Valya had Bill rerun the event from the beginning. A star appeared where none had been before, and within moments it became the brightest object in the sky.
“It’s a rare sight,” said Valya. “Whole generations live and die without seeing one of those.”
He went up front and took his turn at the viewport. It chilled him to realize how far from Baltimore he was at that moment. “It was like that for three nights,” he said.
She nodded. “Seventy-nine hours before it began to fade.”
“I seem to recall they sent a mission.”
“The Perth. That was the Long Mission.”
Eric nodded. “At that time, it was the farthest we’d been from home. And the record stood a lot of years.”
“Wasn’t there something about aliens?” asked MacAllister.
“There was a theory,” said Eric, “that the supernova would attract anyone who could see it and who had an FTL capability. Just as it had drawn the Perth. So when they got to the system, they watched for a few weeks. Before they started back, they inserted a couple of monitors to say hello in case anyone showed up.”
“But nobody ever did,” said MacAllister.
Valya grinned. “Give it time. It’s early yet.”
“It’s been thirteen hundred years since the event. I suspect if anybody intended to go, they’d have been there by now.”
“But it’s only nineteen years since we left the satellites. There might have been visitors long before we got there. And most of the galaxy hasn’t seen the light yet. Doesn’t even know about the event.”
AMY HAD HEARD her father describe the night it had happened, how he and her mother had been on a flight somewhere, and they’d thought a meteor had exploded overhead. He’d told her how the sky had filled with light, and they’d all held their breath until the pilot got on the comm system and told them there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, that they were looking at some sort of astronomical phenomenon. “He didn’t have a clue what it was, any more than we did,” her father had explained. She’d heard him tell the story a hundred times. But until tonight she hadn’t really understood.
Her father still believed that she was destined for a life like his. Maybe put in some years as a prosecutor somewhere. Eventually go into politics. Her fascination with the cosmos was a phase, a childish inclination that would go away with the onset of adulthood, of maturity. She loved him, and she wished he could see the world as she did. But she’d make him proud, in time.
She thought how, one day, ten light-years closer to the galactic center, she’d park another ship in front of the wave and show her passengers this same supernova. In a way, it suggested that the future Amy Taylor already existed.
Bill broke into her thoughts: “On average, the Milky Way experiences two supernovas per century.”
“Were there any living worlds out there?” she asked. “Where the star exploded?”
“We don’t know,” said Bill. “The system was so thoroughly wrecked it was impossible to be sure.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like,” she said, “to be in a place like that.”
“Where the sun was going to explode?” MacAllister shook his head. “It would raise hell with real estate values.”
Eric had seen so many reports of sterile systems that it had never really occurred to him there might have been anyone out there.
“What about our sun?” MacAllister asked. “It’s stable, right?”
Valya smiled at him. Amy thought the pilot liked him, although she never said anything. It was obvious that Valentina wanted to tell him no, the sun could blow up at any time, and you want to sink the space program. She could never bring herself to forget MacAllister’s opposition to the Academy. You could see it in the attitude of the two toward each other. It was a pity. They’d have made an interesting couple, though they were both kind of old. “It’s fine,” Valya said. “Good for a few billion years yet.”
“How many?” asked Amy, trying to sound worried.
“A few billion.”
“That’s a relief,” she said, wondering if anyone there had heard the old joke. “For a minute I thought you said million.”
MacAllister laughed and went on: “Just for argument, if the sun were going to go supernova, we’d know about it, right? Well in advance?”
Valya passed the question to Bill. “As I understand it,” he said, “the sun’s not sufficiently massive to go supernova. And I don’t think it can go nova either. But I’m not sure.”
“In either case, it blows up?” said MacAllister.
“Yes. But the explosion is much less violent.”
“I can see,” said Amy, “where that would make a difference.”
“Have no fear,” Eric said. “The sun’s in good shape.”
I don’t know how to record this. I watched that star erupt, watched it become the brightest thing in the sky. And all I could think of was the first time I saw it, nineteen years ago, with Jenny. And I would have liked to have been able to see the Earth again, to see Baltimore on that night, just off Eastern Avenue. To see Jenny again. Alive and well.
— Sunday, April 5
chapter 20
36 Ophiuchi is a multiple star system. It’s located slightly less than twenty light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Tamer. The system is composed of three stars, all orange-red dwarfs. Ophiuchi A and B orbit each other in a highly irregular pattern, approaching within a range of 7 AUs, retreating to 170 AUs. A complete orbit requires 574 years. Ophiuchi C orbits the inner pair at an average range of about 5000 AUs. It is a variable star.
— The Star Register
“This is what everybody comes to see,” said Valya, as they approached a blue-green world. It was orbiting Ophiuchi A at a distance of seventy-five million kilometers, placing it squarely in the biozone.
“Terranova,” said Amy. The new Earth.
It was the second world on which life had been found, the first whose living creatures had been visible to the naked eye. That was eighty-five years ago. It was an unlikely system in which to find a planet with a stable orbit, let alone a living world. But there it was.
In an odd bit of serendipity, Terranova numbered among its occupants the largest known land animal. That was the unhappily named groper, which maybe should not qualify because there was still an ongoing argument whether it was animal or plant or a hybrid. It spent most of its life squatting over nutrient sources. It fed on a variety of slugs, bugs, and grasses. And periodically, when it had exhausted the output in one location, it climbed onto about two hundred legs and rumbled elsewhere. It used photosynthesis as a secondary energy source. Seen in motion, the creature resembled nothing so much as a giant green slug.
Also growing on Terranova were the largest known trees, the titans.
“Can we go down and take a look?” asked Amy.
“If you want.” Valya glanced toward MacAllister and Eric to see if anyone wanted to join them. “It wouldn’t take long.”
“Be careful,” said MacAllister, who remembered his flight on the lander at Maleiva III.
“You don’t want to come, Mac?”
“Thanks. I’ll guard the fort.”
“How about you, Eric?”
Eric looked uncertain. “Okay,” he said, finally. “Yes. Sure. Why not?”
“Good.” Valya looked back at Amy. “You understand nobody leaves the lander.”
“No, no, that’s fine,” said Amy. There was, of course, no danger that Eric would want to get out and go for a stroll.
“Just as a precaution,” said MacAllister, “what do I do if something goes wrong?”