Every life was precious now. They were no longer simply explorers; almost half their fuel was gone. They were colonists, with no ticket back.
The message of their success would reach Earth in fifteen centuries. Whether there would be an infrared telescope around to detect it, that was a matter of some conjecture.
Daedalus: A.D. 2093
Earth: ca. A.D. 5000
While decelerating, they had investigated several systems in their line of flight. They found one with an Earth-type planet around a Sun-type sun, and aimed for it.
The season they began landing colonists, the dominant feature in the planet’s night sky was a beautiful blooming cloud of gas that astronomers had named the North American Nebula.
Which was an irony that didn’t occur to any of these colonists from L-5 – give or take a few years, it was America’s Trimillennial.
America itself was a little the worse for wear, this three thousandth anniversary. The seas that lapped its shores were heavy with a crimson crust of anaerobic life; the mighty cities had fallen and their remains, nearly ground away by the never-ceasing sandstorms.
No fireworks were planned, for lack of an audience, for lack of planners; bacteria just don’t care. May Day too would be ignored.
The only humans in the Solar System lived in a glass and metal tube. They tended their automatic machinery, and turned their backs on the dead Earth, and worshiped the constellation Cygnus, and had forgotten why.