"Now," he said, "now tell them—"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Tell them the whole thing is useless."
My stomach retched drily, grinding the sober pills to dust between its ulcerating walls.
"Meyverik," I said to the empty video tube, "they made a mistake. They underestimated curvature. You can't reach Alpha Centauri. You can't correct enough. Free space is all you'll hit. Ever. You may as well come home."
The soft voice came out of nowhere, from nothing.
"I don't want to come back. I like it here. This is what I've always been trying to get and I never knew it."
Madison grabbed my arm with pronged fingers.
"Shut up, Doc. That's just the way the government wants him to be."