Casan was mesmerized as she stared out the window scope. This planet was even more beautiful than her grandfather had described to her. That beautiful blue she knew to be water. No wonder the Lemurians, who had been there, referred to it as the Blue planet. The land masses had changed drastically since her grandfather had last explored it. In fact, she had been told that there had been a lot of changes on Earth in just the last two hundred years. It was too bad that her grandfather could not have accompanied her on this trip. He would have loved seeing the changes. Casan could not help but wonder if he would have thought the changes to be for the better.
Their spacecraft was now between it and it's sun, so the beautiful shimmering orb was completely visible. The planet glistened as the sun's light reflected off of it. Casan had done very little inter-planetary travel, but she was sure nothing in the universe could rival Earth's beauty. It reminded Casan of a huge blue sapphire.
Mining for gems was one of the few crafts left on her planet. Over half of Lemur's population was engaged in mining. The Grand Circle wanted them to extract as much metal and as many gems as they could before their planet was completely uninhabitable.
As the spacecraft had left Lemur, her home, she had watched the large, dark brown ball disappear from view. There was no bright sunlight, no vegetation, not even a shadow. It was colorless, except for the white ice contrasting with the dark terrain. Whenever Casan thought about Lemur she became sad. The two planets were so different. Their new planet would look like Earth someday, but she knew she would never see Lemur's new world. Hopefully, Earth would be her clan's home for the next five hundred years, and her descendants would populate the new planet that was now cooling. On the new planet they wouldn't have to make do with artificial light, artificial oxygen and artificial food. They would be able to enjoy the warmth of real sunlight. Casan had never walked out doors in the sunlight, or even moonlight, on her planet. Lemur had three moons. They were closer and larger than the Earth moon, but you couldn't see them in the dark skies of Lemur. It was becoming more and more difficult to discern night from day. A Lemuian didn't dare go anywhere without a portable oxygen tube. It didn't happen very often, but occasionally there would be a system breakdown in one of the chambers or interconnect walkways, and the oxygen would get thin. What a blessing it would be to breathe fresh air and not worry about its source. Casan knew that Lemur's atmosphere and Earth's were not identical, but enough of the basic elements were the same that she would be able to breath without an oxygen tube.
As the space craft sped closer and closer she could see dark spots on the blue sea that she knew to be the famous Islands. All that blue, blue water and hundreds of islands. She was now able to see cloud formations over different parts of the shimmering sphere. Casan had been taught that these cloud formations were Earth's weather patterns and played a crucial roll in Her ecological balance. What a joy it would be to feel sunlight on her skin, to feel the coolness of wind. She got excited every time she thought about walking in the rain or seeing the little snowflakes everyone talked about. She had seen several suns and moons on her way to Earth, but she couldn't wait to experience them from the surface of the planet looking up at the sky.
Casan was curious if her skin color would change when exposed to the sun. All Lemurians were the same shade of gray. Earthlings were an assortment of wonderful colors. She thought maybe her people were all gray because they hadn't had any sunshine for so many years.
The spots were beginning to take shape. Some were round, some oblong, some even looked like long pieces of thread, they were so narrow. They were all shapes and sizes, and more and more appeared the closer the spaceship got to Earth. Casan could see the different colors of the individual Islands now. At the top and the bottom of the glistening ball were white land masses. It was easy for Casan to identify the white, for most of Lemur, was now covered in ice. It was really something seeing all those white islands surrounded by that sparkling water.
The Islands furthermost from the two polar caps, both upper and lower, were purple, red, and brown and a lot of other colors that Casan could not even identify. They had huge peaks and large craters in them. They reminded Casan of her planet back home, except for all the vivid colors. She had never seen so many colors.