The Nannies.(Kevin Hughes) “Is that the last group?”

Torg looked over at a portal that was just beginning to spew out more than one hundred thousand Human Beings.

“Yes, I believe so, Director.”

The Director was not small by their standards, but still he was a good six feet shorter than his Assistant. That still left him more than ten feet taller than any Human.

“That is good. I so want to get off of this heavy planet. My gorves are killing me.”

The Assistant hid one his three smiles. Everyone’s gorves hurt. Nobody should have to stand in this heavy gravity for any length of time. No wonder the Humans were so short. Pulled to the ground by their own planet. He had to hide one of his other smiles at that thought.

They watched and waited. Finally the last of all eight point three billion Human Beings was marched into the huge coral. The Director let all three smiles show.

“Your calculations were correct. All of them fit in under three thousand square miles. It was wise not to try and squeeze them all into one of their big cities.

These plains are wide and big enough to Hold them all as they grow.”

“Shall we begin?”

The Director nodded.

The kind and colors of light that sprayed over all eight billion plus people would be invisible to Humans. But not the effect. That was inescapable.

In minutes, older people were gasping in surprise, grown ups were staring at their hands…and children were laughing as they felt their bodies changing. Shrinking. Getting tinier and tinier by the moment.

Already the Director had sent the gathering Crew. Those would remove all the clothes, jewelry, glasses, canes, hearing aides, ear pods, and whatever odds and ends fell from the Humans as they fell to the ground in writhing mounds of cooing, gurgling, burping flesh.

“Done.”

The Director smiled all three smiles. So did his Assistant. So did the whole Team. Eight billion babies all gently snoring, squirming against each other in their sleep…well, any creature in the Universe would smile at the sight.

“Send in the Nannies.”

Hordes of huge, kind, caring, and loving moved from the Ship. Descending on the babies en masse. Each capable of handling six of the quietly snoring human babies.

In moments, all the babies were swaddled in the soft warm feathers of the Nannies. Nipples provided nourishment to the tiny creatures.

Again every member of the Crew let all three smiles show. The sigh of contentment from the Nannies, the soft suckling sounds of eight billion infants - it was a collection of sounds that one could close your eyes and get lost in.

“Will it work?”

The Director had to pull himself back to the present moment. Like all of them he had stood entranced at the sheer innocent joy of life that enfolded the eight billion human babies. Babies with no awareness, or thoughts, other than: Warm and Safe, in the limbs of their Nannies.

It was apparent that the only character trait shared now by all Humans, was innocence. Innocence and Trust. The bedrock upon which the Future of Humanity would be built.

“It should. With no one to teach them prejudice, hate, or envy…they should, like all children everywhere…get along. Different won’t mean anything to them anymore. Different won’t be bad, or good, it will simply be…different.

Children just want to play, and they don’t care what color you are, how much you weigh, or if you are a girl or boy. If you are nice to them, they are nice to you. The Nannies will teach them to use their words.

“It’s worth a try. They were headed to self destruction when we arrived.”

The three soft smiles that the Director had plastered on his face as he watched the Nannies fondly carrying out their duties…fell.

“I know. Imagine greeting people from another Planet for the first time, saying you want peace, while pointing every weapon known to Humanity at them.”

He shrugged his shoulders - all of them. So did his Assistant. It was a sign of complete befuddlement. The Human equivalent of a shrug of not understanding and a quiver of fear.

He remembered the waves of emotion pouring out of the Hordes of Humans…few of them positive. One more Shrug of all his shoulders dispelled that memory.

“They are all babies now. They shall all grow up …together. Let’s see if that enough to keep them together.”

The babies had been fed, their diaper all changed. Now they were all nodding off to the gentle lullabies, or humming coming from more than a billion Nannies.

The Director and the Assistant closed their eyes. So did everyone else on the Team, even those still aboard the ship. It was a sound that wove a path to your own childhood.

The three smiles on every being now were softened by personal memories surfacing from pools of infancy that were so far back, and so deeply engrained that they may well be just subconscious memories.

The Director didn’t open its eyes. Whispering out softly:

“It will work.”

The Nannies continued their soft songs, and perfectly tuned humming …the babies started gently snoring.

The smiles, all three of them, on every face of the Team, grew gentler.

The babies drifted off to sleep.

It had begun.

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