Author: Lewis Richards

“What is it?”

“My boy, this is an Elephant.” The man responded, never taking his eyes from the animal.

“What does it do?” His grandson continued, Looking woefully unimpressed.

“Well, it eats, it drinks, you see those horns at the front? They’re called Tusks. Not many animals had those.”

The boy stared for a few seconds longer.

“Why is it frozen? Can’t they just walk around? The mechs in the hangar can walk everywhere and they’re much bigger than this.”

The man sighed. Taking a seat on an observation bench set back from the stasis tank.

“They are much more special than the Mechs and the construction bots and even us, Jacob. These are the very last Elephants. We thought they’d all gone. Then just as we were leaving, after all the fish and the birds were saved in our gene banks a man came to us, a very rich man.”

“He tried to buy his way here, bribing and blackmailing wherever he could, and then he showed us these. You see Jacob, the man didn’t want a place here for himself, he wanted to ensure his greatest treasure continued on.”

“What happened to the man? Is he here? Can we go see him?” Jacob asked, his interest growing in his grandfather’s story.

“I’m afraid not, see he knew that his wealth and the greed of people were what caused the Elephants to disappear in the first place And he didn’t want to carry that here with him.”

“He was offered a place, as he knew best how to care for the Elephants, but instead sent his Son on ahead, the boy had grown up watching these animals, and he was tasked with ensuring they were kept safe on our Journey.”

“So when will they wake them up?”

“Not just yet Jacob”

The man remembered his father fondly, and as he would probably not live to see his father’s dream come to fruition, he would leave that task to his own Grandson.

The ArkShip “Pan” would not reach its destination for another 17 years. The 2065 People, 12000 Human Embryos, a billion seeds and enough genetic samples to clone what was left of the Earth’s animal life back into being were the only survivors of the human race. The man looked at his grandson, too young to know yet that his life on a ship was nothing compared to what he would know when his feet touched the ground and the only thing above his was sky.

“Run along and find your mother now, you won’t want to miss the seed vault”

The boy looked at his grandfather, and then behind them to where his parents were wandering over to the exit of the zoological gene bank.

“Actually I think I’ll stay.” He said. “The tusks are pretty cool, right? They have kind if a weird nose though”

The man shuffled up smiling, making room.

“Let me tell you all about how they’ll use them”

“Awesome.”