Echo's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Echo stood beneath the banner with his name on it and waited for his communicator to buzz. The sun set behind the star sculpture, painting the metal gold, and still nothing came. He checked the device three times before the sky went dark. Maybe his teacher was asleep. Maybe she was preparing her response. Maybe she was gathering the council to discuss his return. He told himself these things while Astrid walked past with clipboards and measuring tape, humming something cheerful. When the stars appeared above the sculpture, Echo finally felt the buzz against his hip. He pulled out the communicator. The message was short, written in Alienese, glowing green against the small screen: "You cannot come home until you complete what you started. The council has spoken. Finish your mission, whatever it has become." Echo read it twice. Then a third time. The banner with his name fluttered in the evening breeze. Two hundred people would arrive tomorrow night to see him. His teacher had just made leaving impossible. Echo walked to the sun building where he'd left his suitcase that morning. He'd packed it carefully before dawn—the vial of moss, his training manual, the photo of his family standing outside the academy. Everything ready for departure. Now he stood in the doorway and stared at the pale blue case sitting on the blanket Astrid had placed there. His three-fingered hand reached for the handle, then stopped. There was nowhere to go. The ship wouldn't accept a return command without his teacher's authorization code. He was stranded until he figured out what "complete what you started" actually meant. He sat down next to the suitcase and opened his communicator again. His teacher's message still glowed on the screen. Below it, a second notification appeared—a weather alert forwarded from Earth's systems. The phone display showed bold white letters: BIG STORM COMING. Beneath that, in yellow: STAY THERE. Echo almost laughed. Even the sky was telling him he couldn't leave. He looked up at the dome ceiling where Astrid had installed her projections of stars and forests merging together. His teacher had sent him here to discover a new way. She'd never planned to let him come back before he found it. Echo closed the suitcase and stood. Outside, workers were hanging strings of lights between the planet buildings, preparing for tomorrow's event. He could see a tall sculpture near the entrance—something new that Astrid must have installed today. It had radiant wings that caught the light, colors shifting like the moss in his vial. Beautiful and impossible to ignore, the way his teacher had always been. Echo picked up his communicator and typed a response in Alienese: "I understand." He didn't ask what the mission was anymore. She'd already told him—whatever it has become. That meant the answer was here, in this place where his name hung on banners and humans smiled at his glass orb and two hundred strangers would gather tomorrow to meet him. He unpacked the suitcase and put the moss vial on the windowsill where it could catch the morning light. Then he walked outside to help Astrid hang the rest of the lights.