One night many moons ago, James brought home a
little vignette . “What do you think?” he wanted to know. I read it, and replied, “It’s a great concept, but it feels more like an outline than a finished story.” It was the wrong thing to say. He had come to me looking for the wife/cheerleader type person and I had given him a beta-reader kind of answer. I tried encouraging him to fill the story out--give it some meat--but he really didn’t feel like investing the time and effort. So the story sat on that little ledge in my living room… forever. …Until tonight, when I presented him with my own little vignette. (cue evil music)
When Beta Readers Go Bad
Clark stood, mesmerized, as his bride’s eyes captured his own. For an instant time stood still as his heart took a snapshot of this one moment of perfection in his life. Oh, what he would do to live forever in that moment.
Yet time moved on, as it always does, and that instant was replaced by a myriad of others--most mundane, but a precious few as perfect as the day of the wedding. The moment he first saw his daughter’s face was forever etched in his soul, alongside the birth of his sons. He thought he would never forget the days of tea parties, bicycle rides and Boy Scouts, but as his hair faded to gray, memories of his children faded with time and intermingled with memories of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren until it all got muddled together.
Too soon, an old man’s memories were gone altogether, buried in the family plot with only a couple of dates to mark an entire lifetime. The world moved on without hesitation.
All in the cycle of life carried on: birth, youth, love, work, war, sickness, death. The Earth continued to circle around the sun. Comets came and went. Day after day, millennium after millennium, the sun sent out heat and light, not caring as the third planet spiraled out of control. War spread throughout the galaxy until nothing was left of the privileged planet but a stark, barren rock with tainted water and battle-scarred land.
With their home beyond repair, there was nothing left for the remaining few inhabitants to do but pick up stakes and move every last person to a new place. An older system was located that would still support life. It was hardly the lush planet that their ancestors enjoyed, but they were too pragmatic to be picky at this point.
They had been given a second chance this time, but they could not count on another. Mistakes from the past could not be repeated. So the decision was made: they would destroy all space travel technology, rename the planet, create a new written and spoken language and purge all historical references to Earth.
Those on the cusp of death, when given the opportunity, often choose to embrace life. A world teeming with life was born out of the ashes of their destroyed past. Their society was filled with peacemakers who realized that life was too short to argue over pettiness. They taught their values to their children and their children’s children. Self-control and patience were esteemed over all else. Kindness and goodness were lauded. Freedom abounded, tempered with a healthy dose of respect for others. The arts flourished. For several thousand years, peace reigned as it never had on the long-forgotten planet.
All would have continued to be well, but the planet itself was old and worn out. Indeed, the very core had become unstable. The Chief Science Advisor tried to spread the alarm, but the people were too used to optimism to pay any heed. They ignored the warnings and thus sowed the seeds of their own destruction.
The Advisor and his wife had only one option left; they needed to save their family. With a fervor few of his peers understood, they desperately searched for a solution. Finally they stumbled upon archives so old that no one remembered why they were forbidden. It was a struggle to grasp the ancient technologies, but it was vital. After many failures, they constructed a small test craft. It was only big enough to hold their infant son.
Yet he could not survive alone. A baby needs parents to care for and love him. A boy needs someone to teach him right from wrong--to delight in him as he enjoys the fullness and the wonders of the universe. A man needs a woman to walk alongside him, giving him a reason to work hard and urging him to put his feet up and smile at the end of the day. Their son needed a legacy or their entire race would die out.
They searched to find a place that would give him all that. Yet such a world existed only in the distant past. They set the control crystals for a land that lived long, long ago and far, far away.
The historical data told of a man who had traveled to Earth as a baby. The child had grown to become a man who championed the very ideologies their own society esteemed: truth, justice and the ways of freedom and peaceful co-existance. The Advisor and his wife believed it was their son that history remembered.
They wrestled with this knowledge. If they sent their son, they doomed their race to continue in a neverending cycle. If they didn’t send the boy, their people would cease to exist and their son’s adopted people would never be the same. The cycle would be broken--the universe reformed into something new. They struggled with the decision. Which was kinder? Which was the right thing to do?
They placed their precious child inside the pod, knowing he would be safely cared for while they weighed the needs of two societies against the needs of their one and only son. Together they stood in silence, frozen by the enormity of the choice.
Finally, the decision was taken away from them. The old planet quaked as if its very core was about to break. A falling piece of debris hit the launch interface and the ship was gone. Cold filled the tiny cabin, suspending their beloved baby for the duration of the trip, sent into the distant past on a mission that would continue life and rescue civilization.
~*~
“Oh, Jonathon! Isn’t he a cute baby?”
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Beta Reader’s note: So you can see, it’s the same story. I just made a few suggestions.
