Oxygénia

During the days he spent in the cave, the most touching to Peter
were the children. It was hard to believe which excellent offspring
these beings from the concrete cities who lived on reduced oxygen
and were blunted for one or two, maybe even for ten generations
procreated during the Grand Spring Festivals.
During the first months of their lives, the babies were supplied
with plenty of oxygen. No one knew what else they got except from
the breast milk, but one thing was sure: their brain literally sucked
in everything that could be learned like a sponge. With a shiver,
Peter thought that even those innocent little beings would have
been thrown in the cities of the Trunk Bearers and that only few of
them would have been assigned into a City of the Rememberers
with strictly limited tasks...
But the way it was, was a better fate waiting for them?
Compassionately, Peter looked at the pale, never sunlit faces, eyes
that sparkled feverly, the bodys that were lean because of hunger
and the greed with which they gulped down raw mushrooms, grass
and roots.
Sometimes, the mothers cried and accused themselves. Was it
right after all that they, together with their children, had escaped
the divine providence, the separation?
What should become with the children's lives? What for the
heroic effort, those few edible plants grown in the depth? For what
was the learning of the children, their feverly struggling, if their live
was a constant fight for a bite of food, a gulp of water, a breath of
air, against an unvisible power?
Peter told about everything he knew of, about spaceships, plants
and animals. He showed them his equipment, and he constantly
produced oxygen and sugar – and he gave everything to the
children.
"Earthly being, come back to us... earthly being, we'll wait for
you", he heard their farewell calls.
He bid goodbye to ON and Sunshine with a friendly hug. Would
they see each other ever again?
He would have preferred to leave his equipment in the cave, but
he had to take it with him since he had no idea which fate was
waiting for him.
He climbed up the ravine. ORO was waiting for him up there and
brought him to his house.
Only now Peter got to see the house in detail. When he was here
the first time with ON, he was much too excited and had only
stayed in the entrance hall much too shortly to get much details.
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