Richard Powers - Operation Wandering Soul

In the kitchen, you ask this woman — this other with whom you share this house, these offspring this life — whether perhaps we have been assembled here in safekeeping awaiting some return.

What do you mean? she asks, although she knows what you mean. It always comes down to this. Every night.

You tell her again of that spacecraft, launched back when you were both too young to know you were young The one with the pictures and recordings, the message in all those languages. One day the rest will trace it back to us from where they have vanished, drop by, ask us to come out and play. But all they will know how to say will be the only words we've taught them: "Greetings from the children of Planet Earth…"

She laughs at the idea, and hurt, you defend. You follow her up to bed again, in the dark.

On the way, you find the blanketed shape huddling at the top of the stairs. The woman, your wife, handles it this time. The killing responsibility of care, split down the middle between you.

"What are you doing here?" she demands, in the playacted voice of authority. "Get back up… You're supposed to be asleep. Didn't jour father just tell you…?"

But it's the little one this time, the girl, and her eyes are burning wet, incredulous, on fire. There is a look to them, such a look it scares you both.

It can be only one thing one discovery painful enough to rate that gauge. Remember? Remember it? And yes, she blurts out, confesses, each word catching tearing into her with the merciless beauty of the thing. "I finished it. That book you gave me? Your old favorite? I just finished it."