The wet cut grass clung to Chase's shoes as he looked up into the night sky. There was not much wind where he stood, but small clouds drifted high in the atmosphere, passing over the half-moon and blocking out small clusters of stars at a time.
He was beyond excited. Before Chase's father left—as a young boy—he and his cousin Jay often pretended to be astronauts by sitting in large cardboard boxes. Control panels drawn with markers let his imagination take him to anywhere he could dream. And here he was now, with an opportunity that even real life astronauts did not have.
Those childhood memories were bittersweet. The day his father left was a day that he would never forget. He heard the fighting the night before, and in the morning his mother crying in the kitchen, clinging desperately to a note.
"He left us both," she had said, pulling young Chase close.
At the time he didn't realize that it would be the last signs of affection she would ever show him.
He spent many of the days that followed in his cardboard box, escaping through his imagination—trying to forget that his dad was gone. There were times he wished he were somewhere else—anywhere else—even if it meant being out in space or on another planet. And there were other times he thought that he could find his father and bring him back, if only his spaceship were real.
It wasn't long before his mom began losing patience with his dropping grades, lack of discipline, and his constant desire to escape reality. She threw away his pretend spaceship, and demanded that he snap out of it.
It was a long time before he forgave her for that. But things got much worse on his following birthday when he asked for a telescope.
"What are you going to do with a telescope?" she asked bitterly. "You can't even complete simple homework assignments!"
He wanted to tell his mother, look at me now. But as Chase looked up into the night sky, he wondered if he was truly worthy of this gift.
"Before you depart," Darcia said, interrupting his thoughts. "May I have a quick word?"
"Sure."
"We may not have every answer, but today's advancement far surpassed my expectation," she said. "You have little reason to help us, and even less to keep our secret. So on behalf of all of my people, thank you."
"You're welcome."
Darcia glanced around and then said, "Between you and me, we may need your help one more time before this is all over."
"What do you mean?" Chase asked.
"Tonight I will transmit my report to Caelus," she said, looking up toward the stars. "We have uncovered the reasons for our fall from grace, and it will be met with relief and optimism by our council. However, we need more than an analysis of how our failure occurred. We need a solution." She looked around, and then lowered her voice, "Your theory on envy and balance is exactly right, Chase. And I believe the key will lie in simultaneous education. In order to do so, we will need Regulus Lafaye to not only approve the plan but also partake in it. I fear he will do so reluctantly, at best. If I am correct, we may need you to help mollify the situation."
"How?" Chase asked curiously.
"With your resistance to psy."
"How is my resistance to psy going to help?"
She looked at him carefully, and said, "Were it not for your resistance to psy, I wouldn't even be sharing this with you."
"Sharing what with me?"
