I offer heartfelt thanks to Nick Harrison, without whom the stories of Packer and Panna would still be known only within a very tight circle centered on a dusty space on a study shelf. His innate understanding of, and respect for, the various people of Nearing Vast has helped to guide their paths and shape their destinies such that, if they could know, they would be forever grateful.
Lifelong thanks to Jim and Nancy Polivka, out of whose nurture and from whose nature grew worlds of possibilities, the joy in the fight, glory in victory, perseverance in defeat, and solace in the rich mercies of hearth and home, regardless.
And eternal thanks to Jeri, my life’s partner, my great, true love, my earnest and best critic, who has seen the worst and believed the best, soldiered on when obstacles eclipsed consolation, trimmed the wick when enthusiasms overflamed judgment…and whose heart has always, always sailed with true devotion, destined for faraway shores where good remains untarnished, where the spirit rejoices only in the truth, and where love and peace reign on as natural as sunrise—those shores that some bright morning we will raise at last, visible over a familiar, scarred, and sea-worn bowsprit ever pointed true by the firm and loving hand of our immortal Captain.