“But the Mykali were sent out in meteoric spaceships. Would there have been enough time to do that, with a sun going supernova?”
“Sure.” Chuckie rubbed the back of his neck. “There are signs when a sun is going to start that progression. If you were scientifically advanced enough—and anyone who could send the Mykali through space as they did were definitely advanced enough—then you’d know and could plan.”
“So . . . what?” Jeff asked. “I don’t know what we do with this information.”
Chuckie shook his head. “There has to be a reason these were given to Kitty. A significant reason. One that matters to us and why we’re on this trip in the first place.”
“Well, we’re on this trip because of Ixtha.” Jerked. Naomi had certainly indicated that I was being an idiot. “Ixtha’s in that system that’s floating away from our galaxy.”
Both men nodded. “I can accept that leap,” Chuckie said.
“Kitty’s rarely wrong when she makes these guesses,” Jeff said, rather proudly, which made me feel quite good.
“So, we have our heading after we drop Wheatles and his crew off, then.”
Chuckie nodded. “We do. We should be able to easily determine where we are in relation to where this system is, even if the galaxy has rotated a bit since this picture was taken.”
My bet was that the galaxy hadn’t rotated any more than it had in the time since we’d left Earth, if that, but kept that bet to myself.
“Great and one big problem solved. But we still need to figure out what the issue is with this first system and why we care about it. It’s gone, just like the Mykali told us. And I don’t think any of us felt we needed confirmation that they were telling the truth.”
Jeff studied the first picture again. “Chuck, I know you said you can’t tell for sure without a supercomputer and some of the others, but what’s your best guess for how old the galaxy is in this first picture?”
“Ancient. Early days of the galaxy ancient. You can tell—most of the nebulas we know about aren’t here, far fewer pulsars, fewer black holes, among other things.”
Felt like I knew what was going on, but couldn’t verbalize it or even come up with the right concept, as if the answer was there, but just out of reach.
Really wished I had my earbuds in. Decided I could do the next best thing. Pulled my phone out and queued up my music. The Cosmic Thing playlist was up, and I hadn’t created it, which wasn’t that much of a surprise. It was a short playlist. Clearly I was supposed to catch on quickly. Hoped I was as smart as Algar thought I was.
“What are you doing?” Jeff asked.
“Trying to figure out what’s going on. Just gimme a mo, Jeff.”
Took a look at the song list. Billy Idol’s “Cradle of Love” was the first song up. Looked at the next songs—“The Beginning” by Lifehouse, then the Backstreet Boys’ “The Answer to Our Life,” followed by Tears for Fears’ “Sowing the Seeds of Love.” The last song was “Feels Like The First Time” by Foreigner.
It was there, right there. But Jeff jerked. “Raj needs us.”
And just like that, it was gone. Sighed, but there was nothing for it. Hopefully the idea would come back to me. I could listen to the songs later, and maybe that would spark it. But right now, duty appeared to be calling.
Chuckie took the pictures from Jeff, put them back into the envelope, and handed them to me. “Keep them in your purse and on you. We’ll deal with this once we get the Ignotforstans home safely.”
Shoved them into my purse just as a knock came on the door and Raj stuck his head in. “There you three are. Thankfully I ran into the Ard Ri and he said that you liked to meet in this closet. I’ll ask why later. We have a situation.”
“Of course we do,” Jeff said with a sigh. “What’s up?”
“We have issues of state we need to deal with,” Raj said. “I’d prefer that you hear this directly, as opposed to being translated through me.”
We followed Raj to what turned out to be a conference room. Filled with Jeff’s Cabinet members, Gower, White, Drax, and, interestingly enough, Gadhavi.
“What’s going on?” Chuckie asked, eyes narrowed, as the three of us sat down.
Hochberg rolled his eyes. “Really, son? We may be on some bizarre road trip instead of relaxing at Camp David, but things still need to be handled, unplanned vacation or no.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like where we’re going from here,” Hamlin said.
“To save Ixtha and her people from whatever galaxy-ending situation they’re in.” Everyone stared at me. “Really? You guys haven’t noticed that we’re on a galaxywide rescue mission?”
“We’ve noticed,” Ernesto Iriarte, the Secretary of Labor, said, sarcasm knob at five and rising.
“We just don’t know why we’re here,” Julie Cruz, the Secretary of Health and Human Services added. “Other than that we were all in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Gibson, Davis, and Harris all nodded. They rarely backed Cruz under normal circumstances, but she appeared to be speaking for everyone.
Well, almost everyone. “Stop complaining,” Horn said mildly, but with a lot of authority. He’d been the head of the FBI’s Alien Affairs Division and had been a good friend and ally when he was in that position. Horn was now the Secretary of Homeland Security and doing a good job with expanding that position to cover all of the Solaris system.
Horn wasn’t someone who scared easily. He wasn’t scared now, but I had a feeling that a lot of the Cabinet members were scared, and that Horn found that somewhat unacceptable. A sentiment I kind of agreed with.
“We aren’t, Vander,” Carlos Garcia, Jeff’s Attorney General said. “But we need to take the time to get a handle on what it is we’re trying to do out here.”
“And how we’re going to handle the Ignotforstans,” Elaine added.
“What do you mean, handle?” Jeff asked. “We’re taking them home. What’s to handle?”
“Other than everything?” Gibson said. “How about handling their expectations?”
“What expectations?” Jeff asked. “They expect to get home safely. We’re handling it.”
Gadhavi rolled his eyes. “This is how you brief your President? You attack him out of nowhere with no facts, no information, just random demands? You bicker amongst yourselves but with no purpose? It’s amazing you’ve held things together so well, King Jeffrey.”
“Oh, if Mister Gadhavi is tossing around royal titles, it means we’re missing something, Jeff.” Gadhavi smiled and winked at me, not that I’d been worried about being wrong.
Drax nodded. “You are. The Ignotforstans are from a rather isolationist solar system. All the planets in the Apata system know of Vatusus and some other key core systems because of radio waves. But they’ve stayed away due to what they call caution.”
“And I call fear,” Gadhavi said. “Fear that is not without reason.”
“Fear often keeps you alive,” Alvin Wong, the Secretary of Agriculture, said.
“Alvin’s not wrong,” Gower agreed.