The Facem rumbled through the starry black, its engines shining with a ferocity greater than the sun's. Vast radiators extended around the searing azure of the exhaust, like great rosy petals of a blinding flower.

Yan Liu gaped at their vast extent, spreading gracefully far below her. They already glowed with the accumulated heat of constant acceleration, and their light blush framed the far away Earth nicely. The planet itself had been receding at an ever-increasing pace as the flight progressed, and was now no bigger than the full moon. Currently, it was a crescent, the atmosphere a gleaming sickle of blue and white. On the dark side, the dim, dirty yellow of human habitation outlined the continents with surprising clarity.

Liu was a biologist, one of an extensive team onboard. Her passion was what drove her to join the mission. The distant planet was the most likely candidate for alien life anywhere near Sol, orbiting snugly within the Goldilocks zone of its parent star. Spectral analysis had revealed that the atmosphere was largely nitrogen and oxygen, with enough trace carbon dioxide to keep the planet warm. It was already almost conclusively proven that the planet was alive and thriving. Of course, none of the details could be divined through the telescopes. The variety of life on the planet could range from a few photosynthetic bacteria to a full biosphere of animals and plants. There was even a slim chance of intelligent beings.

Yan Liu lingered for a moment before turning away from the observation deck window. She walked out of the spherical room, away from the bubble of quartz glass that protruded out of the smooth skin of the Facem. She passed the massive blast doors that separated the observation deck from the rest of the ship, their grey and yellow a welcome deviation from the white that covered everything else. She emerged into the main chamber.

Liu lived on the third tier of the habitation module, a fair two hundred meters above the 'bottom'. She took residence here because it was on this floor that the vast collections of biological specimens were stored. There was a plethora of organic samples, from petri dishes of bacteria to entire terrestrial ecosystems, all enclosed within a few hundred square meters. All the material was there mostly for research; the effects of interstellar travel on living things were not well understood.

She walked on, to the edge of the platform. Liu leaned against the glass railing, and looked down at the main plaza far below. The palms made a merry circle around the court, embracing the swaying clusters of people arrayed across the beige surface. The buildings that dotted the plaza were plastered with corporate colors and logos, ranging from general stores to restaurants, to entertainment venues. Coupled with the flowing crowds, the sight was wholly disorienting.

She stepped away from the railing, and made her way back toward the towers. She moved toward one of the multitude, almost identical to all the rest. It rose smoothly out of the white plastic of the ground, and stood in the same shape and height of all the other towers. It had the same grey-black color. The only characteristic distinguishing it from the rest was the maroon strip that stretched from the uppermost spire to the base.

This was one of the buildings that housed the biological specimens onboard Facem, one of five. It had been cooperatively paid for by multiple universities across the solar system, including her own, University of Copenhagen. It mostly contained preserved gene vaults, a record of millions of genetic codes, enough, in theory, to replicate all of Earth's biosphere. There were, however, large stores of plants, animals, and other whole organisms, either living normally in small terrariums or chemically frozen in tubes of thick preservative.

As one of the biology staff for the mission, Liu was one of the few onboard who even knew what these buildings were for. The rest of the passengers assumed it was another residential structure. Even those who knew that biological samples were stored in the towers were not fully aware of their deeper purpose. While there was certainly scientific knowledge to be had in studying animals and plants as they completed the interstellar voyage, most of the space within the towers was occupied with gene banks and artificial fertilization machines. Most of the remainder was taken up by billions upon billions of seeds and spores, collected painstakingly from plants throughout the globe, to ensure that genetic diversity was achieved. Anyone with the full inventory of the bio-towers would find it easy to guess that the primary purpose of the structures was not pure scientific study.

The towers were equipped to entirely remake the surface of a planet, seeding it with all of Earth's flora and uprooting all that had grown there before. When the Facem finally arrived at the world in question, it would be decided whether to use them or not. The choice hinged on the presence and complexity of life already present on the surface. If the planet was as vibrant and alive as Earth was, the preservation of the native life was the top priority, and the biotowers would not be activated. If there was none, or if it was limited to oceanic bacteria and algae, the towers could be used in confidence that nothing of great scientific or ethical value had been destroyed in the process.

As Liu approached the building, a door appeared in the side, carving itself out of the obsidian wall. For a moment, it stood, nothing but an outline of shadow on slightly brighter one. Then, its two halves split and swept silently apart. She continued into the building where nothing but seamless wall had been before. She passed under the harsh, purple light of the sterilization chamber as the wall slid back into its previous position behind her. When the ultraviolet dimmed into the soft white of fluorescent, Liu walked further into the bowels of the building.

Dimly lit terrariums flanked her as she went, filled with their own tiny ecologies. In one, there artificial moonlight played against the dew-laden leaves of young rainforest trees, while a toucan sat serenely on a synthetic rock. The next replicated a desert, with cactuses reaching toward the virtual sky, surrounded by sands alive with the movements of insects. Concealed tunnels of stone hid snakes and rodents. A fox with massive ears was systematically poking its nose into each tunnel in turn, in pursuit of some morsel to wolf down. The one after that was full of water, rippling with blue-green beams of refracted light. Tiny, phosphorescent phytoplankton swirled in the mechanically induced waves, painting each swell with a harsh, glowing blue.

Liu walked past a few more terrariums, before arriving at yet another door. It swished open, revealing a cavernous chamber filled with endless columns of crates and storage tubes. A gossamer tracery of metal wires webbed the entire space, threading between immaculately stacked towers of containers. Occasionally, a grey handling robot swept along the rails, attending to some errand or other.

Liu walked up to a nearby workstation, consisting of a wall monitor and an examination table. As she neared the structure, the monitor flashed brilliantly, displaying a vast selection of supplies and specimens that could be requested. She looked through the zoobiology catalog for Acinonyx jubatus, an extinct species of the family felidae that had succumbed to the inevitable forces of natural selection over three hundred years ago. She eventually found a well-preserved specimen, a frozen fetus immersed in a cocktail of super cooled liquids.

She ordered the computer to bring her the specimen, and a robot bearing the tall tube of liquid came soaring towards her, hanging from a thin wire. It halted in front of the table, and carefully lowered the specimen with a grace that only a machine could possess.

The tube was, for the most part, opaque. The fluid inside was yellow and viscous, thickly sloshing around as it began to warm. Only a vague outline of the small animal inside was visible. Liu stared at the cylinder for a moment before ordering it to clear.

The gelatinous mixture drained quickly, leaving only a flawlessly transparent fluid. The fetus floated serenely, suspended miraculously in nothing. Its flaxen fur was plastered against its skin. Its eyes were closed, each underlined by a black streak. Its whole body was covered in tiny, black rosettes, while its striped tail hung limply underneath legs that might have become the mightiest biological machines in creation. It looked almost alive, but any life had departed half a millennium ago. The only salvation it still held for its race was in the perfectly preserved strands of DNA in its tiny, frozen cells.

Liu completed the usual tests involving macroscopic specimens, taking samples of genetic information and checking internal organs for damage. As expected, the fetus was in the same state as it had been for centuries.

Acinonyx jubatus was, Liu recalled, a feline that inhabited Africa from the Late Pliocene to the early Anthropocene. Like many large animals, it had gone extinct during a mass extinction event 600 years ago. This specimen, if the digital label was accurate, had been rescued from the uterus of a dying female, among the last of her kind, and immediately frozen to be stored in a facility in South Africa. There it had stayed, the last intact example of its species even as the rest suffocated. It was only recently, when Facem became more than a dream in an engineer's mind, that it was retrieved.

A. jubatus was not the only extinct species represented in the ship's store rooms. Camelus bactrianus, Vultur gryphus, Panthera onca, Oncorhynchus nerka, and Ursus maritimus, among millions of others, were all species that had ceased to exist on Earth, and had fully preserved DNA sequences onboard. All had some chance of revival, and that was one of the reasons they here in the first place.

Facem would be charting a course to a pristine planet, one that was free of human habitation. On Earth, there was simply too little space for these creatures to flourish, but on the new world, there was no reason not to bring them back from the dead, and let them roam once more under an alien sun. That way, even if there was no native life, the planet could be populated by the exiled races of Earth.

Perhaps one day, the small shape in the tube might give rise to a new race. After many centuries of slumber, it could sprint once more through tall golden grasses, pounding at dry, hardened dirt in pursuit of some equally agile prey. In the light of an unfamiliar, silver moon, it might stand atop a hill, surveying the rolling prairies, staring out of burning, orange eyes. Its fur, striped and spotted as if by the graceful hand of an artist, would match the swaying foliage. Perhaps, on a dark, starry night, one of them might gaze at a white star, dim and weak in the immeasurable distance, never grasping that its forefathers had lived out their lives the same as it did in that pinprick. It would never know of the great calamity they faced, or the eternity of silence they endured, or the salvation that they found on this great, starborne ark.