“Yes, Trajan, presentients.”
He looked at her.
She grinned. “I asked Persephone as we were backing away.”
“How you shunned my use of the satellite information!” he chided.
She giggled. “Sometimes I can’t help myself.”
“So, what else did you learn?”
“A robot paleosurvey has revealed that they’re part of a class of animals that has been the dominant terrestrial megafauna for the last hundred and forty million years. Considering their brain size and tool-using capability, the best estimates put them at the equivalent of what our species was some ten million years before the advent of civilization. Maybe about the time of Dryopithecus.”
Holding her baby tightly in her long forelimbs, the mother leaped out of the shrubs and pattered downhill. She mixed with the group, and, after a couple of hoots, they faded from sight.
“We used to care for our babies that way,” Sage mused. “Carrying them with us when we had to travel, exposed to the elements. So long ago.”
Trajan nodded. He wondered what it would be like to have been raised at a time when just about every turn of the trail, or change of the weather, posed a threat. Most children didn’t survive their first year. That kind of childhood was something he would never experience, even with millions of years of life. You only get born and grow up once—unless you chose to have your memories separated from you for a time while you “grew up” again, but that wasn’t quite the same once you had your old memories given back.
“Maybe in several million years,” Trajan said, thinking of Homo sapiens’ life-extending technological progress, “these creatures will have their own budding cities, and space travel.” Giving everyone born an opportunity to live a full life, he said to himself.
Sage grinned at the idea. “Yes! Look at what they have to fly to!” She pointed to Borde, which stood out starkly in a rapidly darkening sky. Stars were beginning to show, and a couple of distant planets. “With that kind of incentive, I think they’d move offworld quickly.” She looked into his eyes and said, “What a wonderful encounter!”
“Indeed.” Maybe it was the cheerful gleam in her eyes, or the enticing smile on her lips. He nevertheless kissed her.
After a brief hesitation, she returned the favor, sliding her tongue past his lips. A lovely, fiery sensation grew in his chest, and moved down into other regions of his body.
Sage pulled away. Her face had a childish glow. “C’mon! Let’s find someplace comfortable at the top.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him uphill at a run.
“Felicity’s adjusting her course,” said Zephyr. “She’s timing the collision to strike the neutron star as it moves away from her, to give it a quick shove.”
Ashley watched her ship’s hologram. What else was there to do?
“Fifty seconds to impact.”
Ashley leaped out of his seat. There was just enough time for one last message to reach her. “No! Don’t do this! Please… Sage.” Maybe the old name would remind her of that special time they had together so long ago, and convince her not to crash.
After a pause that was too short for her to have heard his plea, Felicity said, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Trajan. We had fun together. Now… it’s time for that to end.”
Was she crying?
Felicity continued, “You talk about change, Ashley. Its permanence. Think about what you’re doing.”
“But—” He stopped, knowing that she wouldn’t be around long enough to hear the message.
“I love y—”
“Impact,” said Zephyr calmly.
There was an instant flash—dimmed by Zephyr, who opaqued the dome. Then he was past the suns, moving away at 0.99+c, leaving behind a stellar eruption that would be seen by unaided eyes for hundreds of light years around. Probably even by Medio’s sentients.
He fell to his knees, feeling weak, sick to his stomach, shedding tears, things he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time, but things that seemed right to let happen. Memories welled up. Felicity’s mysterious frown as she stared at Anclaje’s moons. Her talking quietly about Rebirth. Saying “Murfle” in frustration as he was about to cut away the stinging shrub. The cheerful, glowing look on her face after he had kissed her for the first time.
Zephyr reported, “The calculation’s rough now, but the stricken star seems to have been shifted into a highly elliptical orbit, one that will last for several million years.”
Ashley rubbed the tears from his eyes and mumbled, “Take me back to Medio.”
“Sending commands to alter course. The first in a series of mass beams that can shove us in the right direction is thirty-eight light years away. We’ll arrive in several millennia, Medio’s frame of reference.”
He nodded, unable to vocally respond to the words. All he wanted to do was remember the person he loved…
A cool wind shuffled fingery tree branches, making them wave across a dense peppering of stars that glittered overhead. The breeze carried a sharp pinelike scent. Bordo’s crescent hung low and looked smaller than it had previously, having drifted away in its slower orbit.
The gentle heat from a portable mattress placed on the rocky peak kept Trajan comfortable. Nevertheless, he held Sage close, savoring her naked warmth.
“Now, about that question I asked when we first met.”
She looked into his eyes. “Oh, about the moons’ meaning to me.” She glanced away, and he saw that tiny intriguing frown on her lips again. She took a deep breath.
“These moons… they remind me…” she let the words trail off as she stared at the star filled sky.
An animal called from a nearby tree. The somber song reminded him of distant, gray, rainy lands.
“Of?” he urged.
“I heard about a planet,” Sage said slowly, almost sadly, “a world called Bode.”
“The one that had those incredibly fast seasons?”
“Yes. It’s dead now. Its orbit decayed, and now Bode is a sun-baked rock. Nothing seems to last, does it?”
He shook his head.
“And another world,” she said, continuing her sad tone, “Goliath, where ecosystems dependent on meteor impacts once lived. That world’s dead too. Finally had a large enough strike to boil its oceans.”
“I met someone,who witnessed several of the larger impacts on Goliath. Said he was there for fifteen million years. Sorry to see the world go, but that’s how Nature works. Constant change.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Ah, you’re worried that these moons will fade one day, like those other worlds.”
She nodded solemnly.
“I’m sure that when the dinosaurs roamed Earth’s surface, it was a beautiful place. Then Nature took that away. Each instant in time is like a note to a song, I guess, with all the worlds making one grand concert.”
Sage nodded. She didn’t look very happy. “I don’t like it when a song ends.”
“It hasn’t ended. Nature will make more worlds. Surely there’s another Goliath out there somewhere, and another Bode. Maybe not in this galaxy, but elsewhere.”
She stared into his eyes. “Nature won’t make worlds forever. That changes too.”
He rolled onto his side and propped his head on his hand, elbow to ground. Giving her a serious look, he said, “But that’s a long long ways away, even for us.”
“I don’t know. When I was young, thirty’ million years seemed like a long time. I couldn’t comprehend people living for so long, even with them around me. Now…”
He nodded, and said, “Now we’ve lived longer than most species do, and are faced with the undeniable truth that everything changes, no matter how grand.”