Epilogue
Houston
Five Years Later
Roy Hoover wiped greasy hands on his jeans and closed the hood of his Corvette, an ancient 1956 model with a normally aspirated V8 engine. He’d missed cars that he could actually tinker on and relished the chore of fine-tuning his new toy. The car that had once been synonymous with certain privileges accorded to the early astronauts, it was not something he’d ever treated himself to when he was among their ranks. With supersonic jets and rocket ships to fly, he’d been content driving an old Honda to work every day. The ’vette had become an indulgence in his retirement.
He was still putting tools away when Noelle peeked her head through the garage door. “We have a visitor, love. Can you tear yourself away for a moment?”
Roy nodded and followed her into their adjacent kitchen. He did a double take when he saw who sat at the table. “Owen?” Roy extended his hand but then thought better of it, wiping it on his backside. “Sorry, got kind of messy out there.”
Owen waved him away with a laugh. “Not a problem.” Nearing retirement himself, his dirty blond hair had become silvery gray and his skin wrinkled from the Caribbean sun.
After years apart, it took Roy a minute to process their guest’s arrival. “What—how did—what brings you here?”
Owen smiled. “I bring word from old friends.”
Roy noticed that Noelle had been watching their awkward exchange in amusement bordering on giddiness. “You already know, don’t you?” That’s also when he noticed the nearly empty glass of iced tea on the table. “How long has he been here?”
“A while,” she said lightly. “We didn’t want to disturb you.”
“In her defense, she said you were tearing down a carburetor. I told her we’d best wait until you were done.”
“How’d you get here?” Roy asked, knowing that he was still vulnerable to legal troubles back on US soil.
“It helps when you come in on a private jet and can make certain arrangements with the customs inspectors,” Owen said. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time before I have to blast off.”
Roy frowned. “Yeah, I get it. Wish things were different.”
Owen looked at Noelle appreciatively. “You have the advantage of being married to a Nobel Prize winner.” It was a fact that had encouraged the Justice Department to drop any investigations into their involvement with the Columbus “heist.” Owen and his team had not been so fortunate. “Besides, if you’ve got to be in exile it ain’t a bad place to be.”
“Hammond’s estate is still funding you, then?”
“Enough to keep the lights and antennas on,” Owen said. “Once we lost the MSEV relay, we all knew it was going to be a long time before we heard anything.”
“If ever.”
Owen smiled once more. “That question’s been answered.”
“You heard from them?”
“Not exactly.” Owen lifted a tablet from the counter beside Noelle, who was still beaming. “Sorry, I had to show her. Like I said, we didn’t want to disturb you. But yes, we received a transmission from Daisy last night. She emerged from the Anomaly yesterday.”
With a perturbed look, Roy took the tablet and began scrolling through it. “Daisy’s back—with Magellan? What about Jack and Traci?”
Owen gestured for him to keep reading. “It’s all there in her situation report, five years’ worth of missing links. Short version is they stayed behind with Columbus. Their solution to the consumables problem that presented was, well . . . creative.”
Roy’s eyebrows shot up as he read Daisy’s account. “Holy—yeah, creative’s an understatement. So all this time—”
“Jack was actually in hibernation. He was talking to us through Daisy. He didn’t want us to know about it, specifically to avoid upsetting you guys.”
Roy looked to his wife, wide-eyed. “You’re the MD. Did you suspect that all along?”
“I must admit it took me quite by surprise, love.”
He looked up at Owen, growing impatient with reading. “So how long do they plan to stay? In their relative time. I can figure out the rest.”
“Unclear,” Owen admitted. “Though if you keep reading, I think you’ll find they could be there for a while.”
Noelle came to her husband’s side and pointed him to a new folder, unable to disguise her excitement. “Look here.”
Roy regarded her cautiously. “Okay . . .” Then he found the images of something labeled Artifact.
Owen caught the tablet as it fell from Roy’s hands. “Sweet Mary.”
“Yeah.”
“So they have some idea of how the wormhole came to be, then?”
“Just assumptions,” Owen said, “but they’ve had five years since our last contact. Who knows what they’ve found since then?”
Noelle interjected. “According to this, a solar system much like ours, with two planets in the habitable zone. And quite possibly more vessels like this one.”
Roy studied his wife. “Now I know why you looked like a little kid on Christmas.”
She was beaming now. “You’re more right than you know. Daisy’s bringing me a present: a container filled with more ice spheres, taken directly from this ship. Magellan barely had enough propellant left to bring her to Earth on a low-energy Hohmann transfer, but she is coming. She’ll be arriving in eight years.”
“Eight years . . .” Roy trailed off. “You’ll have plenty of time to prepare, I guess.”
“As will we all,” Owen agreed. He looked at Noelle. “And your Nobel Laureate here has some plans.”
“I could tell you were thinking of something big. Planning a new grant proposal, Dr. No?”
“In time,” Noelle said. “I’m thinking about Daisy’s future now. Consider all that she has done. Our friends, too, but that must come later. She is the first machine recognized to have achieved sentience. She verified the existence of dark matter, an Einstein-Rosen bridge, and evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Any one of those is remarkable enough to be the crowning achievement of a scientist’s career.”
There was a glint in Roy’s eyes now. “And you, being a laureate, are in a position to do something about that.”
“It will no doubt create controversy, but we’ve become accustomed to that.” Noelle nodded with determination. “I intend to nominate Daisy for the Nobel Prize.”
A sly grin spread across Roy’s weathered face as he considered her plan. “The committee’s going to love that,” by which he meant they would be in an uproar. He turned to Owen, pointing at his tablet. “Meanwhile, this presents a whole other dilemma. What do you intend to do with that information?”
“We’re going public. Part of the reason I’m here.”
“Risky move,” Roy observed. “But the right thing to do.”
“You deserved to know first. There’ll be a clamor to send more probes to the Anomaly after we release this.”
“Probes,” Roy said with disgust. “This ‘artifact’ is screaming for human investigation. Meanwhile, two of our own are still out there. They can’t stay in hibernation forever, even plugged into this machine interface they’ve concocted.”
“They can’t,” Owen agreed, “which got me to thinking.” He eyed Roy and Noelle conspiratorially, recalling a line he’d once heard from his late boss. “How’d you like to fly something really fast?”