So here, Floyd told himself, is the first generation of the Spaceborn: there would be more of them in the years to come. Though there was sadness in the thought, there was also a great hope. When Earth was tamed and tranquil and perhaps a little tired, there would still be scope for those who loved freedom, for the tough pioneers, the restless explorers. But their tools would not be ax and gun and canoe and wagon; they would be nuclear power plant and plasma drive and hydroponic farm. The time was fast approaching when Earth, like all mothers, must say farewell to her children.
Zael turned off her suit light and stood in the darkness under the enormous half-globe of the sky. It was the only sky she knew; like her mother’s mother before her, she was space-born. Centuries ago, driven out of the fat green worlds, her people had grown austere, like the arid fields of stars they roamed among. In the five great space cities, and on Pluto, Titan, Mimas, Eros and a thousand lesser worlds, they struggled for existence. They were few; life was hard and short; it was no novelty for a sixteen-year-old child to be left alone to mine a planetoid.
— The Enemy, by Damon Knight (1958)
