Rollback

"Of course." But before he could do anything, Gunter was off like a shot. Moments later, he returned carrying the wheeled stenographer’s chair Sarah used at her workstation in the study. The Mozo placed it next to the bed, and Don sat on it.

"Thank you," said Sarah, to the robot.

The Mozo nodded, his mouth looking like a flatlining EKG.

In the morning, Sarah sat on the couch in the living room, writing on her datacom with a stylus, drafting her reply to the aliens; Cody McGavin had promised to arrange for it to be sent.

So the Dracons would know her message was from their intended recipient, she would ultimately encrypt it using the same key that had decrypted the Dracons’ message to her. For now, she was using the English-like notation system she’d developed; later, she’d have a computer program translate the message into Dracon ideograms:

!! [Sender’s] [Lifespan] ‹‹ [Recipient’s] [Lifespan]

[Recipient’s] [Lifespan]

[Sender’s] [Lifespan] = [End]

As she jotted down the pseudocode, a more colloquial version ran through her head: I’ve figured out that my lifespan is much shorter than yours. Your life goes on and on, but mine is near its end.

She would go on to tell the Dracons that although she couldn’t personally do what they’d asked, she’d found a worthy successor, and that they should look forward to receiving reports from their representatives here.

She looked at the words and symbols she’d written so far; the datacom had converted her shaky handwriting into crisp, clean text.

But mine is near its end…

Almost ninety years of life, sixty years of marriage. Who could say it was too little?

And yet…

And yet.

A thought came to her, from so many years ago, from her first date with Don, when they’d gone to see that Star Trek film — the one with the whales; he’d know which number it was. Funny how she could remember things from long ago, but had trouble with more-recent stuff; she vividly recalled how the film began, with a screen proclaiming:

The cast and crew of Star Trek wish to dedicate this film to the men and women of the spaceship Challenger whose courageous spirit shall live to the 23rd century and beyond…

Sarah also remembered the other Shuttle disaster, the one in 2003, when Columbia had disintegrated on reentry.

She’d been devastated both times, and although it was ridiculous to try to weigh one tragedy against the other, she remembered what she’d said to Don after the second one: she’d rather have been part of Columbia’s crew than have been aboard Challenger, for the people aboard Columbia died at the end of their mission, on the way home — on the voyage home. They’d lived long enough to see their lifelong dream realized. They’d gone into orbit, had floated in microgravity, and had looked back down on the wonderful, chaotic, hypnotic blue vista of the Earth. But the Challenger astronauts had died within minutes of lifting off, without ever making it into space.

If you have to die, better to die after achieving your goals rather than before. She had lived long enough to see aliens detected, to send a response, and to receive a reply, to engage in a dialogue, however brief. So this was now after. Even if there was a lot that she would have liked to have been part of yet to come, this was still after. This was after so very much. She lifted her stylus to continue writing, and, as she did so, a teardrop fell onto the datacom’s display, magnifying the text beneath.

How does one die in the age of miracle and wonder? Incipient strokes and heart attacks are easily detected and prevented. Cancers are simple to cure, as are Alzheimer’s and pneumonia. Accidents still happen, but when you have a Mozo to look after you, those are rare.

But, still, at some point, the body does wear out. The heart grows weak, the nervous system falters, catabolism far outpaces anabolism. It’s not as dramatic as an aneurysm, not as painful as a coronary, not as protracted as a cancer. There’s just a slow fade to black.

And that’s what had been happening, step by tiny step, to Sarah Halifax, until—

"I don’t feel very well," she said one morning, her voice weak.

Don was at her side in an instant. She’d been sitting on the couch in the living room, Gunter having carried her in a chair downstairs about an hour earlier. The robot came over almost as quickly, scanning her vital signs with his built-in sensors.

"What is it?" Don asked.

Sarah managed a weak smile. "It’s old age," she said. She paused and breathed in and out a few times. Don took her hand, and looked up at Gunter.