When she reached the hatch, she lifted her fist, then started to laugh. Did one knock on the door of a spacecraft? Feeling foolish with the ship looming over her, she rapped twice. A chipmunk scurried over the ground, scrambled onto the trunk of a fallen tree and stared at her.

“I know it’s odd,” Libby told him. “Just remember to keep it under your hat.” She tossed half a cookie in his direction, then turned back to knock again. “All right, Hornblower, open up. I feel like an idiot out here.”

She tried knocking, pounding, shouting. Once she gave in to temper and slammed the hull with a good kick. Favoring her sore toes, she stepped back. Furious with him, she’d nearly decided to turn back when it occurred to her he might not be able to hear her.

Stepping closer, she began to search for the device he had used to open the hatch. It took her ten minutes. When the hatch opened, she stormed inside, ready for a fight.

“Listen, Hornblower, I—”

He wasn’t on the bridge. Frustrated, Libby dragged back her hair. Couldn’t he even make himself available when she wanted to yell at him?

The shield was up. She hadn’t been able to see in from the outside, but now she had a stunning panoramic view. Drawn, she crossed over to the controls. How would it feel, she wondered as she sat in his chair, to pilot something so huge, so powerful? She scanned the buttons and switches spread out before her. Was it any wonder he loved it? Even a woman who had always been firmly rooted to the ground could imagine the wild, limitless freedom of traveling through space. There would be planets, balls of color and light. The glimmer of distant stars, the glow of orbiting moons.

She liked to think of him that way, weaving through the stars the way he had woven through the trees with her on the cycle.

Libby took a last scan of the controls, then studied the computer. A little ill at ease, she glanced around the empty bridge before she leaned forward.

“Computer?”

Working.

She jolted, then swallowed a nervous laugh. There were two questions she wanted to ask, but only one she truly wanted the answer to. Because she believed in facing facts, Libby inhaled, exhaled, then plunged.

“Computer, what is the status on the calculations for the return journey to the twenty-third century?”

Calculations complete. Probability index formulated. Risk factors, trajectory, thrust, degree of orbit, velocity and success factors locked in. Is report desired?

“No.”