Which, in one sense, was what we were. "During our little exercises today, I struck up a conversation with one of the Colonial folks," Harry said, "and he mentioned that the Henry Hudson was going to make its skip today at 1535. And I figure that none of us has actually seen what a skip looks like, so I asked him where one would go to get a good view. And he mentioned here. So here we are, and with"—Harry glanced at his PDA—"four minutes to spare."
"Sorry about that," Thomas said. "I didn't mean to hold everyone up. The fettuccine was excellent, but my lower intestine would apparently beg to differ."
"Please feel free not to share such information in the future, Thomas," Susan said. "We don't know you that well yet."
"Well, how else will you get to know me that well?" Thomas said. No one bothered to answer that one.
"Anyone know where we are right now? In space, that is," I asked after a few moments of silence had passed.
"We're still in the solar system," Alan said, and pointed out the window. "You can tell because you can still see the constellations. See, look, there's Orion. If we'd traveled any significant distance, the stars would have shifted their relative position in the sky. Constellations would have been stretched out or would be entirely unrecognizable."
"Where are we supposed to be skipping to?" Jesse asked.
"The Phoenix system," Alan said. "But that won't tell you anything, because 'Phoenix' is the name of the planet, not of the star. There is a constellation named 'Phoenix,' and in fact, there it is"—he pointed to a collection of stars—"but the planet Phoenix isn't around any of the stars in that constellation. If I remember correctly, it's actually in the constellation Lupus, which is farther north"—he pointed to another, dimmer collection of stars—"but we can't actually see the star from here."
"You sure know your constellations," Jesse said admiringly.
"Thanks," Alan said. "I wanted to be an astronomer when I was younger, but astronomers get paid for shit. So I became a theoretical physicist instead."
"Lots of money in thinking up new subatomic particles?" Thomas asked.
"Well, no," Alan admitted. "But I developed a theory that helped the company I worked for create a new energy containment system for naval vessels. The company's profit-sharing incentive plan gave me one percent for that. Which came to more money than I could spend, and trust me, I made the effort."
"Must be nice to be rich," Susan said.
"It wasn't too bad," Alan admitted. "Of course, I'm not rich anymore. You give it up when you join. And you lose other things, too. I mean, in about a minute, all that time I spent memorizing the constellations will be wasted effort. There's no Orion or Ursa Minor or Cassiopeia where we're going. This might sound stupid, but it's entirely possible I'll miss the constellations more than I miss the money. You can always make more money. But we're not coming back here. It's the last time I'll see these old friends."
Susan went over and put an arm around Alan's shoulder. Harry looked down at his PDA. "Here we go," he said, and began a countdown. When he got to "one," we all looked up and out the window.
It wasn't dramatic. One second we were looking at one star-filled sky. The next, we were looking at another. If you blinked, you would have missed it. And yet, you could tell it was an entirely alien sky. We all may not have had Alan's knowledge of the constellations, but most of us know how to pick out Orion and the Big Dipper from the stellar lineup. They were nowhere to be found, an absence subtle and yet substantial. I glanced over at Alan. He was standing like a pillar, hand in Susan's.
"We're turning," Thomas said. We watched as the stars slid counterclockwise as the Henry Hudson changed course. Suddenly the enormous blue arm of the planet Phoenix hovered above us. And above it (or below it, from our orientation) was a space station so large, so massive, and so busy that all we could do was bulge our eyes at it.
Finally someone spoke. And to everyone's surprise, it was Maggie. "Would you look at that," she said.
We all turned to look at her. She was visibly annoyed. "I'm not mute," she said. "I just don't talk much. This deserves comment of some kind."
"No kidding," Thomas said, turning back to look at it. "It makes Colonial Station look like a pile of puke."
"How many ships do you see?" Jesse said to me.
"I don't know," I said. "Dozens. There could be hundreds, for all I know. I didn't even know this many starships existed."
"If any of us were still thinking Earth was the center of the human universe," Harry said, "now would be an excellent time to revise that theory," Harry said.
We all stood and looked at the new world out the window.
My PDA chimed me awake at 0545, which was notable in that I had set it to wake me at 0600. The screen was flashing; there was a message labeled URGENT on it. I tapped the message.