Natural History

He switched off the hyperluminal drive and powered up the EarthScope.

“OK,” he said. “This is it.”

She looked out at the flat, endless nothing. They’d been travelling for days, left behind the whole galaxy, the whole cluster… for this.

“Daaaaaaad,” she said. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re 85 million light years from Earth,” he said. “And there’s some things you can only see when you’re this far away.”

“Emily’s dad took her to Saturn,” she grumbled.

He finished tweaking the dials, and beckoned her over. She looked through the EarthScope, and gasped. “Is that…?”

“Yep,” he said. “Dinosaurs.”