RETURN TO EARTH
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
"Earth." Wielt said.
"Earth?" Marcin asked, surprised.
"Earth." William affirmed.
"What about Earth?"
"Why don't we go there next?" The two men were searching for a planet to make their home base. It's fine for a single man to skip about from world to world and seeing what there is to see, but a couple who wants to start a family needs to pick one world and stick to it (mostly) until the children are grown enough to be implanted with their own interstellar transporters and can travel on their own without supervision.
Marcin's mouth flopped a bit, and then he said, "I don't know. Didn't the entire human race have to evacuate the planet a long, long time ago?"
"Close to a hundred million years ago, yes." Wielt agreed. "And why is that?"
Ancient history, but being in a relationship required some attention to the other's interests. "I don't know." Marcin admitted, closed his eyes and connected with the Hypercomputer. The source of all human knowledge, it bound the human race together these days, keeping track of the quintillions of human beings now dwelling on quadrillions of worlds in the Galaxy. All he had to do to connect with it was to think about it and the hyperlink implants did the rest. Nice thing about hyperspace was, everything in it was next to everything in this universe. Without it, no Hypercomputer to give instantaneous responses to any question you gave it, and no interstellar travel that made going from planet to planet as easy as walking next door.
So he queried the Hypercomputer for information on why the human race had left Earth so long, long ago, and the answer he got to his question surprised him. "The information on why Mankind left Earth is not in the database!" he exclaimed. For the Hypercomputer to not know something was...was heresy!
"That's right." Wielt agreed.
"But...but the Hypercomputer knows everything!" The Hypercomputer was the total sum of all knowledge. Not being able to have an answer to any question at will... Marcin shivered. It left him feeling odd. Ignorance was an emotion the human race had forgotten many millenia ago, it was a positively unsettling experience.
"Now ask the Hypercomputer where Earth is." Wielt suggested.
Marcin tried. "Not in the database!" he said again in raw dismay.
"Yes, I know." Wielt said. "I spent some time querying the Hypercomputer on this, and I have come to think the information was deliberately deleted. And why, I ask you? It is Manhome, the origin of all mankind, and we don't even know where it is anymore?"
Marcin chewed on this, nodded. "I guess it being the homeworld of Mankind, the fate of Earth would have been too painful."
"But we can live anywhere we want now." Wielt pointed out. His gesture encompassed the world they were now on, with a pastel pink sky and deep red sands, crystalline trees dotted the landscape, moving with the wind, creating a mystical-sounding music, harmonious and non-repetitious, like a never-ending symphony.
"I think this planet's much nicer than a lot of the planets we've looked at." Marcin pouted. "But if you want to keep looking, we can." And they could come back to this world when they were done, far as he was concerned. He liked its simple colors, its serene majesty, the winds just enough to make music, not enough to stir the sands into a storm.
"Yes, I want to keep looking. I want to go to Earth." Wielt said. "Go back to Earth." he corrected himself. "We can live anywhere, then let's live and raise our children on the planet from which all mankind sprung!"
"But we don't know where Earth is!"
Wielt just smiled. "The direct information is missing. But not the indirect information."
Marcin understood that. When you assemble all the pieces in a one-piece-missing puzzle, you can look at the work and know which piece is missing, where it should go, and what it should have on it. Deduction from the available information on the universe could work the same way; if you were willing to engage in a process of elimination.
"Do you know where Earth is?" he dared to ask. Wielt had the look that said he did.
"I do." Wielt said. "It must be the third planet of the Helios system. That's in the fourth Galactic arm, spinward and rimward from here, not far from the Crab Nebula."
"All right." Marcin said. "So when do you want to go there?"
"How about now?"
"Why not?" Marcin agreed and got to his feet. Traveling the stars was as easy as choosing the direction with your mind and pressing the activation button on your wrist control panel. You had to jump from world to world, as hypertravel had its distance limitations like any mode of travel, but that made it part of the fun. Every blink of the eye brought a new world to see.
Blink and they were in a jungle built of orange-colored plants, blink again and they were on the edge of a massive, purplish ocean, blink and they were surrounded by an alien species on a crowded world, blink again and they were alone on a featureless desert.
One place made him stop. A hypermessage to his lover brought Wielt back. "Look at that." he said, pointing.
Above their heads, a million multi-colored insects were doing an intricate mating dance. Something about their dance was communal, not a frantic battle, it was like every member of the species was cooperating to bring all its comrades to a mate, or perhaps they were simply stimulating each other with scent markings of some sort, or perhaps the touching of their dance was how they fertilized each other.
Whatever it was, it was beautiful. Like watching a hundred thousand rainbows interwoven but still shifting about each other, forming new patterns and shapes and designs, like a thousand kaleidescopes all shifting at once and in synchronization.
"Ah, yes, the Calibetii." Wielt said. Ever-practical, he had accessed the Hypercomputer for information on what they were watching. "I've seen them before, some two or three thousand years ago. If I'd noticed we were coming this way, I would have suggested this stop myself. Their reason for this dance is quite interesting, if...."
Marcin's finger on his lips brought Wielt to silence. "Who cares why they're doing it. It's beautiful just the way it is."
"Yes." Wielt settled for saying. "Yes, it is."
They made themselves comfortable on a couple of large stones nearby and Marcin snuggled up to Wielt. So many humans chose to travel the Galaxy by themselves, but he couldn't see doing that. He'd been with Wielt for close to a hundred years now, and it still felt as good as if they'd been together only a few weeks. Eternal life and eternal youth were Mankind's birthright now, and the galaxy was their plaything. So many worlds to see, even eternity held no fears of becoming boring, for the universe, both living and inert, was infinitely surprising. Marcin laid his head on Wielt's shoulder and smiled.
The insect ballet was intricate and marvelous, but it appeared to have a distinct ending. The insects were intermixing in their splendid glory, and then they were dispersing, taking their colors and their beauty with them, leaving behind only an insipidly gray-colored sky.
"Did something frighten them away?" Marcin said.
"No." Wielt said. "It was time for them to stop. They do this dance every few weeks, we can arrange to be here for the entire thing the next time if you'd like."
"I'd like." Marcin agreed. "Well...on to Earth again."
"Yes. On to Earth." Wielt agreed, and it was hyperblink time again.
So many, many worlds, and no two alike. It could be almost hypnotic, the flashing of myriad worlds. But then Wielt said, "We stop at the next one." and Marcin's heart raced. Earth! The source of the human race. He felt, for a brief moment, the thrill that had driven his lover to search for Earth.
The world they were now on was of mountains, tall and cragged, but no trace of ice on them. Nor of life. "Why are we here?" Marcin said. "Is this Earth?" It couldn't be, that horridly blue glaring sun overhead couldn't be the benevolently golden glow he'd heard of any number of times when Earth was mentioned.
"No, but the next world we go to will be." Wielt said. "We have to make a manual jump this time. Just coordinates, concentrate on them and make the jump. Are you ready?" Wielt's mind flashed the coordinates via the Hypercomputer to Marcin's mind and he nodded.
"On three, then. One, two, three..."
And Marcin blinked and they were there.
"This is Earth?" he asked.
"This is Earth." affirmed Wielt.
"Hmph." Marcin settled for saying.
The ground was hard and baked into a flat plain of stone-dry dirt. Out of this dirt was what appeared to be gigantic stone monoliths. Far taller than a human, they sprung here and there around the plain.
"You want to live here?" he asked.
"I...this isn't what I was expecting." Wielt said. "This is where the last capital city of Earth was located."
"That was a long time ago." Marcin pointed out.
"Too long ago." Wielt agreed.
Now that they were there, Marcin tried the Hypercomputer again, this time the information flowed easily; the information hadn't been deleted, merely withheld by the Hypercomputer. The Earth was a planet now nearly devoid of water. What little was left was deep underground. The only life remaining was inside the mounds, a descendent of ants lived inside, and farmed a sort of fungus in their tunnels for nourishment. Nothing else live on the Earth.
Wielt had accessed the same information, was looking about with dismay. "Nothing else anywhere? Nothing at all?"
"It's been a hundred million years." Marcin pointed out. "Things change."
"This much?"
"Well...sure." Marcin said. "What did you expect?"
"I expected to see the world where Mankind was born. I expected the world that we left. I expected...I expected to feel at home here."
"Oh." Marcin said. He had been wondering about this, about why Wielt was so intent on returning to Earth. Why Wielt had never wanted to choose one of the worlds they had visited to settle down on. Wielt was looking for a planet that wasn't just beautiful, wasn't just comfortable. He had been searching for a world that would feel...like home.
He put his hand on Wielt's shoulder in sympathy. "I'm sorry." He said.
"So long. I searched so long to find Earth and now I have...it's just this! Nobody would want to live here!"
"There are lots of worlds with lots of people on it." Marcin pointed out. "We don't have to stay here all alone. Or we could pick a world with another race living on it, if you want to do that."
"I wanted to live somewhere we would be happy together." Wielt mourned. "If we can't be at home on Earth, where can we be at home?"
Is that all that was worrying Wielt? Marcin said, "I'll be happy anywhere I'm with you."
"Marcin...."
"And anyplace you are, that is my home." Marcin persisted.
"But I wanted something familiar." Wielt said. "Something that wasn't changed. Something that was permanent. That was what I wanted to build our family on."
"Something that hasn't changed since the earliest days of Mankind?" Marcin asked.
"Right."
"Well, that's easy." Marcin said.
Wielt looked suspicious. "It can't be the air. This air is toxic." The implants in their lungs would kick in during such a time, manufacture oxygen from carbon dioxide inside the lungs themselves. Satiated, automatic breathing stopped. Other implants kept the toxic mixture from burning their eyes, their throats, their noses, their skins while allowing any usable gases to enter the body.
"I wasn't thinking about the air." Marcin said, though in truth he hadn't noticed he wasn't breathing.
"Nor the way we get nourishment." Wielt pointed out. "That's nothing like our ancestors."
"I knew that already." Marcin said.
"So what do we even have in common with this Earth that is no longer our Earth?" Wielt wanted to know.
Marcin's hand stroked over Wielt's chest, a familiar gesture Wielt would recognize. "The one thing Mankind has left unchanged." he said. "Is the very thing that keeps us falling in love."
Wielt's body had been tensed up ever since its arrival, now he relaxed. "I should have guessed that."
"So want to show this planet that Mankind has returned?" Marcin offered.
"Now?"
"We have been busy traveling a lot lately." Marcin said. "And if we're going to travel some more...why not?"
"Why not indeed?" And Wielt turned and the two men embraced, kissed, loved each other the way that man had loved since it had first walked erect. A true connection with the past.
Though Marcin had suggested this, it was Wielt who burned the hottest, Marcin found the lips ardent upon his own and the hands pressing his body with an urgency that spoke volumes. Far from having to stroke his lover's body into acceptance, he was the one being fanned into flame, Wielt's lips were hungry upon his lips, his cheek, his neck and throat. Marcin groaned and grasped Wielt's buttocks in both hands, pulled their bodies together tightly, felt his erection slam against Wielt's own tumescence. No implants or modern conveniences here, though implants permitted the lone Earthman to evoke pleasure upon command, he didn't need to use it. Wielt's hands and lips gave him a pleasure far greater than any electronic could hope to ever match.
Wielt's hand fished between them, cupped Marcin's basket, squeezed his life and his glory. The aggressive drive that Marcin had sparked with his semi-playful offer made Wielt squeeze a bit harde than Marcin would have liked, but the sensation of pain was so rare that he relished it for its own sake. "Ah, hah, ah!" he grunted as the vise upon his manhood clutched and pressed, and then released again.
"Now, now." Wielt panted. "Open it up, please, now."
Marcin flicked his mind with the thought that would let his pant's front opening activate, and it dilated open, exposing his organ to the harsh light of the no-longer-gentle Sun. Wielt's hand grasped it possessively and Marcin gasped as the tight grip began to pump his prick into a rapidly-rousing excitement, he could have thrown his mind open to this and reached climax as rapidly as if he had invoked his joy implant, but this, ah, yes, this was better, and he held it back and forced his body to wait for what more was to come.
And Wielt dropped to his knees and the warmth of his mouth encircled Marcin. Marcin sighed as the moist softness clutched and stroked his cock, and he looked up at the pale-blue sky and wondered how many times in Earth's past others of Mankind had been here, in this place, loving their mates as he was loving his own, right here, without the benefit of technology and without the guarantee of completion his own body had...his ancestors would have had to trust their partners to deliver every iota of the pleasure. Right then, he resolved this time to do likewise, if Wielt's attentions for some reason didn't give Marcin his orgasm, he would not trigger it on his own.
That lent an edge to this joining, but Wielt had thus far been exemplary, Marcin could not imagine enjoying it more had he added electronic aid. That had been a playful game of theirs in the past, to join and add the sensations of the other's touch to the implants, and so stack delight upon delight, it gave an intense climax, and for Marcin caused him to ejaculate profusely, but this time...what would be would be. His body shivered at this and Marcin felt his instincts kick in. If you are to reach fruition, speed it up, seize the joy and not just accept.
He reached down and brought Wielt up again and huskily said, "I can't wait much longer. If you want to do more than drink down my semen, I must change now."
Wielt only smiled and said, "As our ancestors did, so will we. Take me, my love, for I am with you in this."
As Wielt turned, Marcin groaned and marveled at the raw animal sound of his voice. Truly he had awakened here on Earth the primal beast that had lurked within himself. Perhaps the return to Earth had done this much for him after all, for he hadn't felt like this before. Not just to love Wielt...but to own him. Wielt bent over, the buttocks small, enticing curves in his body's fulcrum as he lowered his upper half.
Wielt's pants irised open, revealing the path, and Marcin gave a growl and pressed his dong into the opening, and Wielt grunted and Marcin shoved his prick on in, and Wielt groaned.
Marcin's hands at Wielt's hips held Wielt in place, and Wielt moaned as Marcin began to hunch in and out of him, and that was the moan of the passive partner as it had reverberated on this planet in the distant past. Every planet, every species in existence throughtout the cosmos, it had its own unique sound, and this was Mankind's, the base sound that all the rest of humanity was built upon, it all boiled down to the sounds of Marcin and Wielt here and now, Mankind's most recent additions to its orchestra, and as Marcin grunted with the urgency of his thrusts, Wielt groaned with the joy those thrusts bought for him, and the motions of their bodies were those of the cavemen, those of the Greeks, of the Romans, of the Chinese, of the many, many peoples who had met and mated and loved upon this world so many, many times.
All of those spirits were with them now, surrounding them, Marcin felt them in a way that was in no way the communion he had with the Hypercomputer or with his fellow men when he chose to communicate with them, this communion was with the soul and he felt them urging him on, bringing him higher, higher, now, more, more, faster, hurry, now, now, NOW!
"Ah-ah-gah, UH-GUNNHHH!" Marcin reached his climax and his cock blasted into Wielt's buttocks the hot seed of his love, and Wielt gave a keening cry as he felt the discharge and he himself fountained his sperm out and onto the hot, baked soil of ancient Earth, a final tribute of life to the world that had given it birth, and the soil touched turned dark and fertile-looking with the touch.
Marcin had not enhanced his ecstasy, but it felt as though he exceeded every prior record he had enjoyed with Wielt at this time, he felt his cock squelching back and forth as Weilt's filled butt brimmed to overflowing, and when Marcin's thrusting pud withdrew now, it drew out the hot spunk and it dribbled back over Marcin's shaft and plopped onto the ground.
Done, gasping, Marcin gripped Wielt tightly, he didn't want either of them to land upon this hot, unfriendly ground. He had loved Wielt on other worlds just as forbidding, and in those times, had not felt the complete and utter release of his very being as he had this time, perhaps, he thought languidly in his exhaustion, perhaps a part of his body did recognize this world as home after all.
Wielt turned and they rested themselves in each other's arms until their bodies recovered.
"I guess that we can't return to Earth after all." he said, sadly but no longer devastated.
"We'll pick a planet and call it home." Marcin said. "We can look as long as you like. Centuries even, or millenia, for I want to spend them all with you."
Wielt smiled a bit wistfully. "You were right. This is something that Mankind took with them from Earth, and will always keep. Maybe even after we stop having bodies at all, and become nothing but insubstantial beings dwelling in hyperspace.
"I don't believe that." Marcin objected. "Mankind is too well attached to this particular activity to ever give up his body. If we had, we'd have done it by now."
"I guess you're right."
"I know I'm right." Marcin said. "Now, you want to take another look at that world with the crystal trees again? It's been my favorite so far. There's a small village of humans already there, you know, we wouldn't have to camp out under those trees to live there. I think our children should grow up around other children, anyway."
"It's certain that they can't grow up here on Earth." Wielt said. "I do wonder why the Hypercomputer wouldn't tell us anything about the Earth until we got here, though."
"That's a mystery you can work on for the next few centuries." Marcin said. "While we're raising our children."
"Perhaps." Wielt agreed. "Are you ready to go?"
"I'm ready."
"Then let's go home."
And the two blinked out, leaving only a few discolored spots on the soil to mark their return to Earth, and their departure.
THE END
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E-mail the Author at Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM