Emily said nothing. Instead, she turned away from her mother and continued staring at the sky. Susan forced herself to take a deep breath, knowing that yelling or getting angry would only lessen the chances of Emily talking.

"Please, I'm your mother. I just want you to be happy. Tell me what's wrong," Susan implored.

Emily turned and again looked at her mother. For a moment, Susan thought she saw her daughter's eyes softening. She thought Emily was about to break through the wall of reticence she had constructed after her father left. Instead, Emily returned her gaze to the sky and uttered one word.

"Nothing."

"You're thinking of your father, aren't you?" Susan asked, sounding more accusatory than she hoped. Normally, Susan was hesitant to bring up Neil with Emily. She knew her daughter's melancholy was in large part the result of Neil's disappearance and she avoided the topic altogether for fear of further upsetting her. But now, Susan's frustration stopped her from worrying about her daughter's feelings. She was determined to pry out of Emily's mind exactly what the little girl was thinking.

Emily did not answer. She just continued to look up at the sky. Susan took her daughter's silence as affirmation.

"Don't give that man a second thought," Susan said. "He walked out on us not once, but twice. That's two times he's placed the importance of himself ahead of us. And it doesn't look like he's ever coming back. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll cheer up."

Cheer up? What the hell am I saying? Susan thought to herself. She wanted to be reassuring but knew she was probably making things worse. She began to talk again but Emily showed her just what she thought of her words.

She turned up the volume on the radio and again looked skyward.

"It has just been announced that President George Marshall will be addressing the nation tomorrow night," the deep-voiced DJ said.

"I guess old Georgie-boy is making his last effort to overcome Charles Davis in the polls," another DJ said, her voice squeaky and high-pitched. "With only ten days until the election, it doesn't look like he'll have much chance to win his second term."

Susan wanted to change the station but the topic of the President seemed to pique Emily's attention. The hopeless expression on the little girl's face seemed to fade away and Susan began to hope that her words were really getting through.

"I guess we'll have to see about that one, Mouse. After this commercial break, we'll get right back to the music. Stay tuned for more of 'The House "N" Mouse show', " the man said.

When the first commercial came on, Susan noticed that Emily was again looking up at the sky; this time, her face seemed content. Maybe she's ready to open up now...

"So, will you please talk to me now?" Susan asked. "I'm begging you to tell me what you're thinking."

Emily turned toward her mother, contemplating whether she should tell the big secret. There was no doubt in Emily's mind that the President's big announcement had to be about her father, so telling her mother now would not make much of a difference in the long run.

Would it?

"You really want to know?" Emily asked.

"More than anything."

"I was just wondering. Do you think the President is going to be talking about Daddy tonight?"

At first, Susan could not tell if Emily was being serious. Her initial reaction was that her daughter was being sarcastic, "getting smart with her." Susan hated that Emily acquired her father's annoying sense of sarcasm, a characteristic that she did not want any child of hers to possess. But when she looked into Emily's eyes and saw that there was not an ounce of antagonism, she wondered why her daughter would think the President would mention her deadbeat dad.

"If you're joking with me, I don't think it's funny," Susan said, trying to keep her voice as non-confrontational as possible.

"I'm being serious," Emily said, looking her mother squarely in the eye. "The President sent Daddy on a secret space mission to save the world. That's why he had to leave us. That's probably what the President has to tell the whole world when he goes on TV. He's actually going to say my Daddy's name on TV. I hope all the kids at school are watching."

Susan was shocked to hear her daughter saying these things. She was not sure if Emily was making this up, if her daughter was lying to convince herself that Neil had left them for a good reason. If she was making it up, at least Emily did not seem to be blaming herself for her father's abandonment, something that many young children tended to do when their parents left. If Emily truly believed her lies though, Susan did not know how she should handle the situation. When Emily explained her father's secret mission, her morose expression had finally melted away, replaced with a look of happiness that Susan missed from her little girl. So if thinking her father was gone because he was off doing something heroic made Emily happy, maybe Susan should just allow her to continue thinking that...

No, that's not healthy. She can't go through life making up fabrications to appease the bad moments that come her way. Sometimes you have to deal with painful things, even if they make you unhappy.

Susan thought maybe she should wait until they were home to explain this to Emily but she did not want to let her little girl continue thinking this for one more moment.

"Sweetie, I don't know where you came up with that story. I don't know if your father told you that before he left or if you just made it up to make yourself feel better. But what you just said is not true," Susan said, as her daughter's eyes began to fill with tears. It broke Susan's heart to break her daughter's heart but she could not stop now. "Your father left us, not to save the world, but to do what was best for him. If he told you any differently, he was lying."

Emily wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled.

"I shouldn't have told you. You hate Daddy so you wouldn't believe anything good I said about him," Emily replied.

"I do not hate your father. I just know better than you do what kind of person he is."

"Daddy would not lie to me about that," Emily said, turning back to the window and the view of the sky. "You're just mad because he loved me more than he loved you."

Although Susan tried desperately to control her anger, that last remark pushed her over the edge.

"Then why did he leave you?" Susan said, disappointed in herself that a ten-year-old child could anger her to the point of losing control of her emotions. She immediately regretted saying this, but Emily gave no indication that she was listening. The little girl continued to stare out the window, not responding to what her mother said.

Just like her damn father. Doesn't even care when I'm upset, ignores me when they don't hear what they want to hear. Well, she's not going to end up like her father, I will see to that.

Susan grabbed Emily's arm and turned the girl around. Emily gasped but not at her mother's strong grip. Emily was looking past Susan, who would never know the reason her little girl had whimpered. A few feet outside of the driver's side window, a tractor trailed sped toward them. Susan had stopped paying attention to the road and had not even noticed when she drove right through a red light.

She would never know.

The last thing Emily could remember seeing was her mother's angry face, a split second before she heard a sickening crash and saw total blackness.

It looks like a big yellow dot.

Through the window of the probe, Neil Peterson had the closest view of Jupiter that any human ever had. He was still millions of miles away from the fifth planet from the sun but the view was still magnificent. Neil had been disappointed that his view of Mars was not as good as he hoped, as the 'Red Planet' was not at a favorable observation point in its elliptical orbit. Although he'd been millions of miles away from Earth, Mars was in the complete opposite direction and had actually been farther away from Neil than if he was still home. At least Jupiter would be relatively close when he passed it in the upcoming year.

Neil turned away from the tiny window in the large probe compartment, the largest of the three sections of the probe that had been his home also his prison for the past three years.

At least prisoners get to go outside once in a while and interact with other people. I wouldn't mind talking to anybody at this point.

Boredom had been Neil's biggest adversary the past two years; hunger came in a close second. There was a limited amount of room to store food in the probe, not nearly enough for an overabundance of the tasteless freeze-dried products that someone considered food. The amount he had to eat each day might have consisted of a small snack for a normal person and this had been difficult for Neil the first few months. He dropped a lot of weight and lost all of his energy, yet he'd been able to fight the temptation of eating more than he was allowed. He knew that if he gave in and let the hunger defeat him, the last part of his journey the most crucial part would be spent with no food at all. And now that surviving until the end of the trip was crucial to the mission's success, he knew that he must be strong-willed. Thankfully, he did not have to physically exert himself while on board the probe. He did not work up much of an appetite, which allowed him to adapt to the lack of food.

But the boredom was another issue. Computers did all of the work, leaving him nothing to do all day long. He sometimes prayed for an emergency to happen, prayed for anything to happen that might take his mind off the sheer boredom that attacked his mind from Day One of the voyage. Nothing exciting ever happened though, day after day of traveling thousands of miles while doing absolutely nothing. Neil realized that he continued making history with every mile he put between himself and Earth (no human had ever even been beyond the moon, let alone millions of miles past that), but this fact didn't help him deal with the horrible weariness that accompanied a lack of activity.

Neil felt his face, his beard longer than he had known possible. He'd abandoned shaving months earlier. Personal grooming seemed such a ridiculous notion in his position, especially without a mirror aboard the entire probe. Neil was glad he couldn't stare at himself and become depressed by the weight he'd lost. Sure, his clothes fit loosely and he could feel his body much thinner and weaker but at least he could not look at the whole package at once.

But it was all worth it; he was going to save the world and more importantly, save his daughter. Neil could care less about the rest of the world. Nobody had ever given him a reason to care enough to save Earth but his daughter was different. Emily meant the world to him, and if his own death gave her even the slightest chance of survival, then there was no doubt what he had to do.

But another year and a half with nothing but waiting? That made Neil want to pull out his long hair.

"I'm going crazy," he said, laughing out loud to himself. "I'm going crazy." His eyes filled with tears as he laughed; he could not decide if his mind was truly breaking down. "I have to do something."

He floated through the big main room and into the much smaller room in the back. This room served a dual purpose, a place for him to sleep (on an uncomfortable slab of hard plastic, with three straps across to hold him down) and a place to store his food. The large storage area was now about half empty. Neil had grown so accustomed to eating small amounts that he was eating less than his daily allowance.

Underneath his bed was a small storage area. He pulled open one of the drawers and several books floated out of their prison. Neil had not considered bringing any with him but somebody had thought to load aboard a dozen books. They were all classic novels, books Neil never would have thought to read in his previous life. But with a nearly infinite amount of time, he read and enjoyed each one.

He selected "War and Peace," the thickest book of them all. He'd already read it five or six times, but it was still the book he'd read the least. Although Neil knew exactly what was going to happen in each of the books, subsequent readings allowed him to notice subtle nuances that made them classics.

Before leaving his 'bedroom,' Neil kissed the picture of Emily that was taped over his bed. It was his favorite picture of her, just a simple moment on a simple day, her smile so innocent and pure. Her smile, something he would never see again.

No, I can't let myself think like this.

He floated out to the main room, where he opened the book and began to read, trying to center all of his concentration on the words of Tolstoy. His reading sessions often lasted hours at a time, as Neil knocked out hundreds of pages before stopping. But today was different. He was barely through the first ten pages when he heard a sound that was like music to his ears. It was a sound he had not heard in nearly six months, a sound that he had desperately hoped to hear for so long. Neil used to listen for it constantly, but over the course of time, he forced himself to forget about it.

Until now.

He tossed the book aside and made a beeline for the communications room, where the radio was crackling.

"Armour to probe," Armour's voice said over the radio. "Armour to probe."

James Armour repeated the message ten times over the next few minutes. Because the probe was so far away from Earth, the radio waves took a while to travel through space and reach the probe, which made simple back-and-forth conversing difficult between the two men. Armour would send his entire message, after which time Neil would respond. Then, the wait that would follow felt the longest, upon which time Armour would send one final response. The response from Armour's last communication six months ago had taken nearly an hour, the longest hour of the nearly 14,000 Neil had spent in space so far. And now that the probe had traveled even farther away, Neil knew Armour's next message would take even longer to reach him.

But he would worry about that later. Now he could hardly wait for Armour to start transmitting his actual message. After giving enough time to ensure that Neil had heard his incoming call, James Armour began to speak.

"Just a quick update. Sorry we haven't spoken in so long but there has been little to report. Everything appears to be going on schedule on our end. President Marshall has an upcoming election and is currently behind in the polls. We still have one more move that we hope will swing votes his way. It is still undecided how we will proceed if he loses. Besides that, the rest of the world is fine. Our main concern right now is your health and the condition of the probe. Over."

James Armour spoke for only thirty seconds and said very little in that time. But hearing someone else's voice provided Neil with a spark of life he hadn't felt in a long time. And it was great to hear about the President, even if the news was not very good for what the 'Inner Circle' was planning back on Earth. Whatever happened would have no effect on Neil, but he was still glad to hear anything about what was going on back on his home planet.

Home planet, I'm probably the first person who could ever truly think of Earth that way. Kinda sounds like something characters would say in those science-fiction movies.

"Probe to Armour, probe to Armour," Neil spoke into the radio. Although he wished he could talk for hours, he knew the importance of keeping his transmissions short and simple. "The biggest problem on board is boredom. Tell whoever put the books in here that I said thanks; at least they occupy my mind on occasion. Besides that, everything is running smoothly. The probe is an awesome piece of machinery; too bad it won't be making the return trip, either. My health has also been okay. I can tell that muscle atrophy has taken a toll on me, especially the past few months. But as long as it doesn't significantly worsen, I should have no problem making it until the deadline. All I really want to know about is Emily. Could you please check on her and tell me if she is okay?"

He thought for a few seconds, wondering if there was anything else. But there wasn't. Nothing else was important about life anymore, except Emily.

"Over," he said sadly, knowing that this was the last time in months that anyone would hear his voice.

Even though he knew a response would take at least a few hours, Neil stayed next to the radio for a while. The time passed torturously slow and he finally realized that he needed to occupy his mind for the next 90 minutes. He finally pulled himself away from the communications room, floating back into the main room where he found his book hovering in the corner of the ceiling.

He read only another page or two before his mind began to wander.

I wonder where my radio signals are at this moment. Probably somewhere around Mars.

He continued to read the words on the page but nothing of what he read registered in his brain. Neil got through five pages of looking at words when he finally gave up. It would be impossible to read a book for the fifth time at that when he knew he would be hearing about his daughter in a few hours. He tossed the book aside and floated through the room, his mind ready to burst with anticipation.

James Armour walked through the empty hallways at the old NASA compound. The halls had been mostly empty the past few years, yet with the selection of the space station model to take place relatively soon, the ex-NASA chief knew these halls would soon be filled with people again. Although he'd kept communication with Neil Peterson and the space probe to a minimum, Armour never had to fret about the possibility of somebody discovering him communicating with the ship that was supposedly destroyed. Once people were around headquarters again, it would make communicating with Neil more difficult. In fact, following this message he was about to send, it was likely that he would only risk communication one more time before the probe reached Comet Clement. Even then he would have to be very careful but that was something he could worry about when the time came. For now, he wanted to hear Neil's reply message, if only to make sure the doomed astronaut was still physically healthy.

Or alive for that matter.

Armour could imagine so many things going wrong with the probe, so many unexpected accidents that could have happened in the six months since he last checked in with Peterson. The thought of a disaster happening was enough to drive a person crazy, but the members of the 'Inner Circle' knew they could not afford to lose another member to insanity. Besides, Armour had made sure the probe was well built and Neil Peterson was a good man. Armour did not think he would let them down.

When Armour walked into the abandoned mission control, his cell phone began to ring. Now wasn't the time for phone calls, but the limited number of people who had access to this number knew to call only in case of emergencies. Besides, as long as it wasn't Peter Mansfield, Armour did not think he would have any problem dealing with whatever situation arose. As he was booting up the main computer in mission control, Armour retrieved the phone from his pocket and saw a number he did not recognize.

"Armour here."

He began to connect his laptop to the main computer when he froze. The person on the other end gave him bad news and Armour felt his heart plummet into his stomach. Every muscle in his body tightened as he listened to the person on the other end of the line.

"How did it happen? Will she live?"

Anxiety suddenly ambushed Armour, who never faced a crisis he couldn't handle. The only good news was that Emily Peterson, the doomed astronaut's young daughter, had survived the car crash that happened earlier in the day. At least so far. Neil had lived for his daughter, and in a few years, would die for his daughter. Armour did not know what Neil would do if the little girl didn't pull through.

"What about her mother?" Armour asked.

He exhaled deeply when his question was answered.

"Oh, no," he sighed before speaking sternly. "You listen to me and listen good. You make sure that little girl gets the best medical attention money can buy. I don't want any expense spared when it comes to the best treatment for her. Her survival and well-being are more important than anybody could ever realize."

With that, he hung up the phone. In a few minutes, all of the computers were on and the screens filled with readings from the probe. In the blink of an eye, Armour was able to tell from the readings that the probe was intact and running perfectly.

After a quick search in the mainframe, Armour found what he was looking for, the first proof that Neil was still alive. Since he could not sit around for hours at a time to wait for a response, a program was set up to save the transmission from the radio into an encrypted folder. Armour checked the time the file was made and discovered that Neil must have sent a reply within minutes of receiving his own message. Normally, he would have been in a rush to hear from the doomed astronaut but today was a busy day. The President's address to the public was quickly approaching and the last minute details of the space station presentation still had to be ironed out.

Armour clicked on the file and heard Neil's voice, which sounded a bit raspy, no doubt weak from lack of use over the years.

"The biggest problem on board is boredom. Tell whoever put the books in here that I said thanks; at least they occupy my mind on occasion. Besides that, everything is running smoothly. The probe is an awesome piece of machinery; too bad it won't be making the return trip, either. My health has also been okay. I can tell that muscle atrophy has taken a toll on me, especially the past few months. But as long as it doesn't significantly worsen, I should have no problem making it until the deadline. All I really want to know about is Emily. Could you please check on her and tell me if she is okay? Over."

The last part of Neil's message gave Armour chills, raising the hair on the back of his neck. Armour never had any children of his own, never had the time, but he wondered if parents somehow had a sixth sense about when their child was in trouble. Could he know something is wrong with little Emily? Usually, Armour did not believe in any of that hocus-pocus crap, especially since Neil asked about his daughter every time they communicated. But Armour still could not help but feel a bit creeped out by the timing of the question.

After deleting the encrypted message file from the computer system, Armour opened the radio line to the probe.

"Armour to probe, Armour to probe," he said, still trying to decide exactly what he was going to say. He knew that morally, he should tell Neil about his daughter and ex-wife. Every man deserved to know, good or bad, exactly what happened to his family. But the last thing Armour needed, the last thing the 'Inner Circle' or the entire world needed, was to have Earth's last hope fall into an unfocused state of mind. "Armour to probe. Glad to hear that your health and the condition of the probe are in good shape. Continue on the same schedule, exactly as we have planned. Since our operation is dependent on the outcome of the election, things around here are going to be quite hectic the next few months. Because of this, I am not sure when we will communicate next but I expect it to be a few months. So good luck with everything, stay safe and focus on the mission at hand. And your daughter is just fine. I check up on her frequently and I'm glad to report that she seems to be a normal, happy and healthy little girl."

I'm going to hell for this, Armour thought to himself.

CHAPTER FOUR.

October 5, 2012 Colin McKay emerged from a large group of excited children coming out of school, all of them glad for the end of another Friday. It was a brisk fall day and the students from the elementary school were bundled up in their heavy winter coats. Students of the brand-new school had the look of affluence. The kids barely ten years old wore clothes that most working-class adults would never be able to afford.

Colin, on the other hand, appeared to be the odd kid out. He wore an Army jacket five sizes too large and a pair of ripped jeans that looked two sizes too small. While many of the other children were already learning to join certain cliques, cliques they would no doubt be a part of for the rest of their lives, Colin walked alone. It was hard for a child like Colin when he did not feel part of a larger group, even harder because his isolation was forced on him by his father's lack of money. That was the price he paid for going to a nice school though, and his father often told him that he should be grateful that he didn't go to school with the punks in a similar income bracket.

Colin's segregation had not always been this bad. When his classmates were younger, not many of them noticed or cared about monetary and status differences. Kids just wanted to be kids, they wanted to play and have fun, and whoever could help them do that would be their friend. But right around 4th and 5th grade, the other children began to realize the importance of clothes and the types of bookbags their fellow classmates owned. It did not take long for everyone to figure out who fit in and who didn't.

And unfortunately for Colin, he did not fit in.

Colin didn't exactly hate being at school. He especially liked going to gym class, but school overall caused his self-esteem to take a major blow. Even though his father constantly abused him mentally and sometimes physically, at least Colin knew he belonged there. His only wish was that his father would listen to his problems, understand the things that he was thinking and feeling. Colin made the mistake of confiding in him one time about how he felt different in school but this only led to his old man becoming defensive. Instead of listening to what Colin had to say, his father automatically assumed the boy was blaming him for his failure in school. The 'disrespect' Colin had shown his father that day led to a few whips from the belt. Colin quickly learned that keeping his feelings bottled up was his best way to survive.

He walked through a crowd of kids, most looking across the parking lot at a sea of BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes and Lexuses. If Colin's father ever came to pick him up, his pickup truck would be the easiest vehicle to spot. But he never saw his father's truck waiting outside the school building at three o'clock. He tossed his baseball up and down, something he did every day while walking home from school, keeping his mind occupied during the long, boring walk. Baseball was the only real interest Colin had in life and playing catch with himself gave him something to look forward to every day. Sure, he wished he had the same high-priced toys as all the other kids but as long as he had his ball, he was satisfied.

"What are you going to do about it, rich boy?"