Entry: August 15, 654 A.E.

Afternoon

Going Home

We're heading back to Beta Continent now, back to Cold Creek Valley. Little Fuzzy, Mamma Fuzzy, Baby Fuzzy, Mike, Mitzi, Ko-Ko, and Cinderella are all coming home with me. Official passengers on an official government airboat. Commissioner Holloway and his staff.

The Fuzzies don't know they have official positions. They just know they're going back to the Wonderful Place where it all started. And maybe that's the wisest way to look at it.

I've been thinking about what Lieutenant Ybarra said in his testimony. The Fuzzies can imagine a better world and work to create it. Well, we humans can do that too. And now we have the chance to create a world where two sapient races can live together, learn from each other, help each other. The Fuzzies gave me back my capacity to love, to care about something beyond my next sunstone. They showed me that family isn't about blood or species—it's about who you choose to love and who chooses to love you back.

Little Fuzzy is sitting on my lap now, looking out the window at the mountains of Beta Continent getting closer. "He-inta za Wonderful Place?" he asks.

"Yes, kid," I tell him. "We're going home to the Wonderful Place." And I realize that I'm not just talking about my camp in Cold Creek Valley. I'm talking about Zarathustra itself. This whole planet is going to be a Wonderful Place now, for humans and Fuzzies alike.