“We’re halfway there,” Al announced this morning.

“I know,” I said, “I’ve been counting off the days. Do you have any idea how boring this flight is?”

“No. I am not programmed to experience boredom. I am just programmed – ”

” – to induce it, I suppose. Look, people must have made long trips like this before. What do people normally do, anyway?”

“This trip is highly unusual, Miles Porter. Regulations – ”

“My name is Miles,” I said for the thousandth time. “Please, please call me Miles.”

The computer continued, ignoring me. “Regulations state that voyages conducted in single-person craft by pilots not in suspended animation should never exceed five days.”

“Well, your suspended animation machinery is broken,” I said. “What do you do then?”

“Why, you fix it, Miles Porter. What else?”

“Of course,” I said. “I don’t know how I could possibly have overlooked that.”

The trip was pretty boring, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The ship came with a huge on-board digital library, and there were all sorts of things to watch and read. I spent my time reading up on the history of Larson’s Folly, trying to piece together any information I could find about it. I knew very little about it when I left, other than it was supposed to house the leprechauns that guarded the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I was slowly becoming an authority on the subject.

It seemed that Larson’s Folly was founded about five hundred years ago (that would put its founding about a hundred years before the war broke out) by a bunch of academic students. Back in those days travel was done in generation ships, and it took them a hundred and fifty years to get out there, way beyond any other settlement. No one else ever built a colony anywhere near them, and I’m not surprised: it would have taken more than the lifetime of a human being just to pay them a visit. I guess they wanted their privacy.

You know, I am so glad that faster-than-light ships were invented. They were developed just before the war broke out, so they weren’t ever in wide use, but man did they ever make traveling easier. I still wished that a two-person ship had survived, but I doubted that many of them were ever built.

The last recorded communication from Larson’s Folly was dated March 16, 2714, the day the war broke out. Nothing else had ever been heard since, but the war destroyed all of the tachyon communicators so that wasn’t surprising.

That brought up a question, though.

“Tell me, Al,” I said aloud. “Why is it that you can’t transport people via a tachyon matter transporter?”

“No one ever found out, Miles Porter. Exhaustive experiments were conducted that conclusively proved that living creatures which were transported via tachyon particles to remote destinations arrived dead on the other side. Only non-living items could be transported.”

“Like bombs,” I said. “Tell me, are there any surviving tachyon transporters?”

“No, Miles Porter, there are not.”

“Ok, here’s another question for you. The zero-point-energy power plant on this ship: where did it come from?”

“It was manufactured on August 30, 2701 on the planet Larson’s Folly by the SCI Corporation.”

“Tell me: were there any zero-point-energy plants that did not come from Larson’s Folly?”

“Not to my knowledge, Miles Porter.”

That was their great secret. The scientists on Larson’s Folly could produce the most powerful sources of energy that mankind had ever known: a reactor that could produce an inexhaustible stream of energy. No one had any idea how they did it, although many people tried very hard to find out. There was nothing more prized after the war than one of their zero-point-energy plants: a single one could run an entire city as long as it didn’t break.

Which, eventually, it did.

A road silently winding its way through the paths of the dead.

“You know,” the computer told me, “you really ought to start keeping a Captain’s Log. Regulations indicate – ”

“Regulations!” I shouted. “What regulations? Do you realize that the Commonwealth of Planets was dissolved four hundred years ago? Who cares about their regulations?”

“Even so,” it insisted, “you should still keep a log. In the event of the failure of this mission – ”

“In the event of the failure of this mission we’ll all be dead, and there will be no one left to read it.”

“My, but you are certainly optimistic,” it told me. “You need to think more positively. I have some tapes in my library that can boost your self-esteem.”

“If I want my self-esteem boosted,” I said, “you will be the absolute last creature I will tell. Whose idea was it, anyway, to teach you sarcasm?”

“I – ”

“I don’t want to hear it, Al,” I said. “Just give me some peace.”

“My name is not Al. I am the Omega 4000, Model Number – ”

“I said be quiet, Al!”

The computer obeyed.

I had left Tau Ceti two months ago and I was already starting to see that my fears of spending 36 months in solitary confinement were too optimistic. Evidently someone had realized that spending too much time alone on long journeys was hazardous to your health, so they provided something that was even worse: a talking computer. In fact, it was more than a talking computer; it was a computer that would never stop talking. I just could not find a way to turn it off, and it ignored my pleas for silence.

So the two of us blasted into space, going further and further into territory where we really didn’t belong. Al has no idea that I am already keeping a log, and I’m not about to tell him – or it, or whatever that moldy lump of silicon is. I’ve always wanted to keep a journal, and this seems like a good chance to start one. This will be my first entry.

The trip hasn’t been bad, really. We’ll spend a couple hours creating a wormhole, and then travel through it for a day or two, and then drop back out into normal space. We then recharge, create another wormhole, and travel through that one. It’s a long process but it’s pretty fast; it will only take us eighteen months to travel the 1479 light years that separate Tau Ceti from Larson’s Folly. That’s really going at a pretty good clip.

I wish I could just put myself in suspended animation for these eighteen months and wake up when I get there, but unfortunately this ship’s suspended animation module is broken and no one knows how to fix it. Maybe, once I get to Larson’s Folly, I can find someone who knows how to fix it and I can sleep all the way back. It would definitely beat talking to Al.

The fire escape.

“We’re dying,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

We were standing in the airfield outside of town on a cold, wintry day in March. The sky was low and overcast, and a bitter wind blew across the arid, barren landscape. Behind us was the hangar, sagging with age; in front of us, about 300 yards away, was the Silver Star.

I tore my gaze from the ship and turned to my friend. “You can’t be serious, Gene. It’s a fool’s errand.”

“We’re dying,” he repeated. “Look at us. Our cities, our factories, and our infrastructure are all dying, and we can’t fix any of it. We don’t know how to build replacement parts for our factories. We can’t reproduce the quantum gates that are burning out. We can’t restore the transporters that have shut down. Everything on this planet is wearing out, and we can’t do anything about it.”

“I saw what happened last week,” I said. “The heat exchanger in the reactor at Albright died, and the entire city is now without power. Is there any hope of getting that replaced?”

“I’m afraid not, Miles. There just aren’t any replacement parts left.”

“Do they know that yet, Gene? Do they know that their city is dead, and that no one will ever be able to live there again?”

Gene looked into the distance. “They will soon, and so will everyone else as the power plants in other cities start to die. The war took too much out of us, Miles; it destroyed our ability to produce the essentials we needed to keep our cities running. Now that things are finally starting to wear out we can’t keep them going.”

“But can’t we – I don’t know – rediscover whatever we’ve lost? Somebody had to invent all of this. Can’t we do it again?”

“Maybe if we had five hundred years to work with, but we don’t have that kind of time. It’s already started, Miles, it’s already started. In twenty years we will be back in the Stone Age, and tens of millions of people will die. There just aren’t any other options.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I replied. “You’re not the one who is going to have to spend three long years in solitary confinement.”

“I’m sorry, Miles, but this is the only ship we’ve got that is still in working condition, and it’s not a two-person ship. We just don’t have any others.”

“Three years, Gene: that’s thirty-six months spent in the void of space, with no other humans around for trillions of miles. There’s not even a guarantee that they’ll still be there when I arrive. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve been in touch with them?”

“Almost four hundred years,” he said. “I know. But what other choice do we have?”

I looked at the Silver Star again. She was a three-hundred-year-old mass of rusted parts that was supposed to be my home for the next three years. It was a small ship, as starships go; a round, saucer-shaped craft not quite fifty feet in diameter. I was amazed that it could still get off the ground.

“But look,” I said, “there are lots of other planets out there. What about Earth, Gene? There has to be somewhere else I can go.”

“We’ve found 37 worlds that survived,” he said, “and we’ve contacted them all via tachyon communications back when our equipment still worked. None of them were any better off than we were.”

“You do realize that the Silver Star uses tachyons to communicate and has no working alternative on board. If we don’t have any working receivers then you won’t even know if I’ve found anything until three years from now, assuming I survive the trip.”

“I know,” he said. “It can’t be helped.”

I took one last look at the horizon. There was nothing growing as far as I could see; only miles of brown, cracked dirt stretching out in all directions under a low sky. “I suppose not,” I said.

Filling up the Ord.

It has been months (has time really gone by that fast?) since I last posted a message on this blog. It is really high time that I made some sort of comment.

The reason I stopped posting on this blog during the summer is because my hard drive crashed. It took me months to get my computer up and running, partly because of a project I undertook halfway through, and partly because I took the time to back up all of my files. (Amazingly enough, it takes more than 40 double-layer DVDs – each capable of holding 8.5 gb – in order to back up all of my files. I keep waaay to much stuff.) Then I decided to move from Windows to Linux; I now run only Ubunutu at home.

Now, in November, I am in the midst of nanowrimo (www.nanowrimo.org). The idea behind nanowrimo is to write an entire 50,000 word book, starting on Nov 1 and ending by Nov 30. So far I’ve written just over 28,000 words since November 1. I’m starting a new series; the first book is tentatively entitled Eternity’s Twilight.

This morning I finished the first draft of the manuscript, but I’m only halfway there in word count, so for the rest of the month I’m going to edit and edit and edit some more, until I finally claw my way to having a draft that is actually readable.

At any rate, I am now back, and – nanowrimo aside – I am going to try to post at least once per week on this blog. We’ll see if I can stick to that or not!

See you later!

–Jon Cooper

Dr. Grimes was sitting on an old campus bench one cold, windy day. The sky above him was overcast and low; the first snow of the season was predicted to fall that afternoon. Students hurrying to their classes were wrapped up in thick coats, but Dr. Grimes seemed oblivious to the subzero temperatures; he was sitting on a bench, wearing green slacks and a thick woolen sweater, reading the morning paper. Many people asked him why he was sitting outside on such a bitter day, but his only reply was that he would not let a thing as puny as the weather drive him inside.

As he sat there, quietly reading the local news, a student that was walking by stopped and spoke to him. “Terrible tragedy, isn’t it, Dr. Grimes?”

The elderly professor laid down his paper and eyed the student that had interrupted him. He recognized him as one of his students; he was enrolled in the professor’s ancient civilizations class. Sam was a fairly quiet person; the thin young man sat in the back row and caused no trouble. The only quality that stood out about him was his ability to stay awake through Dr. Grimes’ lectures – an ability for which Dr. Grimes was grateful.

“What’s that, Sam? I don’t follow you. What’s a tragedy?”

“Oh, you know – the murder. Mary whats-her-name and her children. It just really tears your heart, you know?”

The professor thought a moment. “Oh – I remember now. You’re talking about Mary Byers, aren’t you? Isn’t she the divorced woman that went through her house and shot all of her children before running off with her boyfriend? Yes, yes, that is quite a tragedy. I think they arrested her a couple weeks ago – they found her and her boyfriend on some island somewhere.”

“They did,” Sam said, nodding in agreement. “It’s just such a sad situation. Your heart really goes out for her, you know?”

“For her?” Dr. Grimes asked, puzzled. “You mean Mary?”

“Oh yeah. I read in the paper this morning that she really loved her children, and she just really misses them. This has got to be so hard for her.”

“This is hard for her?” Dr. Grimes repeated. “Do you expect me to believe that she loved her four children as she hunted them down and murdered them?”

“Yeah. I hear she’s having to undergo grief counseling, to help her through this rough time in her life. I’m glad the prosecuting attorney is so understanding. This is a hard thing for her to go through.”

“I certainly do see some tragic elements,” the professor said. “I take it the prosecutor is not pursuing the death penalty.”

“Oh no, professor. That just wouldn’t be right. She just couldn’t take the stress of having kids anymore, so she made the best decision she could. What she really needs is our help and understanding.”

“What she really needs,” Dr. Grimes said crisply, “is to be hung by the neck from that tree over there until she is dead.”

“What?” the student said, shocked. “That’s terrible!”

“I’ll tell you what is terrible,” the professor said angrily, as he stood up and tossed his newspaper into a nearby trash can. “What’s terrible is a society with so much love for evil that instead of punishing crime they offer counseling to help murderers overcome any guilt or remorse they might feel for brutally taking someone else’s life. What’s terrible is a society filled with ‘understanding’ toward a mother who murdered all of her children so she could run off with her boyfriend, but yet feels no compassion for the children that were actually killed.”

Sam looked at him, open-mouthed. “Man, Grimes, are you ever out of it. Where’s the love in that?”

Dr. Grimes looked his student directly in the eye. “Love, Sam, does not involve chasing your own children through your home and murdering them so that you can go have an affair with someone. Love is not telling that woman she made the right decision and just she needs to move on with her life. I feel great compassion toward the children that she brutally shot and left to die – compassion and a yearning for justice. That mother richly deserves to have done to her what she did to her children.”

“That’s terrible,” Sam said. “I don’t know how you can even think that way.”

“Maybe I want to see the victims of crimes avenged instead of ignored. Or maybe I want to see crime punished instead of patronized.” With that, Dr. Grimes walked off, leaving a shocked student behind him.

Two people were sitting in a bare, concrete room, deep in the heart of a maximum-security prison. Both were seated on ordinary wooden chairs, and both were facing the other – but one was a prisoner and the other was free. Surrounding them were eight armed guards, ready to move at the least sign of trouble – but there would be no trouble. Both of the men knew that.

They had known each other for a long time, for they grew up together. Both dreamed of accomplishing great things with their lives, and both tried to achieve their goals – but they went about it differently. As time went on their relationship changed, and the day came when one of these men spent the better part of his life searching for the other. At times it looked as if he was doomed to fail, but he never despaired of catching him, and one day he finally did.

The man had built his career hunting down people like the one sitting in front of him. His success in tracking down these troublesome rebels had enabled him to rise quickly through the ranks of power until he had reached the top position in the empire. No one held more power in the galaxy than he did, for he was the supreme leader. His whims were absolute law in more than a million star systems. He bowed to no one, and his will was enforced not by men but by an army of untiring intelligent machines, programmed to do his bidding alone.

In the old days – the days before true artificial intelligence was developed and coupled with nanobot replication – it was possible to avoid detection and remain a subversive for decades. There were so many places to hide in the galaxy that was filled with obscure corners, dark asteroids, and secret bases floating in the darkness of space. All that had changed, though, when intelligent machines were invented. Within a generation these devices had reproduced and could be found in every corner of the galaxy, lurking, watching, waiting. Nothing passed under their gaze or avoided their notice, and there could be no possibility of hiding. The network of machines was always expanding; it was already stretching into intergalactic space and soon it would reach even farther than that. Nothing could hide. The person that controlled this network of androids controlled the events on every planet in the galaxy – and that person was Dr. Neil Foster, Director of Services.

Obscure titles pleased Dr. Foster greatly. He had been the one who sabotaged the AI network and turned it from a race of servant machines to a race of masters. When he was young he had been placed over the AI network with the charge of finding better ways of using it. In those days the AI network was in shambles and the department was a mess, making it a useless tool in tracking down subversives. Dr. Foster rebuilt the entire department, and when he did so he personally made some subtle changes to the code that ran inside the androids. On the surface they appeared to be unchanged, but when the signal was sent out they would change into an army loyal to him and him alone. Only an examination of the code that ran the androids would reveal this treachery, and the only person who had access to the critical code was Dr. Foster – the very man who had altered it.

It was easy for him to gain control once his network was in place. What was not so easy was hunting down every last subversive. Religious fanatics were hard to track down, as they had an amazing ability to elude detection and could live in the most out-of-the-way places. Slowly but surely, though, Dr. Foster had tracked them all down. The last one to go was their unofficial leader, a man known only as Mishael. This was the man who was sitting across from Dr. Foster – the man who had eluded him for so long. Now, at last, the chase was over: the last rebel had been captured, and there would be no escaping the iron grip of Dr. Foster’s electronic servants.

“So you are defeated at last, Mishael,” Dr. Foster began. “It took forty years, but you were finally caught and everything you have worked for has been destroyed. I have been complete and thorough: I have destroyed every book you have written, every person who knew you, and every colony you influenced. No one outside this room knows anything about you, and even if they did no one would care. Your name has been wiped clean; everything your hands has produced has been destroyed. No one you preached to is alive today. The last colony – the one you worked so hard to save – was found and vaporized. You alone are left, and you will soon join the dead.

“Why did you bother, Mishael? Why did you choose the hard road? Did I not tell you, when we were young, that you would gain nothing by it? I told you the way of power and you did not heed me. Why did you waste your life?”

Mishael looked at his opponent calmly. “Why did you waste yours, Neil? Did I not warn you what the end would be?”

Dr. Foster looked into his eyes. His friend had not changed a bit in all these years; he still could not see. So many people were blind, blind until the very end – nothing could make them understand. This made them entertaining, he though, but sad all the same.

“Yes, Mishael, look at what I have achieved! I sought complete power, and I got it. My word – mine! – means sweet life or bitter death. All the riches in the galaxy are mine. All the races are slaves to my will. I am the one who decides who is healed and who dies; I decide who is set free and who is enslaved. Nothing happens apart from my will. I have gained all there is to gain. You, on the other hand, have lost everything, and you are complete denial. You have no idea what is happening and I don’t think you will ever understand.”

Mishael shook his head. “No, Neil, it is you who does not understand. You wanted power, riches, and fame; that is all you wanted, and that is what has been given to you – and you paid a terrible price for it. What I wanted was something different, and that is what you cannot understand.

“You have never understood those who have given their lives to Christ. We are not living for ourselves anymore: we passionately seek the will of our Father. I want to see all power, majesty, and glory given to Christ, the One who died for me. My life is His, to do with as He pleases. The purpose of my life has not been to please myself but to please my Father. I am living for Him, and that is what you cannot understand. I don’t care about possessions. I don’t care who knows my name. I don’t care how many people are under my authority. All I care about is pleasing Jesus, and loving Him with all my very soul.”

“And what has it gotten you?” Dr. Foster snapped. “Your life is forfeit. Everyone you know – all your friends, who followed this path with you – are dead. Nothing you have made remains. You wanted so much to explore the stars, and instead you spent your life on the run, trying to infect other people with this belief of yours. You never achieved anything. You wasted your entire life, and now your life is over, and you can’t even see what you’ve done.”

“In your way of thinking,” Mishael responded, “I have. But I see the world differently than you do, Neil. You don’t believe in God at all; I do. I believe that God has a claim against the human race: we have sinned against Him and great wrath is stored up against us. I believe that Christ came and died for me to take the punishment I deserved; when I believed on Him I was saved.

“You, Neil, do not believe in sin at all. Since you think there is no God, you don’t see how anything can be right or wrong – the terms are meaningless to you. Christ’s death is pointless to you because you believe there is nothing you need forgiveness for. You don’t see that you have broken the laws of God and are facing a terrible judgment.

“I was a slave – unable to stop sinning, unable to cover my debt with God, dying and without hope. I knew I would face His just wrath when I died; I was lost without a hope. Then I found that Jesus had died to save me: He had taken the punishment I should have suffered and all I had to do to be saved was believe – that He was God and Man, that He had taken my punishment, that He had died and rose again, and that by believing in what He did I could be free. By His grace I repented of my sins; I begged His forgiveness and asked Him to enter my life and make me His – and He did, and I was saved. It was not what I did but what He did.

“This, Neil, is why we are so different. I see things as they really are. You see life as a mad rush to fulfill your every desire and wish; I see life as an opportunity to please Christ and show Him how much I love Him. You see death as the end; I see that I am an immortal who will live forever. You see this Universe as being the sum total of creation; I see this Universe as being a temporary thing that will soon pass away, and that on the other side of the grave is the real world – the place where I will live forever with the one who died to save me.

“You see my life as futile, for in your eyes I have amassed nothing. I see my life as a blazing success: I have preached where Christ asked me to preach, I have been used by Him to save souls from death, and I have been used by Him for His glory. I am incredibly blessed! The only things I have lost are things that don’t really matter. Why should I care if I have no possessions? All my possessions are eternal, and they are in my home with my Father: they are safe there.

“Soon, Neil, I will be with my Savior, where I will live forever. I will have a new body – a better one. I will be in a place where there is no pain, no suffering, no death. I will be free from sin at last – free, gloriously free, to do the will of my Father. Evil will be defeated and I will have all of eternity to live. I may yet explore the handiwork of my Savior – with Him as my guide.

“But look at you, Neil! You have gained all that there is to gain, in your sight, but all you have done is amassed a fortune that you will soon lose. Nothing here is permanent; it will one day be destroyed, if not soon then when the Universe is brought to an end. You will soon die, Neil, and when you do you will face the wrath of an angry God – a God whose children you have tortured and executed without mercy. What will you do when you have to face Him and He wants to know what you have to say about how you treated His children? Do you have any idea what the wrath of an infinite God is like? You have refused His love and spat on the sacrifice of His son; there is nothing left but wrath. You jest now, but you will not be jesting when the Lord stands before you accusing you, and by His side are the many you have murdered.

“You have sought treasure, and you got it, but it will do you no good on that day. You have sought fame, and you got it, but fame will get you nowhere when you are judged. You couldn’t be bothered with God, and you will soon discover that there is a price to be paid for that – a terrible price. All your arguments and folly will vanish on that day.

“You are the blind one: you cannot see the Universe for what it really is. Christ is foolishness to you; the very idea that there is a God makes you laugh. You will not be laughing when you meet him, Neil: you will bitterly regret what you have done, but it will be too late to change. You have been blinded by things that do not matter; you have spent your life gathering shadows that will soon vanish, and you have ignored the treasure that will last forever.

“You had a chance, Neil. You could have had treasure, but instead of seeking heavenly treasure you despised it and sought for silver and gold instead. You could have had joy, but you detested Christ – the source of joy – and sought instead to do whatever your body craved. You could have had fame, and an enduring name in Heaven, but you despised the praise of God and sought the praise of men. You could have had life everlasting, but instead you rejected the one Man who came to give you life and you embraced death.

“You claim to have power, but you don’t have power at all. God is in control, not you: you can do nothing at all except what God allows. God has placed you where you are and God can remove you just as easily. I am not in your hands, but His; when He is done with me He will bring me home and not all your power and might can put me to death a minute sooner than He chooses. You say that you rule the stars, but He created them – and when He is finished with them He will bring them to an end. You talk about ruling the stars: with God it was an effortless act to halt the Sun in the sky so that Joshua could avenge himself upon his foes, and not all your power and might can make the Sun rise and fall at your will.”

Two men – sitting across from each other. One man was a free man; the other was a slave. One man would live, and the other would die. One was the victor, and the other had lost. Soon they would both know who was the victor and who was not – very soon.

The afternoon had given way to evening, and still the fierce winter blizzard raged outside. I was sitting in a tiny airport high in the Rocky Mountains; I had hoped to be back home in Los Angeles by now, but the storm outside had grounded all three of the day’s flights. This was clearly the wrong time of year to be flying through the mountains.

My fellow passengers (who were all as eager to leave as I was) had fallen into a state of resigned dejection. There was nothing that could be done but wait until the storm died down. Maybe it would clear up by the morning and we could all head home, or perhaps it would last for several more days. We could not leave the airport and find accommodations because the storm had blocked all roads leading back to town. There was nothing we could do but wait, so we waited – and waited, and waited some more.

The only person whose spirits seemed undampened was Charlie, the strange Guldovian native that was sitting next to me. Charlie seemed quite content to wait out the storm; evidently he’d been in this sort of situation before. “All will be well in time,” the balding, overweight man said in his deep booming voice as he rifled through his lime-green purse. “The snows – we have them often in my country. Waiting is what we must do now.”

“I guess,” I said glumly. I watched him for a while, thinking about our previous conversation. “I don’t understand you,” I said at last.

“That is good, that is good,” Charlie said, beaming. “I am Charlie. What is your name?”

I shrugged. “You can call me Miles,” I replied.

“Milo – it is a beautiful name. Many people in my country have that name.”

“Miles,” I said, emphasizing it again. “My name is Miles.”

“What do you not understand, fellow traveler Milo?” Charlie asked.

“I just don’t understand how you can say that God is not love,” I replied. “What makes you think such a thing?”

Charlie looked at me, puzzled. “I do not think that, no. God is love, yes. But love – what is love?”

“You know – it’s being nice to people. Helping them when they need help. Being there for them. That kind of thing.”

“Yes, that is so, traveler Milo. But help – what help does the people need?”

“Oh, everyday kind of help, I guess,” I said. “Stopping the storm and letting us go home would be nice, for starters.”

“The storm, yes, the storm. But,” Charlie paused a moment, then resumed, “the storm – it is our greatest need? What of sin?”

“Sin?” I asked, puzzled. “Sin isn’t stopping me from boarding that plane outside and getting home – the snowstorm is. Sin is a bit old-fashioned, anyway. We don’t really believe in sin in this country.”

“But you have a debt, yes? A debt with God. That is sin – the debt that you owe. How are you going to pay it?”

“What do you mean? What right does God have to claim any part of my life?”

Charlie thought a moment. “God made you – and me – and all the peoples that are in this world. He made the ground, and the stars, and everything that is here. The one who makes things – that is who sets the rules. God set down rules- do not lie, or cheat, or steal, and always love God. These rules – you have followed them completely, yes?”

“I haven’t done too bad,” I replied. “Better than a lot of people. I’m good enough, I think.”

“But God does not think so – God sees your debt, and it must be paid. That is what the cross was for – to pay our debt. It is what the people needed most.”

“The cross? What’s that got to do with it?”

“Man – he did not follow God. He broke the law, and deserved to die,” Charlie said. “That was the penalty. So God sent His Son to pay our debt, so we would not receive what we deserved. That is love, Milo – to give your life for another.”

“But Charlie,” I said, “what about all those people that just don’t see things that way? They’re good people, Charlie. God is love, and is surely going to accept them.”

“God has offered Jesus to pay their debt,” Charlie replied. “If they will not let God pay it, then they must pay it themselves, and God will come to claim the debt. Those who refused Jesus will find that they cannot pay their debt and will perish. It is only just, yes? You can accept God’s love – or refuse it. It is your choice, Milo.”

I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window at the cars that were driving by, when my professor walked up to me. “I see you are once again lost in thought,” he said.

“I guess,” I replied.

“What seems to be the trouble? I see you are here, yes, and you have your clay. Your skills have been growing nicely! Your sculptures – they are taking on a nice feeling of elegance and style.”

I sighed and tore my gaze away from the outside world. “I just can’t think of anything to sculpt. I’m not feeling inspired today, professor. It’s just not working.”

“But the world is full of ideas!” my professor said enthusiastically. “There is no end of things to do. In a lifetime you could not exhaust the possibilities!”

I looked at my professor skeptically. He was a small, thin man, with a bald head, round glasses, and little beady eyes. (I was always intrigued by the little beady eyes.) I had no idea how old he was but he looked older than Moses. Sometimes I wondered about his sanity – and, I’m sure, sometimes he wondered about mine.

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Everything worth doing has already been done. There have been millions of artists before me, and they’ve done everything I can think of – and probably better than I would have done it. There’s just nothing original left to say.”

He looked out the window for a few seconds and said nothing. “I see,” he said at last. He removed his glasses and started cleaning them with his pocket handkerchief. “So you are once again convinced that you are wasting your time.”

“Not exactly, professor. I just can’t think of anything to make that hasn’t already been made by someone else. There’s nothing left to be done. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here.”

The professor put his glasses back on and looked at me. It was hard to read the expression on his ancient face. After some time he spoke.

“My uncle – he is a farmer,” he began.

“You have an uncle?” I asked, surprised.

“Well, he is not my uncle, exactly. I call him that, but the relationship – it is different. He is my grandfather’s sister’s husband’s second cousin’s older brother’s son. It is a close bond that we share.”

“Ah,” I said.

“As I said, my uncle, he is a farmer. Every day he goes out and farms in the ground. Always he is growing things. When the harvest comes in he takes them to the market and sells them to the people.”

“Wonderful, professor. I’m glad it works out for him.”

“Yes, it is wonderful, but I think he is wasting his time, no? Surely he has done this before, the same thing, many times. Every year he grows crops. Every year he sells them. Every year people buy and eat them. It becomes repetitive – it is nothing new. Why do these farmers do this?”

“So people can eat, I guess,” I said. “If they didn’t grow food every year we would all starve to death.”

“Ah,” my professor said, “I see. But people have already eaten in the past, no? Why do they keep doing it again?”

I shook my head. “You’re really reaching, professor; sculpting is nothing at all like farming. You really need to brush up on your analogies. If people don’t eat then we’d starve. Food is consumed, and once it’s consumed it’s gone.”

“And these sculptures – they last forever, no? All of the sculptures that have ever existed – they still exist, yes? And all the people – they can see all of them whenever they want, no?”

“Of course not!” I said. “Everything is temporary. Things just don’t last.”

“Ah, I see. So the people – they need new things to nourish and inspire them, as the old things pass away.”

“I guess,” I said.

“And you – you are providing this nourishment! You are building things for the people – to inspire them and help them on their walk through this life. And to think that of all the sculptures on this world, some of the people choose yours. It is good, no? If they want your cooking, then why not feed them?”

I was sitting in a tiny airport terminal high in the Rocky Mountains that afternoon, waiting to board a connecting flight to Los Angeles. We’d had some bad weather that day (which was to be expected, given the time of year), and all flights had been delayed for several hours. I found myself sitting in an uncomfortable chair amidst a sea of other stranded passengers, all in a similar state of irritation. Little children were running wild, stirring up chaos, and their parents were either exhausted or fit to be tied. We all just wanted to get home.

There was nothing we could do but wait out the storm, though, so I waited. The novel I had brought to read gripped me for a while, but eventually I put it down. It was just too difficult to concentrate in the terminal – the noise of my fellow travelers and overhead announcements constantly interrupted my trains of thought. This tiny whatever-its-name-was town might only have three outbound flights a day, but you would never have guessed that from the quantity of messages that blared out overhead.

I put my book back in my briefcase and looked outside. Through the dirty plate-glass window I could see the outline of our jet, ready for takeoff. It was hard to see the plane through the snowstorm that raged outside; I could see ice beginning to form on its wings. The sky was dark and brooding, and snow was piling up rapidly on the airport’s single runway. I began to wonder if I would be departing today at all. Did a town this obscure even have a hotel?

A booming voice suddenly interrupted me. “Excuse me, sir, excuse me,” someone said. I turned around to see who had spoken and saw a strange-looking individual staring intently at me. The man was small – no bigger than 5 feet tall – but enormously fat, dressed in a large brown overcoat, and was as bald as he could be. He was clutching a bright green handbag of some kind (green was definitely not his color) and seemed puzzled about something.

“Excuse me,” he repeated, after he saw that he had my attention, “but is here the flight to Los Angels?”

“What’s that?” I said. “Oh – Los Angeles – yes, this is the right gate. But the flight has been delayed. It probably won’t be leaving for several hours – or maybe several days, given the weather outside.”

“Good,” the man boomed, evidently very pleased. “I sit and rest, then. It has been a long day.” With that, he plopped into the chair beside me. After he had sat down he reached his large hand out to me. “I am Charlie. I go to Los Angels, to see my brother.”

“Nice to meet you, Charlie. I’m a bored and irritated airline passenger, waiting for the ice age to end so that I can leave this town and get back to a place where the sun actually shines.”

“That is wonderful, so wonderful,” he said enthusiastically. “I am so happy for you.”

I shook my head.

“I am new in your country,” Charlie explained. “There is much new to me here. Your country is not like mine.”

“Where are you from?” I asked him.

“Guldovia,” Charlie replied.

“Ah. Never been there.”

“You should go sometime – it is very nice. We get much snow there.”

“Sounds – enchanting,” I said, as I stared at the snowstorm out the window. “Imagine getting to see snow again.”

“It is delightful,” Charlie enthused. “The snow – I love it. It is so beautiful! So white, and clean, and cold.”

“I’m glad it excites you, Charlie. You’re going to be seeing a lot of it in the next few hours.”

He sat there silently for a few minutes, and then he spoke to me again. “Excuse me, excuse me, but I must ask a question.”

“Ok,” I said slowly. “What’s on your mind?”

He opened his green handbag and ruffled through it for a few minutes. “Your country is not same as mine. There are many things – ah! – here he is.” With that, he pulled a five-dollar-bill out of his purse.

“Do all men carry purses in Guldovia?” I asked him.

“These bags – are they not good?” Charlie replied, beaming. “So nice, and helpful. The colors – they are beautiful!”

“I suppose,” I said slowly. Charlie seemed to be lost in a world all his own.

“So, fellow traveler,” he said, “this is one of your currencies, is it not?”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s a $5 bill.”

“Right, that is so. But here – right there – it says words. What does it say?”

I looked at it. “Oh. It says ‘In God We Trust’. All of our currency says that.”

“Yes, yes. It is so, I have seen it. But – what does it mean? It is not written so on our currency.”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s our national motto. It’s a reflection of the fact that America trusts in God.”

Charlie looked puzzled. “Trust in God? How is that so?”

“Well, I guess it means – hmmm – that we believe that God exists and that God will step in and help us when we’re in trouble. We believe that God is watching over us and will make sure that things go okay.”

“But why?” Charlie asked.

“Oh, because that’s what God does – he makes sure that the good guys always win. With God running things we don’t have anything to worry about.”

“So your country – they all believe in God?”

“Eh, not really,” I said. “This isn’t referring to any particular deity. People believe in their own gods. Some believe there are lots of them, and some people don’t believe in any supreme being. Other people think that they are god.”

Charlie stared at the bill intently, and thought for a few moments. “So your peoples do not all believe in God,” he said.

“That’s right. America is a very diverse country. Lots of people believe all kinds of different things. You’re free to believe anything you want here – for the most part.”

“But your peoples believe there is something,” Charlie paused a moment. “Something out there in the sky that will make sure your country has many sunny days, so that travelers are not stranded in airports and little children can have good meals to eat.”

“I guess you can put it that way,” I said.

“I think I understand,” Charlie said at last. “We have this in our country too. Only we call it another name.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. In our country this is called wishful thinking.”

“Wishful thinking!” I said, taken aback. “There’s nothing wishful about it.”

“Your peoples believe that some person you do not know will be your fairy godmother,” Charlie explained patiently. “Maybe God likes you. Maybe God does not. Maybe God wants something from you. You don’t really know. You all just hope that everything will go good like magic, like the little children who believe that Santa Claus will bring then gifts.”

“Our God isn’t anything like Santa!” I protested.

“Outside the airport is our plane, yes? One day, perhaps, spring will come and it will take us to Los Angels. But the pilot of the plane will only help the ones that board the plane and let him do his job. All those that do not board will be left to fend for themselves.”

“There are many ways to get to Los Angeles,” I said.

“But the pilot – he will only fly those who board his plane. Those who are not on board when the plane departs – they will be left behind. But your peoples believe that God will help anyone and everyone, no matter what. Even those who do not get on the plane. Even those who do not like God. Even those who do not want God’s help. Even those who think he is not real.”

“Of course,” I said. “That’s what God does.”

“In my country – that is what we call wishful thinking,” Charlie said, as he put the bill back in his purse.

Chapter 1: March 11, 3093

“We’re dying,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

We were standing in the airfield outside of town on a cold, wintry day in March. The sky was low and overcast, and a bitter wind blew across the arid, barren landscape. Behind us was the hangar, sagging with age; in front of us, about 300 yards away, was the Silver Star.

I tore my gaze from the ship and turned to my friend. “You can’t be serious, Gene. It’s a fool’s errand.”

“We’re dying,” he repeated. “Look at us. Our cities, our factories, and our infrastructure are all dying, and we can’t fix any of it. We don’t know how to build replacement parts for our factories. We can’t reproduce the quantum gates that are burning out. We can’t restore the transporters that have shut down. Everything on this planet is wearing out, and we can’t do anything about it.”

“I saw what happened last week,” I said. “The heat exchanger in the reactor at Albright died, and the entire city is now without power. Is there any hope of getting that replaced?”

“I’m afraid not, Miles. There just aren’t any replacement parts left.”

“Do they know that yet, Gene? Do they know that their city is dead, and that no one will ever be able to live there again?”

Gene looked into the distance. “They will soon, and so will everyone else as the power plants in other cities start to die. The war took too much out of us, Miles; it destroyed our ability to produce the essentials we needed to keep our cities running. Now that things are finally starting to wear out we can’t keep them going.”

“But can’t we — I don’t know — rediscover whatever we’ve lost? Somebody had to invent all of this. Can’t we do it again?”

“Maybe if we had five hundred years to work with, but we don’t have that kind of time. It’s already started, Miles, it’s already started. In twenty years we will be back in the Stone Age, and tens of millions of people will die. There just aren’t any other options.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I replied. “You’re not the one who is going to have to spend three long years in solitary confinement.”

“I’m sorry, Miles, but this is the only ship we’ve got that is still in working condition, and it’s not a two-person ship. We just don’t have any others.”

“Three years, Gene: that’s thirty-six months spent in the void of space, with no other humans around for trillions of miles. There’s not even a guarantee that they’ll still be there when I arrive. Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve been in touch with them?”

“Almost four hundred years,” he said. “I know. But what other choice do we have?”

I looked at the Silver Star again. She was a three-hundred-year-old mass of rusted parts that was supposed to be my home for the next three years. It was a small ship, as starships go; a round, saucer-shaped craft not quite fifty feet in diameter. I was amazed that it could still get off the ground.

“But look,” I said, “there are lots of other planets out there. What about Earth, Gene? There has to be somewhere else I can go.”

“We’ve found 37 worlds that survived,” he said, “and we’ve contacted them all via tachyon communications back when our equipment still worked. None of them were any better off than we were.”

“You do realize that the Silver Star uses tachyons to communicate and has no working alternative on board. If we don’t have any working receivers then you won’t even know if I’ve found anything until three years from now, assuming I survive the trip.”

“I know,” he said. “It can’t be helped.”

I took one last look at the horizon. There was nothing growing as far as I could see; only miles of brown, cracked dirt stretching out in all directions under a low sky. “I suppose not,” I said.

An old abandoned house, covered with creeping vines.

Fighting the fire.