“So how do I get that island to leave my head?” Stephanie asked.
“You don’t,” he said. “You just leave it there, work around it, live with it.”
“Like a tumor that isn’t growing, but isn’t shrinking,” Stephanie said.
“Yeah,” he said, not liking the image at all. But he supposed it was accurate.
They stared in silence out over the black ocean as the waves pounded the beach in front of them. Then, finally, Stephanie took his arm and turned them both back toward home. Then, just before they took the path toward the facility, Stephanie stopped and turned to look out over the ocean one more time.
Hank knew it wasn’t a question. It was just a statement.
“It’s gone,” he said.
But the memory, the data gleaned from its short presence on Earth, would live on in the Union. As would the memory of those who’d died to bring that treasure home.
It was the way of war. Hank knew that. He didn’t like it, but he knew it.
“So do I.”
He gave her a hug as they walked up the sandy trail, the ocean, the cold wind, and the memory of the island at their backs.
About the Author
Dean Wesley Smith