She waited for a gap in the conversation, until the only sounds were the toss of the sea and the snap of the fire.
"It's so great to see everyone." Rada ran her thumb around the lip of the bottle. "But there's another reason I suggested this reunion. You see…I'm leaving."
Webber scowled at her, at least a little drunk. "What, already? You just got here. You know how I know that? Because the big bright yellow sky-thing hasn't come back up yet."
"Once this trip is over, I'm going to meet the Swimmers. They're going to take me to the world Ness founded."
"The one with the other people on it?"
"Yes. It's called Foundation."
"But what about the Hive?"
"I'm giving it to Dark Solutions. They'll put it to better use. I wasn't born to be a CEO."
MacAdams chuckled. "No, you weren't."
Webber rolled his bottle between his palms. "How far away is this place?"
"Twelve light-years."
"Do the Swimmers have a wormhole or something?"
"No, you just have to fly there. With that much time to accelerate, they can get most of the way to light speed."
"It's still going to take years, though. Like lots of years. Even if you only stay there for a few days, we're never going to see each other again. Are we?"
Rada's throat tightened. "I don't know that. But it would be a while, yes."
Webber's voice had gone very soft. "Why are you doing this?"
She didn't want to talk about all the people she had lost. How so much had changed and she no longer saw how she fit into it. How she seemed to have run out of purpose.
"There are other people out there," she said. "It's time for us to meet them."
Webber nodded, staring at his beer bottle. The fire popped. After a silence, Mina told a joke—later, Rada couldn't remember what it was—and they all laughed, and things mostly went on as they had before.
Rada had meant to stay for a week. Instead, she stayed for nearly a month; after all, the Swimmers were in no hurry. At last, though, she knew that she was coming to love the island, and that if she didn't leave soon, she never would. So they drove down to the strip and she loaded her things into the jet.
MacAdams squeezed her so hard she nearly squeaked.
She pulled away and snorted. "What are you trying to do, put me in the hospital?"
"If he won't, I will," Webber said. "That way, she'll have to stay." He smiled and hugged her tight. "I hate you for leaving. But if we're sending them anyone, it should be our best."
She got in the jet and rose into the sky. She spent the whole trip watching it, the white clouds and the blue heights. She wasn't sure that she would see them again.
~
The Swimmer ship flew away from Earth with no fanfare. It gained speed fast. They passed out of the System within days.
The vessel had a crew of a dozen Swimmers, captained by Arlo. They were all polite and aloof and provided her with books and video of where she was going. Rada spent those first few days in a state of almost dizzy excitement: the first person to visit an alien world in a thousand years. Once she arrived, she would have a thousand years of foreign history and culture to catch up on.
Yet by the end of the first month, she was starting to feel off. Bored. Anxious. Next came the mounting dread that she had made a huge and vital mistake. Arlo wasn't quite as aloof as he seemed: sensing her unease, he mentioned that they would soon start putting themselves into deep sleep, and suggested that she might like to do the same.
She accepted. A technician put her in a transparent box. She felt a moment of panic, then the gas put her under.
She dreamed dreams that were too deep for words or even images, just impressions and emotions. It seemed to go on for longer than she had been alive.
When she woke, she was so warm and at ease that it seemed the trip must have been a dream, and that the languid morning sun of Tandana was waking her up after a night spent asleep on the beach.
Something hissed; a lid drew back; a wide-eyed, rubbery-faced monster appeared above her.
Arlo gestured, its device speaking for it. "Do not fear. It is time to wake."
She sat up. "How far out are we?"
Arlo clicked its claws together. "We are there."
They were in orbit above a blue world gauzed in white clouds. Arlo led her to a shuttle and they began their descent. When they neared, she saw that while most of the world was ocean, there were small continents too, a lighter blue in color than the seas. One that matched the color of the grass she had seen on Ness' message.
As they grew closer yet, she saw patches of other colors, too, oranges and yellows and greens. Some seemed to be deserts or mountains.
But others were cities.
The shuttle banked toward a city on the coast. Orange buildings spread along the shore and the blue forest beyond. A few cars moved through the streets like little round beetles. But mostly, the streets were reserved for pedestrians: both Dovon and humans, going about their business together like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"This is the city of Volt," Arlo said, the translator injecting his voice with pride. "The first settlement on Foundation. There are many thousands of your people here. Would you like to meet them?"
"Very much." Rada's heart beat hard in her chest. "But there's something I'd like to do first. Is there a site here that was…important to Ness? Or even somewhere that's considered holy?"
"There is the mountain of Idaho. Ness built his first cabin near its peak."
"Can I go to it?"
"Of course. I will fly you to the summit."
"I've been flying all this way," she said. "I'd like to make the rest of the journey on my own two feet."
They touched down at a spaceport. A hemispherical car arrived and drove them to the base of the mountain. Arlo insisted on accompanying her and she didn't argue. The mountain wasn't especially tall and stone staircases had been cut into the steeper parts. The air smelled like leaves and dirt, but different leaves and dirt than she had ever known.
It had been quite warm at the base, but as she neared the summit, a cool wind dried the sweat from her shirt. A wooden cabin stood on a flat stretch of land. Rada turned to catch her breath and take in the orange city and the blue forest and the pink sunlight on the bay.
She reached into her pockets and withdrew two canisters.
She opened one canister and let Simm's ashes sift into the wind, completing the promise she'd made to him so long ago.
The other canister held three mingled substances. The dust from the wreck of Toman's ship. The powder from a memory stick onto which they'd transferred all of his major writings. And the ash from the small portion of his physical body they had been able to collect after the battle.
She tipped the remains of the man who'd led them against the Lurkers out onto the spot where, a thousand years ago, one of the leaders of the war with the Swimmers had begun his new life.
"Goodbye," she whispered.
At last, they had all reached a land touched by the light of another star.
FROM THE AUTHOR
This has been the last book of REBEL STARS. These books are set a thousand years after the first alien invasion chronicled in the BREAKERS series, which is already completed. You can start it for free here.
To hear when I've got a new book out, please sign up for my mailing list. I may well continue to work in this universe—it's been a fun ride, and it feels like there are more stories to tell.
If you'd like to drop me a line, please stop by my website at edwardwrobertson.com or check out my Facebook.
As always, thank you for reading.
- Ed
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