They were in Earth’s outer Sunspace now, perhaps already inside the orbit of Pluto. Transmissions from Earth would be coming in at any moment. Some news of the last thirty-six years had reached the habitat during the years at Centauri, but clear reception of radio signals was difficult during acceleration and deceleration.

  The view cleared and stars shone in the great hollow. A map grid flashed on, marking Earth’s Sun. Not very impressive for the center of a complex civilization, Max thought as he looked at the yellow star. Earth, home to ten billion people, was a world of great cities and thousands of smaller communities, of oceans, rivers, mountains, plains, deserts, lakes, polar caps, hurricanes, tidal waves, dust storms, and long-dead civilizations. Luna, Earth’s moon, a great industrial and scientific center, was home to nearly two million people. L-4 and L-5, positions in the Moon’s orbit, were stable locations for a growing armada of space habitats. Among them was Bernal One, the large sphere where Max’s mother had been born and raised, and where his father had gone to college.

  Second from the Sun was Venus, which was being studied in preparation for terraforming—a process that might make the hot, cloudy planet another Earth in a century or two. Close in around the Sun was Mercury. Its asteroid habitats were home to a thriving community of miners. Joe and Rosalie had helped build the first habitat there before they joined the Interstellar Project.

  Outward from Earth was the Martian colony, with its great spaceports at Deimos and Phobos, the planet’s two moons. Nearly three million people lived in large agricultural domes on the desert that was being reclaimed along the old natural waterways. One day Mars would be terraformed into a world of forests, rivers, lakes and seas. The old dream of fully occupying the three planets of the solar system’s temperate zone would be fulfilled.

  Beyond Mars, habitats orbited Jupiter and Saturn. Max’s habitat had been built around Saturn’s moon, Titan. Mobile habitats had explored the outer solar system right into the Oort Cloud of cometary material, so it had been a natural step to send a habitat out to the nearest star.

  Nothing of this great Sunspace civilization showed from Pluto’s orbit. All his life Max had been learning about it, studying its works, seeing holos of its locales; but it had never been as real to him as the house in which he lived, or the paths he walked in the green hollow; not even as real as the worlds of Centauri.

  “WELCOME HOME!” a male voice boomed from the starry space, startling Max. His mother gave him a look of concern. He felt anxious, but he smiled at her and tried to look interested. She patted his left hand, and suddenly he wished that Earth and its Sunspace civilization would disappear.

  “ARE YOU RECEIVING US? THIS IS TITAN DOCKS. DO YOU NEED ANY ASSISTANCE? WE CAN SEND TUGS OUT TO MEET YOU.”

  “No help of any kind is required,” Linda ten Eyck answered at the communications console. “We will arrive in eighty-nine days.”

  As Navigator and Life Support Systems Specialist, Linda was the closest thing the habitat had to a captain. Joe had once joked that it would take two dozen experts jammed into one body to make a captain. A team working through an artificial intelligence was more efficient. But even though Linda was part of that team, she tended to assume more responsibility than the others. She loved her job. Some people said that she would be lost without it.

  Max noticed Emil and Lucinda sitting in the first row with their father, Jake LeStrange, just below the platform on which their mother stood. Lucinda, Max realized, had let him off easy today. A month ago he had been standing around awkwardly at a party, trying to strike up a conversation with a few of the other boys, when Lucinda arrived with Emil, entering the room as if she were doing everyone a favor by coming. She had smiled and walked toward him. “I wasn’t smiling at you,” she had said before he could say hello, moving away with Arthur Cheney. Everyone had laughed at his mistake, although Emil had given him an unexpected look of sympathy. Humiliated, Max had left. “You should have stayed,” his mother had told him. “They would have forgotten the whole thing in a few minutes.”

  Lucinda and Emil argued a lot with each other, and with anyone else who would let them. They sometimes berated Max because he hadn’t yet chosen a field of study. Physics was their big choice. Emil was sometimes fun to talk to, but he would shut up and become another person when his sister showed up. She was Max’s age, only a year and a half older than Emil, but she bossed her brother around. Max had once told him not to trail around after her so much. “Don’t ever listen to him,” Max heard her tell Emil. “He’s asleep every afternoon. You’d think the son of a maintenance engineer would be more practical.” Max had known then that she had seen him lying down by the waterfall. Lucinda would consider that a total waste of time, a sign of laziness and lack of ambition. No one would ever catch Lucinda idling away part of the day when she might have been studying or doing something constructive.

  “YOU ARE NOW RECEIVING A SUMMARY OF MAJOR EVENTS FROM THE LAST THIRTY-SIX YEARS,” the booming voice continued, “CONTINUING FROM THE TRANSMISSION THAT WAS BEAMED TO COINCIDE WITH YOUR ARRIVAL AT CENTAURI.”

  “We are receiving,” Linda replied, sitting down before the console. “Exploration of Centauri A, B, and C was completed productively, and the new habitat established. One hundred four children were born before our arrival at Alpha Centauri, and these are all returning with us. One hundred sixteen were born after the new habitat became livable, and they have remained at Centauri. We’ve had sixty-four deaths, three of them from accidents. Otherwise our community is healthy and thriving. . . .”

  Even at light speed, it would be over four hours before Linda’s reply reached Titan, and nearly six before Earth heard it. Each side had only started the flow of information that would continue as the habitat made its final approach. It was not a real conversation.

  “We’re down to about 750,000 kilometers per hour,” Linda said.

  “We’re just crawling along now,” Joe whispered at Max’s right.

  “GREAT CELEBRATIONS ARE READY TO START ON YOUR ARRIVAL,” the voice from Titan boomed. Max glanced at Joe, then at Rosalie. His parents were staring intently into the great space, and he knew that they had forgotten his problem; they were remembering people and places he had never known.

  “We report no evidence of intelligent life anywhere in the Centauri system,” Linda said.

  Lucinda and her mother looked alike, even though Lucinda wore her red hair long and her mother had it up in braids. Linda’s green eyes were friendlier. Mother and daughter were often mistaken for each other from a distance, especially in shorts, which showed off their long legs. Max had been fooled a number of times, feeling relieved when he encountered Linda instead of her daughter. On one such occasion, the Navigator had put her arm around his shoulder and walked with him down the road to the library, telling him what good friends she had been with his father on Bernal One and Mercury.

  “However,” Linda continued, “the heavily forested fourth planet of Centauri A is home to small monkeylike bipeds. They will be observed more carefully by teams from the habitat. Construction of the new habitat from a suitable nickel-iron asteroid went routinely. The community should be thriving by now. . . .”

  Emil was chubby and his father was thin, but there was a similar look in their dark brown eyes, and in the slightly arrogant way they held their heads. Emil’s brown hair was long, Jake’s always shaved down to a stubble.

  Lucinda shifted her crossed legs to one side. Max stared. She never looked back even when she knew he was staring at her. He felt foolish about being attracted to such an obnoxious girl.

  “WE HAVE IMPORTANT NEWS,” the voice from Titan cut in. “IN 2081, WE SENT A SMALL MOBILE WITH A TYPE II PUSHER DRIVE OUT INTO THE COMETARY HALO BEYOND PLUTO TO INVESTIGATE WHAT SEEMED TO BE THE SOURCE OF A SIGNAL. THE EXPEDITION FOUND AN ALIEN RADIO TRANSMITTER. BY THAT TIME OUR NEW TACHYON PARTICLE DETECTOR WAS OPERATIONAL. IT SHOWED US THAT THOUSANDS OF FASTER-THAN-LIGHT COMMUNICATIONS CRISSCROSS THE GALAXY. A NUMBER OF THESE TACHYON LINES PASS THROUGH OUR SUN, FOR REASONS WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND. THE GALAXY IS ALIVE WITH CIVILIZATIONS AND WE CAN’T SPEAK TO ANY OF THEM!”

  “Not yet, anyway,” his father whispered.

  “IT’S AS IF THE RADIO BEACON HAD BEEN A SMOKE SIGNAL, SENT UP BECAUSE WE WOULD BE SURE TO NOTICE IT, BACKWARD AS WE ARE. DECODED INTO A PICTURE STORY, THE SIGNAL SHOWED US THE DANGER OF INFALLING COMETS FROM THE HALO. WE’RE NOT ALONE IN THE GALAXY. YOU ARE RETURNING AT WHAT MAY BE A TIME OF GREAT DANGER AND NEW POSSIBILITIES. . . .”

  “Just think,” Joe whispered excitedly, “there are probably a million times more aliens out there than all the people in Sunspace. What do you think of that, Max?”

  Max had studied the possibility of contact with aliens, but had always imagined it happening in the far future. This news was strange, because there had been no actual two-way contact, only the discovery that alien cultures existed and seemed to be unaware of, or uninterested in, humankind.

  Linda sat back at the console, waiting.

  “We’ve been topped,” Joe said softly. “Our return isn’t the biggest thing going.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Rosalie said, sounding critical. She often kidded Joe. Sometimes Max didn’t understand what the joke was, and felt left out; but he knew that his parents were best friends, even when they disagreed.

  As he looked around at the hushed gathering, Max noticed students from his class in the lower rows. Muhammad sat with his father and brother, Jane and Alice Sanger between their parents. Tutor Jonney sat alone in the first row. Everyone was staring at the small yellow sun in the center space. A new time was coming, he realized, not just for him, but for the whole habitat, and maybe for all human beings. He wished that he could be happier about it.

  “BY NOW YOU SHOULD BE RECEIVING THE ENTIRE COMPRESSED TRANSMISSION OF EVENTS FROM THE LAST THIRTY-SIX YEARS,” the voice from Titan said suddenly. “THIS WILL GIVE YOU ENOUGH BASIC DATA TO REORIENT YOUR POPULATION BEFORE ARRIVAL.”

  “Receiving,” Linda replied, and the sound of conversation returned to the amphitheater.

  “There’ll be plays and films,” his mother said, “and new books, dances and newscasts. More than we can ever catch up on.” She was silent for a moment. “It’s almost as if we’ve been dead all this time, and now we’re coming back to life.”

  “Don’t worry,” his father said. “A lot of what we’ve missed is probably junk.”

  “What you say is junk,” Rosalie replied.

  Max saw his father smile. “It’s strange,” he continued seriously, “to feel accountable to people back here, many of whom weren’t even alive when we left. All this time has made us feel independent. Makes you think it would be possible to start fresh somewhere else, with just a few people.”

  “Now you sound like Max,” Rosalie asked. “Aren’t you curious, and glad to be back?”

  A look of uncertainty came into his father’s face, and Max felt closer to him. Who were these people of Earth? Why should they have control over what happened to his world? Maybe his father understood him after all.

  “Just a feeling,” Joe said. “We’re home.”

  Max felt betrayed. “Why can’t we just go away and live on our own?” he asked suddenly, his voice carrying. People turned around to look at him. There was Arthur Cheney, with his usual mocking grin. Muhammad made a face, then poked his brother Hussein in the ribs. Lucinda turned her head and shot him a look of contempt. Max glared back, but she had already turned away.

  “We could go off on our own,” his father replied gently, “but that’s not what was planned. You know that.”

  “We left a habitat at Centauri,” Max objected.

  “That was planned.”

  “Maybe I should have stayed there.”

  “But you deserve to see Earth,” his mother said, looking at him with dismay.

  “You’ll feel differently when you see things for yourself,” Joe added. “I promise.”

  Max looked away. His feelings didn’t count. Rosalie touched his hand; Joe reached over and ruffled his hair. Everyone else seemed to know what was best for him.

  Linda ten Eyck stood up from the console and looked around at the assembly. Then she paced back and forth, stopped finally and in a quavering voice said, “I’d like to thank all of you for the help you’ve given me all these years. We haven’t always agreed, but my . . . our team could not have functioned without your suggestions and skills. I know that some of you may be feeling sad that our worldlet is about to rejoin a larger one. We were privileged to feel for a time as if we were all of humankind, and it will be hard to lose the sense of independence that was ours.”

  Joe nudged Max. “See,” he whispered, “you’re not the only one.”

  “I hope,” Linda said in a stronger voice, “that we’ll keep in touch in the years ahead, and that perhaps some of us will have the chance to work together again.” The Navigator was silent as she gazed up at the people around her. Max saw that she was very moved.

  “I’ve never seen her like this,” Joe whispered to Rosalie. “Didn’t know she had that much sentiment in her.”

  “She’s saying goodbye to a lot,” Rosalie whispered back.

  People began to applaud. Many stood up, shouting their appreciation. Max looked up at the image of Earth’s Sun, which now seemed brighter.

  Suddenly, the holo of the forward view flickered. Linda went to the console and made adjustments, but the flickering persisted. The stars winked in and out. The image of the Sun brightened and grew larger in steps, as if the habitat were rushing toward it in large jumps.

  “The whole board’s dead,” Linda said to a silent chamber. “It’s not possible!” she shouted. “We can’t be that close.”

  The Sun was now a white-hot ball in the center space.

  Max turned to his parents. Joe stared. Rosalie’s eyes were wide with fear.

  “We’re heading right into it,” the Navigator said grimly.

  4

  The Sun grew larger and brighter.

  Max felt his mother’s hand in his, squeezing. Joe put his arm around his shoulders. People cried out in astonishment as they realized that somehow, in a few minutes at most, they would be vaporized. It was impossible that the habitat could have traveled from the outer fringes of the solar system in so short a time, and was about to fall into the Sun. It had to be a bad dream, Max told himself.

  More than half the viewspace was now filled with the shimmering photosphere. Cancerous black spots waged war with swirling storms of plasma. Prominences shot out into space. People moaned and whimpered as the giant’s fiery tongues tasted the habitat.

  Max looked at his mother. Her eyes were closed as she held his hand. His father’s arm was a vise around Max’s shoulders. “Can’t be,” Joe whispered.

  Max tensed against his father as the Sun’s image faded to a gray ghostliness.

  “A malfunction in the holo unit,” Joe said in a trembling voice.

  Linda worked the console, but the view was unaffected. She looked up, then said something through the intercom on the panel. A voice answered faintly.

  The ghostly hemisphere of the Sun disappeared. Linda sat back, then swiveled to face the gathering.

  “That is the external view,” she said. “The universe seems to have vanished from around us.”

  As Max gazed into the strange grayness, he realized that somehow his wish had come true. Everything he had feared was gone. The habitat was on its own again.

  A murmur passed through the chamber.

  “Is this a joke?” Muhammad’s father demanded.

  “It must be!” a woman shouted, laughing.

  “Sure—it’s a homecoming prank!” a man shouted from the back row.

  Linda ten Eyck stood up. “No,” she said softly.

  In the silence, Max felt a slow rhythm, as if another heart were beating inside his own. He looked at his parents.

  “I feel it,” Rosalie said.

  “So do I,” Joe added.

  People were speaking to one another, or clutching at those nearest them, and Max knew that they were all feeling the rhythm inside themselves.

  “Something’s very wrong,” Rosalie said.

  “We’re being pulled forward!” Linda shouted.

  As Max gazed into the gray holo, he sensed that something was waiting up ahead in the alien space.

  Jake LeStrange got up and hurried over to the console, where Linda was leaning forward, talking to the control bridge through the intercom. He whispered something into his wife’s ear. Emil and Lucinda sat very still in the first row. Max took a deep breath and listened to the intruding, alien pulse within himself.

  A giant black globe appeared in the gray space. The gathering cried out in fear and wonder.

  “Oh, God!” Rosalie exclaimed.

  The black globe hung in the gray void and seemed to pulse with energy. Long cables floated out from it. This, Max realized, might be the source of the beat they all felt.

  “The object ahead,” Linda said, “is a hundred kilometers in diameter. Our drive is dead. We can’t turn away.”

  The globe grew larger. Max glanced at Joe and Rosalie. They were staring at the holo with dismay.

  An opening appeared on the black globe’s equator. Dazzling white light shot out.

  “We’re being pulled in,” Linda said as the globe covered the entire view. The opening glowed white-hot, as if from a furnace, and the viewspace turned completely white. “No danger signals from our life-support systems,” Linda said. “Only our drive is out.”

  “Something wants us,” Joe said, shaking his head.

  “But who?” Max asked, wondering what had happened to the Sun.

  Joe let out a nervous breath and looked baffled. “Are we being hijacked?” Max asked, feeling both curious and fearful.

  The white light filled the amphitheater, making everyone very pale. Max looked at his hands. His veins seemed almost black in the glare.