No Place Like Home

A short story about the sanctity of life in all its varied forms. A short story.
"The space station, the habitats at L-4 and L-5, the colonies on the moon, they were self-supporting but their capacity was limited. We needed somewhere to go, a suburbial planet, a bedroom community for six billion. Joanna was eighteen, David ten, Annie two. This planet was theirs. The plains stretched out in front of us, the far but finite horizon jarring sensibilites accustomed to an infinite ebony expanse. The dirt was blood red, the sky pastel pink. After twenty-five months in transit, sunshine diffused by an atmosphere hurt my eyes. I felt a touch on my shoulder and turned to see Esme Lauter. I stepped aside. Esme crowded in next to Grady for his first, non-telescopic look at our brave new world, and began a soft chant in Quarto, the language of the Universal Church of Being. The UCB was the fastest growing organized religion back home; at last count there were more Universalists than Cathars. The Council, six of twenty-one senators UCB, made it virtually impossible to assemble a crew for our expedition without at least one pro- life, anti-capital punishment vegan on board."