"Imagine, Johnny. We can have babies that will have a real childhood. Not like ours, in the Ship, but one on Earth. They can play in the wind and in the sunshine.
"And learn things. All kinds of things. They won't be born into one particular job. They can do anything they want to—anything in the whole wide world. And they can live in the air." She blinked her eyes.
"It makes me so glad I want to cry."
The Big Ship, the balanced terrarium of fifty lives, swung downward in her path, rushing toward her parent sun, the first interstellar voyager coming home.
Home. After twenty-one generations had peopled her vast bulk, after four hundred long years in space.
The radio in Control crackled and sputtered; the nearly seven hour wait was over. The Captain, the Mate, and Johnny Nine, the pilot, listened intently.
The language had changed, and the voice that came out of the speaker was reedy, and thin with vast distances.
"Halloo.... Hallooo...." Like a cosmic sigh. Weird. "Yur message...." They could make out the words; the vowels were shorter, the consonants more sibilant, but they could make out the words. "... Repeat ... pilot...." The voice rose and fell, rose and fell. Static hacked away inside the speaker, split sentences, scattered words.
"... World waiting eagerly for...." Hiss and sputter. "In answer.... Repeat.... pilot inside Mar's orbit.... Repeat ... pilot...."