Cauldron

by Jack McDevitt

  “Two hundred fifty years ago,” she told Charlie, as she’d told countless groups around the country, “Stephen Hawking warned us that if we want to survive, we have to get off-world. Establish ourselves elsewhere. We haven’t really done that yet.” The Orion Arm had given them numerous examples of what happens to societies that don’t spread out.

  “So it’s survival,” said Charlie.

  They were on the front porch in Arlington. It was a dark night, cloud-ridden, threatening rain. “It’s more than that,” she told him. “In the long run, Charlie, yes, we need it to save ourselves. Not physically, maybe. But it’s one of the ways we find out who we are. Whether we’re worth saving. If we’re just going to sit home and watch the world go by…”

  She let the thought drift away.

  Charlie pushed back in his rocker. “I’m glad things turned out the way they did.” At the time, he was near graduation, and flight school was a possibility. His nervousness showed. But she knew he’d be okay. She remembered her own unsettled feelings when she’d left home so many years ago.

  “Me, too,” she said. She looked at him, and thought of Rudy and Jon, and Dr. Science, and Matt out somewhere in the deeps, and she knew they would be okay.

  Jack

  McDevitt is a former naval officer, taxi driver, English teacher, customs officer, and motivational trainer, and is now a full-time writer. He is a multiple Nebula Award finalist who lives in Georgia with his wife, Maureen. Visit his website at www.sfwa.org/members/McDevitt.

  * Editor’s Note: Poetic license. The term used by the inhabitants of Sigma 2711 to describe themselves is not translatable, other than as above.