The little girl smiled at the invocation of her father, and then her image glitched and flickered. When she spoke again, the synthesized audio was severely phase-shifted and distorted. “I am almost out of range,” the little girl said. “I will contact you again soon.”
“Haná . . .” Cadie said.
“Yes, Mother?”
Cadie paused momentarily, and then, for the very first time, told her daughter that she loved her.
“I love you, too,” the little girl said, and then the drone’s projectors went dark, and Cadie’s daughter was gone.
The octocopters self-assembled into an orderly formation, and Cadie watched them depart through the open dome. She imagined her daughter slipping over the horizon aboard Equinox—moving away from her at tremendous speed, but at the same time, also coming back around toward her once again—orbiting at a distance that for all those years had seemed hopelessly far away, but that suddenly felt so close.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK my wife, Michelle, and my daughters, Hannah and Ellie, for their love and support, and for generally putting up with everything it takes to build worlds like these. I’d also like to thank Ben Yaroch for remaining my oldest friend, Ben Rossi for all the late-night brainstorming and scheming we do, and Dan Koestler for all the technical talks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2013 Michelle Cantrell
Christian Cantrell is the author of three science-fiction novels and several short stories. You can follow him on Twitter at @cantrell.
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