COPERNICUS

There was nothing left now but to wait to be picked up by the rescue unit, due to arrive soon, cued by the signal beacon. Daniela sat, satsfied by her victory over the harsh environment and her fellow contestants, beneath the symbol that had brought her such good fortune. Pulling her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around, she silently began to study the surrounding Moonscape.

Its stark beauty struck Daniela by its contrast to the planet which hung like a heavenly oasis just out of reach in the pitch-black lunar sky.

Home to all she and her kind had ever known, four million years of Mankind's dreams and fears coalesced in a single blue-green sphere. She wanted to clutch it, feel its wet warmth on her bare skin. She felt far removed from the day to day scrabble for existence, the pettiness and suicidal thirst for riches which only moments ago had consumed her. Feeling herself a part of a greater whole, but not knowing what to call it--she'd been taught to believe it was God. Now she knew only that her life, her race, held an evolutionary destiny perhaps never granted to any but the inhabitants of one lone outpost that seemed to beckon to her like a silent celestial gem.

She waited.