I've seen sentient whale-like creatures floating through the hydrogen and helium of Jupiter's skies, beings without technology whose immense intellects may have turned inward to philosophical discussions that would shame Aristotle or John Locke. I've visited an alien world called the Earth. I've known moments of supreme ecstasy when I felt the universe and I were one, and wept uncontrollably when the universe has shown its true nature and killed without thought, without awareness.
I don't believe I was ever as astonished, though, as when my ex-lover Laney Shackleton tapped me on the shoulder on a beach in the Bahamas.
As I turned and saw those familiar chocolate features, that short-cropped hair above active brown eyes, so many emotions began to churn within me that I couldn't form a sensible thought. Sheer surprise was dominant; she was the last person I expected to see here. For one thing, she was supposed to be half a world away. Laney was head researcher on a stardrive project at the Tokyo Space Institute. I'd heard things hadn't been going well for that project. More pain for Laney, to add to what I'd given her two years before when I broke off with her. More guilt for me.
That was the other reason I wouldn't have expected to see her. I couldn't imagine she'd ever want to see me again. Things were pretty bitter between us there at the end.
Here she was, though, which meant she had gone to a lot of trouble to find me. I was taking my first real vacation in many years, and I wanted to be alone, without the press or politicians or hangers-on or curiosity seekers bothering me.
And without thinking about the Arololularians.
That meant Laney had called in a lot of favors just to find me--then gone to the trouble of hopping on the Miami Clipper for the two-hour trip from Tokyo to catch the local shuttle to get to me. Why was she here? Reconciliation? Revenge?
All those thoughts went through my brain in about three-quarters of a second, during which I was standing there in the surf, mouth agape, not looking at all like anyone's image of Alexander Barron, brave planetary explorer and media darling--first man to fly solo through the rings of Saturn, and all that.
Laney didn't speak, either. Instead, she grabbed the back of my neck, drew me down (she's rather short), and planted a long and passionate kiss on me.
"I know," she said. "What the hell am I doing here?"
"My question exactly," I sputtered.
"I take it you've been watching the news. The Arololularians."
I'd watched nothing else for days, and had come out to the beach to get away from the barrage of cube images for awhile. Leathery-skinned aliens with a name like a bad tongue twister had landed on Earth, and they'd gotten here using a stardrive! It was a technology that had remained out of reach by human scientists, and Laney and others were close to turning their attention to cold sleep as the only option to achieve starflight. Now maybe I had a chance to reach the stars, but my attempts to contact old cronies at NASA and the U.N. had brought no response.
My obsession with the stars had been the whole problem between me and Laney. The physicists had seemed about to break the light barrier for the past two decades, but every new bit of knowledge gained had brought new problems, new technical challenges that were beyond current technology. The more we learned, the less likely a stardrive seemed.
But I wanted the stars. I needed a loophole. I was willing to sacrifice everything. Even Laney. That's how much of a fool I am. She was dedicated to her own work, but she had a more balanced attitude about life.
"Oh, damn," she said, "I'm screwing this up. Yes, they have a stardrive. But nothing that will help you."
"Why not?"
"The team's been picked to make the first trip. Your name came up, but the U.N. council didn't pick you. In fact, they couldn't."
"Come back to my cabin," I said. "You have to tell me all about this."
Soon we sat beneath azure skies on the patio of my rental cabin, with glasses of cold tea before us. I pressed Laney for more information.
Laney told me, "The Arols--That's a lot easier to say, isn't it? Anyway, they're willing to let us learn about stardrive, but they're uncertain of its effects on our physiology until they actually take a few of us. Transitioning into it can have severe physical effects on living tissue. For now, any human who undergoes the stardrive transition on an Arol ship needs to be very young. Preferably under thirty-five, maybe forty tops."
I understood then. "I'm forty-eight."
Laney came to me and embraced me. "And I'm forty-five," she said. "I thought you should hear it from me, Alex. The stars will never be ours. It could take decades for the Arols to figure out how to take any Human, of any age. That dream is dead, at least for us. If you can only let it go, we can at least have each other again. Forever this time."
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