I placed all of my dresses into the silver-lined suitcase that lay sprawled across my bed. As a high part of society in my district, I had been given all the dresses I would ever need when I was still a baby. The suitcase was small, so I only brought the ones that I would need in the near future. My mother says that I will either get supplies once I have arrived at my destination or have to make my minimal stash last. She shared that just before the big goodbye. The final goodbye. The first trip I will ever make in my whole life will be without my parents, and it will last for the rest of my life. My mother had kissed me and my father had hugged me and then I was ushered off to pack. Of course, I went right to packing. It never once occurred to me to fight for more time with my parents, or beg the officers to let me stay. I suppose that is because I know it is an utter impossibility. Maybe it’s just because I know that time is a valuable thing right now and it would be silly to complain for something I cannot have.


The suitcase was by now a sea of whites and silvers that shimmered in the moonlight coming from the window. A name plate on the suitcase shone bright white. On it was my identification “Rocket Scientist”, and the perhaps the now useless title of my name, “Liana”. The huge moon cast gleams of iridescent light across the small silver freckles around my cheeks and on my arms. It made my silver hair seem to flow like a waterfall cascading down my back. I paused and stared at the closet. There was only two draws left that were not empty. The first had small, silver and white colored child cloths that I had already wore. The second I had been told never to open until the day came. I sighed; since I would never be back to my room again, I might as well open it now. I pulled the silver handle and the white draw opened. The dress tumbled out in a whirl of shimmering silver and glowing white. My wedding dress. When I was younger, my parents told me about how they had picked it out. As a successful family, they had a wide selection to choose from. They told me I would love it and I did. It was layers upon layers of sheer white with small silvery flowers pinned down the sides of the fabric. They were so delicate that they looked almost real. The dress makers really did well. I wanted to shove it into the suitcase, but there was no way it would fit. It was part of an old life now. There was a knocking at the door followed by a call for me to hurry up. It was polite, but I could sense the urgency. Time was draining. I grabbed a small flower and pulled. As the dress was fragile, it came off easily; trailed by a small silver thread. I carefully placed it in the pocket of my current dress, and then, picking up the now closed suitcase, moved toward the door. The window, looking out towards the silver lake, the acres of white sand and silver trees, the white marble shops, and the milky bowl of moon, would never be looked out again.

...... The people of the planet Silvaway knew that their sun would explode. They, however, only just gained the technology of large space craft making. Yet, however lacking they were in scientifics, they made up for it in the industry of textiles. Silvaway fabric could be woven and designed so wonderfully, and it fit into many aspects of Silvaway life. The people most certainly did not want their vast knowledge of fabrics lost along with them. They had one spaceship that could travel long distances very quickly. With no idea of where the ship would land, they designed it to orbit a planet in a distant galaxy; ultimately relying on that world (wherever it may be) to take their ship in. The ship had room for only eighteen people. The government of Silvaway would have to choose eighteen souls out of millions. At first, the government considered giving the seats to those who paid the most silver coins for them. They soon realized that this method would be pointless, as very soon money would be useless. So, they decided that the seat holders had to be young people that would be able to survive the long journey of what could be many years. This narrowed their search quite a bit. Furthermore, these people, mostly adolescents, had to be fit to represent Silvaway life. The government picked nine topics that they wanted to share with the universe. Then, they tested individuals in each area. Those with the highest test scores were given a seat. Two for each category; in case something happened. These teenagers had been prepared briefly on rocket drills due to lack of time. No one ever thought about what an experience as shocking as this one would do to the younger minds, or what time on a ship would do to them all, or how the world they traveled to would treat them. However, those young minds thought about their fate a great much. The pressure on them was immense, and yet the clock still ticked......


This was the day. The day I would leave everything I knew behind. Well, not everything. I had to remember about Silvaway rocket information. I had been given a seat because I could operate the star ship and could fix anything that broke. It wasn’t very hard. The ship was very automatic as is. It made me feel stupid and awkward being surrounded by all of Silvaway’s finest prodigies. There were the fine fabricers, the resistant fabricers, the textilists, the musicians, the painters, the spinners, the knitters, the mathematicians, and lastly the rocket scientists. The silver flower still sat in my pocket. If I happened to lose it, I bet the fine fabricers could sew me a new one; possibly even better. All the students who worked with fabric seemed to get along very well. They had a respect for each other and an eagerness to learn about the other types of fabrictry. Most of the partners knew each other. Some were even best friends. I was jealous of them; friends always seem to make the worst situations better. I didn’t have a clue to who my partner was. He worked mostly with the ships computers. The last couple hours had been full of noise as we boarded the ship. People had showered us with their life works in hopes that it could reach space. We had been instructed to take nothing more than what we had, so all the offers we had to politely decline. It was horribly disheartening to reject someone’s whole life’s work, no matter how beautiful or amazing. Now that we had boarded, no one was talking. How could we? We would never walk on our planet’s silver soil again. Everyone was seated in their chairs ready for liftoff. A large clock on the ship’s wall counted down. Some beads of silver sweat could be seen trickling down foreheads into eyebrows. Some silver eyes were closed tightly.


It wasn’t the rocket that I feared. I knew it would work to do its job. It was the fifty years with these people to get there. And more importantly, the there. “It will be okay.” I muttered silently to myself. I did not believe there was any truth in my own words. However, I had to have hope. I had to be grateful that I was alive. I had to be the person my planet wants to see. I had to be friendly and polite and smart and try as hard as I could to make this all work. I had to not fear, not think too hard, not falter. Yet, I sometimes think that under all those “have to’s”, who is really inside?

......The ship had come alive with information. The notes, facts, and works of a different planet filled the databases. Sixty-eight year old Liana watched it all fly past on her computer screen. Drey, the other Rocket scientist went over to her with a hefty stack of papers. “Liana, after all that searching, we’ve got it! We’ve found the perfect planet!”
“ Drey, you always get a little too excited about these things. You said the same thing at the last planet we came to, the next one, the one before that.” Liana continued to scroll through the information. Drey took a deep breath and his tone became quite serious.
“Liana, all the other partners have decided to land. They are awaiting our vote.” Liana turned to look at him. She thought of the pictures she had just seen of the people on the planet. Of the wars, but of the happiness to. Of the people, alive and grouped into families that reminded her of the group of people on the ship. These people endured hardships, misfortunes and battles, yet they had an undying determination and hope. Liana knew that no planet they came across would ever be perfect, but the minds of the people down below seemed, at the least, curious in life besides their own.
“Fine. Let’s land. I’ve lived a long enough life already.” She muttered somewhat sarcastically, but a bit honestly too. Drey laughed and smiled.
“Liana, I’m sure ‘AE-ER-TZH’ will be great!” Drey struggled to pronounce the planet’s name. Liana shook her head.
“I guess we will see! And by the way, I believe it is pronounced ‘EARTH’” ......