Kiperina: I made it?
No sound comes through the headset. Electronic devices can sometimes be more fragile than flesh.
Kiperina: The indicator light is on, just like in my training.
Kiperina: The coordinates are, well, close enough. Good.
Kiperina: The rest is simple.
Before leaving the solar system, Voyager 1 turns its camera around, taking one final look at where it came from,
a 0.12-pixel speck of light,
letting the life contained within it know just how vast the heavens truly are.
Before returning to the cabin, the little astronaut takes one last look at the boundless stars.
Every atom of everything was born in this darkness.
All that links her to Earth is a signal invisible to the naked eye. All that links her to the monitor is a single rope.
If she lets go, she'll drift forever through the vastness of the universe, surrounded by it. Soundless, eternal silence.
That which was movement once shall be removed …
Flowers are immortal, the sky is all-embracing,
And what will be is no more than a promise.
Poems to Natalya Shtempel
—Osip Mandelstam
She knows what she sees will be wiped away. Her country, her home, her past identity, the food she's tasted, the friends she's known—eventually they'll only live in memory.
And memory, too, has a notoriously short shelf life. The stars remember nothing.
The universe does not mourn the death of a star. How could the loss of a country, a person, or a single word be truly remembered?
The disappearance of a young astronaut deserves no more reaction from the universe than that.
Kiperina: I need to get back. I need to get back to Earth.
Kiperina: I ...
The aftereffects of the hallucination haven't completely faded. The veins behind her ears pulse with pain.
Death is a fruit pit. The small death she carries is now pressed close to the surface of her skin.
She opens her palm and sketches the pattern into her mind. It's likely it's already been blurred by her sweat.
Kiperina: I can have this handled. First, I need to ...
Steady yourself. Find your footing on a strand-thin wire.
Is it even there?
Kiperina: ...
Han Zhang: We lost the signal!
Name Day: Switch to line two and try again.
Han Zhang: Testing comm backup line. Line two, lost. Line three, lost. Line four, lost.
Four red lights blink on the console. The display shows the final four-minute countdown.
Hissabeth: Keep trying to reconnect.
Kiperina: ...
Kiperina: Reconnecting ...
Kiperina: Connection lost.
She won't be able to get back inside the cabin in time. The buckle on the safety tether has locked in place.
When detecting excess arcane fluctuations or hazardous environment, the buckle will automatically lock to prevent slippage. It was meant to be a thoughtful safety feature, but its designer never imagined someone would want to unlock it on purpose.
Kiperina: I should have thought this through! This isn't like the rope I used in the circus.
Kiperina: No, if I do that, the monitor will be pulled out of sync.
How much longer do I have? What else can I do? Should I just let go and accept my failure?
Has what I've done so far been enough? Will they call me a hero when they write my name over an empty tomb?
Face it. I won't die a hero. I'll just be a circus girl from Utrennyaya, a temporary Laplace Employee, or an apprentice Ley Line Hunter.
After a few minutes near motionless, Hissabeth presses the button.
Hissabeth: Okay, forget the backups. Switch to the main connection.
Hissabeth: Start evacuation preparations now. I'll activate the return program in fifty seconds.
Name Day: But how will we know if she's in the return capsule?
Hissabeth: Forty seconds—We won't. Either she makes it, or she doesn't. It's out of our hands.
Hissabeth: The teleportation ritual won't have enough energy if it isn't at the exact critical moment of the "Storm."
Hissabeth: I have faith in her. She'll come home.
Alia. Come home.
Kiperina: I have to go home. People are waiting for me down there.
Kiperina: But I don't have much time. I need something.
Hissabeth: Maybe you can turn them into a knife or something.
Hissabeth: A knife would be more useful at this point. You know, to cut fruit or whatever.
Name Day: Actually, that card there on the table would work better for that.
Hissabeth: Why is that?
Name Day: It's all about the material. Metal makes a better edge than paper. Never quite understood why you made them like that.
Hissabeth: Oh. I was testing out the new alloy. I used it to make Windsong's and Pointer's cards. It gets harder and sharper when heated. Give it a rub with your hands, and you can use it as a letter opener.
A letter opener.
She always keeps that name card from Windsong close at hand. It's in her space suit pocket now.
She learned how to cast her arcane skill while suited up. It had been a core part of her training.
Kiperina: Ley Lines, of course! Thank you, Ms. Windsong!
Thanks to the sharpness of the new material, thanks to the safety tether not being unbreakable, thanks to the study of ley lines.
Thirty seconds.
Name Day confirms the final coordinates.
Twenty seconds.
Han Zhang: It was a pleasure working with all of you. If we survive this, I'm giving you permanent discounts at my store. Provided we survive.
Hissabeth: How big are these discounts? Tell me now. I need to know how much I will live!
She doesn't forget to grab Voyager beside her, who would otherwise have stayed there examining the equipment.
Hissabeth: Stay away, please. Your violin is fragile.
Ten seconds.
Name Day: I hope there will still be weekends in the afterlife.
Hissabeth: If there is anything after this, then we deserve overtime pay for all eternity.
Han Zhang: How can you be thinking of work right now!
One second.
The hatch seals shut behind her.
Notification I: The return capsule is ready to detach. Coordinate calibration complete.
Notification I: Please return to your seat.
Kiperina: It looks like everything worked out smoothly.
She sinks into the seat, grips the disk tightly, and shuts her eyes.
Kiperina: Yes, I will make it. This is the last step. The simplest one.
Kiperina: Take me home.
Laplace Staff Member III: ...!
Laplace Staff Member II: Is it me, or?
Notification II: Imaging data transmission complete.
Notification II: Reconfirming coordinates. RA: 14h, 49m, 09.55s ...
More fascinating than the figures who suddenly collapsed in a heap on their floor, it's the voice of the system that first grabs the staff members' attention.
Experimental accidents aren't unusual at Laplace. But astonishing results always earn attention.
Laplace Staff Member III: Look, that's Hissabeth. See the snakes on her head? Seems like one of them's still awake. Told you they have independent minds.
Laplace Staff Member II: Hold on. Those two work with the Foundation.
Pointer: Out of the way! Go get medical support now!
Laplace Staff Member II: That's Miss Pointer, isn't it? So then this must be the team from the Space Monitor Project. Have they failed again?
Laplace Staff Member III: Hold on. Check it out! If this data is really from the space monitor ...
Notification II: DEC: –102°, 05m, 45.82s.
Laplace Broadcast: The "Storm" is here. Please take precautions. Repeat, the "Storm" is here.
Laplace Staff Member II: It's all here. They really did it. They did it!
...
The voice of a broadcast floods into her awareness.
Radio: "Our engineers are currently developing measures to minimize the effects of the high pressure and temperature ..."
Kiperina: I ...
Kiperina: I'm on Earth.
Radio: "Beginning in 1970, the current drilling project has been a labor of the past seven years. Its depth is predicted to soon surpass that of the Bertha Rogers Hole at 9583 meters ..."
Kiperina: 1977, that was the year that Mr. Kozlov found me.
Kiperina: Could that mean that I will be able to see them again?
Many people had the same questions she did as they awoke. Many things changed after that "Storm."
A hand grips her shoulder.
Vila: You'll need to take care of yourself first, little astronaut.
Vila: Rebuilding a life requires a healthy body first. But I'm certain you are in good hands here.
Kiperina: Thank you, but who are ...
Windsong: This is my friend, Vila. My dearest, bravest comrade.
Windsong: And this is Kiperina. Would you mind if I introduced you as my apprentice?
Kiperina: Not at all. I've made up my mind.
Kiperina: I want to keep learning The Study of Ley Lines.
Windsong: That's the second-best news I've heard today.
Windsong: Hissabeth, Name Day, and Han Zhang are all still recovering in bed. You should've seen Pointer. She was mad as all hell. Claimed she'd be waiting for them to recover so she could whoop them back into the recovery ward.
Windsong: Anyways, I thought I'd best avoid that scene and pay a visit to my new apprentice.
Kiperina: So, then the best news you had today—we did it, right?
Windsong: That's good news for sure. But still not the best.
Beneath the soft sheets of the hospital bed, another hand clasps Kiperina's.
Voyager: ...
This is the best news.
Welcome home.