THE SURVIVAL PROJECT As a child she was fascinated by the night sky. Mother and Father were hard-working farmers who had switched to crops guaranteed to have sales and outlets. In the days of industrial farming taking over family farms, that a family farm could be successful was rare. But her eyes weren’t on the ground beneath her feet. Her eyes focused on the sky – identifying the constellations and watching the moon and the planets dance their patterns across the heavens. At school, she found out about the “Survival Project” – a last-ditch effort to save the human race from the climate changes that all nations had, finally, admitted were incurable. The final hope was to send ships from the Earth into the Cosmos towards Earth analog planets where humankind could start again. The requirements were strict, the chances of success were slim, and still she stood on clear nights, enchanted by the Milky Way stretching across the skies. A “White Rainbow” is what she called it, and it amazed her anew every night she stood beneath it. Education, tests, both physical and psychological, and many more nights of looking at her White Rainbow across the night sky focused her attention through school. Her White Rainbow stayed with her as a goal through testing to qualify as one of thousands of candidates for the few hundred open slots. Six ships were built in the hopes that at least one would survive to reach their final destination. Slowly crew members were chosen and trained while DNA samples to generate an extended starting population as well as animals and crops, were prepared. The ships themselves would take lifetimes to arrive at their destination. Those who set out, unless they went into periodic cryogenic storage, would not live to see their final destination. Not all of those on the trip needed to be scientists or astronauts. The ships wanted a variety of people to set up the new populations. So each vehicle also had several hundred passengers/settlers chosen by lottery who would travel the universe in the cryo-vaults, alongside the thousands of DNA samples ready to active. Although she had hoped to qualify as a crewmember, she qualified as a passenger - to travel the universe oblivious, in deep sleep. It was a disappointment, but at least she was going to the stars. When she had the opportunity to ask why she had been accepted to the program, it was her dual interests - the science of her" White Rainbow" and the knowledge of the land instilled by her family and their livelihood - that ensured her acceptance into the program. On the final day, she waved to her family, talking to them on the other side of a view-screen. She waved as her transport moved towards the lift-off platform, although she doubted they could see her. All participants had been in quarantine for multiple months to ensure they would not carry any bacteria or unwelcome germs along with them. Over that time they were prodded, poked, and tested until they were almost ready to scream when they saw another white hospital coat. They were the vanguard of the exodus. Other expeditions were being planned to secure the future of the human race, before the Earth itself expelled them. She entered the ship, heading to the pod assigned to her. Entering the confined space, she took a deep breath as the chemicals entered her bloodstream, sending her into a dreamless sleep - suspended for decades while the journey proceeded. It was a shock to awaken again. Light shined into her eyes, which closed instinctively against the intrusion. "Be calm", a voice spoke. "It will take a while for you to adjust. We've arrived and are in orbit around our new home." After receiving instructions on how to slowly exercise her muscles - her body having been out of her control for many decades - she was left alone to revive in her own time. When she was finally physically able to leave her pod and move to one of the common rooms, she gathered with others, staring at the view-screens, which were showing the surface of the planet below and the skies that surrounded them. She gasped. The starlight outside of the ship was brilliantly white, but stretching across them like a eraser mark through a penciled scene, was a dark smear. "Look", she exclaimed. "It's a Dark Rainbow." Quizzical looks turned toward her. "When I was young, I was enthralled by the Milky Way. I called it my "White Rainbow". Here, in this large field of white light, is a Dark Rainbow - a sign to me that I've come home because my rainbow has followed me here." Although some of her fellow passengers simply turned away from her to look out at their new home once again, there seemed to be a few who understood. That linkage of the old to the new was important. It placed her heart into a new land, without losing the links to the old. They would do it - they would make a new home here and carry on the dreams of humanity into the stars. And maybe, she thought, her children or her children's children might explore the Dark Rainbow to help expand their reach farther out into the heavens.