The Long Way Home
The Odyssey turned toward home on the sixty-seventh day.
The journey back would take six months — the same six months it had taken to reach the edge of the galaxy. But everything was different now. The ship was quieter. The crew was smaller. The sleepers were restless.
Mira stood on the observation deck, watching the stars stretch into lines of light.
Zander stood beside her.
“Six months,” he said.
“Six months.”
“Will we make it?”
She looked at him.
His silver eyes were almost normal now, but not quite. The song had left its mark. The hunger had left its memory. He would never be the same.
“We’ll make it.”
“How do you know?”
She looked at the stars.
“Because we have to.”
The first week was the hardest.
The sleepers woke in shifts, their memories fragmented, their voices hoarse, their eyes silver. They asked the same questions. Where am I? What happened? Who am I?
Elara worked around the clock, sedating them, soothing them, studying them.
“They’re not sick,” she said.
“Then what are they?” Mira asked.
“Changed. The song changed them. The hunger marked them. They will never be the same.”
“Can they live normal lives?”
Elara was silent for a long moment.
“Some can. Some will need help. Some will never recover.”
Jax spent his days in the engine room.
He did not speak. He did not sleep. He simply worked, his hands steady, his eyes focused, his mind elsewhere.
Mira found him there on the tenth day.
“You’re avoiding us,” she said.
He did not look up.
“I’m working.”
“You’re hiding.”
His hands stopped.
He turned.
His eyes were dark.
“You want to know the truth?”
“Always.”
He walked toward her.
“I heard the song. Before anyone else. Before the signal. Before the sleepers. I heard it in my dreams.”
“When?”
“The night my daughter died.”
Mira’s blood went cold.
“Your daughter?”
“She was three years old. She was sick. The doctors said there was nothing they could do. I held her hand. I watched her fade. And then I heard the song.”
“What did it say?”
He was silent for a long moment.
“It said, ‘Come home.’ “
The Odyssey sailed on.
The weeks passed.
The sleepers healed.
The crew recovered.
The song did not return.
But Mira did not forget.
She could not.
The door was closed. The hunger was sleeping. The signal was silent.
But nothing lasted forever.
And she would be ready.