Excellent SF. ‘What makes a person decide to desert everyone she knows and leave the whole world behind?’ ponders the narrator, one Emzara Ghali-Gordon. A woman who through study left one part of her behind, she is the scientist behind a technology that allows us to reach for the stars.
By a procoess of ‘sonoporation’ sound waves enable DNA tweaking to slow down the body and thought processes, so a long time can pass in transit without it impacting on travellers physically or mentally. An interesting idea (doubtless done before, but not that often as I can’t recall it being used before). There’s a problem below, which relates to the decision referred to in the opening line, and it’s handled well with a viewpoint and characterisation that takes it beyond what could have been scientist fiction elsewhere.
