“I’ve been waiting for this my entire life,” Julian said, a smile splitting his face from ear to ear. “You have no idea how ready I am.”
Julian dragged Diego upright as Reese sat on the floor next to them. David was behind her, and Amber took the seat beside David. That wouldn’t have happened a couple of months ago, and Reese felt a surge of happiness inside her. Maybe all this really would work out. She leaned back against David’s legs and sensed his anticipation in a warm glow between them.
Akiya Deyir came to the front of the room and stood before the screens, raising his hands for quiet. “I’ve just heard from Hirin Sagal, and we are ready for takeoff. I suggest you all find a seat. It should be a smooth liftoff but just in case, you might not want to stand until you’ve gotten your space legs.” Some of the humans laughed nervously, and Akiya Deyir added, “Don’t worry. We are very much looking forward to bringing you to our home.”
A scattering of applause followed as he sat down, and then Reese felt the ship’s engines hum on, a slight rumble shaking the floor. Diego squealed. Reese sat forward, her arms wrapped around her knees, and gazed at the screens as the ship lifted from the ground. A murmur of excitement went through the dining hall. They rose over the lawn of Camp Reynolds and the whitewashed officers’ quarters, and as the ship turned, Reese saw the strip of beach where she and Amber had been photographed that day in August. They had walked down there again after returning from Ohio, and flipped off all the paparazzi who lurked in boats on the bay. The memory of that made Reese grin, and she looked over her shoulder at Amber, whose legs were crossed in her big black boots. She was watching the view with something like sadness.
“Hey,” Reese said, tapping the toe of Amber’s boot.
She glanced at Reese and slid off the chair to sit beside her. “What?”
“It’s amazing,” Reese said, turning back to the screens. Amber leaned against Reese, and Reese put an arm around her. She realized that the sadness she had seen on Amber’s face was about leaving Earth. “We’ll come back,” Reese said, surprised.
“I know. But it’s my home too, you know. I get homesick when I leave.”
Far below, the steely water of the bay was dotted with sailboats and yachts and fleets of ferries that had been reserved for tourists to watch the liftoff. The edge of Angel Island, like an irregularly shaped starfish, came into view, and across the water the hills of Tiburon and Sausalito were speckled with houses. Then the Golden Gate Bridge sliced across the water, its crimson cables stretching over the mouth of the bay. To the south, past the rock of Alcatraz, Reese saw the city of San Francisco, and she imagined the crowds gathered in the Marina, cameras and binoculars pointed at the black triangle cutting across the sky. In the distance the Pacific Ocean curved away in an endless dark blue, marking the edge of the horizon and the edge of the Earth itself.
David put his hand on her shoulder and she leaned back, reaching up to clasp his fingers in hers.
It glowed from the reflected light of the sun, but it seemed lit from within, as if every life on the planet gave off a luminescence that together created an ethereal lantern in the dark. The ship slowly turned away from Earth, and a sigh went through the room as the blue-and-white sphere disappeared from view. Then they were facing the stars: masses and masses of stars scattered in a carpet of diamonds for them to walk on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my agent, Laura Langlie, for all her support in this project. Thanks to my editor, Kate Sullivan, for her spot-on comments and brilliant advice on how to make this book work. Thanks to everyone at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for bringing
