Emily swirled the chardonnay, compelling it to climb to the lip of her snifter, without allowed thing it to escape. She had heard it was what one does with a good chardonnay, and so she did, carefully. She placed it under her nose to experience the bouquet, but the smell reminded her of communion wine and one of her preferred disinfecting cleaners.
The others had opted for hardier spirits. Jaeger was drinking vodka, which was supposed to be funny, but no one told her why. Harold and Li were working on a bottle of Jack Daniels. Stu drank nothing, but stared at the shadows in the corner, wearing his calculating glare...
Finally, Morgan hoisted his beer in the air, calling their attention. "Gentleman and lady, I don't think we've yet given a proper toast to Chuz, our fallen colleague. As we chase after the secret he kept - the secret that killed him - I ask that we remember the man who brought us together, and allowed us to be our best. We've had some vigorous discussions, but I think we can come to agreement that it was a burden he should not have borne alone. As he brought us together, so he is among us. As we see this through, so shall he. To Chuz!"
The team downed their drinks and bowed their heads. Lorraine the waitress took the empty bottle, and brought new shots. "Sorry, boys, here's your last call. And I'm sorry to hear about your friend. What are you, hunters?"
"Actually, miss," slurred Harold, "we're rocket scientists. But we are hunting tonight-"
"-for a meteorite!" Li interjected, stepping over the rest of Harold's words.
"You mean, that meteor coming down tonight? I saw on the news a little bit ago..."
Harold grinned deeply. "Yeah, your government's closing the forest for us, since it'll probably land there. Got our nets and yellow tape, and we'll see what the heavens brought down to us poor souls."
"Are you guys Americans?"\
"Yep. You wanna do something a-boot it, eh?"
Li was patting himself down for his wallet. "We'll be out of your hair in a bit." He wandered over to Morgan.
As the waitress was about to walk off, Harold whispered, "We're not going after a meteorite."
He showed Lorraine his wristwatch, and pointed to its center. "We're here. We shot something all the way over here-" dragging his finger to the 3- "and it's coming at us from here." He placed his finger on the 9, pulling it back to the center. "Ain't that wild?" Lorraine shook her head, offering no response.
Stu returned his attention to the team. "If you're all done, it's entered airspace. should be on the ground in two minutes."
The team climbed into the van: Stu at the wheel, Morgan navigating, the others doing final checks on equipment and watching the skies. Emily was sitting next to Jaeger, whose lower lip was jutting out and resting against the window. In a low voice, she asked, "Are you mad that Chuz didn't tell you?"
Jaeger collected himself, and measured his answer. "No. I mean, he inherited it, y'know? He was still interning when the signal went crazy. There wasn't any proof to call it anything besides mechanical failure, so that's been the truth enough. No other answer made sense, so there's no reason to think of anything else without the data. That's what messed Chuz up."
"That way lies madness," Morgan offered.
"And we have plenty of time to go crazy," Jaeger joked. "First things first."
Harold's mouth diarrhea kicked in. "Guys, I'm renaming the stars. As long as all bets are off, I'll calling dibs on a couple of them. I already bought one for my daughter, so she would think my job was cool. I think I'm going to rename a closer one; maybe it'll work this time... oh shit, are we still going to have jobs? I'm serious, guys! The universe - our universe is like, 85 years across! We're living in a donut! A dark jelly donut!"
"I think you're panicking, Harold. I'm considering a wormhole as our culprit," Li countered. "The theory's been around, it's suggested on the atomic level; if we find evidence of temporal irregularities, I think this discovery could be a real positive."
"Sure, you and the Mario brothers!"
Emily put her hand on Harold's shoulder, trying to calm him. "Look, we're all thinking about it, let's just get it out there. Now, I'm thinking it's premature to presume one dominant factor put it so off course. We've got other scouts out there, after all, and they haven't returned. It could have caught onto another current, and been redirected naturally."
"I'm considering intentional alteration," Stu said. "Statistically, it's impressive that we send it out one direction in uncharted territory, and it happens to intersect our path, but not where it started, and do that unassisted. I don't think it's an accident; I think it's a response."
Morgan moaned, "My wife will tell you who's responding: it's God. He's swatting us back down where He wants us to be. We asked our big question, and we got our answer: No."
Emily accepted the map, and took over navigation.
At the site, the authorities had already cordoned off the area; the team had it to themselves. The radiation it had absorbed in space was distinct enough to find it in the forest, but Harold assured that it wasn't at lethal levels. He and Li worked the perimeter to locate the smaller significant pieces; Jaeger and Stu loaded up the bulk of the guts, leaving Emily and Morgan to catalog. Morgan was all business until Jaeger brought him the pieces of the gold disc; then, he cried like a baby.
But even as the autopsy continued through the night, Emily would still steal glances at the stars, and wonder what she was seeing.
inspired by the Discover Magazine article, "Voyager 1 Goes Interstellar"
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