Morgan explains to Bess that "twenty-two light years" is as much about time as distance. (Prompt: 024 String)

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Far From Home

The streaks of color twisted and turned through the night sky above them, causing more than a few mouths to fall open. Morgan even let out an excited-sounding squeak, although he waved away the eyes that briefly turned toward him. "Sorry. It was an accident. Didn't mean to interrupt the show."

From somewhere toward the front of the group, Alonzo chuckled. "Relax, Martin. I did something similar the first time I saw one of these. It is pretty amazing."

"The first time?" echoed Martin. "Just how many cosmic strings have you seen?"

"A few. I am a pilot, after all." He shrugged. "In fact, I think this might be part of the one we had to navigate around on our way here."

True piped up. "Navigate around?"

"Yeah. It's why our trip was twenty-two light years long. We're actually a little closer to Earth than that, but we had to make sure to stay a safe distance from the string."

"Why?" she asked. "It's just a twisty light, isn't it?"

"No," he said. "It isn't. It's something you really don't want to hit when you're in a space ship. You don't even want to get close." He made a shushing gesture. "But we're not in school tonight. Just watch it and enjoy."

She quieted down, and Morgan took the opportunity to wrap his arm around Bess. Her face was turned up toward the string fragment in the sky, but he could see that she was shivering under her coat. Tonight's clear sky meant it was cold out, and even thermal clothing had its limits.

In response, she slid an arm around his waist. "Thanks, honey."

Despite the low light, their proximity let him see her face. "You're welcome. But why are you frowning?"

"Alonzo. He was talking about twenty-two light years like it was the distance we traveled. But it's not. It's how long it took us to get here."

Yale glanced back at them. Unlike True, he kept his voice low. "No, Bess. It actually only took us about eleven months to get her, at least from our own perspective."

"What? But everyone always talks about twenty-two light years."

"Twenty-two years did pass back at the Stations. But for us, it was just under one. We were very close to the speed of light." He looked back up in the sky, and his voice took on a contemplative tone. "Time does strange things when you go that fast."

Morgan kissed the top of Bess' head. "A light year is the distance light travels in one year, sweetheart. It's just under six trillion miles. We came twenty-two times that distance."

"Six times twenty-two is what, a hundred thirty-something? We came a hundred thirty-something trillion miles from home?" Her eyes widened. "That's hard to even imagine."

"That," said Yale, "is why stellar distances are measured in light-years."

Her eyes went round, the way True's often did when she encountered a new life form. "Then that makes our trip here even more special. We've gotten further away from home than lots of people even dream about, haven't we?"

"Yeah," said Morgan, kissing her forehead this time. "We have, haven't we?"

"You know, even if we never intended to land here, it's a pretty awesome place. How many people get to stand outside at night in clear air, trillions and trillions of miles away from where they were born, just to look at cosmic strings?" She leaned against him, nestling under his shoulder, and he noticed her shivering had stopped. "It almost makes everything we've been through worth it."

Morgan wouldn't have quite taken it that far, but he had to admit she had a point. It wasn't the Stations, and it would never be home. But there were definitely parts of G889 that weren't all that bad.