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Back The Long Sunset Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. Prologue
  5. 1.
  6. 2.
  7. 3.
  8. 4.
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  10. 6.
  11. 7.
  12. 8.
  13. 9.
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  30. 26.
  31. 27.
  32. 28.
  33. 29.
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  36. 32.
  37. 33.
  38. 34.
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  40. 36.
  41. 37.
  42. 38.
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  46. 42.
  47. 43.
  48. 44.
  49. Epilogue
  50. About the Author
  51. Copyright

“No. But I’d be surprised if there’s a problem. If everything else is okay, we’ll take these home with us and check them out.” Something moved on the other side of the river. And a head on a long neck was looking out at them. Most of the rest of the animal was hidden, but the creature looked harmless enough. It could have been a giraffe with large eyes.

A giant butterfly with green wings fluttered past. And, without warning, the sky filled with a vast array of birds. There must have been hundreds of them. They were green and gold, about the size of sparrows, and they landed in the shrubbery, ignoring Hutch and Derek. Some drank from the river.

They took pictures. Their movements didn’t frighten the animals. Then, as if a signal had been given, the birds soared back into the air, leaving their perches at precisely the same instant. A minute later they were gone.

They returned to the lander. “I think this will work,” Derek said. “This place is perfect.”

Hutch was getting ready to lift off when she noticed something.

“What?” asked Derek.

She looked at the sun, which was just touching the top of the hills off to their right. “I don’t know.”

“What’s that mean?”

The Eiferman was no longer in range of the radio. So, she couldn’t talk to Barry. “Tasha, you been paying any attention to the rotation?”

“Of the planet? No, I haven’t, Captain.”

“Have we got a problem, Hutch?”

“Probably.”

“Which is what?”

“We landed about a half hour ago. Maybe a little less.”

“And?”

“When we went out the door, the sun was positioned directly on top of those hills.”

“Where it is now.”

“Yes.”

“It’s only been about twenty minutes.”

“Whatever. I don’t think it’s moved.”

Derek delivered a loud sigh. He sat down in one of the seats behind Hutch so he wouldn’t block her view out the window. “Let’s give it a little time.”

The Eiferman circled the planet. When it appeared again in the sky, the sun was still balanced on the hills.

“Which means what?” asked Wally.

Ken answered: “The planet’s in tidal lock.”

“I don’t think I know what that is.”

“It’s the same thing the moon does orbiting Earth. Gravity’s taken hold of it. It rotates at the same speed that it orbits, so one side always faces the sun. There’s no sunrise on this world. And no sunset. The place where we were, it’s always twilight.” He turned to Hutch. “What’s next?”

Priscilla’s Journal

Looking at this world, locked between permanent day and night, reminds me again of the extent to which we are at the mercy of cosmic forces. I understand now why the statue on Iapetus shows such courage and defiance in the face of an uncaring universe.

—Saturday, May 17, 2256

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