Robert Sawyer - Star Light, Star Bright

My wife and I came to see them off, of course—as did everyone else in our settlement. We wondered what people in the sphere would make of it when the pyramid lifted off—it would do so with a kick that would doubtless be detectable on the other side of the shell.

“I’ll miss you, son,” I said to Dalt. Tears were welling in my eyes. I hugged him, and he hugged me back, so much harder than I could manage.

“And, Suzto,” I said, moving to my daughter-in-law, while my wife moved to hug our son. “I’ll miss you, too.” I hugged her, as well. “I love you both.”

“We love you, too,” Suzto said.

And they entered the pyramid.

I was hovering over a field, harvesting radishes. It was tricky work; if you pulled too hard, you’d get the radish out, all right, but then you and it would go sailing up into the air.

“Rodal! Rodal!”

I looked in the direction of the voice. It was old Doc Tadders, hurtling toward me, a white-haired projectile. At her age, she should be more careful—she could break her bones slamming into even a padded wall at that speed.

“Rodal!”

“Yes?”

“Come! Come quickly! A message has been received from Dirt!”

I kicked off the ground, sailing toward the communication station next to the access tube that used to lead to the starship. Tadders managed to turn around without killing herself and she flew there alongside me.

A sizable crowd had already gathered by the time we arrived. “What does the message say?” I asked the person closest to the computer monitor.

He looked at me in irritation; the ancient computer had displayed the text, naturally enough, in the ancient script, and few besides me could understand that. He moved aside and I consulted the screen, reading aloud for the benefit of everyone.

“It says, ‘Greetings! We have arrived safely at Dirt.’ ”

The crowd broke into cheers and applause. I couldn’t help reading ahead a bit while waiting or them to quiet down, so I was already misty-eyed when I continued. “It goes on to say, ‘Tell Rodal and Delar that they have a grandson; we’ve named him Madar.’ ”

My wife had passed on some time ago—but she would have been delighted at the choice of Madar; that had been her father’s name.

“ ‘Dirt is beautiful, full of plants and huge bodies of water,’ ” I read. “ ‘And there are other human beings living here. It seems those people interested in technology moved to the Dyson sphere, but a small group who preferred a pastoral lifestyle stayed on the homeworld. We’re mastering their language—it’s deviated a fair bit from the one in the ancient texts—and are already great friends with them.’ ”

“Amazing,” said Doc Tadders.

I smiled at her, wiped my eyes, then went on: “ ‘We will send much more information later, but we can clear up at least one enduring mystery right now.’ ” I smiled as I read the next part. “ ‘Chickens can’t fly here. Apparently, just because you have wings doesn’t mean you were meant to fly.’ ”

That was the end of the message. I looked up at the dark sky, wishing I could make out Sol, or any star. “And just because you don’t have wings,” I said, thinking of my son and his wife and my grandchild, far, far away, “doesn’t mean you weren’t.”