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“He falls further into darkness. The stinging pain of daily torture and the numbing cold hardly bother him now, and he relishes the thought that soon he might disappear entirely. Then Lylitte is there in his thoughts again, and the splitting pain brings him back into this life, and again, only one thing eases the torment: winding further out of existence.”

“There were times, while Atom slept and she was awake soothing her crying daughter, that a question itched from somewhere deep within. This "unsolved mystery" that Atom spoke of: It was all in the past, her mind insisted, as that's what her husband had promised. But she couldn't let it go, so eventually she had to ask. "Why did these ghost people emerge and then just vanish in your world?”

“We don’t know what you mean, my dear,” Lydia says sweetly, sitting right next to him. Atom puts his book down and looks at Steven. “It’s the unsolved blind spot. Nothing is ever ‘in the bag.’ Look, the problem of Pre-Collapse science was that it insisted on patch jobs, like Husserl’s critique of the Surreptitious Substitution and its god-like conceit, while ignoring the absurdity of measurement bias. All scientific inquiry requires an expulsive approach in order to maintain the involvement variable. This is basic stuff.” He then leans back in his comfortable chair and continues hiding behind his book. “The Riddler has spoken,” Hannah says, moving a bishop forward three squares.”

“So, let me get this right. You invented this groundbreaking medical technology that changes the way we literally do everything in trauma and blood, and you are out here, 30.3 light-years away from Earth, on a planet where everyone involved in the Eden project was a hundred percent sure there’d be no DNA, blood, or anything? And now here we are playing with the DNA of an alien race? What is this? What is actually going on here?”

“At that time, her core burned relentlessly with passion, desire, and complete disorientation. Their union was officiated by a queen she’d only heard of in folklore, and the people of the valleys reached for her and clamored to see the bride like she was their elixir. All of this only intensified the yearnings pulsing through her body and soul. She remembers one young lady, a commoner really, who pushed in from a crowd, sweaty and pregnant, to grab Lylitte’s hand. She locked eyes with her and saw the fever raging inside; it was in all the people in those days, the shamelessness, and a lust for all things of the new world. It was like a hurricane for life that no one could understand who hadn’t felt it. “Only when we experience true loss are we pulled back into our own dreaming,”

“We!” he emphasizes, pointing at his crew, “get to be the first link in a new chapter in our history. But I want you all to really consider what is going on here…” He takes the tone of a circus ringmaster. “This is bigger than successfully colonizing Mars and Ganymede. It’s bigger than Columbus or Magellan. It’s even bigger than the first homo sapiens leaving Africa.” He raises his voice even more, waving his arms. “Hell, this is bigger than fish crawling out of the fucking water and growing legs! Think about it!” Everyone is quiet, avoiding eye contact with Calvin. Everyone except Captain Taylor looks at him ambiguously. “Why not Cook and Vancouver?” Taylor asks. “Excuse me, sir?” “You said Columbus or Magellan, but that’s preposterous. Magellan was a madman who tortured his crew and never made the whole trip, and Columbus, to be honest, is completely overblown. The dignity alone that Captain Cook commanded…” “Yeah, yeah, OK. Cook and Magellan? Frances Drake? Whoever. The point is…” Calvin walks to the glass and points. “This,” the pudgy showman continues, “is right here, right now. Got it?! Everyone here needs to admit the real reason we want to go down to that mysterious blue planet, figure out the atmosphere, and collect some space plasma. It’s not because it’s our job. No. It’s time we’re all honest and admit we are now part of something much bigger than ourselves. It’s not just our job, it’s our story. It’s our story as human beings, it’s our instinct to explore!”

“The music stops as they walk out of the forest toward the smooth extra-terrestrial spacecraft glistening in the sun on the far side of the meadow. To Atom, the ship feels like a time machine. Steven and Sylvia watch them with deadpan stares as the three astronauts walk with the spectacle of eclectic, colorful characters on feathered horseback following. A breeze picks up and Atom glances back to see stoic faces with vibrant robes and dresses flowing in the wind.”