Risks taken, risks avoided. this is the life everyone leads. Crossing a street, walking under a tree, marriage. All of these have an element of risk involved.
When i was first informed that I was selected to travel across the galaxy aboard the Diogenes craft, I felt honored and somewhat afraid. The risk involved. Death in space, swift or slow, is a lonely business.
The government men assured me that the risks were low, at least as far as non-intelligent dangers were concerned. They actually had an estimate of how likely it was I would survive the journey; 94.6%, apparently above that of staying on our planet. But the catch was fairly obvious, and I've always been a skeptic. What if we do contact aliens? After all, that is the point of this whole debacle, right?
I was then told that the odds of contacting sapience out there is 0.025%. That's only slightly higher than my quarterly interest.
But they want to go anyway, because 0.025% is a heck of a lot more than zero in the eyes of the higher ups. To me, that number, which for some reason I believe it to be accurate, is the same as nothing. There's nothing out there.
But here I am, standing on the bridge of the first manned inter-stellar vessel in recorded history. The Suntracker Drives are humming as we decelerate, and everyone but me is busy preparing for planetfall. This world was a whole other risk, it gleamed welcomely up at me, inviting me to come down, to get to know a new world.
The hard metal of the hull vibrated almost imperceptibly, as it had since our departure, except for the brief time in freefall. This place has begun to gall me as much as my old home did.
I winked at the planet below. Sure.
