Being able to make the Dutchman do what we needed was our only hope of getting home, and Skippy understood that. We'd had a heart to heart, or heart to beercan, talk about what he expected when we found the Collective. He had no expectations, as his memories were still frustratingly blocked, what he had were hopes. Hope that the Collective still existed in the vague way he did remember. Hope they would communicate with him and accept him into their network, civilization, or whatever it was. Hope they could explain who he was, where he came from, and how he got left orbiting Paradise in a derelict ship until it fell out of orbit. The pain in Skippy's voice when he spoke about it made me, too, hope he found the answers he was seeking.

Skippy warned me that the Collective might not look kindly on his having helped us low-tech biological creatures to capture a starship, they might even disable the ship. He couldn't make any promises, and I understood, I appreciated his honesty. As to my own honesty, I did talk to each of our volunteers, and after I'd given my speech about our mission objectives, and how I thought the odds were against us ever coming home again, no one dropped out of the mission. None of the fourteen scientists aboard wanted to miss an opportunity to explore the galaxy, and all the military personnel aboard were eager to ensure the wormhole stayed shut down, permanently. When I explained to a Marine Corps major, who wore a Bronze Star on his uniform, that the plan, if you could call it that, was to roam around the galaxy until Skippy found a way to contact a Collective that might not exist, and then I had no idea what would happen after that, the major simply shrugged. "Hell, that's a lot more clear than most mission briefs I got as a 2nd lieutenant in Iraq."