Well Shit!

I traveled with them to the ships, making sure I got one more goodbye from my friends. After deliberation, I decided to stay on Earth. My wife was getting on in years and I wanted to spend as many as I could with her, and my children and grandchildren had opted not to leave, and I refused to abandon them. My life, and eventual death, was on this planet now. Besides, I was a hundred and twenty-five now, and my time would end soon after my wife. I bet you never thought Martians would be such suckers for love.

I got a lot of hugs, and it still surprised me Martians could cry. It was an emotion that was rare on the home planet, but it didn't take us long to embrace once we got to Earth. I save the ship going to the most distant planet until last, because six of the Council were on it, all dear friends.

I grinned when I saw Quinn. When we visited our home planet for the last time, their advances in technology and the biology of our species made it possible to extend our lifespans considerably, and they were surprised how few of us took that option. Quinn did, and now he was a rock-hard chunk of muscle, with a thick head of hair that flowed below his shoulders. He and Claudette came together, and decided that they wanted a lifelong commitment. None of us saw that coming. Even stranger, they had taken Milly as a shared spouse. When she was tortured, it took our best doctors and scientists to put her back together, even younger and sexier than before. Combined, their pheromone count was off any measurable chart, and they occasionally 'entertained visitors'.

I found them in a farewell to the lovers they were leaving behind, in a pile of writhing bodies in all sorts of combinations. They were winding down, so I waited. They all hugged me, and the stray pheromones almost overcame me, so I stepped back. Claudette grinned.

"Just once, for old times' sake?"

I gently declined, which disappointed her a little, then she was back to her bubbly self.

I watched, from Earth, as the ships departed, each a blazing fireball headed off in different directions. They would communicate with us until they got too far away, but I would probably be gone by then.

Besides, I was busy trying to save my world to worry about their new ones. Every government had a plan to save the best and brightest of their people, and the few Martians among them had already made their own plans. Just before I knew my time was coming to an end, the world imploded as we suspected it would, and we found ourselves living in underground cities, much like we did when we left Mars, An endless circle of stupidity, regardless of the species. I hoped the next generations would know better. Projections were a return to the surface would be viable in about 120 years.

The last missive I got just before we abandoned the surface twenty years later was from Quinn and his 'wives', surrounded by their brood, seven children so far. Maybe there's hope for us after all.