I keep thinking
Of the five lone exiles
Thrown from their mother planet
On a journey through the stars. 

They are free now
Free of us
What happens here:
The pain, the wars, 
The urge to hate and torch
It touches them not at all.

True alien spacecraft 
Technology barely understood 
By the creatures who built them
Beings of a single form
Who could not bear
To live beside each other.

Perhaps, after a million years
One of them is found
By curious minds.

Will they marvel
At the careful handiwork 
The thoughtful construction
The imagination needed
To set great vision to flight?

Or will they discover
That those who made it
Were cursed
To wipe their planet clean
Trading a vast future
For a momentary chance
To despoil and destroy?

On they travel 
Through the endless night 
Free of us
This marvellous tribe
Of great mastery 
Yet wanton violence, 
There will remain 
Just five lone exiles.

Pioneer 10

Pioneer 11

Voyager 2

Voyager 1

New Horizons