Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (32 page)

              “Wow, you’ve really done it haven’t you?” Pender asks, still amazed that Cedric has come so far with his work, and still not even knowing the half of it; Cedric hasn’t said a word about the stone to Pender. 

A small clock tower in the park strikes three o’clock.  A little boy and two little girls, run up the concrete steps and into the little grassy park to play, only to immediately run back out when they notice Cedric and Pender. 

              “What about your thesis?” Pender asks.

              “What about it?” Cedric asks back.

              “Are you gonna hand it in?” Pender asks.  “Look, I know you’ve had more slack than the rest of us with your time tests and your project, but they really were pissed when you missed your review.”

              “Pender,” Cedric says; “I appreciate all you’ve done.  I really don’t want you to worry about any of this.  You’ve got enough on your own mind.  In fact, you can keep the sequencer if you makes you feel that uneasy.”

              “No, no, go ahead and use it,” Pender says; “I’m not worried.”

              “I appreciate that as well,” Cedric adds.

              “I’m just concerned that you’re not gonna get your PhD, that’s all,” Pender tells him.

              “Fuck a PhD,” Cedric says; “I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Pender smiles widely, having always looked up to Cedric as an apprentice would to a master.  There’s a little side of him that wishes he could say the same, but he knows he’s owned by the school, or at least the banks that put him there.

              “What have you got going on?” Pender asks.

              “I’m a lot further along than I was the last time we talked,” Cedric tells him.

              “With the time transmissions?” Pender asks.

              “Yes,” Cedric answers.

              “So,” Pender asks; “what’ve you found?”

              “I can’t tell you yet,” Cedric answers.

              “Nothing at all? Come on!” Pender says; “I’m your old partner on this.”

              “They’re going back in time,” Cedric says.

              “The signals?” Pender asks.

              “Yes,” Cedric answers.

              “And you’re sure of this?” Pender asks, probing a little further.

              “Pretty damn sure,” Cedric replies; “the margin of error on this seems razor thin.”

Pender rests on the back of the bench.  He had suspected Cedric of greater successes than he’d led on.  It doesn’t bother him that Cedric has been holding out on him a little.  He’s still pleased to be this close to the action.

              “So how did you do it?” Pender asks after a moment of silence. “Can you let me in on any of the science?  Were you ever able to lengthen the signals?”

              “I was,” Cedric answers; “and it worked.”

              “How much length and how many years are we talking about?” Pender then asks.

              “I’ve already said too much,” Cedric tells Pender. 

              “Why all the secrecy?” Pender asks; “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

              “I know you’re not,” Cedric tells him; “I trust you.  This has to do with my work being intellectually unadulterated, if that makes any sense.”

              “It doesn’t,” Pender says; “but I’m used to your whacked ways,” as he stands to leave.  “I’ve gotta run,” he says.  They slide and bump hands.

              “I really appreciate the sequencer,” Cedric tells Pender.

              “No worries,” Pender replies; “but don’t leave me in the dark long.  I wanna know what’s going down.”

              “You’ll be the first to know,” Cedric tells him.

Pender smiles, then turns and walks away.  Cedric stays on the park bench, staring intensely at the clock on the tower, watching time slowly elapse. 

Moonliner
5:12

At home, Cedric has cluttered his place again.  His life is out of balance and it couldn’t be more evident than in his apartment.  His obsession has consumed him.  He plows through 3D grids and graphs, still desperately looking for that link to Nikki.  He knows it’s a simple point and shoot, but without a frequency and direction, it’s understated to call a shot in the dark.  He knows the path is there somewhere. There’s got to be a signal he can hack or overpower and it’ll kill him if he doesn’t find it.  She’s out there just a transmission away.  He has the means and the equipment to warn her, just not the know-how.

“I wonder if there’s any way I can reverse a call to her,” Cedric thinks out loud to Phaedra, who remains silent.  It was a statement not a question and warranted no response.  Phaedra’s programed to interpret things quite literally.

Cedric paces back and forth across his kitchen floor, often stepping out onto his balcony for a little fresh evening air, then right back inside.  He again has an uneasy feeling, like he’s racing against time to resolve a problem; like he’s defusing a bomb.

Then, from a neighboring radio, he hears that DP song again; the song of the summer of 69 if there ever was to be one.  He doesn’t even know the name of it but stations haven’t stopped playing it all summer.  It’s more than just a song, it’s a wave of energy.  It may have peaked but it still packs a punch. 

Cedric sits back on his sofa and listens to it play so far away.  Again it reminds him that it’s still summer; the same long summer he shared with Nikki; the same summer he contacted a guy who lives over half a century away.  The song lowers his anxiety and the day begins to catch up with him.  He yawns, letting gravity take over.  The little blue light on his sliding kitchen door blurs.

Cedric stands in the basement of the library, between stacks, staring at a wall of books in front of his face.  He can’t read the titles.  They seem to be written in a language he has never seen.  The alphabetic characters are simple and geometric, using a lot of simple circles, squares and triangles. 

Cedric pulls one of the books off the shelf in front of him.  He opens it, but again can read nothing.  The center part of the book has a series of diagrams.  He thumbs through them.  One diagram shows the earth and moon, both on a grid of white lines.  There are trajectories drawn on the grid showing a flight path between the two celestial bodies.

A clock on the wall is ticking, loudly.  When Cedric looks at it, he sees no hands on it, even though it is a face clock.  Then he hears Nikki laugh.  She sounds very near, possibly in the next aisle.  Cedric walks around the shelves but doesn’t see her.  Again he can hear her laughter.  He gets a glimpse of her through the next line of shelves and quickly makes his way around them, but she’s gone.  He’s perplexed and frustrated.  Then it comes to him; this is a dream.  He wakes up, stares at the ceiling for a minute, then gets out of bed. 

              “Some news please!” he requests of Phaedra.

“Hot, dry weather has led to over one hundred and eighty wildfires in our region.  Sources say that most of them are most likely do to human negligence.  Expect air quality to remain poor on the index over the next few days as a high pressure system moves in today and things heat up.  There is a chance of rain on the horizon but not until next week.  People are advised against running or doing any strenuous exercising outdoors,” a newscaster reports.

The radio breaks to a commercial for dental implants.

              “Radio off,” Cedric requests of Phaedra, then sits in the ensuing silence.

He looks out his window.  The sun is just above the horizon and filtered with smoke from the wildfires.  It’s quite a sight.  He can look right at it, putting it into a different perspective, almost as if it were a bright red moon.  It looks so spherical, and so three dimensional.  The smoke filtering really brings that out.  Outside, it looks more like Mars than Earth.

There it is
, he thinks to himself;
our star, just over eight light minutes away
.  The next one is over a four light years away.
[10]
Space is vast, cold and empty.  It’s no wonder early religions worshiped the sun; it’s our campfire in a dark, cold galaxy.

Then something triggers Cedric’s memory of his dream last night.  He recalls the library and Nikki laughing, and how he searched for her.  He also remembers looking through the book at the pictures, and the odd language.  The dream is coming through in fragmented glimpses but vivid ones.  His memory of it is mostly intact.

He calls Chara.  The phone rings several times before she finally answers.

              “What’s up Cedric?” she asks.

              “I’m really sorry to call so early,” he tells her.

              “No worries, I’m up.  In fact I’m almost out the door,” she says.

              “Did Nikki check anything out from the library that day you were with her?” Cedric asks Chara.

              “Not that I remember,” Chara answers; “but we weren’t allowed to check anything out from the stacks.”

“Do you remember any materials you looked at with Nikki?” he asks.

              “Nothing by title, no, but I may be able to find a book.  I do remember her looking at an old lunar map in one of them,” she tells him.

              “I hate to bother you,” Cedric says; “could you meet me at the library whenever you’re free?”

              “Sure, how about this morning.  I have to go on assignment this afternoon and it’s as good of a time as any,” Chara says; “Oriona is working with me today.  I’ll bring her along too.  She might remember something.”

              “That’d be awesome.  What time is good?” Cedric asks.

              “We break at ten,” she answers; “how about ten fifteen in front of the library entrance?”

              “That sounds perfect,” Cedric says; “I really do appreciate this.”

              “It’s nothing Cedric.  Anything for Nikki,” Chara replies.

              “Thank you,” Cedric tells her.