Dear Jake,
There is no possible way I can ever know if you'll receive this, of course, but just writing it is giving me chills along with a warm feeling of nostalgia for a time long past and an experience that I've often suspected might have been just a momentary hallucination. But no. Deborah remembers, too, so it must have been real. Our life together has been overall a pleasant one, and we owe to you the fact that we are together. We have been married for over forty years. We had four children, three boys and a girl, and they are all grown up now, and two are raising families of their own. I don't want to bore you with statistics or a recitation of the events of our lives, but we do want to assure you that we are fine, and that the decisions we made back then have proven out pretty well.
Shortly after the last time we saw each other, I went to college and majored in electrical engineering. The years ahead saw a growth in computer technology (I still think of Sam even to this day!) and that's the field I chose to go into. I did pretty well, and wound up managing my own company for a while, until we were bought out, and then I went into consulting. Well, I said I wouldn't bore you with details. I'd love to ask how you are, if only I could believe that there was even the slightest chance that you could answer. But I still think of you, Jake. You were a hero to me. I was young, and looking back, a pretty stubborn kid. I must have been hard to handle at certain times. But you helped me, Jake. You took a lost kid and helped him get home. And I'll never forget you. Debbie has something to say to you, too, so I will turn this over to her.
Hi Jake!
Carl said everything I wanted to say, except for this. Over the years I've sometimes stood out on the back porch looking up at the stars, on summer nights, just looking, wondering. Are you out there somewhere, Jake? Or was it a dream? So many years and miles separate us, but I'll never forget the crush I had on you. Carl was my age, and I loved him from the very first, but you were a knight in shining armor. Oh, I guess that's as romantic as you can get, isn't it? But I look up and I think and I wonder. Will he get home? Will he and Darla be happy? I hope you are well, Jake. I'll always love you. Good-bye.
And then, again in Carl's hand:
Me again. I guess that's it. Nothing more to say, except that over the years I've kept asking myself this question: What was it that we found at the end of the Skyway? I'll never know, but I'll never stop thinking about it. Goodbye, Jake, and good luck.
P.S.-My lawyers have devised a pretty fancy scheme for seeing that this letter has a chance of getting to you. They think I'm crazy, but I pay them enough money to build several mental institutions.
Hail and farewell, Carl. Hail and farewell.
Home. We sold the farm very handily, turning a nice profit. After thirty years of sweat and strain and broken backs. So we packed up the truck and made ready to move. We would stay well away from Terran Maze for a while; maybe for good. I'm not political, but on a bad day my opinion of the Authority was about as low as it could get. Governments just don't come much more odious. Well, with any luck, the dissident movement would one day change things for the better.
But there is always hope, as I found out on the day we were to leave. Sam was out in the truck with Zoya, going over our itinerary (we were going to take a little vacation, visit a few nice spots), and I was in the farmhouse looking for things that we may have left behind. It was a nice day, and I was sort of taking my time saying good-bye to the place, when I heard, of all things, Arthur's voice coming from the cutlery drawer in the kitchen. I opened the drawer and saw an oblong piece of olive drab material. The communicator, and I had forgotten all about it.
'Jake? Come in, Jake. This is Arthur! Can you read me?'
'Arthur!' I yelled. 'What the hell? Where are you?'
'Oh, good,' Arthur said. 'I have someone here who wants to see you, Jake. I'm hovering at about half a kilometer. That's your house down there? The tacky yellow one?'
'Get down here this instant!' I shouted.
I raced outside just in time to see the ship land.
'Darla!'
'Jake! Jake, darling!'
And again she was real in my arms, warm and real and alive. And not pregnant any more.
'You'll be wanting this,' Arthur said, handing me my infant son.
I couldn't speak. Sam said, 'The spitting image of somebody.'
'Well, it was like this,' Arthur said, 'I was on my way back to Microcosmos, and I said to myself, you big idiot, here you are with a time machine-'
'The airborne bogey that was tailing us when the missile hit!' I blurted.
'Yeah, that was me. I got back a little before I left, is all. Nothing unusual. But what a mess! Darla was in bad shape, and I very nearly lost her to the cylinders! You can imagine what it's like flying near those things! Why, I almost lost the ship. Would Prime have been pissed! Anyway, so I snatch Darla up, and I streak back to the plant, and those darlings whip up a minihospital cum maternity ward in a blink of a gnat's eye, and…' Arthur slumped against the ship. 'I'm pooped.'
The road shot over brown sand and pink rocks, bisecting the plain and racing toward the potluck portal. The cylinders rose against the yellow sky like dark angels on judgment day, and through them lay all of eternity.
'How's our speed, Sam?'
'Don't ask me, I'm diapering a baby.'
'Darla?'
'Warming this bottle, Jake. Just a minute.'
'Hey, you people know I can't drive and read instruments at the same time. Zoya?'
'Thirty meters per second, Jake, and holding steady.'
'Good. Can't you keep that kid quiet, Darla?'
'He takes after his father.'
'And his grandfather,' Zoya added.
'Son, we shoulda never allowed womenfolk aboard this vessel.'
'Yeah, you're right, Sam. I've always said-' I took a better grip on the control bars. 'Commit markers coming up. Everyone strap in! Now!'
Everything was right. The board was green. This was going to be the longest trip, and the best. The markers shot past. I looked back to see that everyone was strapped in tightly, even the baby, Samuel Jacob, in his little crash seat.
We shot into the portal, and the gates of eternity opened….
