Chapter 10

Despite all their machinations, Eli and Enoch were convinced that their Earth experiment was a total failure - that no amount of apparent foreknowledge could change the minds of those that were already closed permanently.

Religious zealots of every ilk had made sure that the conflagration predicted by some ancient works would definitely come to pass, sooner or later, and nothing was going to change it.

There was no preventing anything from destroying the Earth - plans A and B were failures.

Reporting back to Vicara (Saiph was the star), the duo outlined their attempts and failures. Plan C was their final alternative, the last chance for Vicarans, and time was growing short. Vicarans could secretly immigrate and assimilate into Earth society.

Earth already had an overabundance in population, so if it was to assimilate a half billion Vicarans, it would require ZPG from millions and millions of Terrans. (Coincidentally, China had already begun its own attempt in this regard.)

From another sector of Vicaran society, it was re-established that there was a REASON that Earth was forbidden, and perhaps any attempt to modify Earth to accommodate Vicarans was truly a doomed mission.

Altruism of this kind is almost unfathomable, but Vicarans chose to accept the fate that Earth was forbidden and out of bounds, Eli and Enoch were beginning to understand why they were not welcomed back into Vicaran society: they were morally despoiled!

Terra-forming Venus or Mars - even moving them to new orbits - was mentioned and rebuffed, for even the slightest unforeseen circumstances could cause them to collide with Earth!

Their suicide mission essentially over, Eli and Enoch were free to become Earthans and were reminded to keep their identities secret, and most importantly, to make sure to send their vehicle into the sun - before time zero!

Their final transmission from Vicara informed them that the populous was going with the Alpha and Proxima Centauri alternative - they would try to terraform (vicaraform?) the best planetary candidate from that binary system, since there were twelve viable candidates.

Ironically, the Centauri system is Earth's closest neighbors, not that visits would ever be permitted.

As a final gift of sorts, the duo recharged batteries in several orbiting satellites and many other Earth probes in deep space, even rescuing the Mars lander, stuck amid rubble.

But time was growing short, so they returned to Earth secretly, deciding at the last moment to park their ship in Martian orbit (in case they thought they might need it in the future). They justified that idea because they were concerned about the ship exploding and sending star matter into ID space accidentally.

They disassembled the remote for their ship and secreted the parts in three different locations.

The worldwide AIDS epidemic (with a couple of new breakthroughs) suddenly went on the decline! If only it didn't create an atmosphere of carte blanche sex among the populace!

But they forgot two things: first, the US managed to track the final voyage and parking space of their craft, and immediately began a campaign to confiscate or destroy it, but that would take months, possibly years.

But it didn't matter because (second), Eli and Enoch had either misunderstood the real meaning of time zero (they thought it was the time by which Vicarans had to leave their home planet), or they were purposely mislead about it.

At time zero, their spacecraft simply disappeared from space! Actually, it automatically went into ID space so that its self destruct would not affect anything in regular space.

Our two intrepid travelers were now (for better or worse) truly Earth bound where they lived out (fruitful) lives undiscovered.

Little Molly grew up free of cancer and eventually bore two healthy children of her own - no, not by either spaceman or either of their acolytes.