Boucher's World: Emergent Read online

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  From Childhood’s End School History:

  An Excerpt from The History of Humans on Boucher’s World

  (Gleaned from records found and preserved in Elvwist archives)

  In the year 2245, astrophysicist Dr. Gloria Boucher discovered a promising planet in the star system of Epsilon Eridani.

  A powerful North American company launched a robotic probe toward the planet, which at regular intervals transmitted images and data for a number of years before finally ceasing to function. The scientists were astonished to find an Earth-like planet and what appeared to be vegetation on its two large continents. They had assumed the planet would be too young to have evolved such complex life.

  No animal life or evidence of a civilization was observed, and in 2347 the company formed a conglomerate with other companies around the world and sent colonists to this planet, which they named Boucher’s World in honor of its discoverer.

  Even using the newly perfected anti-matter engines of the 24th century that could attain speeds of a little over one tenth the speed of light, it would take one hundred and seven years to reach the new world.

  So the four automated star ships were built in orbit, and the carefully chosen people were ferried up and put into hiber-sleep, a type of stasis developed during the previous century. It would enable the colonists to reach their destination in the condition in which they’d started.

  The ships were designed to make one landing, then be dismantled and the materials used to help build the colony. They brought with them everything the scientists felt they would need to survive in their new home as this was a one-way trip.

  Upon arrival, their ships landed them near the vast, surrounding ocean, on the largest continent and awakened them. They were greeted by the Elvwists, a race of beings with powerful psychic abilities. They weren’t native to this world either, having immigrated from an Earth-like planet in a nearby galaxy the Humans knew as Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.

  These people were gender neutral humanoids, each having an aspect of male and female. The gentle race of giants had been on the planet for eight hundred years and were pretty well established, living in small villages scattered over the continent amongst the trees. The only native life forms were of the microscopic variety.

  There was no going back for the Humans, so for better or worse, they had to share the planet. Fortunately, the Elvwists, while being much more technologically advanced than the Humans, were also quite amicable and greeted the Humans as friends, helping them to set up their large base near one of their own villages.

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