Time can do so much.

What will I find when I return home?

The asteroids whizz past. My heart is empty.

In my subjective experience, this mission has lasted ten years and two hundred and seventy days . that is a total of three thousand, nine hundred and twenty-three days. I was thirty-seven years and fifteen days old, when this mission launched. The voyage is in its final phase, the slingshot round the outer planet complete.

Soon I will be home. Soon the grand mission will be over. All the data I have collected, and all the samples I took, will be unloaded, downloaded, digitally rendered and made available to the scientific community. They will be put into storage, and occasionally pieces will be shaved off, and prodded, poked, burned, dissolved, and irradiated in laboratories for decades to come. The endless process of science, man's great journey towards that ultimate goal of perfect knowledge of everything will be advanced to a shocking degree. I will be feted, invited onto talkshows, have serious articles written about me in scientific magazines and broadsheets sunday supplements, and not-so-serious ones will be shown on television. My mission, and my career, will be a resounding success.

When I land, I will be thirty-eight years and two hundred and eighty-five days old, according to the passage of time as I perceived it.
Due to the effects of relativity, it will be fifty-four years and one hundred and sixty-one days since I was born. How old will that make me, I wonder? the question is a familiar one; many philosophers, psychologists, writers and others have speculated about this issue, and debated, to greater and lesser degrees of profundity, the effect that it would have on a man like me. I am privileged; I am an historic figure. When the effects of near lightspeed travel on time are explained to children, it is my life they shall use as an example. I will remain unique in this situation; for a number of reasons, no mission such as mine will be carried out again for quite some time.
Another person in a unique situation, is my wife.
We have been apart for a long time, but she has had longer to wait than me. I am Peter Pan, returned to Wendy's window, to find that she is ever so much older than twenty. She was younger than me, the naive foreign postgraduate marrying the glamorous all-american pilot. My country, to her, was fresh, and exciting. I showed it to her, and through her enthusiasm and her pure joy of living, I was made young.

Now, it shall be her turn to teach me something new. As far as I know, she is waiting, and she is well. Two years ago (my time), radio contact was re-established on schedule.I have had conversations with her and others. Due to the time-delay, they have taken months to reach me. it was even longer for her. But she is well. Our son, deliberately conceived in the months before I left, is doing well at school, and looks like me, so she says. No pictures have been sent. None are allowed.

She looks forward to my return. As do I. Even knowing what I do.

Five years, (earth time) after I left on the mission, contact was made with the Skarin. They look a lot like us, apparently; a little taller, their skin a little darker. Their sun is of a similar size, though they never told us its location. Speculation is rife, and a couple of dozen star systems have been championed as possibilities by one astronomer or another. After a time, when they became aware of these speculations, humanity was politely asked to desist. We did not know why, at the time.
The Skarin were peaceful, too, and interested in cultural exchange. Their scientists worked with ours. Certain areas of our technology have felt the benefit of their touch. Much to humanity's surprise, we also found there were things that we could teach them. Apparently, their grasp of genetics is much improved.
After seven years of this beneficial exchange, their colony was established on our planet. It was unclear, however, exactly what they wanted from us.
Human ambassadors- explorers, much like myself, I imagine, requested passage to the Skarin homeworld. The requests were politely refused, every time.
After nine years, Earth's governments learned that the Skarin are at war.
This knowledge came without warning, unbidden from the skies like the Skarin had come before. The Skarin were discovered, and subsequently eradicated by their enemies, who we surmise did not want a Skarin outpost in this arm of the galaxy. Our last communication from them consisted of an apology. We still do not know who these mysterious enemies are, only that they are only hostile to space-faring races likely to be a threat to them.
My wife and I look forward to the days we shall have together. She will show me what is left of Earth.