You hadn’t paid much attention to the first entry in Dr. Valentina’s journal in the past because it didn’t contain any concrete information, just a lot of excitement about beginning a new year of study.

As you recall it now, however, you can’t help but resonate with every line.

August 21, 1975
It is so strange, to be here at the beginning of everything, not knowing what I will discover, or who I will be when this is over. I have only my hopes: the hope that I will do something great and important, the hope that the world will be a better place when I am finished than it was before I began. Soon, the many futures will dissolve into one tangible one; soon, there will be disappointments and regrets. But right now, the horizon is endless, and it is mine for the journeying. And so – onward.

You and Alex are standing at the threshold of the spaceship as it hovers silently in the field. In front of you, the darker purple of the two Spinners gestures insistently: come here, come here.

You look at Alex for a moment, eyebrows raised, and they mirror your expression, then shrug, as if to say, “We’ve come this far, haven’t we?”

“The horizon is endless,” you whisper, and take a step forward towards the ship, and the beginning of everything.