The Head Start

As our ship ( Sark ) orbited our new prospective home , the crew stood in stunned
silence with the breathtaking beauty gliding past the viewports .
Vast blue oceans , huge green forests , great tracts of savanna , criss-crossed
with ribbons of green rivers , framed by an ever-changing cloudscape .
An oasis in the blackness of forever space. A dream come true , for all of us .
And from all our scans , the planet was seemingly un-inhabited .
The emotion of the moment was overwhelming , laughter pealed and tears flowed ,
freely .

We had been travelling for three years , to reach this point .
Our home planet ( Mars ) was a desert wasteland , cold , airless , and sterile.
We had lived underground , and while we had every technological convenience ,
and a menagerie of animals ,(nobody went without) ,there was an intense
loneliness in our group ., later we would call it latent homesickness.
Something was missing , and we had all felt it ., ... deep inside .

There was only two hundred seventy in our community ,. half of those , children .
All of the adults had been raised by the teachers ,( super intelligent robots ).
From an early age we were taught that our colony was unique in the Universe .
Told we were a remnant of homo-sapiens lost ., our parents wiped out by a
mystery virus , the teachers had taken over , while we were infants .
They handled every aspect of our lives , education , health and well-being.
Every member of our society played an integral part , and we all specialised in
different areas . Nobody failed , the teachers had been programmed for any
eventuality that may arise . We had no social ills , crime or criminals ,
....money or possessions .


Our ship descended gracefully through the clouds , and we got the first close-up
glimpse of our new paradise . It was incredible to see the things our history
and text books had told us about in such a round -a-bout way . . The teachers had
always firmly believed we would find this planet , and now we faced our finest moment .

We landed on a high plateau , disembarked and eagerly crowded onto a vantage
point on the escarpment , overlooking an immense valley . In the distance we
could see the tangled mess of a long abandoned city , ... and that was just the
first shock .

The teachers gathered us , and escorted us to a large , and hidden entrance
to a bunker within the mountain . They activated the electrical system , and the
fans and lights came to life . As we moved deeper , we came to different
galleries , carved into the bedrock . The first , contained road vehicles of every
description , hundreds of them . Then , industrial machinery , a seed vault , armory ,
a library , laboratories and lastly an unused accomodation level .

At this point , the silence was deafening . We shuffled finally into a large auditorium ,
and sat wearily on the dusty seats .
A movie screen before us began our de-briefing .

The truth was , this was Earth , and had been our ancestral home , a half-century
ago . An unstoppable asteroid storm was imminent , to wipe all life from the planet .
We , The lucky few , had been evacuated (along with the teachers) , to Mars ,
to return one day , and rekindle a new civilisation .
We had been chosen randomly , secretly , and in infancy , by the elders , who
were now long gone ...
The film ended with a personal message from each of our respective parents ,
bidding us farewell , and eternal love , for our brave head start .


Thankyou for your time .