Time was, we would have had a major celebration. But we are getting close to the end here. We'll be turning everything over to the terraformers in a few weeks. In fact, we are the last team left on Quraqua. Everybody else has gone home. Henry, bless him, won't leave until they push the button.
Anyway, your wunderkind has struck gold. Henry thinks they'll name the new Academy library for me.
Linda
— Linda Thomas.
Letter to her mentor, Dr. Philip Berthold, University of Antioch. Dated the 211th day of the 28th year of the Quraqua Mission. Received in Yellow Springs, Ohio, May 28, 2202.
2
Princeton. Thursday, May 6, 2202; 1730 hours
Hutch killed the engine and the lights, and watched the first wave of office workers spread out through the storm. Most headed for the train station, an elevated platform lost in the hard rain. Some huddled in the shelter of the Tarpley Building, and a few—the more prosperous—dashed for their cars. The sky sagged into the parking lot, its underside illuminated by streetlights and traffic.
His lights were still on, but the blinds were down. It was a corner office on the top floor of a squat utilitarian building, a block of concrete and glass, housing law firms, insurance agents, and jobbers reps. Not the sort of place one would associate with romance. But for her, just being here again, just seeing it, set her internal tides rolling.
People were piling up at the main doors, pulling their collars tight, wrestling with umbrellas. Two or three energy fields blinked on. Cars swung into the approaches, headlamps blurred, wipers moving rhythmically.