Tom Harris found the glass ball while scavenging for copper wire.

He was fifty years old, six feet tall, with rough hands and a face that had spent too many years in the sun and too many nights in bars that no longer existed. He wore a faded jacket with more patches than fabric and boots held together by duct tape and hope.

The glass ball sat on a hill overlooking what used to be a town. Now it was just rubble and rust and the occasional half-buried appliance that Tom could strip for parts. The ball was about a meter in diameter, transparent, and caught the afternoon light like a drop of dew on a dead world.

Tom knelt beside it and peered through a magnifying glass he'd brought from his camp. Inside, he saw buildings--tiny, intricate, beautiful. Streets. People. Tiny people, moving about their tiny lives.

"Huh," Tom said.

He sat down on the ground, took a sip from a dented canteen, and watched the tiny people for a while. They were doing whatever tiny people do. Walking around. Talking to each other. Living their lives.

Tom finished his water, stood up, and walked away. He had copper wire to find.

The next morning, Tom returned to the glass ball. He didn't know why. Maybe curiosity. Maybe boredom. Maybe the fact that his camp had run out of canned beans and he was hoping the tiny people had some to spare.

Inside the ball, a画面 appeared in his video glasses. A beautiful girl, perhaps sixteen, waving at him.

"Hey! We see you! You look like a star flying fast! Are you Pioneer One?"

Tom stared at her. "I'm Tom."

The girl blinked. "You're Tom."

"Yeah."

"We are the Micro Era. I am Elara, your Supreme Executive."

"Okay," Tom said. He took a sip from his canteen. "You got any food?"

Elara looked confused. "Food?"

"Yeah. You got any food? I'm starving."

Elara consulted with someone off-screen. Then she said, "We have synthesized nutrient paste. Would you like some?"

"Does it taste like anything?"

"It tastes like... nutrition."

Tom shrugged. "Nah. I'll find something."

He spent the next week living near the glass ball. He set up camp on a nearby hill, scavenged for food, and spent his evenings watching the tiny people through the magnifying glass. They were entertaining, in a way. Like watching ants, but the ants had cities and governments and something called a "Supreme Executive."

Elara tried to explain the Micro Era's history to Tom. She told him about the great disaster, the shrinking, the war between Macro and Micro Humans, the Micro Humans' victory, the migration underground, the return to the surface.

Tom listened with one ear while he fixed his old truck with parts he'd scavenged from junkyards.

"So let me get this straight," Tom said. "You guys shrunk yourselves because the sun got too hot, then you lived underground for a while, then you came back and built cities inside glass balls, and now you're telling me you inherited all of humanity's knowledge but your fastest spaceship only goes ten percent light speed?"

"Yes."

"That's... that's pretty dumb, if you ask me."

Elara was offended. "We inherited all of humanity's philosophy, Western, Eastern, Greek, Chinese! We appreciate Van Gogh's paintings, listen to Beethoven's music, perform Shakespeare's dramas!"

"Did you fix your truck?" Tom asked.

"What truck?"

"My truck. You know, the thing I'm fixing. Did you help me fix it?"

Elara was silent for a moment. "We could help, if you'd like. We have advanced nanotechnology."

Tom looked at his truck. It was held together by duct tape, hope, and a carburetor he'd salvaged from a wreck. "Nah. I got it."

But as the days passed, Tom began to notice things. The Micro City's technology was impressive. Their nanotechnology could repair materials at the atomic level. Their ecological systems were closed-loop and highly efficient. If he could get them to help him fix the Pioneer's ecological system, he might actually be able to leave this place.

The Pioneer. That's what they called it. The ship he'd woken up in after twenty-five thousand years of sleep. The ship that had carried him past sixty stars, past the death of Earth, to this荒芜 hill where he scavenged for copper wire and talked to tiny people inside glass balls.

Tom didn't think about the Pioneer much. It sat in orbit above him, a silver needle in the dark, and he didn't have the fuel or the will to go back to it. Here on the ground, he could scavenge. He could drink. He could watch the tiny people live their tiny lives. It was enough.

But the Pioneer's ecological system was failing. Tom knew this because Elara told him. The ship's life support was degrading, and if it failed completely, Tom would die. He'd been thinking about this, in the way Tom thought about things: slowly, reluctantly, and with a growing sense of annoyance.

"I need to fix the Pioneer," he told Elara one evening.

"We can help," she said.

"How?"

"You need to let us access the ship's systems. We have the technology to repair the ecological loop."

"And in return?"

"In return, we ask that you trust us. That you not reassert Macro Era dominance."

Tom looked at her. "You think I want to dominate anyone?"

Elara was silent.

Tom took a drink from his canteen. "Look. I don't care about dominating anyone. I just want to fix my ship so I don't die. After that, I don't know. Maybe I'll leave. Maybe I won't. I haven't decided."

"You don't have to decide now," Elara said.

Tom nodded. He finished his water, stood up, and walked back to his camp. He sat by his fire, stared at the flames, and thought about nothing in particular.

The next morning, the Micro Humans began helping him. They sent a team of engineers--tiny figures in protective suits who rode on feather-like vehicles up to the Pioneer and entered through the airlock Tom had left slightly open. Tom watched them through the video glasses, half-amused, half-indifferent.

They worked for three days. Tom scavenged for food, fixed his truck, and drank his bourbon. The Micro Humans repaired the Pioneer's ecological system with precision and speed that Tom found impressive but not particularly interesting.

On the third evening, the lead Micro Engineer--a small figure in a white suit who communicated through Elara--told Tom the work was complete.

"The ecological system is repaired," Elara said. "It will last for another fifty years, perhaps longer."

"Good," Tom said. "Thanks."

"Will you leave now?"

Tom looked at his truck. He looked at the Pioneer, a bright star in the evening sky. He looked at the glass ball, where tiny people were going about their tiny lives.

"I don't know," he said.

"You don't have to know now," Elara said.

Tom nodded. He finished his bourbon, stood up, and walked to his truck. He started the engine. It coughed, sputtered, then roared to life. Tom smiled.

He drove away without looking back.

The Micro Humans watched him go. Elara stood before the glass ball, looking up at the stars, wondering if Tom would ever return.

Above her, the Pioneer orbited silently, its ecological system repaired, its last passenger gone.

And on the hill where Tom had set up his camp, a single can of beans sat unopened, slowly rusting in the rain.