Prologue
“It is day 400 of our journey aboard the Silent Horizon. I’ll bet our compatriots back on Earth reckon we’ve gone crazy by now. Up here where nothing ever changes, a year feels like a decade. I guess that makes my upcoming anniversary with Lacy feel that much more meaningful. It’s almost like we’ve spent a lifetime together already.” Dex turned to look at his wife asleep in the bunk against the port-side wall. The starboard-side bed hadn’t been touched since their “unofficial” wedding night, and had accumulated a fair amount of dust.
“Yes sir…who would have thought it would only take us seven weeks to give in to each other like that. To be fair, after that one date before launch, we agreed to wait until our return to Earth to carry on our romance. I bet the boys back on the ground had money on us succumbing to passion like that sooner. That’s why we were picked for the mission right? If anything is to happen, worst case is we restart the human race on a new planet. Well congrats boys, hope you’re sending another ship out with our anniversary gifts. Never got the Christmas one, must have been lost in transit.” He paused the recorder and laughed to himself. Would he ever celebrate Christmas again back on Earth? Would there ever be a Christmas gift again for that matter? He resumed the recorder. “I’m hoping that by day 500 we’ll have at least some sign of another planet. We’ve passed beyond the scope of what our friends on Earth can see, and thankfully, the terror of flying blind like this hasn’t quite set in yet. I’m not the only one getting antsy either. Lacy’s spending half her time at the computer watching the radar rather than piloting this craft. I’m beginning to think she’s had enough of me-”
Dex was cut off by a hand touching his shoulder. He looked back and saw Lacy’s blue eyes looking down lovingly into his. She then leaned into the microphone, and said with a smile, “Lacy has not had enough of you quite yet.” She paused the recorder then said to Dex, “If I want to find a planet now, it’s just so we can build ourselves a bigger home than this ship.”
With his eyes still on her, Dex resumed the recorder one more time. “It seems as though this is my signal to close out today’s log. Captain Dex…”
“And Lieutenant Lacy Prullen, signing off.”
Lacy sat on the edge of the console, arms crossed and chin raised just a bit. Her smile was now a smirk.
Dex rotated his chair in her direction. “Something on your mind L.T.?” As a tease, he added, “These logs aren’t important to you anymore?”
“These logs are between you and everyone back on Earth. And with so little to report, I think you can ease up with the daily ritual.”
“Have something else in mind we can be doing?”
Her smile turned coy, and she arced her eyes across the ceiling as if to say, I had a few ideas. Dex took the bait.
He gave a small chuckle, and he asked, “What is it this time?”
She looked back down at him, then took a seat on his lap and placed her arm around him. “I’ve been thinking. By the time we get back to Earth, how much time will have passed?”
Dex thought for a moment, exhaled deeply then answered, “I don’t know. Orders say we’re allowed to turn around if nothin’s found in five years. But say we’re back on Earth ten years after we left. Given the fact that time works different in space, who knows how much time has passed for them? We could have missed the whole rest of the century and land in…I don’t know, 2021!”
Even with the miracles of science they left behind in 1958, even thinking of the possibilities of what 1980 would bring boggled their minds.
“Can you imagine?” She asked. “2021. By then maybe the colonies will be extending far past our solar system. Travel might be 100 times faster than this beautiful ship.”
“And robots enslaving all mankind, or evil aliens assimilating us! Yeah, that’ll be the day.” They laughed together.
Lacy got off Dex’s lap and took the other seat at the console.
“More than likely there won’t be an earth to go back to,” Dex continued. “Either another race will overpower us, or we’ll destroy ourselves.”
“Very optimistic.” The smile began to fade from Lacy’s face.
Dex wasn’t deterred. “The world we left behind was great, but even this mission just goes to show the end is near. We’re racing to get off the earth. This craft is beautiful, yes, but the energy we harnessed to make this? It could wipe out half the U.S.S.R in an instant.” He looked out into the void. In the distance on the port side was a nebula swirling green and purple stardust, as if he were looking from the sky down into a whirlpool. “Yeah, I’m glad I made it out when I did. And more than that…” he reached out to hold her hand. “I’m glad you made it out with me.”
When the smile returned to her face, Lacy’s blue eyes gleamed more beautiful than all the nebulas and all the mystical colors of the galaxies in the universe could ever dream to be.
“Call me a pessimist about the fate of Earth, but looking towards the future of this mission, and the infinity of what’s out there waiting for us…all I see are infinite ways to make happy the woman I love.”
“Well with all that pessimism, what if we don’t go back to Earth?”
“What?” Dex was taken aback by the idea, but not completely against it.
“Just thinking. As you said, there might not be an Earth to go back to. How bad would it be if we just found a new home out here?”
“You and me?” Dex laughed.
“You and me. Just a thought.” Lacy smiled and leaned in to kiss him.
Their future together truly would be far beyond what anybody they left behind on earth could possibly imagine.
-- FULL NOVEL AVAILABLE ON AMAZON/BARNES&NOBLE--
