The Long Sunset

by Jack McDevitt

  When the lights came on—Wally did everything to present them with the sense of being in a theater—they picked themselves up and headed for the galley. “Time for a snack,” Hutch said.

  Wally grabbed a couple of cinnamon buns and sat down. The others were still trying to decide what they wanted. He tasted his coffee and looked directly at her. “Well,” he said, “what did you think?”

  “It’s a pretty strong show.”

  “I thought so too.” His eyes had locked with hers. She knew what was coming. “When we get home, I’d love to take you to dinner or breakfast or whatever’s happening on the station. Any chance you’d be open to that?”

  “Not much point, Wally. I’m committed.”

  He smiled. “Well, I guess I had nothing to lose.”

  Her reaction had been reflexive, and his disappointment was clear. A sense of guilt began to rise in her. They sat and talked for a short while, not about anything she would remember ten minutes later. But Wally was a decent enough guy. He could carry a conversation, he was reasonable, and his enthusiasm frequently shone in his brown eyes. He wasn’t movie-star handsome, but he looked okay, about average height, probably an inch taller than she was. The problem was that they just didn’t share any interests other than star flight. And of course, they’d both been around long enough to know the dangers of setting up a relationship on a long-term mission. She was impressed that he’d tried his luck anyhow.

  • • •

  During the following days, something changed. They cut back on the entertainment. They didn’t spend most of their time anymore caught up in movies and shows. Beth sensed it too. She said she wasn’t sure what had happened. When Wally commented that it was Farewell to London, Hutch shook her head. “It’s more than that.”

  “What is it then?” asked Derek. “Are we all just getting bored?”

  It wasn’t boredom. And it wasn’t the show. “I think,” said Ken, “just sitting on the porch looking out at Wally’s stars has set us up somehow. We hang around here and watch the tide come in, and I think it reminds us of where we are, and what’s gone missing.”

  Beth agreed. “When we get home,” she said, “we’re going to discover an appreciation for the things we’ve been taking for granted over a lifetime. Instead of VR, we’ll start paying attention to real sunrises and squirrels and oak trees. And the other people in our lives.”

  “And beautiful women,” said Wally. “Oh, I forgot. I guess we already do that.” He glanced sidewise at Hutch. The offer was still open.

  “You know,” Ken said, “the last few mornings we mostly watched a couple of quiz shows and dance contests. Nobody’s asking to put them back on today. Do we want to do that?”

  They looked at one another. “Not really,” said Beth.

  “The real value of communications technology,” he continued, “is that it keeps us in contact with the rest of the world. We can fake it, but we’re seriously cut off in here.”

  “Anybody want to play some pinochle?” asked Wally.

  Over the next few nights they tried gaming, VR challenges that sent them on rescue missions for people trapped in barbarian lands, or in starships caught in declining orbits that were about to suck them into gas giants. They were okay, but ultimately, they found it more rewarding to spend their time on the front porch, talking about where they were and how they were reacting to it. And pointing out that they were only five days out from their target, and then four days, and how it was almost over. And how much, when they got back to Earth, they’d enjoy wandering into a bar in Alexandria or wherever. “I have a feeling,” Ken said, “that what we are really going to learn from this mission is how much we care about home. And how much we take for granted.”

  • • •

  Somewhere, Hutch heard a voice. She opened her eyes and looked up at the dark overhead. Then the bed shook.

  “Captain Hutchins. Please wake.”

  It was Barry. The mattress was still again. “What happened?” she asked.

  “The drive unit is not performing properly.”

  She got up and pulled on her robe. The deck trembled as she started for the door. It wasn’t a jolt but more like a blip. But there shouldn’t be any palpitations or shudders of any kind. “What’s the problem, Barry? Can you tell?”

  “I do not know.”

  She opened the door and made for the bridge. Behind her, someone else was coming. Wally.

  “You have any idea what this might be?” she asked him.

  “No,” he said. “Let’s shut the drive down so I can take a look.”

  “If we shut it down, are you certain we’ll be able to restart it?”

  “Depends on what the problem is.”

  She slipped into her seat. Wally sat down beside her. He was in his pajamas. “If we get stuck here,” she said, “we’re all dead. Let’s get back out into normal space. If things don’t go well, at least we’ll be able to send a hypercomm and get a rescue mission moving.”

  “You think they’d go to that much trouble after we just walked out on them?”

  “Let’s just do it the sane way, Wally.” She activated the allcomm as another shiver ran through the ship. “Everybody wake up, please. Out of bed and belt down. We’re having a minor issue. We’re going to return to normal space in a couple of minutes. Let me know when you’re secure.”

  Wally didn’t look especially worried. Hopefully, that was an accurate view of his thinking and not a professional stance he’d taken to avoid alarming anyone.

  Eiferman Log

  0316 hours: Everybody has checked in, and we’ve just shut down the Locarno. Fortunately, whatever the problem is, it did not prevent our surfacing.

  —Thursday, March 20, 2256

  11.

  Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity.

  —Oscar Wilde, “The English Renaissance of Art, 1882,” New York lecture, January 9

  This is my fault,” Derek said after Wally had disappeared belowdecks to work on the drive.

  Hutch couldn’t take her eyes off the cloud of stars on their port side. “What do you mean?”

  “Howard told me something like this might happen.”

  “Who’s Howard?”

  “The maintenance chief at the station.”

  “Because they didn’t have time to finish.”

  “Yes. Damn it, we didn’t have time. They were asking for another two days. He said we’d probably be all right but he couldn’t guarantee anything.”

  “All right. Let’s not get excited. Wally will probably be able to fix the problem.”

  “Let’s hope.” He was keeping his voice low.

  Hutch pointed at the cloud. “You have any idea what that is?”

  “I think it’s the Wasserman. A globular cluster.”

  “How many stars are in there?”

  “About thirty thousand.”

  “They look jammed together.”

  “It’s approximately forty-six light-years across. They’re old stars, most of them almost as old as the universe. A lot are Class G dwarfs, like the sun. That’s because whatever other types of stars were in there weren’t as stable and they’re all pretty much gone by now.”

  “Pity we’re not going there. That looks as if it would be a spectacular view if we got inside it. Would it ever get dark in there?”

  “I doubt it. Maybe when we get past all this stay-at-home nonsense, we could come back and visit the place.”

  “Why are you so interested?” asked Ken.

  It wasn’t clear to whom the question was directed. But Derek responded: “They’ve been around so long. The suns are ancient and stable. That raises the possibility of advanced life. There’ll be planetary systems so close to one another that it’s hard to believe they haven’t been in touch. There’s no place anywhere more likely to have a
high level of development than a cluster. They could even manage without a star drive.”

  Hutch had never thought about that kind of possibility. “How close would they be to each other?” she asked.

  “If they were evenly distributed, they’d only be about a light-year apart.”

  “But they aren’t?”

  “No. Toward the center, they’re thickly grouped.”

  “I wonder,” Ken said, “what kind of civilization would develop on a world that never got dark.”

  Hutch glanced at the receiver. She wanted to hear something from Wally. Something good.

  “Who’s Wasserman?” Ken asked.

  Derek couldn’t resist a reaction that suggested it was hard to believe that a historian wouldn’t recognize the name. “Lawrence Wasserman. He was a twenty-first-century astronomer. Did a lot of work with asteroids.”

  “I wonder,” said Hutch, “if he were here, whether he wouldn’t want to go into the cluster and look around.”

  • • •

  Wally had been working for about a half hour when he reported back. “It’s okay. It was just a short in the auxiliary power converter. Fortunately, we have a spare on board. I’ll need an hour. I’m going to stay with it for a while, make sure I’ve got everything. Then we should be all right.”

  Derek looked relieved. They all did. “Couldn’t have picked a better place to break down,” he said.

  Hutch angled the ship so the passenger cabin got a good view of the Wasserman. They all rearranged their chairs and watched it through the long window. It was dazzling, a sky overwhelmed with stars.

  “It’s incredible,” said Beth. “We’re not talking about going into that thing, are we?”

  “There’s plenty of space for us,” said Derek. “There wouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

  Ken cleared his throat. “Why does that sound like something that gets engraved on a tombstone?”

  Derek laughed. “You’ve got a point, Ken.” He was standing with his right hand shielding his eyes. “Barry, can we hear anything out there? Any radio transmissions?”

  “There are radio waves, of course. But I’m not getting anything that would seem out of the ordinary.”

  “Put it on a speaker, please,” said Derek.

  It was just a chaotic batch of squeaks and squeals.

  “Barry,” said Hutch, “if there were artificial signals mixed in there, would you be able to make the determination?”

  “Not easily, Captain. It is seriously turbulent.”

  Derek’s brow wrinkled and he looked toward Wally. “Didn’t we have a package to take care of that?”

  “The package didn’t get here in time.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’m sorry. We were concentrating on safety issues.”

  “It’s okay.” He looked frustrated. “I wonder what else didn’t get taken care of.”

  “I can try to set up a program,” said Barry. “But I’ll need some help.”

  “All right,” said Hutch.

  Derek was looking out the window again. “How far are we from the cluster?”

  “Approximately nine light-years.”

  “It really does look like a galaxy,” said Ken.

  Beth raised her coffee cup to it. “It would be hard to believe there aren’t a few civilizations in there somewhere.”

  Derek was shaking his head. “I wish we could get a Van Entel out here. This is where we really need one.” He leaned back against the chair.

  “Why,” said Ken, “don’t we go in and look around?”

  Hutch looked toward Derek. “That would be outside the mission objectives,” she said. “But we should do a short jump to test the repairs. It doesn’t really make much difference what direction we go.”

  • • •

  Derek sat on the bridge with Hutch. “What’s the best way to do this?”

  “There’s a fair amount of guesswork here. Let’s start with a jump of seven light-years. That’ll get us close. It’ll give us a better look at the cluster, and we can decide where we go from there.”

  “Excellent, Priscilla. How long will it take?”

  “A little better than a half hour.”

  “Incredible,” he said.

  The Locarno was still charging. It sounded okay, and Wally assured her everything was in order. They waited until it shut down and the green ready light came on. Then Hutch opened the allcomm. “Anybody need time before we start?”

  Wally responded: “The chairs are locked down, Hutch. And everybody’s harnessed. We’re good when you are.”

  “Okay. We’ll make our move in three minutes.” She looked over at Derek. “Good luck.”

  “To you as well, Priscilla.”

  The timer started its countdown. “Okay, people,” she said, “we’re on the move.” She fired the ship’s engines and began a short turn to port. The Wasserman drifted through the night until it was directly in front of them. Then she began to accelerate. A minute later she activated the Locarno and the stars vanished.

  • • •

  When they came out of the jump, the entire sky had been taken over by the cluster. Stars filled the night, forming a vast, blazing cloud. Elsewhere, on the outskirts, they were spread across the heavens, allowing little space between them. Hutch listened as Derek’s breathing changed.

  “You all right?” she asked.

  “It’s incredible, Priscilla.”

  “If I’d known we were going to do something like this, I’d have brought sunglasses.”

  “How far out are we?”

  “Depends on where the edge is. You could probably argue that we’re already inside.”

  He looked down at the AI’s blue lamp. “Barry?”

  “Yes, Derek.”

  “If you get anything at all that sounds like an artificial signal, let us know, okay?”

  “I will. But the traffic is overwhelming.”

  They continued on course for about an hour. Derek stayed on the bridge. Ken came out and took up a position behind Hutch’s seat. Then Beth joined them. And finally Wally. Barry took pictures of the cluster. They took pictures of themselves looking at it through the window. And eventually, Ken asked whether they could go to the center of the cluster. “I mean,” he said, “would it be safe?”

  “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be,” she said.

  “That sounds as if you’re not certain.”

  “We’ll be all right.”

  “Imagine living on a world in there,” Beth said. “You think it ever gets dark?”

  “Let’s go find out,” said Derek.

  Beth looked uneasy. “With all that crowding, isn’t there a possibility we’ll surface too close to something?”

  “We’ll be okay,” said Hutch. “We have a sensor that won’t let us emerge in dangerous territory.”

  She stayed on cruise for a while, allowing the Locarno to recharge. Then she took them in close. They surfaced under the most spectacular sky she’d ever seen. They stared out at the crowded stars. With one exception, they were still only stars, but with almost no space between them. The exception appeared as a small sun, at a range of about three hundred million kilometers. They turned out the lights in the ship but still had enough illumination to read by on the port side, where the sun was. They drifted for almost an hour. “Marvelous,” said Derek. “I’m glad we did it. If we get nothing else out of this, the trip will have been worth it.”

  Beth Squires’s Notes

  This has been one of the most exciting days in my life. It feels like something they’ll make into a movie one day. They’ve already done that with one of Hutch’s missions. Lyra Calkins played her. Wally thinks Hutch looks better and should have played herself. I asked whether she’d been given that option and she said no. She told me that one of the script writers said they’d considered it, but that the feeling was she was a bit too stiff. If this one gets made into a movie, I can’t help wondering who they’d get to play me. Maybe Cora Baxter?<
br />
  —Thursday, March 20, 2256

  12.

  Naught treads so silent as the foot of time.

  —Edward Young, “Love of Fame, V,” 1728

  Derek was on the bridge. “Another three days,” he said. “We need a better drive unit.” He was grinning. Of everyone on board, no one was so overwhelmed by the velocity they had with the Locarno. Hutch understood that she’d never grasped the reality of the distances involved in interstellar travel. The destination might have been light-years away, but when you traveled using a hyperdrive, it always played out in terms of days or weeks. But Derek was different. He seemed to have a grasp of the vast distances involved. And the time. No one was more aware than he that, if they could view the Earth up close as it was at that moment, the occupants were maybe getting started on their first pyramids.

  “I wonder,” he said, “if the Monument Makers ever got out this far?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What have we got now? Seventeen of them?”

  “You sound annoyed.” Eighteen was correct. One more, a golden wing, had been discovered six months earlier. Fourteen were in orbit, and four were on the ground.

  “Priscilla, I’ve never been a fan of them.”

  “The Monument Makers? I don’t think I understand, Derek. What do you have against them?”

  “What did they ever do? They had all that technology and all we’ve seen from them are these pedestals and whatnot they left around. Why didn’t they do something constructive?”

  “For example?”

  “Maybe find a way to keep their descendants safe. They allowed their own world to go to hell.”

  “I think you’re being a little hard on them. Time takes everything down.”

  “All right. They could have said hello.”

  “They did.”

  “I mean something a little more useful than a self-portrait. How about inscribing a cure for cancer on some of those things? Cancer is not uncommon. The Noks have a problem with it. We know that several species of animals across at least a half dozen worlds are afflicted with it. No matter where it shows up, it’s always the same. How long were we wrestling with it while it killed off tens of thousands? Probably millions? Or maybe they could have shown us a way that kids could be born without handicaps. I can think of a lot of things they might have done. But no, all they seemed able to do was run around bragging about how they’d been somewhere first. Who was that guy who used to leave signs? ‘Gumball was here.’ Something like that.”