Image by ANDRI TEGAR MAHARDIKA from Pixabay

Samara danced and laughed with the rest of her people under the light of the twin moons of Deneb IV. The fifty year anniversary of the colony was winding down and she and Leon collected their children and took them home.

“Mama, was it all true, that story about where we came from?” Pendra asked as Samara tucked her into bed.

“As true as I know it, and I heard it from my grandparents who came from that world,” Samara said. “They were the first people to settle on Deneb IV.”

“Why did we leave Earth?” Amie asked.

Samara sat down on the floor between her daughter’s beds. Leon stood in the doorway. Samara lifted her hands and called a psychic bubble in between them. The world she showed them wasn’t the blue and green world the storytellers had shown them in their tales earlier that evening. It was a world devasted by pollution and war.

“This is what we left behind,” Samara said. “Or so my grandparents told me. Earth was dying. It was no longer fit for human habitation. Climate change, mass extinctions, wars, and disease were destroying everything. So the governments of the world began sending people away. Some only went to Luna and Mars, still in the Sol System. But even that wasn’t far enough away from the terrible effects of the wars. So they sent out colony ships. Everyone went to sleep and when they woke up, they were at the worlds they were sent to colonize.”

“Are there other colony worlds?” Pendra asked.

“My grandparents said Deneb IV was one of twenty worlds chosen,” Samara said, letting the bubble dissipate. “I don’t know how many survived, but I sincerely hope they all did.”

“Are all humans psychic like us?” Amie asked.

Samara shook her head. “Only a very small portion of the population was psychic like us.”

“Did we all settle on Deneb IV?” Pendra asked.

“Yes,” Samara said. “It was considered a safe place for us because psychics haven’t always been trusted in human society.” She stood up and kissed her daughters good night.

Leon put his arm around Samara’s shoulders. “It’s strange to hear our history told from the politician’s point of view instead of our grandparents’,” he said.

“Yes it is,” Samara said. “But isn’t that how it always is? The politicians paint a very different picture of everything.” Leon nodded and the two went to bed.