Chapter 5: Explanations and Revelations

They all went to the screen to see what was happening, and the view from the cameras placed on a secret military satellite that were turned outwards instead of inwards showed something amazing: scores and scores of massive ships closing in on Earth. They didn't know what to make of it as the conversation buzzed in the situation room, but General Burroughs had an idea.

"Well, they can't be here for conquest, unless they have weaponry that can blow that big chunk of rock up."

Alan turned to him and asked, "Do you think that they had something to do with all the disappearances?"

"I'd be willing to bet on it, sure enough. Question is: why?"

Khalid was staring at wonderment at the screen, thinking about what he was doing when the apparent disappearances took place. It came to him in a moment of clarity, and he turned and ran up to General Burroughs and Alan.

"We need to get out of this building and outside! I think that they may be here to pick us up!"

Everyone looked at him in shock, and it seemed to Alan that they all had that same moment of revelation hit them. It had been obvious why they were still here: they all had somehow been either underground or in buildings with very thick walls that prevented whatever allowed these beings to bring them up. "What the hell! It's better than sitting here waiting for Earth to be squashed!," said General Burroughs with a shrug.

They went outside and assembled on the steps of the Pentagon, blinking at the rays of the sun coming up over the eastern horizon. There was a chill in the air as the weather signaled that the final summer of Earth's existence was coming to an end. Alan's mind spun with images from his youth of playing Little League baseball, swimming in the lake, playing "war" in the woods near his childhood home in Campobello, South Carolina, and tears surprisingly came to his eyes.

"It's gonna be a damn shame to leave this place, one way or another.," he said to Fatima.

"Yeah, but, at least for me, it'd be a fresh start. I've not exactly led the kind of life you'd want to be proud of.," she replied.

And that's when they left Earth.

It happened so fast that Alan didn't realize what had happened at first. One moment, he was feeling the breeze off the Potomac as the air began to warm up with the sun's ascendancy into the sky, then the next saw him standing on a large platform in a cool room with blue-tinted walls and facing a motley array of beings who were far from human.

One of them, a creature who looked like the humanoid version of a lion, came up to them and spoke slowly in English. "Greetings! I am Par'mi'al. You are on board my ship!"

He visibly struggled with what he was saying, and Alan could surmise that he was translating what he wanted to say from his own language to English in his mind. He turned around and saw that everyone was accounted for, and their expressions mirrored his own: shock, disbelief, and... i relief /i .

"We have been observing your race for generations now, but when we saw the planetoid coming your way and noticed that it was much too large to deflect, we had to do something. So we assembled a massive amount of ships to bring aboard all those we could find and take them to a variety of worlds in our confederation, because the Confederation is all about preserving sentient life whenever it is in danger. It had not been easy, as there were seven billion of you to transport, but we were able to get as many of you as we could."

Alan raised a hand and asked, "Then why did you miss us?"

"Our technology is relatively new, so it's not as perfected as we would like. We were on our way back to bring up as many artifacts of your civilization as we could when we spotted you as well as the others remaining on your world. Hopefully we were able to get everyone."

They spent the next month busily assisting the aliens with grabbing all sorts of stuff from Earth. The aliens of the Confederation had brought many humans back for the effort, and Alan was struck by how well they all looked. They were still depressed to see Earth facing destruction, but they were glad that they were able to make a new start of things on another world. Alan barely had time to think much, though, as all the humans were busy loading up the massive ships with anything and everything that stood for humanity. Museums were emptied, clothing stores were cleaned out, and they even went as far as to go to every movie studio, television network, radio station, and record company to bring up as much of human creations as they could.

More ships came and more humans came down to bring back up more stuff. Others quickly scoured the planet to record images of the architecture of both man and nature, and Alan asked one of the aliens, a Borlin named Wlan, why they were doing all of this.

Wlan may have been a thickly furred bird-like creature with gray, brown, and black hairs, but he gave a very humanistic shrug when he said, "We want to help you recreate as much of your world as possible in your new homes. No one world that we have can hold you all, so we are trying to find a way to keep you as close together as possible. We've had plenty of experience with resettlement in the past, but it's never easy. Already there are those among your kind who've been unable to take the stress of losing their homeworld and ended their existence at their own hands."

"I know. Change is always hard, but this...this is bordering on too much."

Wlan was able to converse with Alan through a translating device, so his clicks and chirps registered as slightly accented American English through the speaker on the device that Wlan wore on his chest. Wlan continued, saying, "Your kind has bared many hardships, and reminds me a lot of my own people. We've had many wars ourselves, as well as our own demons to overcome as a race. I imagine it's much the same with every sentient race that comes into being."

When the month was over, the planetoid was visible in the evening sky. The leaders of the expedition worried that they were cutting it too close, but were relieved that they had been able to capture as much memorabilia and images of the world as they could. But many of them were sad to see such magnificent sights and creations be wiped out, and they grieved along with the humans.

Alan was told that his wife and kids were well and that he would see them soon, as they were being resettled on a world very similar to Earth called New Anglia. It had been decided to try and separate the peoples by culture and language to make the transition easier, but to keep them together as much as possible. The Confederation was also planning to help the humans adapt to the new technologies being given to them, specifically the ability to utilize starships with faster-than-light capabilities.

The aliens had offered the humans the chance to stay behind and watch what was to happen to Earth when the planetoid collided with it, saying that they understood that some might want to honor the passing of their homeworld by not leaving until it was no more. To a person, they all refused, with General Burroughs saying to one of the expedition leaders, "The body of Earth may die, but the soul will live on in every human that remains alive." It soon became a well-known saying among all the other humans.

Alan looked one last time through the portal at the Earth as they were preparing to leave and wondered what was to become of the human race. Simply leaving Earth would not erase all the demons of the past: the hatreds, the bloodshed, the perceived slights, and everything else negative about the human race. But he rallied himself thinking about the good side of humans, and realized that, though the challenges ahead would be difficult, they would manage.

He met with the others as they assembled for the evening meal, and was in the middle of eating...something...when the announcement came that they had gone into faster than light travel and had just left the solar system. The news was meet with some cheers, but they were ragged compared to the relative silence of the majority. Soon enough, everyone went back to the business of feeding themselves.

General Burroughs, still in his uniform, mused as he sat across from Alan at the dinner table, "What's to become of us, Alan? I know these aliens mean well, but what will happen to those who are settled on other worlds? I fear that they've saved us just to prolong the inevitable."

Alan knew what he meant, but the moment made him optimistic. "I don't know, General, but at least we've got the chance to find out if we can make it. I'm just glad we're alive." Burroughs nodded and looked to be pondering that as well. For the human race, there was much about their collective future to ponder about.

THE END