Forgotten

Forgotten


It was a simple package really, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, like a gift from another century. My name was scrawled across the top, Merriwether Ferris of Earth, with no return address. I’d really never received anything personal before and it was…unnerving. After so long on my own, I’d almost forgotten about other sentients, only my robotic assistant to keep me company. Ours was a remote outpost, an overlooked station at the edge of the Milky Way tasked with surveying other distant galaxies for any signs of life from a larger universe. None ever came.

Admittedly, I disliked people. Aliens were even worse. I mean, everyone was just so busy with their chaotic lives and personal drama. A hectic universe never allowed you time to think for yourself, which I suppose was why everyone was always so damned depressed and hypercritical. A human, especially a particularly self-aware one like me, never dared to express themselves and would never, ever offer any sort of opinion outside the accepted norm. So, I’d chosen my assignment as an escape, a solution to an overcrowded galaxy, and it suited me. Supply drops were an annual event, enough for a year, and I really never had any other communication at all – just data submissions, routine reports…truly a peaceful existence for which I’d become too accustomed. So, when the package tumbled away from the newly arrived sealed rations and stacked capacitors, I found it right away.

“It’s a peculiar thing,” my assist-bot remarked, turning the box over in its claspers then setting it down. “What do you suppose it is?”

I almost feared to touch it. “I haven’t a clue.”

“You should probably open it.”

“But no one ever sends me anything. That’s the thing about not having any family and even fewer friends,” I lamented. “This shouldn’t be for me.”

“Would you like me to…?”

“No!” I shooed him back, too anxious to even untie the string. A mystery package to a forgotten spacer like me was certainly less than welcomed. So, I fearfully tucked it into the back of the supply closet, at least long enough for my anxiety to settle, figuring to unwrap it later, after my mind had eased a bit. Regrettably, hours became weeks and then years until a decade had passed. Meanwhile, it sat forgotten and unopened.

Finally, on the eve of my sixtieth birthday, my sequestration came to an end. A fractured communique vaguely explained all remote surveys were terminated. Budget cuts, they said. An extraction crew had been sent to retire my outpost and reallocate its resources. I planned on reluctantly returning to Earth and, a week later, their ship breached the outskirts of the system on a two day sub-light journey to reach me.
I was terrified. It’d been so long, not in just seeing another sentient, but ages since I’d been back to Earth. What would it be like? How had it changed? Anyways, I’d pretty much severed all ties back home long ago, so I really didn’t expect much of a warm reception. Anxiously tugging my rucksack from the supply locker, I accidentally dislodging my unremembered package and it tumbled free once more. “Huh, I’d forgotten about this.”

“You never opened it?” my assist-bot queried.

“Funny thing, I never had the guts, though I suppose now’s as good a time as any.” So, I gingerly pulled the paper away.

“A containment case!” the robot observed. “Battery’s dead. No problem, though.” Passing an appendage over the device, the box’s circuits surged, illuminating a tiny flashing button, which I now more eagerly pressed.

“Salutations, Mr. Ferris,” a holographic alien greeted. “With regrets, I present the most distressing news.” Suddenly, my anxiety peaked, which was probably the main reason I’d resisted opening the thing in the first place. It was such an old recording now, an aged message lost amongst the detritus of a shifting supply closet. The avatar continued, “A tragedy has laid waste to your Earth, the entirety of your people having regretfully succumbed to Falusian Blight. Sadly, your civilization and fragile ecosystem were completely decimated. Even so, on the heels of terrible sadness, hope springs anew and fate may have spared Earth’s biosphere in the end - your isolation, your salvation. Contained herein are the last remaining, clean genetic samples of your world, suspended in a biogenic slurry within a genesis-pod. Merely activate the container to initiate the terraforming cascade. Amazingly, our scientists have determined your currently assigned planet to be a perfect host-world for you to quickly rebuild, though some urgency is required. Our condolences.” The image faded away.

Instantly the weight of my world was upon me, the need to know overcoming my anxious fear and loathing. I opened the case, though it had long sat idle and without power. Inside, the expired genesis-pod had long-since perished, tragically highlighted by a glaring final message: "ERROR."


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