[ WP ] In the future , humans have evolved to become almost unrecognizable . One day , a future human comes to the present .

The Earth was old, and tired. Her seas and lands were brown, and all but the hardiest of the life she had once nurtured had died long, long ago. Their killers had abandoned her for the stars, fleeing for a thousand years, thinking never to return. 
 
 But they had. They had returned older, and wiser, and wholly different. They were nothing like the life that had once lived here, but they remembered those who had come before them, and what they had lost. And they mourned. 
 
 The Earth was a holy place, and there was but one space station above it in this time. It was a place of pilgrimage that all humans aspired to one day visit, to pay their respects to their point of origin, and be humbled by how all of their race had once been confined to a single globe. If there were any who remembered the place, they might have compared it to the Mecca of old. 
 
 It was there that a small council of humans had gathered, with the hope of undoing it all. 
 
 In the center chamber of the space station, there was a time machine. It was by this machine that most travelers arrived, opening a portal to it from their own position in spacetime. It was pyramid shaped, and for the moment, inactive. The council was gathered in a great circular crowd around it. 
 
 `` We are gathered,'' a voice boomed from the crowd. 
 
 `` We are gathered,'' a chorus of voices agreed, in a thousand different accents and tones and cadences. 
 
 `` This is futile,'' a voice protested. `` We can not change the flow of time. If we try, we have already failed.'' 
 
 `` Agreed,'' some few voices said. 
 
 `` Perhaps,'' said a different voice, from somewhere else in the crowd. `` But we must try all the same, for if we do not try, we have failed even more surely.'' 
 
 `` Agreed,'' said almost all the voices gathered. 
 
 `` But who will go?'' asked the first, booming voice. 
 
 There was a long silence as everyone looked to their neighbors. Then, two stepped forward, one followed by the other, out of the crowd. 
 
 One was a female, with curving hips and long legs, and a curving, elongated head. Her eyes glowed blue, and her white, smooth skin shone like a strange pearl, completely unconcealed by any garments. 
 
 The second was a male, short and extremely thin, with compact, wire-like muscles and an overlarge head. His eyes were slanted, huge, and dark, standing out against his dull grey skin as he looked out at the assembled council. 
 
 `` We will go,'' he said in a high, musical voice. 
 
 `` They shall go,'' a thousand voices agreed. 
 
 `` But to when?'' asked the same voice that had protested before. `` How will we know when to send them? The histories are lost.'' 
 
 `` Not all of them,'' responded a new voice. It's owner stood near the inner edge of the circle, and so many could see him. He was short, and thick, with powerful muscles and four strong arms folded across his chest. `` We know with certainty the time of two events, from relics left on Earth. We know when civilization began, and when it ended. We will send a volunteer to each.'' 
 
 `` We will,'' said the council together. 
 
 The two looked to each other, and the pearl woman knelt to kiss the gray man. `` I will wait for your arrival,'' she whispered to him, and then stood, and spoke. `` I shall travel to the beginning,'' she told the council. `` I shall keep watch for ways I might guide our ancestors towards technology that does not harm nature.'' 
 
 `` She shall,'' said the council, and the pyramid opened to accept her. She looked one last time at the gray man, and stepped inside, and through the portal within. 
 
 Simple as that, she was gone. The gray man looked to the pyramid for a long, silent moment. Everyone respected his pain, and waited for him to speak. For a long time, he stood, unmoving, and so too did the council. 
 
 `` I will travel to the end,'' he said finally, breaking the spell. `` And look for ways to change the path of Earth's final days, to keep it safe and healthy, and to guide our ancestors on a wiser path.'' *And to look for her, * he thought to himself. 
 
 `` He shall,'' murmured the council. 
 
 The pyramid opened to accept him, and he looked into the portal. There was blue skies, and clouds, and humans, all looking the same as one another. They were so strange, so different, so primitive. 
 
 As he stepped forward into the portal, he wondered if they'd even recognize him as one of their own species.
