The Far Side of the Moon
1961
“They’re coming,” Draq said with excitement.
“Who?” asked the High Speaker.
“The humans. They’re working on projects to bring them here. They’re competing with each other to see who can get here first. Calling it a ‘Space Race.’”
“We knew this time would come. We must begin preparations to leave.”
“I’m tired of running. Let’s just stay this time. When their craft passes this side of their moon and they’re finally able to see us, we can just wave as they pass by. Can you imagine their excitement?”
“You know better than that,” replied the High Speaker. “They’re easily frightened and provoked to violence. You’ve seen what they do to each other. Their moon has been our home for a long time, but soon they’ll learn of our presence. We must leave before that happens.”
“We’ve been running for as long as I can remember,” Draq lamented. “I don’t even know what our homeworld was like. This has to stop. We can work with the humans. We can teach them to be more compassionate. We have so much to offer them, surely they would welcome us.”
“Yes, we have much to offer them. But they would weaponize anything learned from us. That’s what they do. The humans are no better than the ones who forced us from our home to begin with. They’re just less advanced.”
“Where will we go?”
“The Council has archived possible locations. It’s the first thing they do whenever a new home is established. We just need to revisit the archive and choose the best fit for our needs.”
“The gaseous planet they call Saturn would conceal us and allow us to watch the humans,” Draq suggested.
“We usually move farther than that. Why would you want to watch them?”
“You see them as savages, but I still have hope for them. I would like to see their progress.”
“This ‘Space Race’ is just the start, you know,” the High Speaker cautioned. “Eventually they’ll reach Saturn as well. What will we do then?”
“When that time comes, if they’re still the barbarians of today, we’ll move to one of our archived sites. But, if they’ve progressed to a more civilized state, such as our own, we’ll have the opportunity to make a friend. That’s something we’ve not had in my entire lifetime.”
The High Speaker thought for a moment. “Very well. I’ll put your motion before the Council. At the very least we can continue our anthropological study of them while we wait for their arrival to Saturn. I doubt the council would pass on that, and we won’t have lost anything by doing it. But, when the time comes and they arrive at Saturn… I just wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
“I would,” Draq said with conviction.
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