Pamtseo'Ite bit deep into the fruit and smiled, wiping the fragrant juices from her smiling lips.
"A good find Ray, you are getting better at this."
Ray sidled up and sat down on the tree limb next to her.
"Glad you think so."
Silently they both watched Pandora's main light source, Alpha Centuri AB sink beneath the horizon. A tenuous twilight was falling, the sun had faded from the sky, but it would be a while until the cold light of local bioluminescence flared to life. Pamtseo'Ite broke the silence first.
"Is it a long way to your world?"
Ray smiled faintly
"Yes. Very far. Took me over five years to get here in fact."
"That is a long time to be away. Do you miss your family?"
Rays smile faded.
"Nothing to miss. Both parents are long gone, no siblings, no uncles, no nothing."
Pamtseo'Ite glanced at the deadpan expression on his face.
"I am sorry. I did not know."
Ray continued to gaze out at the field of stars shining down on the green canopy of the forest.
"Don't be. You stop missing them after a while."
A long pause followed before she spoke again.
"Do you miss your home?"
Ray looked out at the stars, wondering if the little grey-blue ball was spinning out there somewhere near one of them.
"No, I can honestly say I don't miss Earth. It wasn't a nice place to live, and I expect its only gotten worse."
"What happened?"
Ray twiddled his thumbs
"It's a long story. Look, its getting late, we should head back."
Pamtseo'Ite swiveled around on the branch to face Ray and crossed her legs.
"We have time. Come, tell me."
Rays looked down past his dangling legs at the cornucopia of greenery swaying gently in the dusk breeze below. After a while, he spoke.
"It started with the water. We ran out."
Pamtseo'Ite looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"How can you run out of water? Is your home dry?"
"Not at first it wasn't. In the beginning there was enough for everyone, and no one paid much attention to where it came from. We handed control of it over to corporations, thinking they would manage it for us, but they pumped too much, and the cycle of clean water was disrupted."
Again Pamtseo'Ite looked confused.
"Co-po-rayshuns?"
Ray clarified.
"Groups of sky people, banded together to make money at any cost."
"Eventually the clean water we had was polluted, and people began to fight over what was left. Clean water became more valuable than anything else, and people fought and died by the millions for it."
"Why would your people do that? Did they not know?"
Rays lips pulled back in a wry smile
"Oh yes, they knew. In fact they tried to sell us the methods to clean the water that they had dirtied. Anyway, when all the taps ran dry or brown, the tribes of my world turned their attention to the last collection of unexploited water on the Earth, a place known as the Guarani Aquifer. Over the course of a single year, seven and a half million soldiers and civilians perished in one mad dash to pump the water out of the soil. By that point the corporations had more power than the tribes, and they silently took over. After that everything was run for money. Land that had once been protected was ravaged for the last ounce of valuable material."
Ray turned to her and looked directly into her eyes.
"There are fields Pamtseo, fields, where broken houses and broken people choke on toxic fumes from huge machines. I have seen them with my own eyes."
Pamtseo'Ite stared into the former soldiers haunted eyes in silent horror.
"It is all gone now. Every last green plant and tree has been killed. Now the rest of my race dies slowly in squalor. Those who have the money have fled to other planets. I had no money, so I joined a mercenary group run by one of the corporations, and they sent me here. What you saw would have only been the beginning. They would have ravaged this place and destroyed every last thing that walks, crawls, swims, and flies."
Fierce tears started to fall freely from his face and he looked away from her, ashamed at his weakness. She got up and sat down next to him, her blue skinned legs hanging next to him, her shoulders rubbing against his.
"But now you are here, and they are not. And that is all that matters."
Together they watched the ferns and leaves slowly come aglow.