Thanks to Gambit for blurting out a perfectly random word for me to use.
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The ones who came before and the ones responsible for the continuation of the race…now dead and their legends along with them. Still, we kept a vigil once every lunar cycle for the purpose of remembrance of those brave pioneers of this world. Not only had they founded our culture -architecture, art, music, religion, food and clothing – but they had made this world livable for us. It was initially unable to support our type of life. The liquid that had covered most of the world had been salient, but not nearly enough and it’s protective layer of gases and elements had been far too thick. Our forebears had exploited the weakest patches in it and dissolved those gases, converting them into the necessary minerals to help salt the world below. They had left only a few small plantations protected and pristine. The natives of this planet live in those places, kept like a living museum of the world before the conquest.

Much of our knowledge had been lost – uprisings from the native population and unpredictable fluctuations in climate had destroyed our technologies and prevented us from replacing them – but we had no place else to go, so we dug in and fought.  We prevailed in this strange and alien land. Now, faced with massive climate changes that seemed to affect only our race, we had to decide on a new strategy for survival. The coating of the world, so long absent was somehow rebuilding itself. The liquid was increasing in volume and losing its salinity, and we no longer knew how to convert the elements of this world into the minerals we needed to survive. Already, the lower ranks were beginning to suffer slow and excruciating deaths, hydrated to saturation with organs failing and suffering severe radiation deprivation.

I took my place  in a nook carved into the living rock of the underground dwelling we had established as a meeting place. There were some of these subterranean chambers that held no moisture…but we needed the moisture to enable us to convene. Here we all suffered radiation deprivation to some extent, and if we stayed too long our bodies began to grow moist from the place, but it ensured neutrality for us all since, in such conditions, no one of us could utilize our gifts and overwhelm the others. For a race with our savage instincts, it was necessary to be weakened in order to gather in large numbers. As one of the less aggressive of the council members, I was charged with keeping peace within the chamber.

Finally, everyone gathered and settled into the driest places they could find. I rubbed a metallic circlet on my ankle, awakening its latent power for the ability to pull moisture from my body. As Peacekeeper, it would be dangerous for me to be more weakened than my peers. Nobody else was allowed into the chamber with such a device.

I let my eyes wander toward the most aggressive members of the party and gently, gently lifted the veil in my mind. They were fearful and that spurred the aggression. They needed a solution for our survival and they could not see any. I noted with some surprise that they had been listening in to the natives in their little colonies. They had been meeting and said something about “rain”. I did not know this word, but these fearful creatures regarded it with terrified awe. It was a legend among the natives. Saltless liquid falling from the sky from “clouds”. I wanted to probe further, but it would have been inappropriate. Surface thoughts only were to be read; to read the memories and innermost desires of another was a crime – those who crossed the line were forced to become breeders.

Our leader finally stepped forward into the midst of the chamber. He had spoken with the historians and ethnologists who had studied the native population and their culture. We had salvaged several hundreds of radiation chambers from them. These chambers apparently caused a desirable epidermal mutation in the natives, but for us it could be the means of remedying radiation deprivation. It also appeared that they had discovered some secret for destroying the gaseous layers of radiation-repelling chemicals that was rebuilding itself around the magnetic boundaries of their world. It was, however, a long-term project with an uncertain probability of success.

I felt, among each of us, a glimmer of ambitious hope. If we could harness the primitive technologies offered by the natives, we could stop trying to salvage the remnants of our own and focus on improving theirs enough to recover from this global regression…