Professor Seamus Michael Lonigan could feel curmudgeonly-ness creeping into his bones like arthritis. Space travel... ha! Expedition to the outer planets... indeed! It was all a hoax, and this project was going to end in spectacular failure. And for years afterward, keynote speakers at every conference he attended would surely include at least one joke about him and his team.

And who were these people they were paying for the trip? Were they scientists, or government-trained astronauts? No! They were simply some lucky asteroid miners who claimed they’d found alien technology that could take them to the planets cheaply and quickly. If wishes were spaceships, then well diggers would travel to the stars.

Yes, they claimed to have carried cargo to bases on the Moon and Mars, and yes, the bases backed them up. Maybe there WAS something to it… but had they tested it? No! These people were just some wild cowboys who’d jumped on a strange horse and believed they could control it. And how dare they bring their ship so close to the Earth? One little miscalculation - just a little bit into the atmosphere - and there would be several million tons of rock headed down to the surface, bringing death to the passengers, crew, and probably half the planet.

And then there were the News Media. He’d already been interviewed by several reporters and been forced, each time, to say he believed this expedition would be a success. Poppycock! They would get half the things he’d said wrong and somehow distort the rest just to sensationalize it. Ten years ago, the Omega Rogue had been headed toward the Solar System, and they’d gotten that exactly backwards. There had been wild stories about the end of the world, night after night, week after week, for over a year. Then Omega slipped quietly by, and the world didn’t end, and the media suddenly dropped the whole story. Now he himself was very concerned about Omega, but they wouldn’t touch it. Well, maybe that was for the best…

He looked around. How could anything of importance happen in this grubby little warehouse in this Podunk little town? Well, maybe it WAS the second largest city in the state, but the politics were so backward, so… almost reactionary. He’d seen the crowd outside, yelling in protest and dressed in what he supposed were science fiction costumes. Some of them were even carrying guns. GUNS! Right out in the open! That would never happen in his progressive University town.

He hadn’t eaten for a while, so maybe his blood sugar was low. Plus, they’d had him climbing around on kids’ playground equipment all afternoon, so he was tired and now his knees DID hurt. Still, here he was, standing in line, getting ready to board the supposed spaceship. At least they weren’t spouting any of that “beam me up” nonsense. But then they called his name and asked him to come up to the front of the line and sit… WHERE? They told him to put on a helmet with a faceplate because they were going to… WHAT?

Before he blacked out, he could hear himself screaming as he fell down, down, down... down through space.