1119. An astronomical migration

(During the next few days we shall be commemorating Science Fiction Day with a Science Fiction story. Science Fiction Day is celebrated each year on Isaac Asimov’s birthday: January 2nd. Ok ok – haven’t you heard of a Time Warp? Of course, there’s music and poetry to come next – before the second Science Fiction story!)

It was the first major interstellar migration. The one hundred and fifty people leaving Planet Earth knew that they themselves wouldn’t get there. They would live to a ripe old age, die in space, and be reverently tossed out the space craft to float indefinitely in the never-never.

In fact, none of the next generations would make it either. But the fifth and sixth generations would arrive and begin the exciting venture of “populating the universe”. They called their destined planet “Ýntsodar” which is “Radostný” in Slovak spelt backwards! The excitement of arrival! Only three more earth-long days of travel left!

And arrive they did. The conditions on the planet were perfect for human existence. Unfortunately, by now the population was so inbred that the migration experiment collapsed.