Kilesha: Going Home 

    Rashtor and the other scientists had sought to implant in those dozen embryos the knowledge of the Atlantean race, so they could one day lead the planet in understanding the great price to be paid for using the wrong kinds of technology. Atlanteans had unwittingly brought about the destruction of what had been their island paradise. Their applied science had almost destroyed the entire planet before they understood their mistakes. Realization had come too late to save Atlantis and its twelve million inhabitants, though the cessation of Atlantean technology had returned the rest of the earth to a more stable state—for a time. Now Earth faced new devastation unless something happened to forestall it.

    Kilesha fingered the button on the communicator device to call her navigator.

    "Yes, Captain?" a voice boomed.

    "How goes the battle, Rad?"

    "It is the same as with most battles, Captain. We have sustained little damage."

    "And our fuel reserves?"

    "The stinger hardly uses any fuel, Captain," he replied with pride. He'd had a hand in designing the stingers, and he believed them to be the best spacecraft in the universe. "We have a full supply."

    "Plot a new course."

    "Captain?"

    "You heard me. We have much discussed this decision, Rad. Plot the course."

    Silence.

    "Rad!"

    "Yes, Captain?"

    "You know the coordinates. Plot the course. We are returning to Earth. We owe it to them—and to ourselves."

    "Captain, I mean no disrespect, but to leave in the middle of battle—we will all be branded as deserters."

    Kilesha frowned. "I fail to see how that would be any worse than what they already think of us. This is the chance we have been waiting for, Rad; if we don't go now, there may never be another. Plot the course—and engage the invisibility device. I don't want anyone to follow us."

    "Yes, Captain."

    Kilesha put down the communication device, and then stopped to gaze at her image in the reflective glass in her chamber before retiring for the long journey. How would her kind be viewed on Earth? She wondered . . . She studied the webbing on her hands and feet; the fins on her arms, legs and back; all were genetic improvements which aided her kind in the rapid propulsion through water. Her skin was pale with a slight blue tinge, which made her virtually invisible in the water, but not at all like the colors of humans she had seen in the Atlantean archival memories. She closed her transparent eyelids and studied herself objectively with her violet eyes. Her hair was pale, almost clear, but perhaps the singularly most remarkable feature she possessed which humans did not was a perfectly developed set of gills on the sides of her face. She and the other Children of Atlantis could exist either on land, or in fresh or salt water indefinitely. Rashtor and the other scientists had given her forebears every feature they could think of to help them survive. Too bad the incredible, ever-seeking minds they had been given hadn't warned them of the dangers in quitting their own planet for the greater expanse of space.

    Had they remained on the planet, their breed might have thrived and continued to grow, but in space, they were oddities, easily subjugated because of their peaceful ways. Then again, she wasn't certain they would have fared well on the Earth, either. Mankind was exceedingly aggressive and warring, not unlike the beings they had encountered in space, preying on those who were different from themselves. Possibly man would have hunted the Children of Atlantis down and killed them as trophies, the way they did the other life forms on the planet. These humans were difficult to understand. Hadn't scientists of their own breed warned them of the possible consequences of their blatant and barbaric disregard for life? Hadn't they been told what the fossil fuel did to their environment? Why had they chosen to ignore the admonitions? Why the barbaric plunder of the Earth's natural resources in search of ever more fossil fuel, building more houses, bigger skyscrapers?

    Kilesha had been monitoring the seismic activity of the planet for some time using equipment so sensitive it could detect the beating of a single human heart halfway across the universe. Clearly, the mistakes of Atlantis had returned to plunge the planet into the same destructive patterns which had plagued it in the times of her ancestors. History was soon to repeat itself—only this time, it would be on a much more widespread scale, claiming the lives of perhaps three-quarters of the population of the planet.

    The world would suffer devastating, irreparable damage—all manner of cataclysms would be widespread across the face of Earth. Those who survived would be thrown into a dark age devoid of technology and subjected to the cruelest of elements in a world struggling to reclaim its primal dignity and ecological balance. The increased incidence of progressively severe natural catastrophes suggested the complete restructuring of the planet was alarmingly near. Billions of people would die, and the long, laborious process would begin all over again, a scenario doomed to replay until the people who believed themselves to be the supreme intellects of their world learned how to revere all creation—or until there were none of them left.

    The Ancients had held the belief everything in the universe was alive and sacred—and connected to everything else in the macrocosm. Each planet was sentient, as were all the individual parts of it. Every blade of grass, every grain of sand had a purpose, an intelligence; disturbing so much as one tree caused a myriad of actions and reactions which could lead to final and absolute destruction of the whole. Moreover, the entire cosmos of space and countless universes suffered under the same bludgeoning that affected whatever part of itself was afflicted.

    What happened on Earth, or any other planet, caused cosmic ripples to be broadcast throughout the entirety of space, sending intergalactic unrest to all. It could be likened to an individual having a severe headache. While the pain could be pinpointed to that one's head, the effects of the headache could be felt all over the body as the ailment made itself manifest to the entire being. Such was the interconnectedness of all that existed. Earth's long, arduous learning process had made itself felt everywhere. Here in space, the Children of Atlantis had been forced to fight as mercenaries in a war which raged because many of the intergalactic citizens wanted to eradicate the problems Earth was causing for the rest of creation.

    The planet and its citizens were viewed as a disease which needed to be eliminated so the rest of the worlds could find peace, much as a surgeon would cut a cancerous parasite from the body to preserve the life of its host organism. Kilesha and her crew were the sole survivors of the Children of Atlantis, forced into service as a punishment for having Earth as their origin. Once there had been many Atlanteans in the universe; now there were five. Kilesha knew the only chance they had for survival was to return to Earth and try—somehow—to stop the pollution, the global warming, the senseless warring, the use of fossil fuels and all the rest before it was too late and one of the intergalactic powers blew the planet to dust.

    What could five marine amphibians who bore a remarkable resemblance to humans, do to save the world and the entire universe in turn? She didn't know the answer; she only knew she and her crew had to try. It was for this time and purpose they existed; Rashtor and the other Atlantean scientists had been wrong in their assumption the genetic creations they had engineered would steer the planet on the direction it should take. Their purpose was to stop the total annihilation of Earth, to correct the blunders that had been made along the way and, God willing, to prevent the mistakes from happening again. She was clear on her mission.

   Ascending the steps to her golden sleep chamber, she pressed the button which stirred the life-giving liquid inside to effervescence. She watched the slow motion inside the pearly yellow liquid, slowly disrobed and immersed herself with a sigh of long-anticipated relief. She was old, though her supple, sinewy physical structure bore no evidence of her true age; her vital organs needed the replenishing energies of the rejuvenating briny nutrient bath to carry her through the ordeal to come. Space travel was not kind to the Children of Atlantis. Without their sleep chambers, they could easily succumb to the pressures and stress of prolonged travel in outer space. Rad and her other comrades would be entering their chambers soon as well. From their collective meditative state inside their separate sustaining chambers, their minds would be free to merge and formulate a plan for their arrival on Earth.

    She allowed herself to float freely inside the tank, relaxed, suspending all fear and doubt. She was going home to a world she had never seen with her own eyes. It would have been nice to be greeted by others of her kind, the way she had seen in recordings of Earth's astronauts on returning from their space travels, slight though those explorations had been. The images were recorded inside the memory pods, translated from broadcasts down through the ages—visions so real she was always astounded they were merely two-dimensional pictures. Too bad, she thought, there would be no Atlanteans to welcome their space-weary travelers home. Her heart longed to be cared for, to be regaled as a returning heroine, but that would never be. She allowed her gills to fill her lungs with the luminescent bubbling brine, thrilled to the shock as the fluid quickly began to merge with all parts of her body. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself this luxury; such a very long time. . . .                             Back to Kilesha: Going Home

Nancy 

    I put my books on the porch under the overhang where they wouldn't get any wetter and went around to the back of the house. My mom frequently locked her keys inside, so we always left one of the back windows unlocked so I could crawl in.

    It was raining so hard the dog didn't even greet me as I removed the screen and shoved open the window. I wondered if he would have bothered coming out, had I really been a prowler. The kitchen window was too high to climb into without standing on something, so I pulled a wooden crate over, climbed onto it and lifted one foot up into the opening.

    Just as I was about to shove off the crate, I heard it creak, then crack, and in another instant I was on the ground, one foot sticking through the splintered crate and the other scraped and bleeding from the knee down. I was muddy, cold, hurt and in tears.

    At that moment, I hated everything and everyone—the rain, the kids at school and most of all, my parents. They had no business leaving me out in the rain. Parents are supposed to take care of their kids—even fifteen-year-old ones. I took stock of my body, discovered I could still move and eased myself off the ground to find something else to stand on.

    In a few minutes, I was inside the warm, dry house, peeling out of my drenched, muddy clothes. I threw them into the washer and went to stand in a hot shower. After I cleaned and bandaged my wounds, I pulled on a robe and went out to get my books.

    I took the stack of textbooks, along with milk and cookies, to my room and crawled under the covers. I hated being alone. The house was so quiet and still—almost like a tomb. Life was miserable for me at school, but at home, it was even worse. I really had no one in the whole world. If I died, I supposed my mother would cry—mothers are supposed to—but I doubted she would really miss me. No one would, I thought.

   I sighed, knowing feeling sorry for myself would do no good, except to give me another sleepless night. I reached absently for the library book and opened it to the forgotten, perfectly folded pink paper—Nancy's letter. I turned it in my hands and thought I should throw it away. It was probably a love letter to some boy—maybe to Jack.

    The thought stopped me from discarding it. I had never read a love letter before, and I reasoned I might never get another chance. I unfolded the paper, looked at length at the beautifully shaped words before their meaning began to come across to me. I thought about what a wonderful home life Nancy must have to be so beautiful and good at so many things. How I envied her. I sighed again and began to read:                 Back to Nancy