SUNLIGHT SHONE OVER the Valley of Grains, which glowed in waves of green and gold beneath Dakota Bandicut’s gaze. She leaned over the North cap balcony rail, surveying the curved interior of the Earth 3 habitat. It had always reminded her a little of the inside of an eggshell—or maybe a geode, especially where the rocky highlands met the edges of the fields. The highlands were actually enormous structural rings on the inside of the air hull, but they protruded inward toward the central axis of the great, hollow cylinder. To one standing on the ground—really, the inner surface of the cylinder wall—the rings looked like hills jutting into the sky. The sky, of course, was just the open space of the central axis. If you looked beyond that, you’d see the ground on the other side of the cylinder looking right back at you.
Sunlight poured in through great lensed windows at the end caps of the pressurized cylinder, and with the aid of clever mirrors was focused down the spin axis of the station and redirected in such a way that from the ground it looked almost like a natural ball of light in the sky. The resulting effect wasn’t really the same as an open blue sky, but it came close enough to give a little reminder of life on the home planet, at least when precipitation wasn’t scheduled. Today the weather was clear and beautiful, making Dakota wonder if she wasn’t crazy to be leaving it all behind. She pushed that thought firmly down and out of her mind.
A few flyers were visible from where she stood, folks in their sheer nanoflex wings gliding over the land from a height high enough to be both exhilarating and a bit dangerous. Dakota shaded her eyes, watching them soar like gulls. She wished she were out there with them. Piloting maintenance drones just didn’t compare to the breezy pleasure of soaring free in the air.
Her thoughts soared on their own. They had been doing that a lot lately. So much on her mind; so much to remember. She almost felt that she needed to replay her memories, if she wasn’t to lose them and leave them behind when she left Sol behind. The endless wondering thoughts of what her Uncle John had done, and after him Julie Stone, whom she never got to meet. That was years ago, but it still felt like last week. Was that, deep down, the reason she had ended up flying remote probes in the atmosphere of Neptune? Was she still trying to follow her uncle and his . . . girlfriend didn’t seem like quite the right word, but she supposed it would have to do.
She’d followed them in acquiring translator-stones, though not by deliberate choice. Just what that was supposed to mean, she still wasn’t sure. More than a year had passed since the stones had sprung into her wrists on that fateful visit to the “Cavern of the Translator” out on Triton. They only spoke to her when it suited them, and for weeks at a time she almost forgot they were there. But there was no doubt they wanted her to take this next step.
Which was probably certifiably crazy, and she shouldn’t even be thinking—
*You gain nothing from recycling your doubts,* the stones whispered, speaking for the first time in days.
Nope. They’re right. Not going to go down that road, she told herself firmly, and raised her gaze to peer across the open center of the habitat cylinder, trying to see what she could pick out. There was the science center, and there the agricultural station, and over there the buildings that were the inner side of the factory section that bulged on the outer hull—and that zigzag pattern in the green up there was the Kancamagus hiking trail. She had never made it to the top—and now it was too late.
She shook her head. Not climbing the trail was trivial; what was too late was when she had gotten back home to her grandparents’ house—returning from Neptune, too late for her grandfather’s funeral, and much too late to spend time with him to say good-bye at the end. There was no way she could have—she was out at the edge of the solar system, for God’s sake! But that didn’t hold much water with Grandmother Edith, who regarded it as one more self-centered excuse from a granddaughter who had already shown her disdain by flying off to space. Instead of, what—staying to help with the family business? She physically ached when she thought of her last visit with her grandmother. If her grandmother thought she had walked out on her only remaining family to move away—first to space school, then to Neptune, then to Earth 3—how must it feel to her for Dakota to be leaving the solar system?
This wasn’t like doing a tour in one of the habitats, or even heading off into interplanetary space. This was going into slowsleep, and waking up with light-years between you and the place you used to call home. It was saying good-bye forever.
***
There was a movement to her left, and she turned to see a flyer flare to a landing on the broader ledge adjoining the lookout balcony. The young woman, dressed in an electric-green skintight suit, folded her mylar wings against her back, and straightened and raised her goggles so that Dakota could see her face. Oh hell.
It was Jenny Ferguson. Two years younger than Dakota, slender and athletic, red hair clipped back against her head, a vaguely smug expression on her face. Dakota tried to conceal the little wince that shivered out of her. Smile, now. She tried, and probably failed. “Hi there,” she said, struggling to keep her voice neutral.
“Ah,” Jenny said, leaning against the railing with an exaggerated sigh. “I needed a rest. Those air currents are gusting in the practice area. So—taking one last look over the homestead?” She grinned, and there was a hint of competitiveness, or maybe victory, in the expression.
“I guess so,” Dakota said, turning back to gaze out over the curving inner world of Earth 3. She glanced back at Jenny. “You don’t have to act so eager to see me go, you know. You’ll still get my job, either way.”
Jenny laughed, but with little warmth.
“I understand,” said Dakota. “Someone has to get my job.” And it was true, there were qualified people waiting for all the good jobs here. But who would have thought maintenance and security drone pilot would be considered such a hot job? “But,” she said, “you know, some people might hold off until I’m gone instead of hovering around me like a vulture. Couldn’t you wait until I was safely in slowsleep?”
Jenny laughed again, a bit nervously. “To the vultures go the spoils. Someone said that, I think.”
“Are you sure that someone wasn’t you?”
Jenny shrugged. “Anyway, what do you care? You’re going to Alpha Centauri.”
Dakota nodded. Yes, I am, thank God. She felt her face clouding with her thoughts. Maybe she should be grateful for someone—and it might as well be Jenny Ferguson—making her existence here just unpleasant enough to help her let go.
As Dakota was getting lost in her thoughts, Jenny straightened up from the railing and positioned her goggles over her eyes. She wiggled her arms and shook them out a little, to make sure the wings were loose. “Look—Bandicut,” she said. “I’m just jealous. You know that, right? That’s why I’m giving you a hard time. You get to go, and I don’t.” Jenny stretched her wings.
Dakota stared at her, open mouthed. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
“So long, then,” Jenny said. She lifted her wings and took two quick steps forward on the ledge before throwing herself into the air and gliding away. “Have a good life!” she shouted as she swooped away.
Unable to answer, Dakota watched her dwindle into the sky. “Have a good life yourself,” she finally muttered to herself, turning her back on the lush view. She pushed through the door to the ramp well and headed back to finish packing.
***
As the great cylindrical hull of Earth 3 rotated, the sun glinted off its bulges and protrusions in a dance of flashing light. Around it, drones and crewed vehicles moved like bees around a hive, in slow motion. Ten kilometers away from its southern end, another gleaming structure floated against the dark of near-Earth space: the space-dock hangar within which floated the starship Endeavor. The hangar was a much more open structure now that the construction and servicing of the ship was completed, and many of the construction modules had been removed.
Soon now, soon, the starship—humanity’s first—would emerge from that chrysalis and begin its climb out of Earth orbit. And in due course, out of solar orbit, as well. Its destination, the Alpha Centauri system, was all but invisible to the naked eye here in high Earth orbit.
Where an endless line of supply tugs had once streamed between the station and the ship, now a series of personnel carriers floated, bringing the last of the passengers and colonists to their new flying home.
***
The woman in a tight-fitting charcoal-and-maroon medic uniform leaned over her, checking the monitors above her head. “Are you ready, Miss? Can you tell me your name and date of birth, please?”
“Bandicut. Dakota Bandicut.” She gave her date of birth and thought, I’m twenty-six now. How old will I be when I wake up? She rolled her head, hoping to get all the kinks out of her neck. She wasn’t going to be moving much for the next few years.
“Good.” The medic made a notation on the screen at the foot of the pad and lowered a clear breathing hood over Dakota’s head. It arched a comfortable distance from her face, drawing a slow current of air inward over her chest. Two small vents on either side would add the sleeping gas to the air mix. If she wanted to squirm out from under it, she could. Last chance, kid. “Time to lie still now, Miss Bandicut, and get comfortable. Once we adjust the breathing gas, you’ll be asleep in a minute.”
No, she had wrestled with her final doubts already. She would always have regrets, but wasn’t that the way of life? She hoped her grandmother would forgive her, and perhaps even bless her in the end. But if she didn’t do this, she would most certainly regret that for the rest of her life.
Dakota sighed and closed her eyes. They wouldn’t close the full slowsleep enclosure until she was completely under and checked by the medics. Physically, she wasn’t worried. The undetected translator-stones in her wrists had promised to act as backup to the slowsleep systems, so even in the event of a malfunction, she should be okay.
*We will maintain watch throughout the rest phase. If necessary, we will wake you. Sleep well.*
/My own personal guardian angels. If the others knew, they’d want stones, too./
*Perhaps. One more reason that it was necessary to disguise our presence during your medical scans.*
/No doubt./ She had long since made her peace with the stones’ insistence on secrecy about their presence in her body. /You know what bothers me, though?/
*We’ll help if we can.*
/I don’t think you can. I’m going to miss seeing the planets on our way out of the solar system./ Come to that, she was going to miss most of the spaceflight experience altogether. It seemed as though that was something she ought to experience, if she was going to the stars. Of course, it would be months before they even reached the Kuiper Belt, at the edge of the solar system. The early stages of the flight would be all slow acceleration, starting from the modest starting speed they had by virtue of being in Earth’s orbit around the sun.
*You’re not really missing anything. We’re not flying past most of the planets, anyway.*
/Except for the slingshot around Jupiter, you mean. But still . . . /
“Adjusting the gas on D. Bandicut,” said a voice somewhere far away.
Uncle John? she thought. Julie? Are you out there somewhere?
And with that, a cottony cloud of sleep swept over her.
Perhaps somewhere deep in her subconscious she was aware of the full enclosure swinging down to seal her into the sleep unit, and the movement of similar enclosures up and down the row on either side of her. Perhaps she dimly registered the attendants finishing the final flight prep on the sleepers, and then going away.
She dreamed, from time to time. She dreamed of dandelion flowers blowing on the wind . . . .