Maya snuggled against his shoulder as she nodded her agreement.
Ato smiled. “I thought so—But we will say no more about it. There is one thing that you may not understand. Wolden has tried to tell you. But he is a scientist, and his words are different and difficult to follow. You and I have fought shoulder to shoulder. Perhaps I can explain—”
Then he talked for nearly an hour about the passing of time—and how a ship could circle the universe at the speed of light—and upon returning it might find its home-port nothing but dust and memories. For while their hearts were beating once a month out there in space tide after tide of years had flowed over their homes and their loved ones.
It was a sad, bewildering speech. It reduced time to nothing—and both Maya and Odin felt a lump of ice in their throats as Ato talked.
But even after he had finished, they shook their heads and clung together. A chill wind from space seemed to be blowing through the room, whispering of time’s vagaries, and how space had different clocks, and how the affairs of men were swept by time and chance down to a sunless sea.
For the last time Jack Odin and Maya refused Ato’s offer. Eden was behind him. Immortality was lost. But Adam and Eve held close to each other there at the edge of space—and as they left Eden behind an old sad nobility clung to them. Something brave and beautiful, like the last leaves of autumn glinting in the setting sun.
The notes that Doctor Jack Odin sent me are ended. But even as before he wrote a short letter and added it to the package at the last.
Dear Joe: (he began)
Wolden and Ato have agreed to deliver this message and the attached notes. Wolden says that it is a terrible experience to go from the fourth-dimensional light of his into a time-bound world. He will not again obligate himself as a messenger boy.