"Glad to meet you," said Peter shaking his hand. "We have plenty of questions to ask you about your city."
"What would you like to know?" asked Zicon. "Feel free to ask me anything. The more you know the more you can help us."
"We received your distress call and came as soon as we could," continued Peter. "Three others are orbiting Yopela including Shawn, the leader of M.W.G.D. They will land as we feel it's safe."
"You seem to be immune to whatever is effecting the adults born here," stated Zicon. "Earth symptoms of deterioration can be detected almost immediately. However, there is no guarantee the others will be immune as well."
"We all come from the same planet so it shouldn't affect them any differently," Peter assured him. "I'll explain the situation and let them decide whether to land or not."
"Has it always been like this on Yopela?" pondered Lisa. "No offense but you don't seem capable of building the buildings we saw in the center of the city."
"You've been to the center of the city?" blurted Zicon somewhat surprised. "Oh, yeah! That's right! I sent Guatamire over there to look for you. Short term memory is always the first thing to go."
In spite of his powerful position as mayor he seemed terrified of such a simple mistake. He went to the nearest mirror and looked for signs of aging. When he didn't find any, he started looking even harder.
"It was an honest mistake," Peter assured him. "Lisa and I make mistakes like that all the time. People can make mistakes like that at any age. It has nothing to do with getting older."
"If you lived on Yopela, you'd be worried too," trembled Zicon. "Most of my friends have begun to deteriorate. I've seen people younger than me loose touch with reality. It's only a matter of time."
"Soon I will have to hand over the position of mayor on to somebody else. Someone younger than me who can still remember what happened an hour ago. Then I will join the other adults for the remainder of my life slowly forgetting everything that ever happened to me."
"Why do you want to join the other adults?" wondered Lisa. "It will he much harder to survive away from the children."
"Most of us choose to leave when we get too old to keep up with the children," explained Zicon. "With a few exceptions, the younger children avoid people on the other side of puberty. Some are absolutely hostile toward the people they used to look up to for help. Only the teenagers in their last few years of mental and physical well being try to actually help the adults."
"One of you asked me if Yopela was always in such a state of decay."
"I did," Lisa informed him. "See, you're not loosing your short term memory."
Two centuries ago we had a bloody war," explained Zicon. "We have no record of why it was fought or what it was about but I can tell you the results. A virus was created that would infect only the adults. With the adults out of the way, the children would surrender. Unfortunately, the virus spread out of control and the only know antidote turned out to be useless. The warring parties put their differences aside and tried to stop the virus. None of them succeeded leaving only the children left to combat the virus."
"The Ruler!" gasped Peter. "If he could get his hands on this virus he could wipe out most of his opposition."
"That would be crazy," cried Zicon. "His people would be infected too."
"The Ruler is obsessed with ruling the galaxy," Lisa stated grimly. "He doesn't care about the consequences. He doesn't even care what happens to his own people."
"If what you say is true, we must stop them at all costs," insisted Zicon. "I don't want to see any more worlds wind up like Yopela."
"Neither do we," agreed Peter. "You said they had an antidote that turned out to be useless. Do you know where it is? Maybe we could use it to create one that works."
"I have no idea," sighed Zicon. "It happened a long time ago and no one has lived long enough to accurately. All we have are a few sketches here and there."
"What about the other cities?" inquired Peter. "They're in about the same condition as we are," replied Zicon. "As mayor it's my job to keep in touch with the neighboring cities. If you want me to I can arrange a meeting with nine other mayors right here as early as tomorrow."
"That would be most helpful," agreed Peter.
"I'll send messengers to the other cities immediately," he assured them. "Would you mind helping me round them up?"
TIME : 4:00 P.M. (16:00)
PLACE : The playground
Guatamire had joined a group of children her own age. She had had enough of the adult world. Even the mayor was too old for her liking. She had forgotten that the first man she had met said he would return.
Some of the children started screaming and running away. She didn't know what was happening, but she didn't want to stay to find out. Even though she was running as fast as she could go, most of the other children were passing her without giving her a second glance. She couldn't keep up.
Knowing she couldn't outrun whoever was chasing her, she turned to face the intruder. Five adults had singled her out and were running after her. It was the man she had met - earlier accompanied by two men and two women.
"Wait!" he shouted. "We think we've discovered a cure for the virus destroying Yopela."
Guatamire couldn't believe her ears. A cure for the virus infecting her planet! A chance to lead a normal life, one that included adulthood and old age. The destruction of the thing that had bothered her for as long as she could remember.
"A cure?" she yelled back. "Are you sure?"
"We think so," he answered confidently. "All we need to do is run a few more tests and then we'll distribute the antidote to every city on the planet. Would you mind if we took a sample of your blood? We need to compare it to the blood samples we took from the adults."
Guatamire hesitated. She didn't completely trust them, but she couldn't turn down a chance to save her world from the virus that had been troubling it for centuries. Without the virus, her life expectancy would almost triple and she'd be a hero to her people. She would be enternally remembered as one of the saviors of Yopela. However, if she was wrong there was no telling what they would do to her. At last she decided that a possible cure was worth any risk she could possibly think of, including death.
"I'll agree to do your tests if you'll leave the other children alone," she demanded as well as a four-year-old could demand anything.
"I accept your offer," agreed the man. "I don't want to the other children about our discovery yet anyway. No sense spreadihg false hopes."
"Will the tests hurt?" she asked fearfully.
"You won't feel a thing," he assured her in a tone of voice that made her wonder if she had made the right decision. "We'll show you the way back to the lab."
Guatamire looked one last time at the other children who were watching from a safe distance away before following the adults back to the lab. She hoped a blood sample was all the wanted from her. About a minute ago she was delighted that they might have discovered a cure, now she wondered if things were only becoming worse.
TIME : 4:15 P.M. (16:15)
PLACE : The mayor's office
Shawn, Hank, and Linda landed their ship next to Peter and Lisa's ship and followed Peter's directions to the mayor's office. By that time, Zicon had found some of the older children and appointed them as messengers. They were told to go in groups of two to the neighboring cities and tell the other mayors that Zicon requested for them to come to his city tomorrow at sunrise and meet some of the adults from another world they might have heard about. One group of messengers had returned saying the mayor would be glad to come.
While he was waiting for the other messengers to return, Zicon exchanged information with the five adults from Earth. He seems more interested in Earth than he was in M.W.G.D. and the other places they had visited during their travels. Perhaps it was because Earth was the planet that they knew best.
"I can called for a team to doctors and scientists to come to Yopela in the next two days and help you find a cure," Shawn boasted proudly. "It shouldn't take more than a few years with the medical knowledge of thousands of planets at our fingertips."
"I may not have a few years," Zicon muttered grimly. "and neither do the other mayors and many of my friends. Two hundred years ago we had almost a billion people on Yopela. Now, I'd estimate the population to be less than half a million and half of those are either too old or too young to feed themselves. In a few years, the population will be even less."
"It is getting harder and harder to maintain our current standard of living. The other mayors and I have tried to take charge, but the other children know we're getting old and won't be around much longer. Fewer and fewer people know how to hunt or to cook or to repair things when they get broken or even how to be mayor of this city. Only about a dozen people in this city even know how to read and write and the youngest one of them is ten! You have to help us NOW! Our planet is dying!!"
Copyright MCMXCIV, MCMXCIX
