A team of fore-colonizers crash landed on their way to the first confirmed earth-like planet. Running out of supplies and exposed to the perils of the planet, the team must use their wits when one of them becomes the pawn of hostile resident creatu...
The cruising speed of the hovercraft gave us enough time to wander around the base of the Three Peaks. It was suddenly a great day for both of us. The trip has given us opportunity to see for ourselves what Lim and Minny had seen. They have just arrived almost six months late yet they've seen more of the planet than us. It is because of their adventurous spirit. Tomorrow, will be the first cycle of the planet around Alpha Centauri Star A. It is also the first-year anniversary of the ISS Sophos' crash. A full year on a planet that we've considered our second home, but a first home for our children. In a few more weeks, a new child will be born in this planet, from Minny.
After few hours of sightseeing, Alice has identified five different species of conifers. Her catalog of tropical trees has about twenty entries. In a forest equivalent to Amazon, twenty species are unbelievably few. Our return from the trip gave us a different outlook of our life in this wonderful planet.
The days that followed saw an increasingly cloudy and foggy planet. The surroundings prevent us from wandering around, thus forcing us to stay at the First Settlement Camp. It was a blessing for Minny, for we were able to help each one, and depend from one another. The other instance that the planet forced us from exploring it was during the time when swarms of fire ants and dragonflies fill the sky almost every day. Minny referred to it as the Swarm Season. We were able to sample some of the fruits that grow from the trees. Possibly one of the reasons that the forests here are not as luxurious as those on earth are due to the absence of rain water and scarcity of fruits. The fruits grow from trees and a fruit tree only bears at most two to three fruits at a time. Rarely do we see five fruits. Their flowers are small, mostly pink and yellow, almost similar to bamboo flowers, and many but as they start to become fruits, the flowers merely fall, producing many-colored cover on the soil. Herbs are extremely rare, but Alice was able to find some of them growing at the foot of a mango tree like plant that bears violet, pear shaped fruits.
We didn't at first know whether we'll celebrate the year that arrived, but we did anyway. I was the only person who knew what happened exactly then, since Alice has banished her memories about Tommy.
"We're not celebrating our misfortune of crashing here, but we're celebrating our survival. Since we managed to live here for a year, our cause for celebration is not how unlucky we are, but how lucky that destiny has appointed us to be the parents of our children, the friend of each other and the husband of our wives."
It sounds like a valedictory but it is not. It is what my heart was telling me. Our celebration was done in Lim and Minny's finely constructed home.
"We're blessed that the Provision of Sophos still left us enough wine for our celebration. "
Raising her wooden decanter, which we ourselves purposely carved out of conifer wood for this occasion, Alice proposed a toast. We did our toast gladly.
Lim even bared a tiny statue which he personally made. It looks like a tiny replica of the Three Peaks.
"The mountain has given me fascination of nature. Although I haven't seen all of the earth, I also feel glad that I became a part of this planet's first human inhabitants. The future of this planet rests on our ability to teach our kids the importance of living in a beautiful and gentle planet such as this one. I offer this statue to you, Peter and Alice and to my lovely wife Minny. May we live here on this planet aware of its environment and its natural beauty that we must preserve."
Lim's message to us was extraordinarily profound. He seemed to be aware of our surroundings and its preservation. With only six of us, becoming seven in a few weeks, his attitude seemed more on caring for this planet. Minny said something.
"You know, we've named everything in sight. We named plants and animals, even giving them scientific names. We have plotted a large area of the planet, and even named mountains, rivers and places. Peter even made a calendar of its seasons and we have a large catalog of the planetary data. But there is something we haven't done." Minny paused for a while.
"The planet we're living on is not even named. We're aware of everything, our future, and the possible civilization that might arise out of the four of us. We have looked into the future, aware also of our responsibilities and our eternal vigilance of the dangers that lurk on its every corner. We have forgotten to give it a name."
Minny hit the spot where I myself had been asking my mind for many months now. After a year, we haven't even named 'our planet.'
"I think I heard Peter once mention that this planet has been a second earth to us." Lim said. Getting his hand carved statue, lifting it up, he said.
"It would be nice to call it Second Earth. First it would remind us of our real origin beyond the clouds and second, it also accepts the reality that it has in fact become our own Earth."
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