That would be the notation the envelope would carry, or another very like it, and he'd tear the envelope open and there would be folded pages. Once before, in another letter, there had been folded pages.
And the second letter?
There would be one, he was sure.
"It was planned on Earth," he said. "Every step was planned. They planned the great forgetting as the only way that humans could carry out the flight. They planned the heresy that handed down the knowledge. They made the ship so simple that anyone could handle it—anyone at all.
"They looked ahead and saw what was bound to happen. Their planning has been just a jump ahead of us every moment."
He stared out the vision plate at the sweep of land, at the trees and grass and sky.
"I wouldn't be surprised," he said, "if they figured out how to drive us off the ship."
A loudspeaker came to life and talked throughout the ship, so that everyone might hear.
Now hear this, it said, the old recording just a little scratchy. Now hear this. You must leave the ship within the next twelve hours. At the expiration of that time a deadly gas will be released inside the ship.
Jon reached out his hand to Mary.