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Altox Theece startled awake, disoriented in the single-wide unfamiliar bed, with a sharp intake of breath. Where was he? Was it a dream? A nightmare, he thought? No. He saw his son, Nathius, sleeping quietly in the strange room’s other single bed. He exhaled. They were together, alive. Altox looked to his left to where his wife should have been sleeping beside him. There was only a window. The small bed he was in was pushed up against a wall which had a window in it. A window looking out into the void of endless space. Altox quietly wept again. Hally couldn’t be gone. Couldn’t be dead. They had survived so much together. Radiation from the sun, making the surface uninhabitable. Planet wide tremors that slowly took away more and more of their livable space. When Nyxia’s greenhouse and arboretum had collapsed, due to the increased gravitational forces, it was Hallan who had organized the Ministry efforts to provide food and water for the underground environment. She couldn’t be gone. These Space People had made a mistake!
Altox spoke to the computer as he had been shown, but in a whisper so as not to wake his son, “Altox to Eye Sack.”
“Isaac, here,” came the response.
“Shhh, Eye Sack. Please speak softly, Nathius is sleeping. Can I meet with you please?” he asked.
“Yes,” whispered Isaac, “I will be there momentarily.”
Isaac arrived and led Altox to the dining hall. They had been onboard this star ship for several days and could not believe the abundance of food they were allowed. A day’s worth of rations at every meal. The ship seemed almost as large as the enclave. But outside, more endless space seen out of the windows. He wondered if this ship had any interior rooms, without windows. Space just reminded him of what he had lost, what they had all lost. “Eye Sack,” Altox began.
“Isaac,” Isaac corrected, “Not, Eye Sack.”
“Got it, Isaac. Sorry,” Altox adjusted, “There must be some mistake, our Nyxian enclave cannot just be gone. Maybe some of them survived!”
“I am sorry, sir, survival of the break-up of your planet was not possible.”
“But what if they did,” Altox persisted, “The enclave shielding was the strongest that we could make. It was built to last for centuries.”
Isaac’s head titled to one side, “The rocks surrounding your enclave became molten moments after Commander Bortus and I got you and the other twenty-nine survivors off of Nyxia.”
Altox slumped in his chair at the news.
The red giant had loomed large over Nyxia for as long as any of them could remember. The ancient histories said there used to be inner planets. Their scientists even theorized that there could have been ten or more planets orbiting the star, Caelestis. They knew it had been expanding for centuries. They also knew there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.
The old gods had abandoned them. Nyxia’s population had once been in the hundreds of millions. Millions of souls praying for salvation from impending doom. The radiation had dwindled that number to tens of thousands. Then over the past few decades communication with the other Nyxian underground enclaves had been lost one by one. Their sensors and monitors had told them when the atmosphere above had begun to boil away. They knew they did not have much time left then. Altox believed the 75 of them were the last of the people of Nyxia. And now they were only thirty. Thirty survivors. Thirty refugees. None of them believed in the old gods. The old gods were dead. They hadn’t saved Nyxia. They hadn’t saved Hally. Good riddance.
Isaac suggested he get some more rest, or at least be in the same room when Nathius awoke. He shambled back to bed. Numb.
Nathius woke him some time later, “Baba. Baba wake up!”
Altox was immediately awake. ‘What now?’ he thought, worrying instantly. Then he saw his son was smiling and pointing out the widow. Outside he saw that the endless void had been replaced with something he had never seen before. They were in orbit above a bright blue and green planet. Clouds swirled slowly above the oceans. “Nyxia’s back, Baba!”
“No, Nathius,” Altox gently told him, “that’s not Nyxia. Nyxia is gone. Remember. And look, there is no giant red star in the sky. But that is another planet, like Nyxia. Let’s see if the Space People will tell us what we are doing here.”
As if reading his mind, the intercom came on just then. “Captain Mercer to our Nyxian guests, if you will look out any of our starboard view ports, you will see that we are in orbit around a planet. On behalf of the Planetary Union, Welcome to Earth.”
### FIN ###