"Who told you to come here? Scoot before I shoot your sorry ass off!"

Bill Waldron had cracked open his tenement door and was shouting at the clean-cut government agent standing in the filthy hallway.

Unfazed, the dark-suited man stared at the cavernous mouths of the rusty double-barreled shotgun that the shaggy-haired recluse was poking through the narrow, chain-barred gap.

"Put the gun away, sir.  I’m just here to deliver a package."

Bill glowered at the agent.  At last, with a loud grunt, he brusquely lowered the firearm.  "Is it from my son Walter?"

The agent nodded and said, "Yes, sir."  He wrinkled his nose and seemed inclined to say more, but instead held out a brown parcel neatly wrapped in twine.

Without taking his eyes off the agent's lean face, Bill slowly unbolted the door and, shotgun in one grimy hand, grabbed the package with the other.

"Now, scat," Bill said.

The agent nodded and walked towards the rubbish-strewn stairs with Bill's flinty eyes on his back.  Halfway down the urine-soaked corridor, the agent hesitated and turned around to face Bill.

"We'll be waiting in Central Plaza, sir, in case you change your mind."

Bill, without further ado, slammed the door shut.

***

I know what's inside, Bill thought.  Don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that.

He threw aside the empty shotgun and tossed the package onto the tenement's scarred linoleum floor.  He sagged into a couch moldering amidst a plethora of household junk and stared at the parcel until the reddish rays of the waning sun reached the base of its half-foot height.

Sighing, Bill rubbed his leathery face, stood up, and retrieved the parcel. He returned to the couch, sat down, and set the parcel on top of his lap. He ran his pallid hands over the paper wrapping, tracing the neat, crisp creases with greasy fingers until they touched the loosely tied knot that held the package together.

I don't have to open it, he thought. It won't change anything. But Walter sent it. Walter wanted me to have it.

His fingers trembling, Bill tugged the knot loose and let the two frayed ends of twine fall against his heaving chest.  He unwrapped the parcel, discarding the crumpled paper to reveal a corrugated cardboard box. With a dirty fingernail, he pried the box lid open.

It's so light—lighter than I remembered, Bill thought as he took out a thin, silvery garment from inside the box. 

Bill stood up and shook it out twice, the long Velcro straps whiplashing against his naked forearms.  A piece of paper flew out from one of its pockets and fluttered onto the floor.

Bill picked up the paper and read:

Dear Dad,

I was packing up my stuff when I found your spacesuit inside a closet; I thought I'd send it back to you.

Dad, it wasn't your fault that Mom died in that accident fourteen years ago.  It's true that she wanted to be like you— maybe because she loved you so much—but it was ultimately her own choice to join the space program.  She knew the risks. Who could have known that the Astraea's space-fold engines were faulty?  I miss Mom, too—I still cry when I remember her —but unlike you, I've learned to pick up the pieces and move on.

You probably won't change your mind, but I still think the Exodus is our only chance to outlive the sun's premature cool down.  We owe it to ourselves and our future generations to survive—to preserve humanity from extinction.

I have to sign off now.  I wanted to hand this personally to you, but I'm busy preparing the Galatea for liftoff.

You are—and shall always be—my hero.

I love you, Dad.

Walter

Bill wiped his eyes and shoved the paper inside his tattered housecoat. Ellen, he thought, my darling. My love. How could I have lost you?  How can Walter expect me to wander amongst the bright stars without you by my side?

Bill laid his old spacesuit out on the couch, sat on the floor, and wept until the darkness outside smothered the rays of the dying sun.  In the wide, ferrocrete plaza across the tenement, unseen by Bill, the last ship of the Terran Exodus rose from the ground and, with a gentle roar, traced its luminous, golden-yellow plumes up, up, and across the cool evening sky.