“So, what’s next?” Hutch asked. “If Calliope doesn’t turn up out there somewhere, do we have any other options?”

“Not really. We can hang out while Barry sorts through a half-million stars. Or we can give it up and leave.”

“I’m sorry, Derek. I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I, Priscilla. Well, for what it’s worth, at least we’ll be home for most of the baseball season.”

They were halfway through the meal when Barry’s blinker lit up. Hutch excused herself and went onto the bridge, knowing it couldn’t be good news or the AI would simply have announced it. “What do you have?” she asked, keeping her voice down and reducing the volume on the speaker.

“Captain, I’ve checked every star within eighty light-years. I can’t find a match for Calliope. If you wish, I can extend the search farther.”

“Stay with it,” she said. “Go to one hundred and twenty light-years. It’s all we have now.”

Derek was waiting for her when she came back. He looked at her without saying anything. She let him see that they had nothing. He just shook his head.

“Still nothing?” asked Ken.

Derek nodded at Hutch. Tell them.

“No match anywhere for Calliope.”

“So what do we do now?” said Ken. “Do we have a recourse?”

“Well.” Derek lifted his cup of coffee. “Not really. We never thought to bring the whiskey.”

Derek Blanchard, Extract from Notebook, Intended for Autobiography

There’s a red giant that’s running out of fuel and will probably explode within the next million years or so. I don’t have a reading on its distance, but it can’t be too far since it’s visible to the naked eye. If we aren’t going to find the people who were lighting up their planetary system, I’d be willing to settle for a close-up look at a star that is on the verge of going supernova. Why not? Who else has done that? And, you know, what could possibly go wrong?

—Tuesday, April 1, 2256

14.

Human existence is girt round with mystery; the narrow region of our experience is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea. To add to the mystery, the domain of our earthly existence is not only an island in infinite space, but also in infinite time. The past and the future are alike shrouded from us: we neither know the origin of anything which is, nor its final destination.

—J. S. Mill, Three Essays on Religion, 1874

You want to go get a close-up of a supernova?” Hutch was not happy.

“No, no,” Derek said. “It’s just a red supergiant. It’s burning up the last of its fuel. When that happens, it will go supernova. But the process will probably take a while. Maybe a million years or so.”

“Probably?” said Hutch.

“There’s no imminent danger.”