"In this system!" Roberto said.
Neither of his parents said a word. They stared at him and waited.
"In a few days it will be officially announced," Roberto said. "With the perfection of the new Korenyik propulsion, a starship will be built. A starship! And I have been selected to take it through the other space to Alpha Centauri."
Mr. Sanchez embraced his son. "Roberto, I am so proud." He turned to his wife. "Is it not a great—" He stopped at the look of her.
"This Alpha Centauri," she said, pronouncing it badly, "it is a planet?"
"It is a star, Mama. Like our sun. It may have a family of planets. It will be exciting to discover them."
"Why?" she asked with a mother's quiet challenge.
The word echoed in Roberto's mind—why? The very core of his being strained to shout out why. Space was why! Each blazing star was a compelling, beckoning finger. Every constellation a covenant with his heart. And somewhere out in the majestic, wheeling Galaxy his soul wandered, waiting for him to come.
"Mama, I will show you why," he replied as quietly. "As I promised Papa the last time, I have borrowed from the company a star projector. This time you must put aside the household and watch and listen and learn something about the universe out of which my life and my dreams are made. Of all your children I am the only stranger to you. And before I go out to the stars I want you to know something of that which fills my heart."
He went to his room and returned with a foot-square case which he set on a table in the living area. He pressed a stud. A transparent globe inflated over it to a four foot diameter. He dimmed the lights, manipulated the controls and a tiny sun burned in the center of the globe. Another adjustment brought into view the solar planets orbiting around it. The device was an educational tool; it projected as desired, within the envelope of gas, three-dimensional mockups of the solar system, star clusters and galaxies that moved almost as incandescently beautiful as the originals.