[Episode 203909] [Episode 203909]"Nuh-uh! No way!" Usagi shook her head. "There is no way I'm ever eating a person! Just the thought of it...!"
Haruka pointed out, "You might think differently when you're really starving."
Usagi gave her a half-lidded stare, and said in a far more controlled voice than before, "No. Even if I didn't find the idea gross and wrong... It would remind me too much of our enemies, the way they fed off the energies, dreams, and souls of humans. I know it's not the same, and if you guys want to do it to stay alive longer I won't stop you; but I refuse to be a part of it." She turned and walked to the edge of the group, looking out past the Atmosphere Shield at the barren landscape silently.
Mina commented, "Well, she sure shot that one down."
Pluto turned in Usagi's direction, and said in a calm voice, "You do realize that Mina's plan is most likely our only hope of surviving more than a few weeks? And that those of us who do not practice cannibalism will likely last only a few days?"
Usagi didn't look back, but nodded. "I know."
Makoto said to Pluto, "Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?"
Pluto looked her way, but said nothing.
Rei said, "Perhaps we could contact some alien civilization?"
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Pluto asked with only a trace of scepticism in her voice.
Rei shook her head. "I don't know. Our communicators aren't long range enough, are they?"
Ami answered, "Not unless the aliens were in this Solar System. Beyond that, not only would the signal be too weak, but it would take too long for the signal to reach it's destination. Even if they were at Proxima Centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, it would take over four years for the signal to reach them. For most stars it would be far longer."
Rei sighed. "I suppose I could try to contact them psychically... But they would have to be a psychically aware species for it to have much chance of succeeding..."
"Assuming there is even anyone out there at this point in time," Pluto pointed out.
Rei looked depressed, but not completely beaten. "We won't know unless we try..."
Ami nodded. "While you do that, I suppose I can try tuning our communicators to different frequencies and broadcasting various signals to see if it catches any-one's attention. There's always a slight chance we'll get lucky."
Makoto was smiling. "Great! Now we have some plans! Anyone else have any ideas?"
Mina said, "Hey, I just remembered, in the future the world was supposed to be frozen for hundreds of years before Usagi unthawed it. Maybe we could freeze ourselves - maybe with Mercury's power - and have Usagi thaw us out when edible plants and animals evolve? Or even when we get back to the present?"
Rei said, "And how would Usagi do that, when she would have to be frozen too in order to survive that long?"
"Oh. Right."
Hotaru spoke up again. "Setsuna-Momma, are you sure we can't use the Time Gates? I mean, I seem to remember that they were built before the Silver Millenium. Couldn't they have been built already?" Her face scrunched up a moment, and then she commented, "Figuring out tenses is confusing when time-traveling."
Pluto smirked. "Yes, it can be." Allowing her face to return to neutral, she continued, "As for the Gates, they do predate the Silver Millenium, but I can only sense them in what is from our current point in time the distant future. As well as I can tell, they won't be built until within a million years of human-kind's evolution. I'm sorry, but the Gates are beyond our reach."
Hotaru sunk in on herself. "There has to be some way for us to get back. There has to!" she cried quietly, looking down despondently the entire time.
Ranma, not having anything to add to these discussions, had been wandering around the edge of the shield, looking out to survey the terrain. When he was satisfied he had as good of an idea of it as he could get without stepping outside the barrier, he sat down on a rock to wait for a good time to discuss what their plans for shelter would be.
He didn't even consciously think about whether they would need shelter - years on the road had ingrained upon him the necessity of finding or making some form of shelter whenever possible, especially when staying in one place for more than a day or two at a time. However, if he had thought about it, he would have still reached the same conclusion - if nothing else, the puffy clouds drifting through the red-orange sky were proof that while the world may not yet have any life (besides the ten of them), it certainly already had weather!
Other than noting that it didn't look to rain soon, though, he didn't really pay too much attention to the clouds. Instead, his thoughts were on the idea of cannibalism. He didn't like the idea, but he didn't think it was entirely wrong either - so long as the person died of natural causes. He wondered if he'd be able to go through with it when the time came. "I'd probably be able to if I went cat," he though to himself - he still remembered the cat bones on the ground amongst the living cats when he had been thrown in the pit...
Ranma shuddered, and tried to think about something else.
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(Posted Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:07)
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