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Dear Corinthia,
This is your birth father, Pascal. I’m terribly sorry that it has taken me
this long to send you a message. I could make something up about how much
work I’ve had to do, but we would all know that it doesn’t work like that.
It’s probably going to take me ten minutes to write this thing. What’s taken
me weeks is working up the courage to even start with the first character.
As I explained to your brother, I was complicit in the separation scheme
that led you to living out half of your life on a ship, and the other half
on a dark world beyond the orbit of Neptune. I didn’t want to let you go,
but your mother forced my hand. I’m sorry, I don’t want to bad mouth her,
but I feel like I need to defend myself. What you may not know—what I have
not yet explained to Condor—is that the original plan was to have both of
you leave Earth in separate voyages. For medical reasons, I’m not fit to
travel in space. At least, I wasn’t. The restrictions have gradually been
eroding, due to excessive need for planetary exodus, and advances in space
travel which make it easier to treat at-risk patients off world. As much as
it pains me that I never got the chance to know you, I know it would have
been worse if I hadn’t gotten to know either of my children. So I made a
choice, and it was the hardest one of my life. They would have taken Condor
away from me, and I would have had no legal ground to stand on. Your mother
had powerful friends who I believe were manipulating her into carrying out
this unethical social experiment. She wasn’t like that when we first met.
She was loving, kind, and loyal. That’s why I married her, and honestly,
it’s one reason I never married anyone after she left. There’s also a law
that prevents people from divorcing their spouses when they’re separated by
at least one astronomical unit, yet not presumed dead. I regret not fighting
harder for you, and for not trying to follow you later. Your mother and her
friends could have stopped me and Condor from getting on that ship, but they
wouldn’t have been able to stop us from getting on another one. It would
have cost me everything I had to commission a new journey, but now I realize
that it would have been worth it. I hope that you can forgive me one day,
but I don’t expect it anytime soon, or ever. And I also hope that I’ve not
ruined the impression you’ve had for your mother this whole time. She really
thought that what she was doing was right. She wanted science and psychology
to progress, and she thought she had to make the sacrifice of never knowing
her son. If you’ve not already, perhaps you could one day forgive her too.
Hoping you write back,
Your loving father,
Pascal Sloane
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