Naked to the Stars

EPILOGUE

The mission was a great success. It was already known that Epsilon Eridani had three planets, the outermost larger than Jupiter. We named them Aphrodite, Freyja and Ishtar. Aphrodite and Freyja were Earth-like, Ishtar a gas giant. Aphrodite was one hot lady. Near the poles there were almost boiling oceans, in them life had evolved, but never progressed beyond single-cellular organisms.

Freyja turned out to be a prime candidate for terraforming, with large, warm oceans, two continents, and an atmosphere of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. If we seeded the oceans with a careful mix of algae and cyanobacteria, they would turn the carbon dioxide into oxygen in a century or so, making the air breathable. The reduced greenhouse effect would freeze the poles, but the rest of the planet would be comfortable.

When we returned to Earth ten years had passed for us. We still groped each other or did the "Ulysses salute" whenever we got the chance, but often we would add a whispered "I love you". We had begun to consider ourselves married. Not a married couple, rather a married quadruplet; but a fundamentally happy married quadruplet.

On Earth 27 years had passed, but we had not been forgotten. Nor had our missing clothes, but Mission Control vetoed that we "fed the trolls" by giving any interviews in the nude. So we put on the old clothes and tried to look comfortable whenever we held press conferences. It scratched like hell.

The first night on Earth we were installed in a large hotel. Everyone assumed that after ten years together we would hate each other, so we were given four single rooms on four different floors. For some reason, Sara's bed was the largest, so that was were we slept.

Earth had changed while we were gone, but not in any drastic way. We found ourselves quite well off, with ten years worth of salary in the bank. We bought a nice large house in northern California, a bit away from the neighbors so we could walk naked both indoor and in the garden without being seen. We installed a huge bed in the master bedroom.

The lawmakers in California narrowly rejected a law recognizing our "married quadruplet", claiming that they would not legalize polygamy. Many failed to understand that I was not married to three wives, the girls were just as much married to each other as to me. We ignored them, and continued to live together.

Sara is pregnant, and is expecting our first child in three weeks. We chose not to know if it will be boy or a girl, time will show. Of course, the radiation in space is bad for the DNA, and having children the natural way would be too risky. We were sterilized before leaving, but our sperm and eggs were frozen before we left, and used to fertilize her in vitro. Great progress has been made in that field, and it is now possible to fertilize one egg with another. It was still an expensive technique, only occasionally used by rich, lesbian couples. But this morning it was confirmed that Amanda is pregnant with her and Arya's child.

Life is good.