Wings

A David Rogers story found nowhere but here!

Wings–a DavidRogersBooks.com exclusive

Posted byBy Davidrogersbooks February 7, 2022

1200 words

by David Rogers

“Legend says the ship was originally headed for Kepler 62f, which seemed, at the time, likely to be the closest truly habitable planet.” Professor Mobius paused, took a drink of water, fluffed her feathers and smoothed her wings down her back, and went on, “Of course, ‘closest’ is misleading. Nearly a thousand light-years away is not really close, just the least far.” She looked out the porthole at stars so distant they appeared to stand still. The nearest, a bloated red giant, seemed to inch past, if the watcher looked long enough.

“Whose brilliant idea was it to go there, then?” asked Maria, one of the more precocious students.

“It was our many-times-great grandparents’ plan. The first ship-born generation did a good job of hammering the idea into their kids’ heads–the only chance for humanity to survive lay in completing the heroic journey. The second generation, as the stories go, went along with the plan. They may not have been quite as enthusiastic as their parents, but they did what they had been trained to do. Kept heading for other stars, away from Earth and into the cold dark of deep space. The third generation, however–they had different ideas. While they themselves were dedicated to the notion of Human Destiny, as it was known, they were not very effective at indoctrinating their kids. Or brainwashing them, as some no doubt saw it, into thinking they were somehow bound to carry out a plan conceived before they were born, by people they never met.

“So the fourth generation fell in love with words like ‘freedom’ and ‘autonomy,’ and ‘self-determination.’ Spending their whole lives on the ship, just to carry out their ancestors’ crazy plan, and dooming their children and children’s children to do the same? Nope, not for us, they said. They rebelled, and when they took over the ship, they voted three to one in favor of turning back to Earth. Some scholars say the transition of power was peaceful, while others argue it was a violent, bloody revolution. Regardless, the ship turned back toward Earth.

“Apparently many of that generation believed the stories–fairy tales, it turned out–of blue skies, wide-open plains, and forests that went on for miles. Places you could find clean air and water, and not another human being to be seen. And cities, shining islands of civilization where night was banished, and there was always light. Cities of artists and libraries and museums and restaurants and grocery stores and shopping malls and tall buildings. . . .” The professor trailed off wistfully.

“If Earth was so great, why did anyone ever want to leave?” Maria asked. Several other students nodded approval of the inquiry.

“That’s a good question,” Professor Mobius said. “One for which they should have demanded better answers before they turned back.

“The problems their grandparents tried to run away from had not solved themselves. In fact, they had multiplied a thousandfold. Records from that era are incomplete, but it seems clear that the humans on Earth–the few who still survived–were barely human at all. Well over 99 percent of the population had been wiped out. Disease, radiation from the nuclear wars and exploded power plants, drought, wildfires, brutally hot summers and unbelievably cold winters, starvation, inbreeding among the small tribes who clung to life–all these had the predictable effect. Cities lay in ruins. The air was toxic, water undrinkable, and the land did not produce enough food for survivors to do more than subsist. The humans looked more like the caricatures of Cro-Magnons in our grade-school books than like us.

“Our ancestors bundled themselves and their kids back in the landers and took off in a hurry, back up to the ship. Back home. Because, they realized this ship had become their home. As it is our home now. Humans have always been explorers. And that is our real destiny. Our only destiny.

“Fortunately, the landers had been well maintained. Every person who had left the ship made it safely back to orbit.”

“Why didn’t they just land the ship?” Maria asked.

“It is far too massive. It was built in orbit because it would never have escaped Earth’s gravity. Nor could it have landed and remained intact. Any such attempt would have shattered it to pieces. Our photon sails can withstand gradual accelerations from the light drive, but they are not made to tolerate reentry into an atmosphere. The parabolic collectors that gather starlight and focus it on the photoelectric cells wouldn’t have survived a landing, either.”

“I thought you were going to tell us why some humans have wings now,” said Phillip, who spent nearly all of his free time in the arboretum and was usually bored with history and folklore.

“Well, that is simple enough,” the professor said. “Life in microgravity has certain physiological effects, one of which is to cause the human skeletal structure to grow lighter. With no need to climb, walk, or jump around in an intense gravitational field, human bones became hollow, like our avian and dinosaur ancestors’ bones. A long-dormant gene in some of us, a bit of code once dismissed as ‘junk DNA,’ found its chance to become active. It turned out to be the gene for wings.”

“I guess you’re just genetically inferior, then,” Phillip said to Maria, who had no wings.

“Oh, yeah. Why don’t you go back to your nest, birdboy? At least I don’t spend all day hiding in trees,” Maria said. “If we ever find a planet like Earth, I’ll be able to run a lot faster than you. I’ll be able to climb trees and jump over boulders. All you’ll do is sit on your branch and go tweet, tweet.”

“That’s enough, both of you,” Professor Mobius said sharply. “Genetic diversity is a key to our survival. That means no one is born better than anyone else, just different. We need the differences. We have to maintain diversity in order to go on. It takes all of us to make it work. Whatever’s out there–”she gestured with a feathery hand at the porthole and the glittering stars beyond layers of plastic and glass–”that is humanity’s destiny. There’s no going back to Earth. No other Earthlike planet has ever been found, and it is foolish to assume one will be found. We cannot go back to the past. The future is all that exists.”

“The future, and the memories,” Maria said. “But this is all folklore, right? How do we know Earth was really so messed up? Maybe they just weren’t welcome anymore. Life on Earth had gone on without them.”

“Our ancestors left Earth for the second time for some reason,” the professor said. “It must have been bad. If you forget or deny the past, you relive its nightmares. You all have to know these stories, and tell them to your children. And their children. We are all that is left of humanity.”

“I’ll bet it’s better, now, on Earth. Some day we’ll go back,” Maria said. “We’ll go home. Or our descendants will. And when they get there”–she glared at Phillip–”my wingless Cro-Magnon kids will kick your fancy-boy bird-bone descendants all over the planet.” She stared at him, daring him to challenge her prediction.

Professor Mobius sighed. The young always had so much to learn.

END