Alara Alara The Place

Yeah, I'm not even pretending to do these in order anymore. This one is in the same universe as A Hole In The World, another ficlet I wrote.

---

There is a hole in the world.

You went to Iowa, you bought your ticket, you stood on a very long line, and you went through the hole. That was five years ago.

They say humans can’t colonize this world. Something about it overtaxes their systems, fills them with adrenaline – fear, anger, excitement. It’s an incredible thrill to be here, breathing the air of an alien world. It looks so much like Earth, all in greens and blues, with plants that aren’t Earth plants but look like they could be… but then there’s that sky with the giant green planet that plainly is not the moon. People who aren’t avid star watchers can’t tell that the stars are all wrong and people who aren’t botanists can’t tell that the plants never grew on Earth, but everyone can tell that that thing isn’t the moon. The one constant of existence that for untold millennia has bound all humanity, that all humans see the same moon… and now, it’s no longer constant.

The atmosphere has more oxygen, substantially more – a mixture of 30% rather than 22%. No one is quite sure what the long-range effects of that are going to be. Some thought the overly oxygenated atmosphere was responsible for people’s restless energy, high arousal and inability to sleep, but then it was pointed out that on Earth, people who sleep with extra oxygen sleep better and deeper. It’s impossible to sleep well or for very long, here in the alien, untouched forests.

Or that’s what they say, anyway.

( Read more... )