Light Delay · Episode 8
Fourth of July
In 2041, Theo spends his first Fourth of July without a message, looking for his father through binoculars. In 2088, Dana Whitcomb comes to the backyard party with Perihelion's offer, and Grace hears Michael's voice for the first time in forty years.
Now playing
Loading episodes…
Click any section or line to jump there in the audio.
A summer night outdoors, crickets, distant fireworks popping.
Theo The Fourth of July, twenty forty-one, was a Thursday. My father only sent on Sundays now, so there was no message. It was the first holiday of my life without one.
Theo We went to the park, my mother and Grandpa Joe and me. I took my binoculars. The ship had been gone from the sky since March, after eight nights. I knew that. I took them anyway.
Theo When it got dark, I pointed them southwest, low, over where the Petersons' garage would have been, and I looked for a long time. My mother asked what I was doing. I said I was looking for Dad.
Theo She said, "He's past Neptune, sweetheart. You won't see him." And I said, "I know. I'm looking anyway."
Theo Then the first firework went up. A single white one. They always start with a white one.
The series theme, with the title card over it.
Announcer Light Delay, presented by the VoiceFrequency Network. Episode eight: Fourth of July.
A backyard party on a summer afternoon, people talking quietly, a grill sizzling.
Theo Forty-seven years later, the Fourth of July was a Sunday. Mikey insisted on a party. The neighbors came, and some teachers from school, and my mother, in a lawn chair in the shade, with a glass of iced tea she didn't drink.
Theo At five o'clock, Dana Whitcomb came through the side gate.
Theo I'd invited her. I'd decided that if she was going to tell me what Perihelion wanted, I wanted my mother sitting right there when she said it.
Dana Mr. Hale. Thank you for having me. Mrs. Hale.
Grace Ms. Whitcomb. You found the gate.
Dana I found the gate. I won't stay long. It's a holiday.
Theo Then say it.
Dana All right. At Perihelion, we'd like to preserve the archive. All of it. The messages to you, and the messages to your mother. Professionally restored, and kept forever, in the Mission Hall in Houston. Not on a twenty-year-old player with a replaced battery.
Theo Eleven times.
Dana I'm sorry?
Theo I've replaced the battery eleven times.
Dana Then you know how fragile it is. And there's more. A fellowship in your father's name. The Michael Hale Fellowship in Physics, for teachers. I'm told you teach physics.
Theo And in return?
Dana In return, you open four-twelve in a room with our engineers. And your mother helps us with the others.
Grace Helps you.
Dana Mrs. Hale, I'm going to be straight with you, because I think you'd see through anything else. Section nine point four of the agreement says that when the person a named message is for has died, the message passes to the mission archive. Not to the family. To us.
Theo You're telling my mother you'll get them anyway.
Dana I'm telling her what the paper says. Her grandson has already read it. I'd rather she heard it from me in the daylight than worked it out on her own at three in the morning.
Grace That's very considerate.
Grace Then you can have them when I'm dead, Ms. Whitcomb. That's what your paper says, isn't it? You'll just have to wait. I'm very good at waiting. I've had forty-seven years of practice.
Dana Yes, ma'am.
Theo I walked her back to the gate. She stopped with her hand on the latch.
Dana For what it's worth, Mr. Hale, I was born in twenty forty-five. I grew up on your father's messages. The public ones. The one where he says hello to the Pacific. I'd like to know what's in four-twelve as much as you would.
Theo Then why do you need to hear it first?
Dana Because that isn't my decision.
A wooden garden gate opens and swings shut.
A summer night outdoors, crickets, distant fireworks popping.
Theo My mother stayed for the fireworks. When they were over, and the neighbors had gone, she was still in the lawn chair. And Mikey brought the player out to the yard, and set it on the table, and looked at her.
Mikey Grandma. We're on thirty-seven. It's the Fourth of July one.
Grace I know which one it is.
Mikey Do you want to stay?
Grace I haven't heard his voice out loud in forty years, Michael. Not since I put mine away.
Grace Play it.
A soft playback chime.
Theo Message thirty-seven. Sunday, the twenty-third of June. Fifteen days.
The ship under thrust, a deep steady engine rumble.
Michael This is your Fourth of July message. And it's going to be late. I could have put it in last week's, but last week was Father's Day, and I'm not sharing Father's Day with anybody. Not even America.
Michael So here's what I think you did. I think you went to Grandpa Joe's first, and he burned the hot dogs, and said the grill was running hot. Then the park, at dusk, on the blanket with the hole in it. And I bet the first one was a white one. It's always a white one. And I bet you said the blue ones are best, because you always say the blue ones are best. And you're right.
Michael Now here's something I worked out, and I want you to check it. The light from those fireworks didn't just go up. It went out. Every direction. Some of it's coming after me. It's going the speed of light, and I'm going about a third of that, so it catches me. It'll catch me around the fourth of August.
Michael So on the fourth of August, I'm going to go to the window, at night, and look back towards home. I won't see anything. They're much too small, and much too far. But I'll know they're going past. Your fireworks. The blue ones too.
Michael Tell your mom I said the blue ones are best. She knows what I mean. Over.
The message ends with a soft click.
A summer night outdoors, crickets, the fireworks over now.
Grace The blue ones.
Theo What did he mean?
Grace Our first Fourth of July. Twenty thirty. He said the blue ones were best, and I said nobody thinks the blue ones are best, and he said, "I do. Marry me." It wasn't a question. He never asked a question in his life if he could say it instead.
Mikey Grandpa proposed with fireworks?
Grace Your grandfather proposed during fireworks. It isn't the same thing. He didn't plan the fireworks. He planned nothing. He just had the blue ones and a feeling.
Grace Take me home, Michael. Your grandfather's said enough for one night.
Footsteps on grass, a car door, an engine starting and pulling away.
A summer night outdoors, crickets.
Theo On the fourth of August, twenty forty-one, I went out in the yard at night, and looked up, and told my father the fireworks were going past.
Theo Tonight's fireworks are going out too. Every direction. Some of that light is going after him. It'll get to Halcyon in twenty-one-ten, the same as anything I could say tonight.
Theo I sat in the yard until the smoke cleared. The blue ones are best. He was right.
Theo Message thirty-eight, tomorrow.
The closing theme, the piano under the announcer.
Announcer You've been listening to episode eight of Light Delay, on the VoiceFrequency Network.
Announcer In our next episode: Theo turns ten, the ship gets fast enough for time itself to start slipping, and a father explains why his son will hear him in slow motion.