Waiting in the Rain

by John Lunney

The rain beat down on the ground in Quatro on Ardman's World, in the Romulus Beta galaxy. This city was the biggest in the Galactic Alliance, on of several inter-planetary groups. The city was, in fact, big by anyone's standards. Two hundred million people lived there, most of the population of this small blue planet. It was one of the first to be terra-formed because of the unusual suitability of its atmosphere. Terra-forming took 20 years and the first colonists moved onto it. For some reason the climate was left with a strong leaning towards, for want of a better word, rain. They blamed the scientists of course, and the scientists blamed their tools, of course.

The planet had benefited from being an early colony. Its culture was very well advanced and it had well established itself as one of the primary planets in the Alliance. Of course, having the headquarters of Trianco helped too.

Quatro had an opera-house, many restaurants, five spaceports, an "old" quarter and several very exclusive housing areas, based on those from the long-lost Terra.

In fact, there is only one problem with Ardman's World…

…there is no-one there.

Well, that's not quite true. There is one young man there. His name is Abel Thornton. He got left behind when every-one else left.

He was a young child, just 12 at that time 15 years ago when everyone started to die of diseases that people hadn't even heard of. Abel was the only one left alive along with Squeak, his pet lopko.

Lopkos are small furry snakes native to Ardman's World. Nobody knows quite where they came from or how they came to be the only other form of animal life on Ardman's World. There are hundreds of colours and species in the different areas of Ardman's World. Squeak was an Harjaknian Orange with a few yellow spots. Lopkos are about 3 inches long, pocket-sized you could say.

Abel spent a lot of time as he was growing up wondering why he had not died. He guessed that he had just been lucky.

When Ardman's World had been flourishing, there had been a network of weather-control satellites installed during the terra-forming to counter-act the strange rain that people would not be particularly fond of. So there had been a paradise-like climate where every-one enjoyed themselves. People started calling Ardman's World "Eden".

After every-one died, there was no-one left to tend the weather satellites, and they seemed to turn themselves off. The climate started to revert and slowly, as the terra-forming process began to reverse itself, Ardman's World went crawling back to nature. And the rain came, boy oh boy, did the rain come. It rained for 10 straight years after that. The rain slowly washed away the changes that man had made to this small, blue planet. The rain that had first terra-formed the planet was now undoing the process.

Abel crawled among the rubble of his old home, clutching to his chest a photo of the rest of his family, Adam, his father, Evelyn, his mother and his brother Kane. His father had been a scientist studying the lopkos along with his wife. Their studies into the lopkos were leading them into other studies of the flora, fauna and Ardman's World in general. Ardman's World was seemingly very interesting. Just as they were on the verge of figuring it all out, they had all died. Abel didn't know why everyone had had to die and leave him all alone.

So, he sat there waiting in the rain, like he had done for the last ten years, hoping that some-one might come. The rain beat down on the rubble of the five useless space-ports, the opera house and the exclusive restaurants. Abel wondered to himself whether the rain would ever stop.

Today was in fact the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the rain. He had kept score on a large wall. He didn't why he did it, perhaps because there was very little else to do. Abel hated the rain, it was so depressing, to be wet all the time, never to be able dry yourself or be warm. The sky was always grey. If he could have one thing in the world, it would be to stop the rain.

Abel looked up to the sky, grey as ever. But wait, in the very corner of the sky, a tiny speck of blue. The tiny speck of blue was spreading and getting bigger. Abel shouted and whooped for joy. Two minutes later, the rain stopped. "The rain stopped," repeated Abel over and over to himself. A few hours later, Abel spotted a ship landing over the horizon, several hours walk away, near what was left of the Tower to Providence. Needless to say, he started walking. He reached the tower just before nightfall. He was still amazed by the end of the rain and the ship was even more amazing. The ship was not a design he had seen before, even more long and pointed than a Scout-class Fredian Trader. It was long and golden, with ornate decorations and it sparkled in the sun. A beautiful woman with what looked like wings stepped out, followed by a man, also with wings.

They looked around them, surveying the area. Abel hid behind a rock and listened to their conversation.

"The cleansing process is nearly complete," said the female. "Yes, not much left to do," agreed the male.
"What did this race do to be thrown out of the Garden?"
"Deep within a cave they discovered the ruins of an ancient building, that had been here long, long before the humans arrived," she continued.
"Further in, they found ruins of another civilisation,"
"Soon they discovered that the whole cave was full of ruins,"
"The ruins were of civilisations that had learned too much , that had become too wise,"
"They had learned of things like space, weapons and war,"
"The Thorntons decided to try and find out what had caused the destruction of the previous civilisations on this world,"
"They discovered what had happened to the previous races and also learned from the technology that they found,"
"They too had now become too wise, they had taken of the forbidden fruit of wisdom, and they had to leave the Garden,"
"We sent the rains to clear them out, but they just built their satellites, so we removed them,"
"Still, they refused to leave, so we sent a plague of Robellian fever,"
"They treated this, with their new-found technology,"
"We had no choice now, we sent the Angel of Death, who polluted the whole world with radiation and spores of disease,"
"The humans all died from horrible diseases and the planet was polluted to such a point that it had to be wiped clean and started again,"
"Now the world has been cleaned up by 10 years of rain and re-terraforming, it is ready for a new batch of settlers, who are due along any time now."

Almost as she said this, an armada of huge colony ships came through the atmosphere.

They were going to settle on his world, his Eden

Abel and his snake were going to have to see about that.