All Tomorrows

On this vacant biosphere, evolution was quick to begin her blind, unpredictable dance. Once feral, the descendants of degenerate humans adapted themselves to every available niche, no matter how exotic, how outlandish. One group learnt to pluck fish from the lazy shores. Millennia passed and they settled more into their piscatorial lifestyle. Elongated fingers became ambulatory fish-hooks, teeth modified for a generalized diet became needle-like affairs, lined up neatly in a long, thin muzzle. In less than a few million years, the Finger Fishers established themselves as a prominent lineage. There was scarcely a beach, an island or an estuary that was devoid of their pale, lanky forms.

As prolific as they were, the Fishers were still no better than animals. Their “humanity” would come only after another spasm of outlandish adaptations.

Hedonists

Even the blissful existence of the Finger Fishers would have seemed bothersome to the Hedonists; for their kind was not evolved, but designed for a life of pleasure. The Qu had kept them as pampered pets; set loose in a tropical island-world of succulent fruits, bountiful trees and calm, lapping lakes full of sweet, bacterial manna. Furthermore, the Hedonists were left as the only animal life on this place. They had no choice but to enjoy it to the fullest.

In normal conditions, any given species would quickly crowd out such an utopian environment. But normal conditions had never been the point of the Qu redesign. They had altered their subjects so that they could conceive only after mating an enormous number of potential suitors, continually over a period of decades. While this took care of the population problem, it also made the species less adaptable. Without any point in sexual competition, natural selection would progress only at a glacial pace. Fortunately, their stable microcosm remained free of environmental catastrophes even after the Qu left.

All these changes had also made the Hedonists’ day. Their lives were juxtaposed routines of browsing, sleeping and mind-blowing sex; troubled neither by the concerns of disease or pregnancy. Aloof and carefree, they enjoyed the most pleasurable times of all mankinds, albeit with the intellectual capabilities of three-year-olds.

It didn’t really matter, though. Who needed to think when having such a nice time, after all?

The favorites of the Qu. A female Hedonist lies alone on a beach, contemplating absolutely nothing. Without any pressure from the world, their days make themselves as they go along.

Insectophagi

Nondescript, quaint human species abounded in the post-Qu galaxy. Hundreds of them lived out simple, unnoticed lives, never developing to become sentient, never learning their true heritage as star-born human beings. Most of them went extinct, not to be missed or even remembered. Those that lingered on managed to survive in shady, quiet niches, never again making any impact on the celestial scheme of things.

One such species was the Insectophagi. They had quietly adapted themselves for a diet of colonial insects and small animals; they had faces covered with leathery plates, claw-like hands to dig out prey and worm-like tongues to scoop them up.

All in all, they weren’t special in any particular way. But a combination of galactic invasions, coincidence and pure luck would later make them the longest-enduring of all ur-starmen.

The meek would inherit the cosmos, though not just yet. For now, the Insectophagi were concerned only with the location of insect colonies, and the onset of the mating season.

Spacers

It must be remembered that the Star People did not succumb entirely to the Qu invasions. While their worlds fell away one by one, some Star People took refuge in the void of space. One after another, entire communities scrambled into generation ships and cast themselves off into the darkness, hoping to go unnoticed by the beings that had overrun their galaxy.

Desperate times made for desperate measures. As the Star Men had observed during their initial colonization of the galaxy, life in generation ships inevitably lead to mass insanity and anarchy. This time however, humans had to adapt themselves -or face extinction.

Entire asteroid fields were confiscated and hollowed out to make space-ships of unseen size. These hollow shells cradled bubbles of precious air and water, but no artificial gravity of any kind. It was discovered that a purely ethereal existence would ease the stress of interstellar exhile, provided that its inhabitants were adapted for life inside such an environment.

Furthermore, people were forced to change themselves. In an atmospherically sealed, gravityfree environment, their bones were left free to grow longer, thinner, spindlier. The circulatory and digestive systems were pressurized to avoid heart problems and congestion. The latter change had another advantageous side effect; humans could navigate through the void with jets of air – expelled from modified anuses.