Saturn Run

EPILOGUE

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^{DEEP SPACE}

The sun was the most brilliant star in the sky, but that was all that distinguished it from other stars. The white-hot pinprick shed barely as much light as the quarter moon did on Earth, three thousand AU away. It did little to illuminate the ship gliding through the inner Oort cloud.

Earth’s first truly deep space mission had already satisfied two of its three mission objectives. The run out to the Oort cloud was the final field test of the technology critical to the interstellar vessel currently under construction in high Earth orbit. Long-duration antimatter containment and propulsion was a proven reality, and deep-space, self-contained life support a proven technology.

The ship’s second objective had been to sample several primordial Oort cloud objects, comets yet to be born. It was science’s first chance to study truly pristine material from the formation of the solar system and an excellent trial run for the remote-sensing and physical investigation procedures that would be integral to the interstellar ship’s research.

The ship closed on its final objective.

Two service modules jetted out from the ship’s air lock. Ever so carefully, mindful of four billion pairs of watching eyes back on Earth, they matched velocities with a vaguely egg-shaped module of antique design, human sized, encrusted with insectile appendages, ports, windows, and cameras. The main port was cracked. Crushed storage lockers and canisters surrounded the base of the egg.

There was a small hole in the egg’s shell.

The two modern modules linked to the antique’s grappling rings. Ever so gently, they shepherded it into the ship’s air lock.

The lock closed.

The ship rotated until its nose pointed toward the sun.

Antimatter engines flared, immeasurably brighter than the distant pinpoint sun. In two years, the crew would be back on Earth, accompanied by Dr. Rebecca Johansson, the first voyager and the first casualty of the interstellar age, who was finally returning home.