She touched his forehead lightly with hers in a gesture of utmost admiration. When she moved back, she saw the faintest glimpse of tears in the directors round, gleaming white eyes.

"Tellsa, this will be a milestone for all of us. I am so proud that you will be the one to take to the skies."

There was only a smirk on her lips. It felt like the weight of the world rested on her shoulders, but in emotional moments such as this, she just mentally looked at the most basic core of things. There was an adventure awaiting her. Something she had wanted to do for as long as she could think.

So it was not about the world, it was about a little girl going on a fun trip. Even if this was the culmination of decades of collaborative work between the southern and northern lands and each and every person on both sides of the desert band was probably watching her.

"Thank you for everything", she replied to him.

She grabbed the helmet tight and turned to step onto the walkway that connected the rocket tower to the capsule on the very top of the largest launch vehicle the world had ever seen - a two stage rocket that was quite a bit taller than most buildings of the space center.

The boosters rode up nearly all its length, each one able to output a tremendous amount of force. It would push her through the clouds and pierce the sky to bring her to space. She would be free from the confines of the world's gravity and she would be the first person to experience it.

A camera crew was following her to preserve this moment that would undoubtedly become a fixture in history books of the future. Ground crew lined the walkway, nodding towards her or touching their foreheads to show her respect as she slowly went past.

The rocket's white body was gleaming in the sun on this clear day. It truly was a perfect time for the launch.

"Step in, mind your head", one of the crew told her as she had nearly reached the capsule. A young man, probably more nervous than her from the looks of his pale green skin as if he hadn't stood in the warmth of the sun up here.

The capsule looked like home to her. So many hours she had spent in the training rooms, she knew every bolt and screw. Through the triangular opening she slipped directly in the seat that had her nearly lying on her back.

The young man was leaning in to fix the straps and attach the suit, double checking everything while she herself went through her own mental checklist. Last came the helmet that sealed against her chest piece and added the constant hum of the air circulation fans. A sound she actually liked.

Then came the questions, mechanical and to the point. This working? Check. That within parameters? Check. This plugged in? Check.

This went on for some time until the young man was done. He showed her his open palm, all four fingers spread apart - the universal sign for 'everything done' - before closing the hatch, sealing her in. She gave a wave to the camera crew through the tiny round looking glass.

Then another barrage of checks from the control center came through the headset. These values ok? Check. Pre-flight cabin checks done? Check. Are you ready for this? Check - I mean - yes.

Tellsa took a slow and deep breath. The last stage of the countdown had begun, this was it. Now it was her turn to receive status information. Walkway rolled back, integrity checks done, rocket tower evacuated, engines ready for ignition.

Ten seconds to launch. Then it would be twelve minutes of acceleration. And then - weightlessness. Even though she was the pilot, she actually was a passenger for most of the flight, the ascend was controlled by the control center.

She gripped the seat as the last second passed and the powerful engines ignited far below her capsule. She knew exactly how it would look from the many test flights they had done before. Fire, noise, a plume of smoke pushing out the bottom vents of the launch platform.

A moment later the tower clamps let the rocket go and it started rising. Tentatively in the beginning and then pushing faster and faster while getting rid of fuel.

The readings from the screens and dials in front of her she had to keep an eye on. It was a constant exchange between her and the space center about them. Though it became difficult for her to talk because the increasing acceleration pressed her into the seat hard.

In her mind the countdown for the booster separation ticked down and reached its end. On time the acceleration momentarily dropped and the capsule shuddered as the explosive bolts instantly severed the connection between the boosters and the middle stage. The main engine pressed on further and the sky outside grew darker as the air grew thinner.

The dials told her she would from that point on undoubtedly be the highest elevated person in the world. And moving further upwards she was constantly setting and breaking new altitude records.

Even though the rocket had slowly leaned into a turn towards the horizon, she couldn't feel the orientation change from the inside, the acceleration forces overriding the change in gravitation. Since the booster separation she had started counting down to the next staging sequence where the middle stage would drop.

But then she noticed something. One of the dials was dropping fast. She read it back to the ground station and they confirmed her worry. There was no time to think about it, though. The next dial went out of the limits already and another number flipped wildly.

Something was wrong, very wrong. The middle stage separation came up, again suspending the acceleration and sending tremors through the capsule as it was cut away. The last engine ignited and the rocket gained further speed.

By now it was obvious, the trajectory was off. The person talking to her through the headset did her best to sound calm, but Tellsa could sense the fear and worry. The rocket pushed on, unable to do anything else. Several alarms on the panel in front of her lit up, indicating that the flight was now past hard limits.

She had barely breached into space and she already knew that she would not come back down alive.

As the engine switched off, she didn't even notice the total lack of gravity. Her mind was on the numbers. The numbers that told her she would go out far into space and then come back in a steep curve.

There was no circular orbit as it should have been. And there was not enough fuel for a course correction, the numbers also told her that. The first dial that had indicated the beginning of the problems was still slowly dropping. She knew, if it reached the low end, the capsule would lose power.

The director's voice was the last thing she heard over the headset: "You will forever be among our heroes now, Tellsa. Your name will be written in the stars and remembered by all. I’m so sorry, and - thank you."

Only the sunlight coming in from the view ports illuminated the small cabin now. There was nothing to do for her but wait. No use writing anything down. No need to record observations. Only a last countdown before the capsule and everything inside would burn up in the atmosphere.

Tellsa couldn't decide if it was good or bad that she had quite some time before that happened.

Looking towards the planet she saw the yellow sands of the great desert. The color gradient from the equator towards the poles was beautiful. The northern sea looked pitch black in stark contrast to the lush green vegetation on its shores. In the south the many tiny lakes sprinkled along the pole waters looked like droplets, barely visible rivers running between them.

She tried to imagine what was going on in the cities, but she quickly dropped the thought. Her world needed to remain simple. She was a little girl on an adventure. Now being closer to the sister moons than she ever had ever been before, even if she wouldn't fulfill her wish of visiting either of them.

At least without the capsule’s heating system her body warmth would drop to the point where she would involuntarily fall asleep before she reached the apex of the unstable orbit, nevermind the harsh return.

Looking out of the viewport, it gripped her how magnificent and fragile the world was. All of creation resided on that round yellow stone. Her whole species history and every person that had ever lived was right below her. And it was all the livable space they had in their known universe.

One planet in a void that stretched a mind-boggling distance in every direction. What a waste if there weren’t more.

As the capsule drifted further out into space, her mind drifted off into darkness.

Then she awoke, which was very surprising. It took her a minute to notice that she was lying on a flat, hard surface. Slowly she sat up to look around. Besides the near invisible black floor, there only was open space above her.

She did recognize the constellations around the white half-moon as the night sky she could see from the surface of the world, but it was impossible that she had come back down alive, was it?

The quick slapping of tiny feet drew her gaze towards an incoming being - it was a tobeo, a domesticated companion animal of her people. As it ran closer on its four short legs, dragging its long tail, she recognized the colour pattern on its back scales. It was one of the tobeos they had trained in the space center for the early test flights.

"Nouso! Come here little guy", she exclaimed.

Of course he had been on the way already without prompting, but this made him run even faster. He jumped right into her open arms, nearly throwing her over with his considerable weight. Curring with delight, he rubbed his broad, flat head on her chest while she scratched the rough scales on his stubby neck.

She then remembered how they had put Nouso into one of the prototype capsules to test the life-support systems under the stress of an actual launch. And she also remembered that the capsule had failed during the hop into orbit and was destroyed during re-entry.

Slowly she unlocked the seals of her helmet to then take it off and drop it by her side. With one hand she wiped off a tear from the corner of her eye. She was dead, it was the only explanation.

"Hello Tellsa."

She heard a strange voice coming from some distance away, where she was barely able to make out the silhouette of a not quite right looking person against the backdrop of space.

"Who are you? Where am I?", she quickly shot out, holding on to Nouso as if he offered protection.

"I took you from your broken space capsule and brought you aboard my ship. I am sorry, I could not ask you for permission. My name is Wjarnus, I am not of your species. I am a ", with these words, the being slowly stepped closer, making itself visible.

It looked so different. For one, its face with the small eyes, protruding fleshy thing in the middle and narrow mouth was whitish-red. And it had a large body with lanky, long limbs with a proportionally tiny head. Though its body's general outline was made fuzzy by the dark grey seamless garment it was wearing.

For some reason she felt that it could be a shell-maker instead of an egg-creator, so she made 'it' a 'he'.

And he continued: "The tobeo in your arms was not supposed to get to you first. I did not want to startle you."

"Did you save him?"

"I did. I took it from its broken capsule as I have taken you. Your tobeos do remind me of- nevermind that.

“I wanted to talk to your people for a long time and I am happy that you successfully made it to space. You had been so careful in the planning and preparation of your many test flights, I was surprised yours did not go perfectly."

She had to take a moment to sort all her racing thoughts. She was not dead. But she did hold in her hands the formerly dead Nouso. And there was an alien being in front of her. That knew of her, her world and the advancements of the space program.

"Why did you save me? What do you want from us? From me?"

His body language was different, but she could still see that he was taken aback.

"I do not want anything. I am here to tell you my story. And I am here to offer everything."

With a wave of his hands - that had too many digits on them - the open space above her turned into pictures of humans and a blue planet that looked starkly different from her world. The pictures changed as he spoke, creating a clearly well-practiced show.

“We are the and we are from planet . When we had first left our planet to explore the universe, we found us to be alone. In our search for other intelligent life, we found only ruins.

“Our hope was the last to die when ship after ship pierced into every corner of our galaxy and then even beyond - to find no one there. Every other species of sapient beings seemed to be unable to reach interstellar travel.

“Some had destroyed themselves, some were taken by plagues, others by planet-wide catastrophes they were unable to stop. They were different stories, but all were hauntingly close to ours.

“By some inconceivable quirk of the universe we had managed to dodge the annihilation that seemed to befall every other culture. It was the most devastating way we had found us to be special.

“A troubling period followed and for a while it looked like we would not grow beyond our homeworld, remaining in a state of stagnant depression forever. But as we saw our own planet slowly heal from the scars of our civilization, new ideas began to spread.

“Sadness about our solitude was replaced by compassion for the lost ones. With new plans for our future, a fresh optimism took ahold of all of us - we would replace the life that was lost; we would seed it back into the universe and protect it wherever it took hold.

“We began with our own planet, turning it into an utopian garden world for all native species. Meanwhile we defeated our illnesses and finally conquered even death itself.

“Spreading out, we overtook our whole solar system to begin massive resource operations. We built the first ark ship - a vessel that was able to terraform a planet and create a complete ecosphere on it. Seeing its success in a neighbouring system drove us into a frenzy to create as many of them as our rapidly advancing technology allowed.

“And for many millennia, we built more arks and sent them to every region of the universe. There came a point when we had advanced these ships enough for them to be entirely run by a single human, and then came a point when there were no humans left to crew more of them.

The human finished the presentation with the words: “I am here to protect life. And I am here to welcome you and your species to the universe.”

Tellsa had felt a deep sadness in him. The loneliness of a whole species emanated from his words. Unconsciously, she had hugged Nouso tighter, which he reciprocated by nuzzling her chin.

Then she managed to speak up: "You came here - to protect us?"

"I came here to revive your planet after an environmental collapse that killed off all life. Among the remains I found your species' early ancestors. Then I watched them grow and develop into an intelligent species over many generations, it was very fascinating and I am happy about the development.

“Here and there I did make sure that life would not be endangered again. And now, finally, I am able to talk to you as all of your people worked together to take the first steps to conquer space. To put behind the differences of the northern and southern lands and bridge the desert band, a grand achievment I have to say."

"You were always here?"

"Yes."

"So, when the great migration happened and the old tribes moved to the north as the desert expanded - are the legends true?"

"I did make sure they would find their way", he replied while unsubtly avoiding eye contact.

"The fire on the horizon? Did you make that? And the northern constellation that was so well documented and that we never found again, was that from you? The many wonders written down by the old prophets - like the water from the stone - did you do them?"

He seemed embarrassed by her asking these questions. But she remembered one more thing, something very recent.

Standing up, she asked: "Back during the standstill war - that hemisphere crossing nuclear missile that was mistakenly fired towards the southern lands. It miraculously broke apart when it reached the highest point of its journey. All these many other missiles had been ready then, we nearly wiped each other out. And after that scare, the war finally ended. It was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes", he admitted quietly, "In our history we had a very similar war. It had been thanks to a few specific individuals and decisions that we did not destroy ourselves despite several grave incidents.

“I know that your people would never have fired these weapons, but there could have been accidents or mistakes. My intent was to protect you from harm, please forgive me for sabotaging you to influence your politics."

Her thoughts wanted to go wild again, but she refused to complicate matters. There was this human. And he truly cared about her and her people. He and his whole species had been alone, so alone that they actually re-created life on dead planets to then hope for an intelligent species to pop up after hundreds of thousands of years.

And he had watched over them, it was his doing that was described in old tales. She also was certain that he did avert an all-out nuclear war as well.

"Alright. I believe you when you say you want to help us. And I want to thank you for saving me. And Nouso. What happens now?"

"I will bring you back to your space center. And together we will talk to your people. There are many other species that grew from formerly dead worlds - they are your brothers and sisters. And they would love to welcome all of you. But that will take some time. For now, I will make myself known and I will offer knowledge and help - directly, this time."

She nodded. Keeping it simple, they had extended family. And they were probably as nice and pleasant as he was.

"So we will land with the ark now?", she asked while gesturing around her.

He waved his hand again, the picture above her moving to show the yellow moon, the smaller of the two sister moons.

"This is my ark. We are currently not aboard it and moving it closer would cause quite some gravitational anomalies."

Keeping it simple, one of their moons had always been a gigantic spaceship. She did not know what to think about the probes that had been sent there. Luckily, he then waved the picture away again.

"Now this would actually be the moment where I would call your tobeo friends. One is a bit early, but-", he put two digits into his mouth and somehow made a shrill noise by blowing against them.

After it subsided she could hear the tapping of many more stubby legs. From behind the human several more of the animals emerged and excitedly ran between her and him. It must have been every single one that had not successfully returned to the ground during the long testing phase.

"Why?", she asked simply.

"They are such , I could not let anything happen to them."