10. Epilogue

It didn’t take long before everyone realized they had fooled. When Kran’s weapons struck, they should have seen an explosion, a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire, maybe even heard the noise from afar

Instead, there was … nothing.

While the rockets still had a connection, they could view the surveillance cameras. There was nothing to see and the entire rocket base still looked intact.

Once further from the planet, they sent space probes to take photos. Those also found an Aprania without damage, but with sunshine and more green nature than before.

The people shouted for them to turn around. The people didn’t understand how spacecraft worked.

Once out of the atmosphere, there was no air to slow them down. As the famous scientist Valton said: As long as no new force acts on an object, it will remain at the same speed forever.

So once the rocket pointed in the right direction, all engines were switched off. Without needing to burn fuel, they’d cruise at the exact speed they now had, forever. Turning around, however, would require fuel they didn’t have.

Estimations said they should reach a habitable planet in ten years.

In that time, the animals behaved as well as you could expect in a crowded rocket. The whistling hares gnawed through cables left and right. Fortunately, those were just phone chargers, and the truly important cables were well-protected inside the walls. Though many teenagers suddenly went on long rants about the importance of phones and battery in this day and age.

In any case, Prince made sure to stay far away from people who had that nasty look in their eyes, like the one man who offered Mindy his ticket.

Pinpin brought joy by sliding through the halls and allowing children to ride on his. Until the roles reversed and parents told their kids: “You should be more scared of him than he is of you!”

For three years, the mystery of the food thief played out. Someone broke into the kitchen on the same floor as Mindy at night, stole mountains of food, and disappeared before people or cameras saw anything.

The mystery was quickly solved when Akoa fell asleep face down once, and twenty bags of nuts exploded from her pouch across the entire floor.

Until the moment the rocket landed, people kept finding nuts in odd places, like an endless Easter egg hunt.

The other rocket was far less pleasant, dear reader. For a long time, Pika wanted to do nothing without her Prince. The humans kept arguing about their neighbor’s religion until they were all placed on separate floors. Many family members were left behind because Aliber said nothing was wrong. Something for which he could say sorry a hundred times and it wouldn’t matter. I don’t want to dwell on it.

Mindy became an adult woman. Prince was completely gray. They had often sat together as she tried to talk with him or understand his scribbles. They could now communicate reasonably, though a wall remained. Humans did have brains that could do all kinds of things animals could only dream of.

Mindy wrote a scientific report about it. To half the people she was a hero who had warned about the weapons and saved animals; to the other half she was a traitor who should have stayed behind. By now she cared little for either opinion.

The planet where they ended up started as a rocky landscape with craters, but was quickly transformed by human technology into something with an atmosphere and soft earth for plants.

Right from the start, they generated all energy with clean solutions, which mostly meant solar panels on everything they built. Something for which Mindy—to her regret—still had to fight long and hard.

A few months after landing, the impatient travelers were finally allowed outside. Without spacesuit, without any other protection, finally out of their cage. They called the place Whistlehaven, towards the center of the Nibuwe system.

The longer they were out of the Sand King’s clutches, the less everyone still slept. All the rules were different here. And they had to learn them quickly if they wanted to survive.

Prince stood on a rock, every day, gazing at the stars. More years passed, in which visitors from other planets arrived more and more frequently, but Pika’s rocket never arrived.

That’s how they also heard the latest news from Aprania, thanks to a family of traders who arrived in their own little spacecraft.

“It was a bluff,” they said. “Kran’s weapons were never fired. It was an empty rocket with a trick to mess with our radars.”

Mindy received them in the rocket harbor, where she had long been preparing her own spacecraft. “Why? What’s the point?”

Asking was answering. “The point was for everyone to leave Aprania. The country quickly recovered and turned green. Many animal species have rebounded.”

Mindy pounded the ground with her hammer, lacking a nail. She blew away a sweaty lock of hair. “We came this close to sending back weapons.”

“An outcome they’d also find okay.”

“What?”

The spaceship captain tapped some screens and showed a photo. A man she recognized.

He wanted to buy the animals back then, Mindy immediately knew. He didn’t need a ticket, because he KNEW the weapons weren’t real.

“They wanted to solve the climate problem by wiping out half the world. They were fine if that meant their own death.”

Mindy repeatedly struck the floor with her hammer. “And we did exactly what they wanted! It’s a paradise there now, without us.”

“Paradise? In the future, maybe. For the animals, maybe. It will take another hundred years before the climate fully recovers and the air is completely clean. These bluffers won’t experience that themselves.”

Over the years, Mindy would often consider going back. Prince expected that Pika surely would have: she loved their world of Somnia and its nature the most.

But Mindy was a researcher and explorer, and thought her own spacecraft was meant for the galaxy.

The decision was made when she finally received a response from a message she sent out long ago.

“According to our information, rocket twelve departed for the other side of the Nibuwe system. There is no reason to think they returned or exploded. Hopefully this helps. Greetings, your biggest fans.”

Mindy’s spaceship was finished by then and had already survived many short journeys.

Akoa grew old. Prince grew old. She knew they had at most a couple years left. Just enough to traverse that part of Nibuwe system.

So they waved everyone goodbye and stepped into their comfortable spacecraft, with a cheerful painting of Mindy, Akoa and Prince on the side. Mindy and Akoa gave a thumbs up. Prince looked past them and had insisted on drawing his own series of musical notes.

They departed. This time, in the best cage, which they had chosen themselves.

And so it was that life continued …