From Outer Space

From Outer Space by Robert Zacks - How did Doomsday come? Well, it's the story of a banquet...

The grizzled old space veteran leaned back in his chair and stared up through the transparent dome. In the black sky myriad white specks gleamed without twinkling, their light unbent by atmosphere or dust. The steady pulse of the airmakers kept rhythm with the heartbeats of the young men seated in a semi-circle, listening with glistening eyes to these ancient tales of an Earth they'd never seen—the home of their species.

They stared hungrily at the old man's face. There was a silvery spot on the chin where Venusian fungus had nearly gotten into his bloodstream and had had to be burned away. Over one eye an eyebrow was gone, replaced by scar tissue grown on a planet at the other end of the galaxy where the light of enormous fireflies wasn't cold, as on ancient earth, but searing with heat.

"Imagine," they marveled, "such weak flame in fireflies."

"Not weak," corrected the old man. "Just different. Those insects on Earth didn't have to fight off intense cold. They had a much thicker atmosphere and were close to the sun. And they didn't feed on alcohol."

The young men's eyes glittered. They were an odd group. Small—most of them, none over five feet five inches—and pale, unlike the old man who was bulky around the shoulders and had skin virtually leathered by various radiations and temperatures and winds.

Each day this group waited hungrily for the old man to come and talk to them. The stories he told were the breath of life to them. And of all the tales of adventures in the far ends of the universe, the one that was most repeatedly called for was the story of what had happened to Earth.

"Tell us about Earth," said one of them, now, in a low voice.