He had been born to great privilege, the only son of a Wall Street broker father who had cleverly managed to make fortunes for his investors—and himself—out of the climate shifts and greenhouse floods that had brought misery and despair to half the Earth’s population.
Adrian’s mother was an equally driven woman, convinced that her mission in life was to use her family’s considerable wealth to help alleviate the hardships of less-fortunate people. She accepted their gratitude with good grace, and always made certain that the news media were on hand to publicize her generosity.
Young Adrian got the best education that money and social prominence could produce. To his father’s pride and his mother’s pleasure, Adrian was an excellent student, and possessed a fine, sharply focused mind. He graduated from Harvard at the top of his class, which was no less than his happy parents—and he himself—expected.
When astronomers discovered an Earthlike planet orbiting the nearby star Sirius, Kosoff was intrigued. When the team of explorers went to New Earth—as the media had dubbed the exoplanet—and found completely humanlike creatures living there, Kosoff mentally kicked himself for not joining the expedition when he’d been invited to.
He followed the news from New Earth assiduously: how the planet had been constructed by the Predecessors, an ancient race of intelligent machines who built New Earth specifically to attract humankind’s attention; how the humanlike population of New Earth had been created from human DNA samples taken over several centuries of clandestine visits by the Predecessors to Earth; how the machines’ purpose was to enlist the help of the young, vigorous Earthlings in the quest to save other intelligent races scattered among the stars from the death wave of lethal gamma radiation that was sweeping through the Milky Way galaxy.
Kosoff realized he had found his destiny. He was born to lead a star mission, to save an intelligent extraterrestrial species from the mindless, implacable forces of nature. It took him several years, but at last he won command of one of the star missions—command, and the responsibility of picking the men and women who would go with him two hundred light-years across the stars on his mission of mercy.
It would also be a mission of learning, Kosoff decided. His team would make contact with the aliens; his mission would lead the way to the enlargement of humankind’s domain among the stars.
That was his destiny, Kosoff was certain. That was his purpose in life. When he returned to Earth he would be acknowledged as the leader—the archetype, the exemplar of this new phase of human history. Once he returned to Earth he would be recognized by everyone as the human race’s most important scientist, a man qualified to lead all the others in humankind’s interstellar expansion.
His parents would be proud of him—if they still lived after four centuries. The whole Earth would sing his praises.
He told no one of his ambition, of course. But he would allow no one to stand in the way of the future that he saw for himself.