The Oma Sagas: The Return

Book excerpt: The Oma are a gentle, intelligent clan of the early Pleistocene era who have discovered a system of manipulating organic material to cut, combine, grow, shrink and mutate plant and animal tissues into whatever form is desired. Flight becomes their most enticing goal. Eventually, they develop a craft large enough they can all live within. The body of this vessel is based on a cicada. They configure it to include a respiration system, food producers, waste treatment, photosynthesis energy gatherers and a propulsion system capable of near light speed in the vacuum of space. Threatened by extinction from a large tribe of mythically obsessed fanatics, the Oma escape into the sky and soon discover the stars naked in the eternal night of space. Their legends tell them that the stars are the souls of their departed loved ones, and they embark on a voyage to see if this is so. They travel for forty years to the center of the Galaxy and back, through globular clusters, open gobs of stars, gaseous nebulae, the giant black hole at the Galaxy's center and even a visit to a young earthlike planet. Recording their voyage on chameleon skins, they retrace their journey back to Earth of the present day, now 114,000 years in their future. Come join them as they discover humanity in the 21st century future.--