They knew they would turn it to heaven.
The vanguard arrived, decked out in refrigeration suits, installed ten Worldchange units in either hemisphere, began setting up cold-sleep bunkers in several of the larger caverns.
Then came the members of December down from the sand-colored sky.
They came and they saw, decided it was almost heaven, then entered their caverns and slept. Over twenty-eight thousand Coldworld Catforms (modified per Alyonal) came into their own world to sleep for a season in silence the sleep of ice and of stone, to inherit the new Alyonal. There is no dreaming in that sleep. But had there been, their dreams might have been as the thoughts of those yet awake.
"It is bitter, Sanza."
"Yes, but only for a time--"
"...To have each other and our own world, and still to go forth like divers at the bottom of the sea. To have to crawl when you want to leap..."
"It is only for a short time, Jarry, as the sense will reckon it."
"But it is really three thousand years! An ice age will come to pass as we doze. Our former worlds will change so that we would not know them were we to go back for a visit--and none will remember us."
"Visit what? Our former cells? Let the rest of the worlds go by! Let us be forgotten in the lands of our birth! We are a people apart and we have found our home. What else matters?"
"True...It will be but a few years, and we shall stand our tours of wakefulness and watching together."
"When is the first?"
"Two and a half centuries from now--three months of wakefulness."
"What will it be like then?"
"I don't know. Less warm..."
"Then let us return and sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day."
"Yes."
"Oh! See the green bird! It drifts like a dream..."
When they awakened that first time, they stayed within the Worldchange installation at the place called Deadland. The world was already colder and the edges of the sky were tinted with pink. The metal walls of the great installation were black and rimed with frost. The atmosphere was still lethal and the temperature far too high. They remained within their special chambers for most of the time, venturing outside mainly to make necessary tests and to inspect the structure of their home.
Deadland...Rocks and sand. No trees, no marks of life at all.
The time of terrible winds was still upon the land, as the world fought back against the fields of the machines. At night, great clouds of real estate smoothed and sculpted the stands of stone, and when the winds departed the desert would shimmer as if fresh-painted and the stones would stand like flames within the morning and its singing. After the sun came up into the sky and hung there for a time, the winds would begin again and a dun-colored fog would curtain the day. When the morning winds departed, Jarry and Sanza would stare out across the Deadland through the east window of the installation, for that was their favorite--the one on the third floor--where the stone that looked like a gnarly Normform waved to them, and they would lie upon the green couch they had moved up from the first floor, and would sometimes make love as they listened for the winds to rise again, or Sanza would sing and Jarry would write in the log or read back through it, the scribblings of friends and unknowns through the centuries, and they would purr often but never laugh, because they did not know how.
One morning, as they watched, they saw one of the biped creatures of the iodine forests moving across the land. It fell several times, picked itself up, fell once more, lay still.
"What is it doing this far from its home?" asked Sanza.
"Dying," said Jarry. "Let's go outside."
They crossed a catwalk, descended to the first floor, donned their protective suits and departed the installation.
The creature had risen to its feet and was staggering once again. It was covered with a reddish down, had dark eyes and a long, wide nose, lacked a true forehead. It had four brief digits, clawed, upon each hand and foot.
When it saw them emerge from the Worldchange unit, it stopped and stared at them. Then it fell.
They moved to its side and studied it where it lay.
It continued to stare at them, its dark eyes wide, as it lay there shivering.
"It will die if we leave it here," said Sanza.
"...And it will die if we take it inside," said Jarry.
It raised a forelimb toward them, let it fall again. Its eyes narrowed, then closed.
Jarry reached out and touched it with the toe of his boot. There was no response.
"It's dead," he said.
"What will we do?"
"Leave it here. The sands will cover it."
They returned to the installation, and Jarry entered the event in the log.
During their last month of duty, Sanza asked him, "Will everything die here but us? The green birds and the big eaters of flesh? The funny little trees and the hairy caterpillar?"
"I hope not," said Jarry. "I've been reading back through the biologists' notes. I think life might adapt. Once it gets a start anywhere, it'll do anything it can to keep going. It's probably better for the creatures of this planet we could afford only twenty Worldchangers That way they have three millennia to grow more hair and learn to breathe our air and drink our water. With a hundred units we might have wiped them out and had to import coldworld creatures or breed them. This way, the ones who live here might be able to make it."
"It's funny," she said, "but the thought just occurred to me that we're doing here what was done to us. They made us for Alyonal, and a nova took it away. These creatures came to life in this place, and we're taking it away. We're turning all of life on this planet into what we were on our former worlds--misfits."
"The difference, however, is that we are taking our time," said Jarry, "and giving them a chance to get used to the new conditions."
"Still, I feel that all that--outside there"--she gestured toward the window--"is what this world is becoming: one big Deadland."
"Deadland was here before we came. We haven't created any new deserts."
"All the animals are moving south. The trees are dying. When they get as far south as they can go and still the temperature drops, and the air continues to harm their lungs--then it will be all over for them."