by Gunn, James
“I’m only one,” Adrian said. “We will have to ask the rest of the crew.”
“They’re like me,” Jessica said. “They’ll want to return.”
“And if they didn’t,” Frances said, “Adrian would convince them. You’re a persuasive man, Adrian. You have persuaded me. I hate humanity, but I will learn to love it again for your sake.”
So, Jessica thought, they would return with their story, a sequel to Peter’s credulous account of alien contact, and the kind of story would depend upon the way they told it—a contemporary novel of existential despair, an epic that defines a people, a revelation that becomes sacred text, a fantasy that feeds ancient yearnings, an encyclopedia to implement almost every human aspiration, or a how-to volume for reshaping the universe. Or maybe all of them.
Six months later the Ad Astra broke loose from orbit and headed back toward the star-strewn galaxy to begin its long journey home.
