Old age left you with a bit of a
blase feeling about these things. They had held a lot of
ceremonies as they put the Earth to rest. What was one more to
him? Was that surprise and a bit of resentment he felt coming
from the background? NO, it couldn�t be. He shrugged.
Out beyond Pluto it settled itself into an orbit around the Sun.
This was as far as it could come without disturbing the delicate
balance of the motions of all the planets circling this sun.
As large as Earths Moon it didn�t need the warmth of this Sun to
give it life. It carried its own Sun wherever it went. It was
actually three worlds joined together in line. The middle was
its own Sun. A continuous, controlled sun, giving off its own
energy field and Sun light. The other two worlds were hollow
spheres with a covering of dirt, rock, soil, air and water.
And fields and forests and life.
But within both interiors was an enormous fleet of space ships
from 30ft to 1 mile wide. And one or two were five to 10 miles
wide. Each ball carried one billion people.
At the appointed time the crews and passangers began streaming
onto the ships in orderly fashion. As ships filled up they
lifted off and formed up in space. First one fleet left then
another. When all was complete it swiftly sped towards the
centre of this solar group to the third planet out. There it
formed up into a live of five abreast and slowly glided over a
designated spot on the Earths surface. Even at that speed they
could see the effect they were having on the delicate balance
of the Earths weather. No matter, there were no people down
there yet to be put in danger.
From Jamisons vantage point what he saw were massive black
shapes gliding across the moonlit landscape like a silent
threatening flood. Then someone must have sensed his shock and
fear for all the ships began to glow with a light force and lit
up the sky. But the damage had been done! Jamison was dead!
He died of a massive coronary that had everone in the room
reeling since all had tumed into him to partake of his
excitement at the arrival of the children. But before he died
they had all had a chance to experiance his horror of what they
had done.
These were aliens..Not Earth�s children any longer. They had
slaved and died for a lie..............