He had two suitcases and a garment bag at his disposal, into which to pack clean clothes and toothpaste and the necessaries for a lifetime. What would the climate be like where he was going? And he added the assorted debris of fifty years: pictures of Mary and Jennifer; his collection of CDs which he might not be able to play. He wished he didn’t have to leave his bowling trophy, or the framed photo of the Tornadoes, twelve kids with old-fashioned baseball gloves and those ill-fitting cotton uniforms. He and Charlie stood on either side of Will Koestner, who had kept in touch for years before a long-time bad heart got him. And he’d miss his 2021 Eagles program—a championship year—signed by Norm Brockmaier and Chuck Cantnor.
His wedding ring didn’t fit anymore, but he would never have left that behind.
Books.
They’d become more important recently. He’d found himself settling in during long winter evenings with Dickens, Tolstoy, and Emerson. He was still trying to catch up with his old college reading list. But the bags were packed tight, and he knew now he would never finish the effort.
The stars were hard and bright when Jake left the house. A sliver of moon drifted in the west, and he wondered on the way to the airport whether Alpha Centauri was visible.
The cab driver wanted to talk about the Sixers. Jake was vaguely surprised: he would have expected such a conversation to seem trivial on a night like this. But he listened eagerly, agreeing that the rebounding needed shoring up, though they could run and shoot with anybody.
The cabby fell silent as they crossed the Penrose Ferry Bridge. Jake could make out the lights of Center City to the north. Nice town. Sports reporters and made-up stories had given it a bad reputation. Jake thought about the old tea party tale: that the British ship headed for Boston in 1775 had docked first in Philadelphia, where a crowd of local patriots had gathered on the dock and booed.
In the dark, in the back of the cab, he smiled. He loved this city—
He got out at the International Terminal, found a skycap to take charge of his bags, and went inside.
The DAWNSTAR service counter was located at the far end of the complex in a corner just this side of the international corridor. It was of modest size: he would have missed it had the skycap not pointed it out.
A bespectacled young man in a light blue uniform smiled politely. “Good evening, sir. Can I help you?”
There was no one else on either side of the counter. “My name is Cashman. I have a ticket on flight 111.”
The clerk tapped into his computer. “Destination?”
Jake looked from the skycap to the clerk. He felt ridiculous. “Centaurus,” he mumbled.
The clerk touched a key. Appeared satisfied. “Very good, Mr. Cashman. You understand this is a nonsmoking flight?”
“Yes. Of course.”
The skycap deposited his baggage on the scale. The computer noisily printed a boarding pass, which the clerk handed him. “Gate ‘Y’,” he said.
Jake looked around. “The gates are all numerals.”
The clerk pointed toward the upper level. “Take the escalator, turn right at the top, then left. You can’t miss it.” He tagged Jake’s baggage, dragged it onto the belt, and turned back to his computer.
Jake stopped to pick up a late-night copy of the Inquirer.
The complex was virtually deserted and most of the waiting lounges were closed for the night.
Just beyond the Pan Am gates, on the upper level, a passageway branched off left. He turned into it. It was poorly lighted, but he came immediately onto the ‘Y’ gate. An electric sign advised him to fly United. No Gate ‘A’. Or Gate ‘Z’.
An elderly man pushed a broom out of the shadows. Through a smudged window, he saw a set of lights lifting into the sky.
A young woman in uniform waited behind a counter marked DAWNSTAR. Somewhere, far off, Jake could hear announcements being made.
“Mr. Cashman?” she said.
“Yes.” He presented his boarding pass.
She smiled professionally, stamped it, tore it in half, and returned the upper portion to him. “Welcome aboard, sir. We’ll be departing in a few minutes.”
Jake nodded, and went up a gently curving ramp. At the other end, a flight attendant stood in the door of the launch vehicle. Jake had flown only twice before, when he’d gone to New York for a convertible bond seminar, and to Ohio for Jennifer’s wedding.
The flight attendant was tall, almost as tall as he, and she was a knockout.
He hesitated.
“It’s all right, Mr. Cashman.” Her glow melted all reluctance.
Jake stepped over the threshold and surrendered his pass.
“Thank you, sir. Take any seat you like.”
It looked like an ordinary aircraft. The seats were arranged one on each side, twenty in all. Two young couples were seated toward the rear, and a couple of kids had fallen asleep with their parents up front. He picked a seat midway down the aisle.
The cockpit door was open. He could see movement. Outside, someone was detaching a hose from the fuselage. A big Pratt-Whitney thruster was mounted on the wing.
The flight attendant appeared beside him. “Drinks are free on this flight, Mr. Cashman. Everything is first class. I’ll be happy to get you something as soon as we are airborne.”
Did he look as if he needed a drink? Jake self-consciously belted in. Looked uneasily around. “Any other passengers coming?” he asked.
“One.”
On his overhead display, the directives fasten seat belt and no smoking were illuminated. Jake unfolded his newspaper and laid it across his lap. The flight attendant wore a name plate. Vicki. “Vicki, what’s actually going to happen here?”
She smiled reassuringly. “What are you expecting to happen, sir?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s very routine. We’ll be taking you into orbit, where we’ll rendezvous with the interstellar which will transport you to your destination. You will have first class accommodations all the way. Try to think of this initial portion as an ordinary flight. However, some of the perspectives from your window may be unsettling. If you haven’t done anything like this before, you might want to consider pulling the shade. In any case, be assured there is no danger.
“We’ll do the inflight rendezvous about three hours after takeoff. It’s all quite routine. After that, you’ll have considerably more freeedom to move about, as well as access to your luggage.”
“Good. I was wondering about that.” Jake wanted to appear casual, as if this sort of thing happened to him all the time. “Vicki, how long will this trip actually take?”
“Mr. Cashman, it is quite long, but you won’t mind. You might say it’s all relative.”
She retraced her steps toward the cockpit. Jake turned on his seatlight and unfolded the Inquirer. More bombings in Beirut. Famine in Angola. Civil war in the Middle East.
Budget problems. Ozone issues.
Another racial shooting downtown.
Maybe it was just as well he was leaving. He turned to the sports section.
Vicki said a few words to someone in the cockpit and closed the door. Jake tried to concentrate on the newspaper.
Years before, his father had occasionally brought him out to watch the airliners at the old Philadelphia International Airport. They were all jets then. He’d watched the planes come and go, and he had made up his mind to become a pilot. But like so many other dreams from that distant time, it had remained nothing more.
He heard voices up front. The final passenger had arrived. Vicki was near the door. She stepped out of his way as he entered.