It Matters

As I waded in the surf of the flooded human city, I saw below me hundreds of thousands of humans struggling against the waves. Many were already dead but humans are notoriously hard to kill. They fought and struggled to their last breath. I respected them for that. I certainly didn't hate them. We just needed their planet, is all. Our own home, Asteroidea, had been destroyed by a supernova.

On impulse, I started picking the writhing little humans up one at a time and putting them on the tops of the buildings, above the waterline. Lxin came rolling over from the ship to watch. He was on light duty while regrowing an appendage. After a while, he asked, "Why are you doing that? There's millions of those things. It won't make any difference."

I picked up an immature human in one of my five muscular arms. I placed him on the roof of a tall building close by. The soaked child lay still, eyes wide, gasping up at me. If I had owned a heart, it would have warmed. I indicated the youngster.

"It made a difference to that one."