We howl.
We can feel the change coming to our little home. The cold nights we have grown so accustomed to over the last eighty generations on this ball of ice and rock are growing warmer.
We knew it was coming, and we could see it in the measurements as each year passed, but for the first time, we feel it in our bones, we fluff our fur and roll in the snow to cool our skin.
We howl.
The rocketfolk, who claim to be our cousins, said that this would happen. They say it’s a good thing, that life will be easier when the vast fields of ice can flow toward the valleys and become permanent oceans, that this was always what was meant to happen here.
They say more pups will survive to adolescence if Sol is larger in the sky, as it has become slowly over a lifetime. The oldest of us can remember when Sol was just another star in the sky. A very bright star, but just another star. Now it is a clear presence, a sun, lighting up the landscape the way the rocketfolks’ electric lights do.
We have a little lake already. Enough water to drown in, and some of us have, but we’re learning. Someday, perhaps we’ll swim.
In that future, we’ll have a sky. Blue and white they say it will be, but none of us alive now will still be here to see it. Our great grandpups will see the sky when they are old, and their children will rule over a world of dirt and water and flora, with food and space in abundance. And another, larger world will hang in the sky.
More of the rocketfolk will come then, and live here with us. If there will really be so much food and space, perhaps it will not be so bad. They do seem kind.
The rockets flare in the distance, shooting flame into the sky and pushing our ancient home just a little further toward its distant new home.
We howl.
CB Droege is an author and voice actor from the Queen City living in the Millionendorf. His latest book is Ichabod Crane and the Magic Lamp. Short fiction publications include work in Nature Futures, Science Fiction Daily, and dozens of other magazines and anthologies.
Learn more at cbdroege.com
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