Page 109 of Sigma

“Can we take the fastest jet we have back home?” I murmur. “I want my own bed.”

“Sure.” Dad’s quiet a moment. “Just tell me one thing, okay?”

I groan. “Okay?”

“Do you really trust him?”

I don’t answer for a long time. “I’ll know the answer to that the next time I see him. I don’t have an answer for that right now.”

“And when will you see him again?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”

Another sigh. “I don’t like it. I’m not sure about him.”

“Like I already said—you don’t have to.”

“You’re my daughter.”

“And I’m an adult.” I finally open my eyes and look at him. It’s not a sweet, daughterly gaze of adoration. “You aren’t going to go all Montague and Capulet on me, are you? Because I willnotbe forced to choose.”

Mom answers for him. “No, darling. That will not be happening. If you decide he’s changed and that you trust him, that will be good enough for us.” A significant pause. “Right, darling?”

A begrudging grunt. “We’ll see.”

Mom sighs. “I think that’s the best you’re going to get right now, Rin.”

I don’t answer—I’m nearly asleep.

23

A Few Short Hour

2 years later

“Where are we with the launch prep?” Dad asks.

I shuffle a thick stack of papers, tap them on my desk to straighten the edges and hand them to him. “T-minus six days and counting. The payload has been calculated and recalculated down to the last gram, and the engineers are going over every bolt, circuit, and panel. So far, all systems are nominal.”

“And the orbital substation?”

“It’s reached geosynchronous orbit and is stabilized. The crew is quadruple checking their systems—I’m not directly monitoring that, though, but rather receiving reports from Michael.”

“Very good.” He sorts through the various reports. “The payload. You’ve said it’s been calculated, but has the integrity of the payload itself been checked over?”

“A few dozen times,” I say, sorting through a different stack of reports, find the one I need and hand it to him. “It all checks out. That’s the meta report—I have the individual reports with data in a digital file. I can send it to you.”

“No, that’s all right. As long as you personally have verified it, I trust you.”

“I have. Several times.” I gesture out the window at the massive rocket visible in the distance. “It’s going to go off without a hitch, Dad.”

He perches on the edge of my desk. “It’s hard to believe we’re going to pull this off.”

“Everyone said it was categorically impossible.”

He laughed. “If we’d insisted on designing and building our own rocket, it would have been.” His expression goes serious. “Someday soon, baby girl, you and I are going to be on one of those.”

I cackle. “Okay, sure. You really think Mom is going to let you go to space, Dad?”