Notes

The animal species are specifically chosen because they are threatened by this kind of climate change (air pollution, temperature rising and being trapped). And because they are small and thus have a reasonable chance to secretly go on a rocket. This story does not work if you try to sneak on a herd of elephants ;)

Koala actually means “does not drink”. They sleep 20–22 hours a day, making them the longest sleeper in the animal kingdom. This is because their metabolism is very low: it takes a very long time to release energy from food. They live on eucalyptus, but those leaves become less nutritious as the air gets polluted.

Whistling hares are called “(American) Pika” in English. (No, Pikachu is not named after it.) They too live in a cold (mountainous) climate that is disappearing more and more. They are called that because they make a whistling “eeeep” sound to each other, often as an alarm signal. Look it up, those animals are cute and great.

Kran’s weapons

This is a somewhat creative interpretation of nuclear weapons. There will be a separate story about this.

(In the same way, the story that explains why rabbits are the only ones who can still talk to everone appears naturally. Hopefully it is clear that all other animal species do NOT just understand each other, like the koala and the penguin.)

In reality, an intern (Mindy) who discovers something like this would not be present at such a meeting, nor would those animals. But the original scene was too complicated and too long (with other ministers, protocols, etc.).

Similarly, real nuclear weapons would arrive within (at most) 15 minutes—not take a full day. In reality, if one were to ever fire such a weapon, other countries only have a very brief window of time to decide if they fire back (and potentially destroy the world) or not.

Though, in this case, they were fake rockets and the organization (that stayed behind and concocted the plan) purposely slowed them down to give people the time to get away.

For the story’s sake, though, we pretend the Prime Minister was extremely panicked and hastily arranged this meeting.

About space travel

Of course this is a simplified and accelerated depiction of space travel. It’s just one depiction at one moment in time.

You should see this story as if it takes place hundreds of years in our future. Then we might have the technology for this. (Quickly preparing and launching many rockets, reaching planets within tens of years, making a planet habitable ourselves, etc.)

As always, all the gaps in time and technology will slowly be filled by other short stories, as the Saga of Life continues.

Characters

• Prince: positive about humans, steadfast (if he decides something, they will do it). Very much in love with his partner Pika. Often speaks in sayings about something to do with rabbits or whistling.
• Pika: very negative about humans, more doubts about dangers/consequences/plans, prefers her natural instinct and doing what her intuition tells her. (Refuses to call things by the “human” name for it.)
• Akoa: keeps falling asleep briefly, collects all kinds of things in her pouch, often fools others as a joke
• Pinpin: slides and slips through life, knows very little and so often says “If only I knew”
• Mindy: not aggressive or mean towards animals, but also no animal lover, just goes along with the general human attitude towards animals (at first)
• Aliber: fully trusts technology and his home, does not go outside, has lost all instinct and shoots any life that bothers him