Deep Black Road: The Head of the Snake

Chapter 45

"You're depressed," Suzanne said over the connection as they stood under a tree in the evening twilight several days later.

"Sorry," said Ricky, "but I still can't remember."

"I'm okay with waiting; so don't go giving up on me. Besides, this is kind of fun."

"Fun? You call this fun?"

"You're trying too hard again," chimed in Philip.

Ricky considered that for a moment, and then said, "You're right, of course. I really hate when I do that."

"Look," Suzanne said, pointing. "There's Mars."

"Yeah, getting farther and farther away from us. It'll be nearly two years before it'll be easy to get to again. And there's Venus. We won't be going there any time soon." Venus? he thought, as something tugged at the back of his mind.

"Yeah," said Philip. "Way too hot, even for us. But there's still the stars. I wonder if we'd live long enough to make it to Alpha Centauri. They've been studying the planets in that system since before the Suitcase War."

"I hadn't really thought about it," said Ricky; "but given our rate of acceleration, I figure we could do it in about thirteen and a half years, which isn't bad."

"To fly among the stars," Suzanne said. "It sounds like a dream."

"I'm okay with just flying among the planets and their moons for now," Ricky said. "Maybe once we get out into the Oort cloud ..."-a place of ancient comets and rocky debris at the outer limits of the solar system-"... we can start thinking seriously about the stars. I wonder what it'll be like, flying like that without a mission control to tell us how we're doing."

"Scary at first, I'll bet," said Philip. "But we'll learn."

"Sure; but you know what? I can't see the point."

"Of what?" Suzanne asked.

"Of wandering around in space. Like, it'd be cool at the start; but I can see it getting pretty boring after a while, even for us."

"Yeah, you're right," she said. "We don't have any reason to do it besides just doing it."

"Uh-huh. So if we want to, say, visit Mars for a change of pace, or the asteroid Ceres to help the carnate humans with their research, that's okay; but I can't see us going interstellar."

"You're hiding something," said Philip.

"Yeah," Ricky said. "Part of me still wants to go. It feels like it's our destiny."

"Maybe that's your 'great and terrible' destiny," Suzanne said. "You know, leave Earth, and visit the stars."

"It doesn't sound very great and terrible to me."

"Whatever. Like we keep telling ourselves, if it's our destiny, God'll work it out."

"Sure." Ricky gazed towards the west. Venus. Lisa ... Lisa? Yes, Lisa! "I remember where they are!"

#

Ricky froze as he stared across the broad meadow, his vision at full zoom.

Suzanne felt his reaction, and followed his gaze to Lisa, dressed in a blue cotton dress, and wearing a broad straw hat. Then it hit her. Lisa still means this much to him even after their breakup? And he loves me this much, too.

"Guys?" Ricky radioed. "Could one of you go over, and, you know, ask her where the village is?"

"I'll do it," replied Philip. After turning his skin from all black to the clothing pattern, he crept carefully along the thick hedgerow at the side of the field until he caught sight of what Lisa was up to-herding a flock of goats with their kids.