Parchment in Glass 
by Ron Collins
It can be hard to distinguish between medium and message-or even messenger. 

Radio waves rose from the surface of a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, cutting through an atmosphere of oxygen and acid to break into the vacuum of space. Four years later the signals reached Martian highlands and fell upon a collection of listening dishes at Kochi Observatory. 
At local noon, a program packaged the data and sent it on tight-beam laser to a satellite in near-earth orbit. 
“I'm too old for this,” Torrance thought as he checked his sideburns’ trim. Lines and dry patches marred pebbled skin. His crew cut was graying to white. Extending a man's telomeres may double his life, but signs of age remained as obvious as rings on a tree stump. 
Even his eyes were worn and faded. 
It was just past five in the morning. Torrance was in the Kedra Hotel, a high rise that overlooked the western shore of the Potomac River in Crystal City, Virginia. Willim Pinot-the United Governments intelligence officer-expected him at 0700. He still hadn't had breakfast. 
He sighed and ran a brush over his scalp. 
The UGIO had been vague about the agenda, and no matter how often Torrance played the game, politics always left him uneasy. 
He stepped back and yanked his blue dress jacket to the side. His buttons were aligned, his shoulders square. He was seventy-one-no longer the slender kid from Everguard-but he still presented the uniform with a bit of dignity. If he ever did decide to do something rash like retire, he would miss the uniform as much as anything else. He strapped his personal comm system over his forearm, punched up his temperature and blood sugar, and glanced at the time. 
That was when he first noticed the red icon flashing. 
* * *
The process ran every night. 
It started at a Very Large Array spread over the three hundred square kilometers of Martian surface that comprised Kochi Observatory. Each day, Kochi compressed data and transmitted it to a receiver in Earth orbit, which then split the signal and forwarded it to several destinations-one being a computer in an office just north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There, Torrance's program stored Kochi's data in overlapping fifteen-minute segments and compared these fresh radio emissions to stored files of noise Everguard had recorded during its last mission. 
To Torrance, the Everguard files were important. They were hand-inked parchment in green bottles floating on the currents of the most massive sea known to man, words sent from unknown people who lived on Alpha Centauri A's second planet. No one else shared his opinion, of course. Eden-his compatriots pointed out-was a poisonous place where life could not exist, a fact proven by every remote study ever undertaken. 
He was, of course, shackled by his reluctance to release the Everguard noise data. If it became known that the mission had launched wormhole pods despite the possibility that life might exist on the planet, the entire command structure would be exposed to executive review. Torrance was loyal. His commanders were good people. They made a decision that opened the galaxy to the human race. He might, in fact, have made the same decision if he were in their shoes. 
Still... 
Too much of his life was tied up in these files. He had commanded shipboard systems and weaponry aboard Orion, served as the mission officer for Ceta, the first colony in the Cassiopeia Eta system, and advised the five Delta Pavonis colonies. Yet, he always returned to the files. They consumed his soul. Letting the issue of life on Eden drop within the scientific community did not mean Torrance had to give up. So he gathered data from Kochi, and he wrote a program-a simple routine, really, a correlation algorithm that looked for similarities between the Everguard files and Kochi's radio signals. 
Now the icon was flashing on his personal comm system. 
* * *
Bypassing breakfast, Torrance accessed his home unit. The screen changed to a familiar interface panel. He pulled reports and examined Kochi extracts. Data filled the screen. Automatic sorting routines charted key graphs. The passage of time faded to a blur. An hour later, Torrance sat on the edge of his bed, deliriously dizzy. 
The correlation was solid-full-spectrum frequency matches in nearly every frame. 
The world was suddenly small but expansive, understood but unfathomable. It would take weeks of hard work to make the data presentable, but Torrance understood a truth massive like a block of granite-a truth that had eluded human beings since time itself. 
Life existed outside the solar system. 
His heart burst. He wanted to cry, wanted to hug someone, wanted to run into the streets and shake people by the shoulders or kiss them on the cheeks or just hold them tightly and howl at the sky like the crazy old men on Arazorn. 
He wanted ... well. Mostly he just wanted to tell someone. 
But the room was empty and quiet. 
The heating system kicked on. The bed sat unmade, sheets wadded and rumpled at the foot. He rubbed his eyes and closed his system. His lips were dry and parched. He glanced at his watch. Forty-five minutes to get to Pinot's office. 
He picked up his hat from the dresser and checked the mirror. Crisp. He smiled and gave himself a salute. 
Politics be damned, there wasn't a thing in the world Willim Pinot could tell him today that would get him down. 
* * *
He took the underground walkway to the monorail transfer and got off at Arlington. The bioscanner allowed him to take the purple line from there. This was Wilson Cross-a shelter dug deep under the eastern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, a place where every door warranted a security code and every wall was made of reinforced concrete lined with radiation-hardened composites. His lighthearted mood gave the process of navigating checkpoints a feeling more like playing secret agent than its usual baggage of paranoid scrutiny. 
Everything seemed so real-the smell of his escort's boot polish, the echoes of footsteps in the underground hallway, the dryness of cool air, the escort's name spelled in clean white letters on a black badge: Davies. The corridors were tight and brightly lit, the walls painted standard-issue beige. Image projectors at regular intervals gave the area a professional flare. Even the metallic clangs of tri-level stainless-steel security doors could not dampen his spirits. 
They came to a doorway. A crimson laser flashed his optic nerve. The door slid open. 
“Good morning, sir,” Torrance said as he stepped forward. 
The door closed. 
“Good morning, Captain,” Pinot answered in a graveled voice, motioning to a padded blue chair without looking up from his desktop screen. “Have a seat.” 
Willim Pinot was arguably the most powerful man in the solar system. He had Asia somewhere in the distant recesses of his ancestry. Black eyes sat hard and firm above rounded cheekbones like a pair of polished marbles, his nose upturned and flattened. A scraggly, gray-laced goatee grew in a sprawl around his lips. His shirt was white and open one button at the collar. It was early, yet already rings of sweat darkened the area under his armpits. 
Torrance sat while Pinot marked something on his screen. 
Pinot's dress coat hung from a rack in the far corner. Paperwork cluttered his desktop. The leather chair squealed as the UGIO put his stylus down, sat forward, and clasped his hands together. 
“Can Tailor get you coffee?” 
“That would be good, thank you.” 
Pinot spoke to the computer. “Coffee, please. Sugar.” He paused and looked at Torrance. “Cream?” 
Torrance shook his head. 
“No cream.” 
Pinot smiled. “I suppose you wonder why you are here.” “The question has crossed my mind.” 
“I need you to kill a man.” 
“Sir?” 
“You heard me.” 
“But...” Torrance squirmed in his chair. “I'm not an assassin.” 
“Correct.” Pinot nodded matter-of-factly. “You are a scientist-an engineer, actually, but close enough for government work, eh?” 
Torrance frowned. 
“I am in the unique spot, you see, of needing someone who is both a scientist and an assassin. Since there is no time to train an assassin to be a scientist, I think it wiser to go the opposite direction. Don't you agree?” 
“I ... guess so,” Torrance heard himself say. 
The door opened and Tailor, Pinot's administrative assistant, entered with a coffee service. 
An edgy Colombian aroma filled the room. The sound of liquid flowing over china was ritualistic in the silence. Pinot motioned Tailor to ignore his teacup in lieu of the double-sized mug on his desk. 
Tailor left. The door closed. 
Torrance lifted a cup and cradled it in his palm. The china was thin-the coffee warmed it quickly. He sipped, blowing briefly to avoid scalding. He wished he had eaten something. 
“The World Council on Wormhole Physics is being held next week,” Pinot said simply. “You will attend, and you will kill Emil Pentabill.” 
“If I refuse?” 
Pinot gulped his coffee, then set his mug amid loose paper on his desk. “Neither of your ex-wives will care one way or the other, I'm sure-God knows I can vouch for the disinterest of ex-wives. I know you're not really close to your daughters, but surely they need their old man around, don't you think?” 
Torrance squeezed his lips into a tight line. He loved Cassie and Mercy. But something had always gotten in the way while they were growing up-a conference to attend, or a seminar to facilitate. There was a war on, after all. 
Men were dying. 
There had never been enough time. He lost Marisa, his second wife, just as he had lost Adrienne before her. And he was gone while his daughters went from crawling to kindergarten to high school. 
He had never felt like a very successful family man. Pinot's threat, however, was clear and direct. Kill or be killed. 
“Why Pentabill?” 
“The man is a confirmed traitor.” 
“I've known Oscar for years,” Torrance said, calling Pentabill by his preferred name. “I find that very hard to believe.” 
“Yet still true.” 
Torrance shook his head. 
“You want evidence?” Pinot pointed to a brown data cube on the corner of his desk. 
Torrance picked it up. The cube was small, its edges sharp and prickly. 
“Read it at your leisure.” 
“What's on it?” 
“Proof that Universe Three got to him years ago-before, even, your cruise with Everguard. Standard espionage stuff. Find a source, start early and small until they're hooked, then raise the ante. By the end, Pentabill sold them the star drive, several exotic matter-manufacturing techniques-specifically including solutions to throat tensors, I might add-and, of course, Kransky-Watt.” 
Torrance grimaced outwardly. Kransky and Watt were the first to demonstrate that the kinetic flow of a star's energy could be fed back into a wormhole's gate fields, thereby providing traversable stability. The throat tensors were needed to understand and build the most critical juncture in the wormhole system. It was this technology that had allowed them to draw energy from the interior of Alpha Centauri A to power star drive engines, and hence open up the galaxy to faster-than-light travel. 
Universe Three was a terrorist organization-led by Casmir Francis, a flashy man now in his mid-fifties with a bold countenance and a slick delivery. The media portrayed him as ruthless, direct, and intelligent. People were drawn to his charisma, his passion, and the sound bite that had become the mantra of the entire U3 movement: "We will die only for those things we believe in. And we believe in the Universe." 
Without the information Pentabill had sold, Universe Three could not have developed their own wormholes. Without those wormholes, Francis could not have sustained a galaxy-faring fleet. And without a galaxy-faring fleet, he could not have waged the war that had killed so many young men and women over the past three standard decades. “Oscar is a very bright man,” Torrance said. 
“All the more reason to make an example of him.” 
“And you think I can attend the council without arousing suspicion in advance of the strike.” 
“A good assassin blends in.” 
“You're overestimating my status considerably.” 
Pinot gave a sarcastic huff. “You are no longer one of the scientific elite, Captain. I know this.” He raised a pointed index finger. “But this is an advantage for you. Your compatriots will accept your attendance, but will keep you at arm's length. It should be quite easy for you to fade into the woodwork at an appropriate time.” 
Pinot's straightforward dissection of his standing stung. 
He had gained celebrity within the scientific community as officer of record in setting the first wormhole. But when his passion for the idea of life on Eden was unearthed, he found himself shunned cleanly and coldly. Nothing, it seems, ostracizes a man so fully as thinking outside the accepted. 
“So I'm a Trojan horse?” Torrance said. “A wolf in sheep's clothing?” 
“Trojan horse,” Pinot said as he rubbed his goatee. A smile creased his cheeks with a series of abstract folds that made him look like a washed-out coconut. “That is good.” 
Torrance drank coffee and put the cup back on the tray. The liquid ate the lining of his stomach. The concept of killing in cold blood was suddenly very real. The coffee did not help his dry throat. 
“I can't do it,” he said. The pleading quality in his voice made him feel weak and somehow ashamed. 
“Men are always capable of more than they think.” 
“It's not like that,” Torrance lied too quickly. “I'm not afraid of it. I have a new project I need to look into.” 
“Really? I reviewed your assignments with Admiral Cash yesterday. She made no mention of new projects.” 
“It's...” Torrance looked at Pinot. The UGIO was enjoying himself. He was a fisherman who had set his hook, playing the game, letting Torrance run but keeping the line taut. 
“Admiral Cash doesn't know about it,” Torrance finally said. 
“Then it cannot be important.” 
“Only discovery of a new life-form.” 
Pinot sat back in his chair. “We're not going through this again, are we?” “I've confirmed cohesive signals from Eden. No mistaking them.” 
“Don't waste my time, Captain.” 
Torrance clenched his jaw. 
The words you can't make me do it nearly came off his tongue. But that was wrong. Willim Pinot's entire career was about making people do things they wouldn't normally do. 
Their meeting was done. The parameters of his choice lay before him. Torrance looked across the table and saw confidence and certainty unyielding like an undertow. 
Kill or be killed. 
As he prepared for bed later that night, Torrance tried to convince himself that his decision to take the assignment hinged on the belief that he had more to do in life, that it was the only way to save Eden. But Torrance had never been very good at shielding himself from what he truly thought. 
In the end, it all boiled down to the simple fact that he was afraid to die. 
* * *
A week after meeting with the UGIO, Torrance found himself on Florecer, the innermost planet of the Cygni B system-a tiny type-K star some twelve light years from the solar system. He sat in the convention center conference auditorium, glancing nervously across the way at Oscar Pentabill. The chairs were large and cushioned, arranged in elevated circles around a central podium. The configuration made the conference feel more like a political debate than a scientific gathering-a fact that brought him a sardonic smile as he sipped chilled water and listened to scientists from around the galaxy argue. 
“Alpha Centauri A is going to run out of energy, and we've got to find a way to keep the spacecraft attached to it flying.” 
“It was supposed to last ten thousand years.” 
“That assumed the star fueled only a single spacecraft.” 
“So we're supposed to trust the government this time, too?” 
“Don't be an extremist, Vlad. The original estimate also assumed 70 percent flow conversion. Reality is closer to 25.” 
“That's because Kransky-Watt is so horribly wasteful.” 
“The truth is their fault?” “Would you suggest the missions not be flown, and the war lost?” 
“There's the problem, then, isn't it?” Selene Runn said. 
Heads nodded. 
Torrance sat quietly, watching. Nothing positive was coming from the discussion but, ironically, he felt the bittersweet tingle of healing. He did not want to feel better right now. His assignment was cowardly and vile. It sat in his gut like cold oatmeal. It would change him forever. But he felt something important as he watched this bickering. This was only a stage, a place where names came to rub elbows with other names. Hermann, Yang, Jacob-pick a name, they were here. 
But no truth was being discovered at this conference. No science was being performed. Science was done in labs and behind consoles. Science, at its core, was an endeavor one undertook in isolated groups, developing results to bring back to the entire community for review. It was the way of the world-the way of history. Bring hard data and you change the world. Bring ideas and you create spaghetti. 
Now Torrance had data. 
Late at night, between the seemingly never-ending briefings and training programs UGI agents had been stuffing into his head, he had been working to package information about the most recent Eden emissions into a presentable paper. The effort left him tired and drained. His stamina dropped off earlier in the evenings than it once did, and he had not progressed as far as he wanted. But it was good work, and he was proud of it. 
Most current estimates said that Alpha Centauri A would remain viable for something short of four hundred years. 
It was all enough to make him sick. 
But at least he was doing something about it. He was no longer certain he could say that about this collection of people he once thought of as friends. 
“No.” A wavering voice came amplified through a personal PA. “That is not the problem at all.” 
The room shuffled nervously as Fredric Parson stood on rickety knees, gripping a brown cane. His back was bent like a hook. His pate was bald and mottled. 
Dr. Parson was 148 years old and living on his last telomere extension. He had been a leading figure in the development of the earliest wormhole models, and it was well known that Kransky wouldn't have gotten as far as he had if Parson hadn't solved the initial riddle that led to the confirmation of material with negative mass. In this way, Fredric Parson was, perhaps, the father of the wormhole. 
“We are missing the forest for the trees, my friends. The problem has little to do with spacecraft. The problem here is that as we drain away fusing material, we leave the trash behind. It's only a matter of time before energy released by the star's fusion engine will be unable to resist the star's gravity. When that happens, Alpha Centauri A will collapse under its own weight.” 
“Then we get a supernova,” Kalista McKenna interjected. 
Scientists across the room rolled their eyes to the ceiling as McKenna stood up. The young woman from Colorado University was brilliant, but she didn't know when it was best to be quiet. The membership had given her leeway for two years, but their patience was drawing to an end. Now McKenna stood like a corporate martyr in her white business dress with a scarf of pink and purple showing tastefully from her collar. 
“That's a fanciful notion, Kalista,” Parson replied. “Centauri A, however, is similar to our own Sun. It will not go supernova.” “A star reacts differently when its mass is in flux.” 
“All theoretical.” 
“As is everything we do in this field-theoretical science backed up by computer simulations. I have a new solution that indicates pressure waves caused by transient masses act as pseudomass. At the rate we're tapping Alpha Centauri A, its effective mass will rise dramatically. Alpha Cen will go supernova. The only question that remains unsolved is whether we'll get a black hole or a neutron star in its place.” 
The sound of clearing throats reverberated. 
Chairs rocked backward. 
Torrance nearly snickered aloud at the level of discomfort around the room. Admittedly, McKenna's idea was brash and most likely wrong. But it was also new and unexpected. Torrance could not help but delight in the ripples the mere suggestion caused this gathering of scientific minds. For the first time, Torrance was actually glad he had come to the council. 
Parson's reed thin voice echoed throughout the center. “All we can really say is that never before have we had an opportunity to learn about this type of an event. We need to prepare. We need to push for new programs and more funding.” “Hear, hear.” 
A smattering of low-voiced conversations ensued. Torrance thought they were preparing to move to the next item on the agenda, which was to be a review of the less-than-glorious results of the Newton project. 
“What if our fanciful friend is correct?” Benaj Ritta from Mars Colony Kasbian said. “A supernova so close to the solar system would be a catastrophe.” 
“Blast it, man! There will be no supernova!” 
Torrance sighed and sat back to wait out the next cycle of the argument. 
He glanced across the chamber. 
Emil “Oscar” Pentabill sat quietly in a suit that matched the wiry gray of his hair, listening and not adding to the conversation. He sipped from a white mug, jotted a note or two into his comm system, and glanced around the room, pausing only momentarily to stare at the conversation. 
Why? Torrance asked himself. 
What would motivate a man of science to turn his back on the people he worked for? What could take him over the edge of destroying everything with a single decision? The questions angered him. The whole thing was Pentabill's fault, after all. It was Oscar Pentabill's activity that had resulted in Torrance's assignment. 
But Pentabill was not answering Torrance's questions. 
* * *
The hotel hallway stretched ahead like a launch tunnel. The carpet was green and black with checkered patterns. Torrance looked for room 1512. Downstairs, the reception was beginning-cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at six, dinner at seven, and an informal presentation on FTL aging patterns at nine. 
Pinot's agents had given Torrance more details about Pentabill than he felt comfortable knowing. Oscar had been married for twenty-three years but had no children. He was a quiet man who avoided the limelight. His habit at such gatherings as this was to eschew social drinks for quiet time with a martini and a trade magazine. He would arrive for dinner a fashionable five minutes late, eat a vegetarian plate, and play with dessert. Then he would excuse himself to turn in. 
The number 1512 stood out in relief against the door. 
Torrance pulled a magnetic locksmith from his jacket. The glass vial in his pocket was solid against his thigh. Bionites swam in its clear liquid, ugly critters creepy-crawly things half-organic, half-machine, designed to systematically attack a man's nervous system, then dissociate into the cellular realms of his biology. 
Torrance's palms were clammy. The scent of fear mixed with the dry odor of the door's latex paint. 
The locksmith clicked against the wall. The processor spun numbers. Flickering digits fell into place. Torrance turned the knob. 
The room was beige and yellow-bathroom to the left, bedroom large and comfortable. A Netvision rumbled from the far wall. Sheer inner drapes fluttered in the breeze of the balcony's open sliding door. The city splayed over the horizon below, a dirty tapestry of gray and blue as Cygni set on the opposite side of the hotel. Pentabill sat on a chair facing the city, his legs propped against the banister. The drapes obscured his shoulders and head. An iced drink sat on a knee-height table-a martini, complete with a local dashtar fruit skewered on a green swizzle. A portable reader lay propped on his lap. 
The door shut with an audible click. 
Oscar peered around the drapes, his expression more confusion than fear. A nested mat of his hair caught in the breeze. 
“Torrance,” he said jovially, collecting his drink and standing. 
Pentabill must have seen something in Torrance's expression because he froze, one hand on the doorway's frame, the other dropping the reader mechanically to his side. His shoulders slumped. He was tall and slim, probably an athlete when he was a kid. 
He swayed as if the drink was not his first. 
Torrance put his hand in his pocket. The vial was cold and smooth, its cap small and ridged. The automatic hypo would react to sudden pressure. The injection would be quick and nearly painless. 
“I'm sorry it's you, Torrance.” 
Pinot's evidence left no doubt that Oscar was guilty. He had to know it was only a matter of time before the United Governments would strike back. 
“Why did you do it, Oscar?” 
Pentabill's hand shook as he drank. “It's worse than you think.” 
“What do you mean?” 
“Universe Three.” 
“Yes?” Pentabill smirked, and tossed the newsreader onto the bed. 
Torrance gave him time. 
“Do you ever notice how we talk about decisions in the name of organizations-but organizations never make decisions.” 
“I understand that.” 
“I thought Casmir Francis would lead us in the right direction, but he's no better than the rest.” 
“What are you talking about, Oscar?” 
Pentabill waved his drink around. “Doesn't matter, I suppose. Dead men tell no tales, eh?” He chuckled to himself and glanced at Torrance with an impish grin. “I did it, Torrance. Everything. Kransky-Watt. Exotic material.” 
“Tell me something I don't already know.” 
“I sold them Newton.” 
Anxiety was a moth under Torrance's breastbone. Pinot's cube said nothing about Newton. “Why would they want a failed program?” 
Oscar pointed a bony finger. “UG would be best served to not underestimate Universe Three. Bright folks there-some of the best. Castenades went to their side, you know? He did you one better, too. Figured Figured out how to set a remote link. It's trial and error, but within a probability range, U3 can create and destroy wormholes anywhere they want.” 
“You're kidding me,” Torrance said. 
Oscar's response was a wry curl of his lip and a shake of his head. 
This meant Universe Three was ahead of the game. The star drive gave human beings the ability to travel faster than light. But remotely configurable wormholes would provide the ability to instantaneously step from, say, the Cassiopeia system where Casmir Francis was rumored to keep his home base, directly to, for example, Earth. And nothing could keep him from bringing along an army of an additional ten thousand men. 
“Are you sure?” 
“I've seen the work.” Pentabill took a slug from his drink. His face was shadowed and drawn. He looked tired. 
“There's more, isn't there?” 
“Black holes.” Pentabill's knuckles became white around his glass. “It took a few tries, but Castenades has planted the end of a wormhole in the middle of a black hole.” 
“Holy Mother of God.” “The other end is going into Alpha Centauri A.” 
Torrance was taken totally aback. “I don't understand.” 
“He's trading spacecraft. Simple math. Alpha Centauri fuels ten spacecraft. Icarus, and nine UG craft. Kill the star, kill the spacecraft.” 
Icarus was one of the spacecraft involved in the Cassiopeia incident, the event where the Universe Three rebellion first manifested itself. They had captured Icarus. A year later, powered by Oscar Pentabill's treachery, U3 was a bonafide wormhole power. 
“It could be worse than that, too, right?” Torrance said. “The physics of that configuration gets calculated as if the black hole were actually inside the star, and we have no way of knowing the mass of the black hole Universe Three is connecting to Alpha Centauri. A massive black hole so close to the solar system could be dangerous.” 
“Like I said-no better than the rest.” Pentabill breathed through his nose. “The world protects its own, though, Torrance. I used to believe Francis truly wanted the holistic world he talks about. But he's just another card sharp. When U3 activates the trigger, every United Governments spacecraft attached to the star will be destroyed. Who knows what's next? But one thing I do believe with all my being is that Casmir Francis will deserve whatever happens to him.” 
The handle to the door jiggled. Oscar's face went pale. 
“Who is it?” Torrance asked him. 
Oscar looked at Torrance with a pallbearer's grimace. This was a man putting his burden down and accepting his fate, and Torrance found the expression made him angry in a place down deep inside. 
“Do me a favor?” Oscar said. “If you get a chance, tell Glory I love her.” 
The door swung open. A man wearing waiter's white blew past Torrance and collided with Pentabill. Oscar grunted. His glass smashed against the wall with the smell of gin. The man was big and quick-maybe juiced. He lifted Pentabill in stride and rushed to the balcony. 
Oscar disappeared over the edge. 
He did not scream. Did not even speak. 
Torrance anticipated the thick sound of a body hitting the ground, but the impact was not audible. 
“You're with Universe Three?” Torrance asked. 
The waiter looked up. He was maybe twenty, with brown hair and an angular face. He flexed his hands, bent, and reached to his pants leg where Torrance could see the bulging shape of a weapon. 
Torrance kicked. The waiter pivoted away and Torrance's foot crashed against the bed railing. His momentum carried him. His body twisted, losing balance, bouncing off the mattress and sprawling to the floor with a lung-crushing thud. 
The waiter spun and locked onto him. 
The gun was small-a laser weapon with charge enough for two or three good shots. 
Torrance raised one hand. 
Kalista McKenna, he thought. 
Supernova. It was the only idea he had. 
“If you kill me, U3 will be making a big, big mistake.” 
“Tell it to the bosses.” 
“Let me.” 
“What?” 
“Take me to your bosses, and let me tell them about the mistake.” 
The waiter put his gun against Torrance's forehead. 
“My name is Torrance Black. I'm a scientist from the Newton project. U3 is working without critical information. If you do what the man you just tossed off the edge of the world said you're going to do, U3 is liable to blow away most of the civilized galaxy.” 
The agent's face was impassive. The weapon's muzzle was cold against the front of Torrance's skull. He hoped his bluff was convincing enough. 
“I can't leave you splattered here anyway.” 
Torrance released a breath he didn't know he was holding. He knew a bit of how this game was played. Soon the nets would carry headlines about Oscar Pentabill's suicide. Another body in the room would ruin that story line. 
“Get up and let's go.” 
Torrance complied, straightening his pants and jacket as he went through the doorway. 
The hallway was still quiet. Their footsteps were heavy against the carpet. The waiter strode behind Torrance, the fabric of his pants rasping with each stride. 
They came to the elevator. 
“Get in slow. Understand? No collateral.” 
Torrance nodded. “I understand.” 
The doors opened. Four people stood in the compartment. The doors were burnished bronze, reflecting images as blobs of color. The air smelled of humid carpet carpet and light cleanser. The waiter edged behind him, the blunt point of the weapon like a fist against his kidney. They stopped on the tenth and took on another passenger. Two more on the third-floor mezzanine. 
Sweat pooled on Torrance's brow. 
What should he do when the doors opened? Should he run? Should he turn and punch? 
How many people could die with a random laser shot? 
The doors opened. 
“Left,” the man said quietly into his ear. 
The lobby was large and open, but still crowded. 
“Outside.” 
He walked across the pavilion. An automatic door opened as they approached the exit. The air at ground level was hot and stagnant. A gravcar pulled up and the back door opened to reveal a man in a business suit. Torrance could not see his face, but his hand showed another laser. 
“Get in,” the waiter said. 
Torrance didn't hesitate. 
The door slammed. The man was slim and smelled of soap. His hair was long and tied tightly behind his head. He reached across the bench seating. A pinprick burned on the back of Torrance's hand. 
His world went dark. 
* * *
Somewhere in the deep swirl of dreams, Torrance decided that the question is not whether or not God plays dice. The question is what game he plays. 
* * *
“Welcome to Icarus, Captain Black.” The voice was distant and vaguely feminine. 
“Wha-” 
Bright light stabbed his temples. 
His eyes burned. 
A row of fluorescent lights lined the ceiling, ringed with halos of silver and blue. A pallet was hard against his back. Shadows with human form glided through his vision, shifting light like a kaleidoscope. 
He was hungry. 
Icarus? Why was that name familiar? 
The man. A laser weapon. A car. Oscar Pentabill falling. 
He took a full breath. Oxygen refreshed his body. Memory returned. Blinking brought things into better focus. A man in a blue medical uniform stood against the wall. A woman with auburn hair sat in a chair beside the bed. 
“Get yourself cleaned up,” the woman said, standing. “I'll order you something to eat.” 
The man leaned forward to read numbers from the monitor over Torrance's head. A guard came into focus on the opposite side of the room. The woman turned to the man in blue. “I'll report he's awake. Make sure he is presentable.” 
“Aye, ma'am,” he replied. 
* * *
Water rushed over him. The smell of soap was something normal to hold on to. The warm sting against his chest and shoulders made him feel human. He was stiff and sore, and the water brought him simple comfort. 
Icarus was a carbon copy of Orion, a ship Torrance toured with for three years. The two were among the first star drive spacecraft ever designed, each built in cookie-cutter fashion to save cost and development time. They had been made with maintenance in mind-with service nodes placed at key junctures on every level. Each node provided access to the systems command center through sleek, holographic interfaces, the first to utilize such controls. 
If Alpha Cen A was going to be tied to a black hole, he was sitting on a ghost ship. 
He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped into his quarters. His clothes were gone, replaced by a pile on the foot of the bed. The pants were baggy and gray, tied in front with a drawstring. The shirt was blue polyfiber that hung below his hips. 
Breakfast was cornbread and freeze-dried apricots in the officer's mess. A carafe of coffee sat in the middle of the table. An armed guard stood outside. 
The food did wonders for the clarity of his mind. 
“Good morning.” 
Torrance sat up straighter. 
The woman was middle-aged-no more than sixty-with blonde hair and a dark complexion that spoke of Latin heritage. She wore black trousers and a zippered sweatshirt with the Icarus logo sewn into the left breast. She was thin to the point of frailty. Her eyes were watery blue with dark half-moons beneath. Her lips turned down at the corners. 
He took a swig of coffee and wiped nonexistent crumbs from the corner of his mouth. 
The woman took a seat across from him. “I understand understand you have something you want to tell us?” 
“I haven't decided whether to tell you or not.” 
“Choose your game carefully, Captain. Personally, I don't believe for a second that you have anything useful to say. And I resent the acrobatics we went through to rendezvous with you. But some people think you know something. They think you might actually be able to prove we're making a mistake. And unlike the United Governments, U3 actually cares about the galaxy.” 
“Sure you do. You care just enough to put a black hole right in the solar system's neighborhood.” 
“The solar system is not the galaxy, Captain. Besides, the people of the solar system will have quite a bit of time to find someplace else to go.” 
“But what if they like where they live?” 
“Then they can stay until the end.” 
Torrance stared with disbelief at the woman. “Who are you?” 
“I am Katriana Martinez, first officer on Icarus. More relevant at this point, I am responsible for forming the black hole link.” 
“I see.” 
“And you are Torrance Black, captain in the United Governments Space Force and one of the chief engineers on the Newton project.” 
“Your data is good.” 
“You have two ex-wives and a pair of daughters: Mercedes, who is currently stationed in a cryo research lab on Europa, and Cassandra, who graduates this spring from Canal University with a degree in accelerated-growth bioprosthesis. Your first marriage failed at least in part due to certain-” She paused and raised her eyebrow. “-deficiencies. Due to these same deficiencies, both daughters from your second marriage are adopted. They both tell you they live alone. Cassie is actually holed up with another young woman who is studying multidimensional mathematics. Mercedes is preparing to get married, and has been living off and on with the man of her choice.” 
A chain reaction of images clouded Torrance's mind. Mercy was getting married, and Cassie-who had always had such a painful shyness about her-had someone special in her life. Why hadn't they told him? He never thought he was overbearing about such things. Maybe that was the problem. 
Martinez's stare was filled with accusatory sternness. She reached into a sweatshirt pocket and set a small vial on the table before her. It was the bottle Torrance had taken to Oscar Pentabill's room. Cold light from the ceiling reflected from its surface. Martinez put it on its side. It made a hollow sound as she rolled it from hand to hand. 
“Do you know what's in here?” 
Torrance shrugged, trying not to concentrate on the shiny bottle of microsized death. 
“Bionites, Captain Black.” 
“Really?” Torrance said with innocence. 
Martinez was having none of it. 
“Are you threatening me?” Torrance said. 
“I don't need to threaten you, Captain. You're already a dead man.” 
Torrance stared quizzically at her. 
“You've surmised that Icarus will be destroyed when the black hole is set.” 
“Yes.” 
“What you don't know is that Icarus has been given the honor of actually creating the link itself. We are nearing launch now.” 
“We're in the Centauri system?” 
“Yes.” “I thought you could set links remotely.” 
“We can.” 
“Then why send Icarus?" 
The first officer smiled. “I'm the one asking questions. You gave us a cryptic warning about blowing up half the galaxy. I want to know what you've got.” 
Torrance thought of Oscar Pentabill. He had said U3 could set links in any location they wanted to within a ring of probability. 
“You can't control the mechanism yet,” Torrance replied. “Your remote capability is fine when you have enough space to cast about. But now that you've got a black hole attached to one end, you can't afford to drop the other end willy-nilly, can you?” 
The intensity of Martinez's gaze let him know he was right. “Doesn't matter either way, does it?” 
“So you'll set a link like Everguard did.” 
“Almost.” 
“What do you mean, almost?” 
Martinez's entire face lit up in a maniacal smile. “Icarus herself will be part of the final mission.” 
“I'm not sure I...” 
Sudden understanding made his skin contract. He sat, staring dumbly at the ship's first officer. “You're going to set the pods by flying Icarus into the star.” 
“It fits our sense of poetry.” 
Torrance stared at the glass vial Martinez was still rolling on the table. Who was this woman? he thought. What had her life been that she was willing to give it away so freely? 
“Icarus is not designed to withstand the heat of a star's core like the pods are. We would burn up before reaching the proper trigger point. But the ship will get sucked into the wormhole as soon as the pods are activated anyway. So we'll get as close as we can before we launch.” 
“Launching from that close should reduce your probability of error,” Torrance said. 
Martinez grew smug. “This might be a good time to talk to me, you see, because if you are bluffing you will die with us, and disappear into so many particles blowing on Centauri's solar wind.” 
She held the vial still with the fingertips of one hand. 
“Besides that, U3 has operatives on every inhabited station around the galaxy-specifically including Europa and Mars. It would be a tragedy if a vial just like this dropped into a young woman's breakfast cereal.” She paused, rolling the vial once. “If you have something to tell us, now might be a good time.” 
He set his jaw. 
He had nothing to tell them that they hadn't heard at the conference, but this was no longer a simple game. He had to do something to stop this mission. There was no other answer. He had to disrupt the launch, and he had to destroy their communications system before Martinez could give any order in regard to his daughters. 
The first step, though, was to get out of here. 
He looked at the vial. It still had its injection cap. 
Torrance waited until the vial was in mid roll. 
He lunged. 
Martinez's fingers tightened, but the vial slipped away, wobbling and clattering across the white tabletop. Four hands scrabbled after it as it dropped over the edge. It hit the floor with a solid thunk. Torrance leapt from his chair and grabbed it. He followed his motion, standing and wrapping an arm around Martinez's waist. He turned the vial in his hand and put the injector to her neck. 
His elbows and hand ached with the pressure of his grip. The room seemed to suddenly contract. “I want out of here.” 
“This is a mistake, Captain.” 
“Let's go,” he said, prodding her with his hip. “Now!” 
“Where?” 
He thought. 
“Pod Engineering.” 
* * *
As they stepped toward the doorway, the enormity of what he was doing closed in on him with the crushing weight of the ocean. 
He had always heard that a man's life flashes before him when he is about to die. Torrance saw images of Cassie and Mercy. Fresh-faced, clear-skinned men and women marching into battle cruisers. A star exploding, burning tracers of plasma spiraling into vacuum like twisted arms of jellyfish under Europan seas. He saw Alexandir Romanov, his captain from Everguard. Admiral Hatch, the man in command who had never known the risk he had taken in ordering a wormhole set. 
And he saw Eden, a cloud-covered planet floating in this same churning sea like a long-lost island overgrown and ugly, unworthy of second thought. * * *
The door slid open. 
The guard glanced over her shoulder. 
Torrance pulled Martinez closer and pushed past, holding the vial to her neck. “One step and she's dead.” 
The woman raised her weapon. She was young, with dirty-blonde hair and round brown eyes. Red energy flared. The odor of fried brains and scorched hair was everywhere at once, and Martinez's body was dead weight in his arms. Torrance's gaze went to the metallic muzzle of the weapon that had just put a fist-sized hole in the first officer's forehead. 
The guard gave a gap-toothed grin. She was short, with smooth muscles that showed through her uniform. Her face was set and hard, his eyes showing humor at Torrance's confusion. 
“I told ‘em again and again there weren't no reason to play your game,” the guard said. 
Torrance dropped Martinez's body, tore the lid off the vial, and held it like a knife. “Do you know what this is?” 
“I don't care.” 
“You should. If these critters touch you, you'll die quicker than you can pull that trigger.” The guard shrugged, but her gaze locked on the vial. 
Seizing this advantage, Torrance threw the open container at the guard and bolted for the corner. She screamed and jumped back. Ten meters to another corridor. Footsteps came from behind. He ran, confused by the lack of foot traffic in the corridors-Orion's hallways had always been teeming. His joints ached and his muscles were putty. 
The girl was probably in shape. 
In a flash of insight, Torrance understood the empty corridors. This was a suicide mission. Icarus was being piloted by a skeleton crew-just enough to keep her flying. 
He came to a maintenance alcove and entered a standard service code. A control holo spun before him. He toggled the fire systems. Carbon dioxide foam hissed in the hallway. The guard's surprised yelp echoed from around the corner. 
Torrance did not look back. 
He raced to the lifts, each of his seventy-one years weighing in his lungs like lead. 
“Central Ops,” he said. 
And he waited. 
The lift's hydraulics creaked in the silence. The sound of the guard's footsteps drew closer. She coughed and said something that Torrance assumed was a call to whatever crew was aboard. 
The lift arrived. The door opened. 
Torrance stepped in. 
The guard rounded the corner, her hair soaked and dripping, her gray top matted to her body. She raised her weapon but the door closed before she could get off a shot. 
The lift dropped. 
His heart clattered in his chest. The system hummed around him. He looked at his empty hands. Never before had he felt such a terrible understanding of what it meant to be defenseless. The lift doors opened. Torrance ducked in anticipation of other guards, but there were none. 
Pod Engineering was around the corner. 
The deck's power system was to the left. 
He could do some serious damage by playing with the power grid-maybe create a diversion that would leave him free to work the pods. The system's security, however, was tricky. If he didn't get in, the advantage of his head start would be gone. To hell with it, he thought. No time to play games. A light flickered from atop the lift, indicating the platform was nearing its destination. His time was short. 
Torrance found a service bay near the lift. He pressed an entry code and accessed the lighting system. The hallway went dark. Luminescent rows of crimson emergency lights flickered on along the hallway. The controls on the maintenance panel glowed dimly. 
He looped around to take a path to Pod Engineering that wouldn't lead him past the lift. He heard the door open. Silence was palpable. He followed the crimson dots. The hallway was arched above him. The air was thick, and he found it difficult to breathe for fear of making so much as a wheeze. 
A crossing corridor loomed ahead. 
It should take him to Pod Engineering. 
Torrance glanced around the corner. Empty hallway. The double doors to Pod Engineering were dead ahead, on the opposite side of a corridor making another T with this one. The hallway behind him was empty, too. The guard was somewhere, though. The lift door had opened. She was on this floor, weapon at the ready. But which way would she come? He had to choose. Fifty-fifty. 
He took a breath, turned the corner, and strode with long, heronlike steps toward the double doors. By the time he neared the T, he was nearly running. He stepped like a shadow across the open expanse of the hallway, then knelt in the alcove outside Pod Engineering's door. 
Voices came from a distance. More crew. 
The hallway leading to the lift was empty. 
She had followed him around. 
He pushed an entry pad. Both doors rasped open. Light from inside extinguished the hallway darkness. Torrance stepped in and pressed the panel on the opposite wall. The door closed. 
He ducked down and sidled up against a barrel painted blue. The place felt huge and smelled of electricity. The barrel was cool against his fingers. He rested his forehead on the barrel's surface to catch his breath. He was sore and tired from running. His calf muscles felt flayed. 
Pod Engineering lay below him, the open “pit” and row upon row of drone pods several meters down. The second-floor control center looked out over the pit from its perch, its walls consisting of a belly-height wall and plastiglass extensions that rose to the girded ceiling. 
Three technicians worked on a pair of wormhole pods in the pit. Torrance counted eight tubes closed and locked. 
Staggered rows of olive-coated ion torpedoes lined a distant wall. A gritty calm spread over him. Every torpedo had a detonation sequence that could be programmed to provide a sequenced time-on-target capability. If he could detonate a few torpedoes, they would certainly destroy the pods. If he could get to the entire rack, it might well be enough to take out the entire ship. 
He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting sweat and grime. 
A pair of engineers hunched over a holographic display in the command center, probably loading navigation parameters into the pods. The weapons calibration station was in there. 
Destroying Icarus here would stop U3 from planting the black hole and keep them from radioing home. It was enough for him. 
It had to be... 
...or did it? The shuttle bay was a short jaunt from Pod Engineering. While a shuttle could never make it all the way home, it was certainly capable of sending messages back to the solar system. He would never live long enough for the message to arrive, but if he could launch himself before the blast, and if he was very lucky, a star drive spacecraft might happen upon his derelict shuttle in time to save him. 
At worst he could make sure someone knew what had really happened. 
It was as good a plan as he was going to get. 
He crept along the curved wall toward the command center, trying to stay out of sight of the workers below. A minute later he knelt against the wall below the field of view of the windows. 
The door was open. 
“Pod nine loaded.” The voice came from the communications system-a technician relaying status from below. 
“Thank you,” one of the engineers said. 
Nine pods loaded. The tenth would be complete soon. Eight was enough to set the link. He had to move. 
“How long until we go black?” the other engineer said. He was nervous. Not surprising. Torrance would be nervous in his shoes, too. 
“I don't know.” 
“Pretty close. One more.” 
“Maybe fifteen minutes.” 
It was quiet. 
“Probably less.” 
“Then there's flight time.” 
Torrance peeked through the plastiglass. Guidance and launch control lay directly ahead, maintenance to the left, inventory to the right. The weapons calibration station was just out of his field of view. 
If he could draw the engineers near, he could catch them off guard. He positioned himself at the edge of the door, then scratched quietly against the metallic edge of the frame. 
Neither engineer reacted. 
He scratched louder. 
“What is that?” the nervous one said. 
Torrance stopped. 
“What?” 
He scratched again. 
“That.” The floor was tile. Footsteps drew near on the other side. 
Torrance sprang forward and threw his shoulder against the closest engineer. The whumpfh of air leaving lungs accompanied them as Torrance fell tangled atop the engineer. He rolled forward, stood, and caught the second engineer with a right cross that sent shivers of pain up his wrist and forearm. The man fell like a sack of potatoes. 
The first engineer rose to one knee, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “What are you doing?” he said. 
Torrance took two steps and kicked. 
His foot struck the man's jaw and sent him spinning away. The back of the man's head hit the corner of a desk with an ugly thud, and he fell limply to the ground. Torrance stared at the man with a surrealistic sense of the absurd. Had he just done that? Was the man dead? 
The second engineer groaned but did not move. 
Torrance went to the weapons station. It was active. 
He paged through screens, his fingers shaking with adrenaline. Too long-it was taking him too long. He found the screen entry system, selected a torpedo, and set the detonation time for seven minutes. The next he set at seven, and the next, and the next. The work went smoothly once he had the rhythm. When he had keyed them all he reset the system, closed the screen, and opened a security layer that locked the display against manipulation. 
It would be almost impossible to find and fix them all now. 
He started the system counter. 
That was that. The code had been sent. The torpedoes armed. He had seven minutes to find the shuttle bay. 
A footstep sounded behind him. 
The area lit up in scarlet flame. The weapons station exploded. Torrance leapt away. The woman stood in the doorway, her gray uniform streaked and smeared with grime, her hair dangling in short ringlets. She trained her glowing weapon on Torrance. Her eyes, dark and cold, told him her first shot was no accident. She had taken out the station to keep him from completing whatever work he had been attempting. 
She was too late, of course. The code was in the torpedoes by now. 
But he was her next target. A ventilation grate was mounted on the near wall. The grills were plastic, about three meters long and one high, mounted a bit off the floor. 
Torrance half dived and half leapt at the duct, rolling to strike the grating with his shoulder. Plastic splintered around him. Laser ozone cut into his nose and throat. He crashed into the duct, slipping on the dirty floor. Pain lanced his ankle-was he hit? He crawled, scrambling on his hands and knees into the darkness like a psychotic crab. His leg throbbed but he kept moving. 
Clamoring echoed from behind. Metal reinforcements of the ductwork bent and popped. 
The woman was following. 
He was afraid then, afraid with a frozen fear-a sensation like falling. He wanted to live. Maybe it would be for only one additional breath, maybe for only a minute more-maybe for a mere week in a dingy shuttle floating out in space. But there in the darkness of Icarus's ductwork, Torrance knew that more than anything, he wanted to live. 
His fingers slipped in the grime. The place smelled like oily linen. He crashed painfully into a wall ahead. His ankle felt like a railroad stake had been driven through it. His ragged breathing echoed with reverberations that made the world small and claustrophobic. 
Raw fear pushed him onward. 
He took the left passage, thinking it the most likely to lead to the shuttle bay. A flash colored the duct crimson. The smell of hot metal brought a stifling pall to the chamber. 
Torrance crawled over a heavily buttressed segment of the flooring-vacuum containment element-that marked the perimeter of the bay area. 
A grating loomed. He threw himself into it. The ground knocked the wind out of him. The world swam. He thought he might pass out from the pain in his foot. Three shuttles sat in a line like massive green insects. Men raced in from the main bay entrance. Laser fire was suddenly everywhere. He crawled behind a landing strut to avoid being an open target. 
The closest shuttle's ramp was open, maybe two meters away. 
Gritting, Torrance launched himself. Something bit his thigh. 
The rubber pad lining the ramp burned with an oily reek. He dragged himself into the shuttle. 
His pants were charred and smoking. His leg burned with pain. The shuttle airlock was still open. Footsteps scrabbled below. He dragged himself to the cockpit, each move making him suck air against knife-sharp pain. He pulled himself to the captain's chair and keyed the hatch system closed. 
The craft shuddered. 
Holding a nervous breath, he commanded the bay doors. They irised into six elements, dilating away. 
He almost cried with relief. 
Rockets on. Firing. Docking release made. Yaw commands steady. Right attitude. Trimming thrusters active and warmed. He pointed the craft out the doorway and crammed the engines. 
The shuttle slid forward. 
Zero-g took over as he left the ship's autograv field. Torrance nearly choked on raw emotion. He was in the umbra of Icarus against Alpha Cen. The blackness of vacuum was an open horizon in every direction. The stars glittered like pinpoints of glorious, glorious freedom. 
Icarus fell away. 
The brightness of Alpha Centauri A burned through the windshield. Torrance deployed a protective screen and looked at Icarus. 
Would he be far enough out when the torps went? 
The briefest flame roared from a launch tube. 
At first Torrance thought this was the explosion of torpedoes. But instead, a black silhouette belched from the flame, a needle-shaped figure Torrance would know anywhere. 
A wormhole pod. 
Then another and another until there were ten pods flying, rocket engines engaging, turning, looping about, before taking a course toward the blazing star. 
A hole formed in Torrance's gut. 
Somehow, through the confusion and the turmoil, with two engineers knocked unconscious, somehow Icarus had launched the pods. 
He pounded his armrests, cursing aloud, feeling powerless and shrill. 
Then the torpedoes blew. 
The explosion started at Icarus's forefront, fragments peeling silently from the surface, debris racing haphazardly into blackness. Flames spouted and died. The ship buckled. Torrance watched with detachment. 
When it was over, Icarus looked like a trick cigar, one end charred and serrated, the other slim and perfect. This bird was dead, its guts ripped by pyrotechnics and vacuum. 
Torrance closed his eyes. Deep space was obliterated by proximity to Alpha Centauri's brilliance, but he knew it was out there. He thought about wormhole pods. He thought about black holes. He thought about Willim Pinot smiling. He thought about Icarus floating breached in space. 
And Torrance was struck by the thought that perhaps human beings really were alone-that perhaps there truly was no greater power left in this world than the men who had created the wormhole pods that were flying at this moment so very close to the sun. 
* * *
Now that he had time, Torrance stared at his leg. It was burnt and goopy. A small laser hole was burned through the fleshy place between his Achilles heel and the bone of his ankle. It felt like he had been skinned, then dipped in rubbing alcohol. He tried to prop it, but moving it brought tears to his eyes. He tried to pull the cloth of his pants away, but merely touching it was razor on bone. 
Finally he decided merely to rest. He gathered his senses. 
This was it. He was floating four light-years from home without an oar. The pods would make Centauri A in a few hours. He twisted to check the freeze-dry. Enough food for two weeks if he skimped-maybe. 
He knew what he had to do. 
He flipped on the radio. The message would take over four years to arrive at the solar system, but radioing home was all he had left, so he did it. 
“Icarus is dead,” he said. He explained U3's plans for a black hole. He warned of their threat to kill his daughters, and he asked for someone to look for them. He described the flight of wormhole pods and what that might mean. He gave them his coordinates, then finished by telling Mercy and Cassie he loved them. “And do the same for Oscar Pentabill,” he said, remembering the man's last wishes. “Tell his wife ... tell Glory ... that he loved her.” 
He clicked off the message and set it to replay every thirty minutes, casting each upon the turbulent waters of the vacuum to drift in its own invisible bottle of time. 
“Maybe,” he said aloud, “someone is close enough to-” He stopped. 
He remembered the icon flashing on his wrist. That moment seemed so long ago. So far away. He looked at his fuel monitor. There was enough. 
He flipped the radio back on. “Strike those coordinates,” he said, as he punched up his navigation screen. 
Inertia shifted as the shuttle came around. 
The planet came into view, a pinpoint of light against the black sky. The ship computer indicated something over twelve standard days to make it there. He hoped the atmosphere would support him. He hoped whatever life was there would help him. 
In the end, though, he was surprised to find it didn't matter. His chest welled with a new sensation. After all this time, at least he would know, and this knowledge alone was enough to bring him a sense of peace he had never before felt. This was it. This was what his life was about, perhaps what God had made him specifically to do. 
He commanded the engines on full. 
“I'm going to Eden,” he finally said. “If it's still possible, come and get me.” 
And he flew toward the planet, a man encased in the cocoon of his spacecraft like parchment in glass, preparing to wash up on a distant shoreline-a message unto himself. 
Or, perhaps, an answer. 

Copyright © 2002 by Ron Collins. 
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is a sequel to “Stealing the Sun” [Analog - October 1999] and “The Taranth Stone” [Analog - 
October 2000].)