Strangers

work lights that the scientists had strung for their convenience.
        In spite of its plainness, the chamber had a warmth, appeal, and magic that, strangely enough, reminded Ginger of her father's private office at the back of his first jewelry store in Brooklyn, the one he always used as his headquarters. The walls of that sanctum sanctorum had been decorated only with a calendar, and the furniture had been inexpensive, old, and well used. Plain. Even drab. But for Ginger, it had been a fine and magical room, because Jacob had seldom worked there but had squirreled away with one book or another, from which he'd often read to her. Sometimes it would be a mystery, or a fantasy about gnomes and witches, a story of other worlds, or a thriller about spies. And when Jacob read, his voice acquired a resonant and mesmerizing timbre. The reality of the gray little office faded, and for hours Ginger could believe herself to be investigating with Sherlock Holmes upon the misty moors, celebrating with the Hobbit Mr. Bilbo Baggins inside the Hill at Bag End, or with Jim and Will as they explored the terrible carnival in Mr. Bradbury's lovely book. Jacob's office hadn't been only what it seemed to be. And although this ship bore no physical resemblance to Jacob's office, it was similar in that it was more than it appeared; under its drab skin, it harbored wondrous things, great mysteries.
        Spaced along each long wall were four coffinlike containers of a semitransparent, milky-blue substance that looked like carved quartz. These were, Miles Bennell explained, the beds in which the travelers had passed their long journey in a state of near-suspended animation, aging only the equivalent of one earth-year for every fifty that passed. As they dreamed, the fully automated ship proceeded through the void, reaching ahead with an array of sensors and probes for indications of life in the hundreds of thousands of solar systems that it passed.
        It did not escape Ginger's notice that the top of each container was marked by two raised rings precisely the size of those that had appeared in Dom's and Brendan's hands.
        "You told us they were dead when they got here," Ned reminded Bennell. "But you never answered my question. What did they die from?"
        "Time," Bennell said. "Although the ship and all its devices continued to function well right through the descent and the landing there along I-80, the occupants had perished of old age long before they ever got here."
        Faye said, "But… you've told us they aged one year for every fifty that passed."
        "Yes," Bennell said. "And from what we've learned about them, they're long-lived by our standards. Five hundred years seems to be their average life-span."
        Standing with Marcie in his arms, Jack Twist said, "But, my God, at one year for fifty, they'd have to've been traveling twenty-five thousand years to have died of old age!"
        "Longer," Bennell said. "In spite of their vast knowledge and technology, they never found a way to exceed the speed of light - 186,000 miles per second. In fact, their ship cruises at ninety-eight percent of that, something like 182,000 miles per second. Fast, yes, but not fast enough when you consider the distances involved. Our own galaxy - in which they're our neighbors - has a diameter of 80,000 lightyears, or about 240,000 trillion miles. They tried to pinpoint the location of their home world for us through tridimensional galactic diagrams. We believe they come from a place more than 31,000 lightyears around the perimeter of the galaxy from us. And since they travel at just under the speed of light, that means they left home a little less than 32,000 years ago. Even with their lives extended by suspended animation, they must have perished nearly 10,000 years ago."
        Ginger found herself shaking again, as she had shaken upon first turning her gaze upon the ancient ship. She touched the nearest of the milky-blue containers, which seemed to her to be a powerful testimony to compassion and empathy beyond human understanding, the embodiment of a sacrifice that staggered the mind and humbled the heart. To have willingly given up the comforts of home, to have left their world and all their kind to travel such distances on the mere hope of being able to help a struggling species at the far, far end…
        Bennell's voice had grown lower as he spoke, and now it was as soft as if he had been speaking