“What?” she said, this time turning to look at him.
Before he could repeat himself, Candace and Trevor turned the corner opposite them.
“Morning, guys,” Jane called.
“Hello, Dr. Whyse, Dr. Whyse, Sebastian,” Trevor replied, nodding to each in turn.
“Hey,” Candace replied, giving Sebbie's arm a little squeeze.
“So, hello, Candace, what are we going to do today?” Sebasian said, very formally.
“What do you want to do?” Candace replied, squatting down to his level.
“Color, then run a mile, then paint, and sing. And I want to do math,” Sebbie replied.
“Full of energy this morning!” Jane laughed. “Sounds like a fun day!”
“Looking forward to it,” Candace replied. “Go eat your breakfast, and I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Thanks, Candace,” Jane said, waving as she walked by.
As they walked down the hallway, the Whyses couldn’t help but overheard Trevor say, “So did you want me to look or not? Adams will find it eventually anyway and tell Edwards.”
“That didn’t sound good,” Jane mumbled to Lucas. “Were we supposed to hear that?”
“Yes,” Lucas said, frowning as he stared at the spot where the hallway curved away from them. “Maybe mention it to Cheyenne?”
“I think first I’ll just ask Candace when we have a moment alone.”
“Ok,” he said. “Hey, what’s with the cartridge for Sebbie’s laptop that lets you insert a USB? Are you downloading something? I thought that thing was just a toy.”
“What? Oh, I don’t know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I guess it came in the box. I never really thought about it. Are you hungry, honey?”
Chapter 35
“Albatross, are you in place?” Cheyenne asked her headset a few hours later.
“We are,” Hal replied in her ear.
“Julie, James, is everything set?”
“Confirmed,” James replied over the speakers. “You’re receiving?”
“Yes,” Trevor confirmed. “When’s NASA tuning in?”
“Any minute now,” Bonnie confirmed.
One of the side screens registered an incoming connection, but it wasn’t Colonel Edwards who appeared.
“Hello, Richard,” Bonnie said, looking displeased.
“Good morning,” her husband replied.
“Good morning,” Jane replied when Bonnie was silent.
“Any last minute changes, Mr. Fox?” Rich asked.
“No,” Trevor replied. “We’re launching with the last arrangement we reviewed together.”
“Excellent,” Rich said with a smile. “I’ll just watch now, Dr. Chapman.”
Bonnie bristled and leaned over Ana to press the ‘mute’ button for his channel with unnecessary force.
When Ana pointed out that Colonel Edwards was dialing in, Lucas moved to sit behind Jane with his cup of coffee. He was really just an observer in the launch room, not even required to be there by mission protocol, though he always was.
“Nervous, Dr. Whyse?” he whispered.
“Always, Dr. Whyse,” she replied with a furrowed brow.
“Glad you have your confidence back,” he whispered.
“Hello, Split Horizon,” Edwards’ voice finally said when he dialed in.
“Good morning, sir,” Bonnie replied.
“It's the evening, here, but hello just the same,” he replied.
The Colonel began making introductions.
“Oh, right,” Jane whispered to Lucas when she saw Candace’s dad was in attendance. “I meant to tell you, about this morning what we overheard. Candace said she needed Trevor's help with her tablet because it was acting up. It wasn't letting her log in outside her office.”
“Really?” Lucas said. “That's weird. It sounded like... well, I guess I heard wrong.”
The team ran through the pre-launch procedures as normal. As the countdown began, Jane focused on watching the graphs on her screen. The smallest change caught her attention. Out of habit, she found herself praying.
Lord, I want this to work, but I've always wanted to pursue science for You, not for me. If it works, let it be for You, and if doesn't work, tell me where to go next.
Lucas seemed to know what she was doing and reached up to touch her shoulder.
With a sudden awareness of how much she compartmentalized her feelings about her loss as separate from everything else, she wondered, Is this my new normal? I'd have to surrender everything for my prayers to be real, right?
“Trevor, how are we looking?” Ana asked, breaking up Jane’s train of distraction. “I’m getting the final trajectory adjustments based on data from the weatherbots.”
“Good by me,” he replied. “Catch is set, and the new timing program is coordinated with the launch computer. So even if we blow up again, we should know our true velocity.”
“Gee, that's the spirit,” Lucas laughed under his breath.
“Good Lord,” Bonnie mumbled, annoyed. “Are we ready to begin?” she asked the room.
“What do you think, Senator?” Colonel Edwards said on the monitor, turning to Candace's father.
“Senator?” Bonnie repeated the word and raised her eyebrows.
“Sorry,” Alexander Hartwell, Candace's dad, replied, clearly uncomfortable. “I haven't, it isn't, well, I was going to talk to Candace.” He sat forward and interlaced his fingers. “Colonel Edwards is part of a small group who knows I'm going to be running for office in the fall.”
“Wow, congratulations, sir,” said Bonnie. “When did you decide that?”
“The committee actually approached me a year ago and started doing, you know, some preliminary polling or whatever, but I didn't make the decision official until a couple days ago.”
“So Candace doesn't know?” Jane asked.
“Well, I'll call her later,” Hartwell replied.
“Well, we'll try not to be a black mark on your résumé,” Trevor said under his breath, adding a particularly foul name directed at the candidate. He watched the launch clock tick past the six-second launch window and then reset.
After some chit-chat, Colonel Edwards asked, “So we're good then?”
“Yes, ready to launch if you are,” Jane said.
“Show us what you got, Semotus,” Edwards said.
“Still good by me,” Trevor confirmed again with unnecessary attitude.
“Hal, we're initiating,” Cheyenne said into her headset.
“Fastball, low and away,” the pilot replied from the safe zone out near the catch. “Bring the heat.”
“Begin the sequence, Ana,” Bonnie said. “Launch on your timing.”
Ana gave MILO the official command to launch, but nothing happened. After a few moments of silence, Bonnie quietly asked, “Why is nothing happening?”
Before anyone replied, the console room rocked with a violent shudder.
“What just happened? Did it go?” Bonnie shouted over everyone talking at once. “Why didn't we hear the launch?”
The close-up images from the catch appeared not to change, but the monitors’ image tinted blue, almost as if a video cable was loose. Only Lucas, who didn’t have a stream of data to distract him, noticed. His eyes grew wide.
“Are the cameras stalled? Albatross, what do you see?” Cheyenne yelled.
“I'm not sure,” Hal replied.
“What do you mean you're not sure? It didn’t blow up, right?”
“No, nothing exploded,” he said.
“Was that shake a sonic boom?” Edwards asked expectantly.
“The launch bay is definitely empty,” Trevor said, pointing at the video feed from the other end of The Dome. The monitors from the catch gradually returned to their normal color, once more showing the stark whiteness of Antarctica beneath the mobile catch unit.
“Well, is the capsule in the catch?” Jane asked, squinting at the screen.
“Hun,” Lucas said, pointing
for her to look up.
“Is it safe to go in?” Hal continued. “I don't want to get cut in half. Wait, hang on. What? Julie's yelling something.”
There was a pause.
“It's what?” Hal shouted over her excitement. “What? Blue? What turned blue?”
“Blue?” Cheyenne said, looking around for answers from the science team.
Bonnie and Jane stood up in silent unison. They turned to look at each other, Bonnie’s face reading disbelief and Jane’s reading excitement.
“What did I miss?” Colonel Edwards called. “Is this good news?”
Ana's eyes slowly filled with realization, and she said, “Cherenkov radiation...”
“Radiation? That sounds bad,” Edwards said.
“Remember, it's like a sonic boom,” Jane explained, trying to remain composed but feeling weak in the knees. “It's like a sonic boom, when you break the sound barrier, but with light. If they saw Cherenkov radiation, it means Split Horizon just did it, sir. Mankind's first light-speed jump.”
The noise of the team cheering nearly drowned out Trevor adding, “Or at least the first light-speed jump that didn’t end in an explosion.”
Chapter 36
Riddhi stared at the wall in her lab. It was normally so quiet in The Dome, but now the wind battered the facility, making everything creak and whine. After their successful FTL test, she had little official work to do, but she’d kept her hands busy for two weeks.
The south end of the world sure knows how to make a storm, she thought. Three more weeks, and I’m going to Bermuda. Flipping her mask down, she took a lighter out of the pocket of her leather vest. She clicked it once to ignite the welding torch and settled in to work once more.
Lucas appeared at her lab’s door and knocked on the frame.
“What’s up, doc?” she asked, chuckling to herself.
“Hi Riddhi,” he said. “Whatcha working on? Reinforcing the walls, I hope, as it sounds like they are about to come down around us.”
“Geez, I hope not. Wasn’t this thing designed for Mars?” She hadn’t looked up from her work yet.
Lucas smiled, then looked confused. “What? Seriously? Was it?” he asked.
“No, I was kidding, sorry,” Riddhi replied.
“Good, ok, sorry, it’s just we are working for NASA, and Colonel Edwards keeps saying that he—nevermind,” Lucas said. “Sorry. I came down here to check your feasibility to sneak in one more test before we leave.”
Riddhi shut off the torch and raised her mask. “I’m good. Honestly, it doesn’t affect me much. I’m out of material to make any more FAD454, so even if they wanted me to try and make another capsule alteration, I don’t think I could. I’m just crafting to pass the time now.”
“No more erbium?”
“Cheyenne said MacTown’s laser was still empty,” Riddhi teased as she wrapped the cord up and placed the symmetrical coil on the work table.
“Bummer,” Lucas said. “But we have three weeks. May as well make use of them. Although, I guess that depends on the weather. Was it this bad last year?” His eyes traced the joints in the ceiling and down the corners to the floor.
“I think this end’s noisier than yours,” Riddhi said, glancing around. “You’ve got thicker walls in the older part.”
Riddhi picked up some tools and began tapping the piece she’d been working on.
“Sebbie barely sleeps in this weather as it is, so if we’re at the quiet end, I feel terrible for you guys.”
Riddhi chuckled and selected a new tool.
“What it is you’re working on? Is that monkey metal?” Lucas asked, walking across the room for a closer snoop.
“This? No.”
“What is it? Hyperalloy?”
“I'm not familiar,” she said, wrinkling her brow.
“Sorry, that's the metal from Terminator that lets them time travel.”
“Oh, ok,” she said with a placating smile. “No, it's another attempt from that discovery process. A failure for your use, but now I like to craft with it. Lucas, meet FAD411.”
“You really did 454 tries? You were closing in on Edison,” he said, staring at the shiny fragment in her hand.
“And more to come. I still haven’t been successful,” Riddhi said. “You remember this wasn’t my goal?”
“Ah, yes,” Lucas nodded. “What is it you are in pursuit of?”
“Wouldn't you like to know,” she said, chuckling. “Monkey metal was one mistake in a long series of mistakes that just happened to suit your project. Wouldn’t have even known you needed this particular error until Jane made the match.”
“Right,” he said. “A lucky mistake, then.”
“If you’re into FTL, sure,” Riddhi nodded. “I don’t resent being down here. I mean, no one gets this experience, helping them decide how to colonize Mars and all that. It just isn’t my life dream the way it’s yours and Jane’s.”
“Not really my life dream. Just a great career stop, I think.”
Riddhi blew some imaginary dust off the piece and rubbed it against her pants. She closed one eye and stared at a corner, then slid the tool gently against one side.
“I guess life dreams have come into specific perspective lately for you and Jane, haven’t they?” she said.
“It’s been… rough,” he said.
“And yet you’ve been able to stay together,” she said.
Lucas smiled and closed his eyes briefly.
“Sorry if I upset you,” Riddhi said quickly.
“No, no, not at all,” he said. “Just thinking what an observation that is.”
There was a pause, and Lucas picked up a spare tool from the table, turning it over in his hands. Riddhi’s fingers moved a different tool around the metal piece in her hand, occasionally making a gentle click or ping.
“I think we hold it together because we believe there’s more,” he said. “More to life than this. More than now, even. A bigger picture at work. A bigger Someone at work.”
“God?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I know a lot of scientists scoff, but I don’t see how. When you look at the universe and see its wonders, I just don’t understand how learned men and women imagine all this order and beauty without a Creator.”
“Now you sound like Cheyenne,” Riddhi said with neither judgment nor approval in her voice.
“We follow the same star,” Lucas smiled.
A few moments of silence passed, but Riddhi’s hands had stopped. Lucas waited, but she didn’t say anything else.
“What do you want to ask?” he prodded, crossing his arms.
“What?” she said, turning to face him.
“You have a question but you didn’t ask it. Go ahead.”
After a moment of silence, Riddhi asked, “So did God let your child die?”
Lucas tilted his head. “That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?”
“Well, I mean, God’s good, right? And if he made all this, isn’t he in charge of it? So, what is that about? Why did your child die?”
Lucas uncrossed his arms and put out his hands. “I don’t know.”
“That’s ok, I didn’t mean to pry. No one has all the answers,” Riddhi said.
“No, really, I mean I don’t know,” he explained. “It’s a mystery. I don’t have that answer, and I don’t think I’m going to figure it out. Honestly, the truth is, no answer would be good enough. Even if the answer was that her death somehow would mysteriously lead to a cure for all cancer, I know that wouldn't feel good enough. So, in some ways, God’s mysteries are helpful.”
Riddhi nodded and began working again, this time with a heat gun.
“Now, believe me,” Lucas continued, watching her work, “I want answers, and I’ve asked for them so many times. Jane and I have had a million conversations and wept over the lack of answers. I’m still learning what my new life looks like… what my new faith looks like... who I am as a Christian after this experience.”
�
�It’s really changed you?”
“Yes,” he said, “But oddly, I don’t think it’s weakened my faith. I think I’m coming through all this stronger than ever before. God is … real to me now.”
“He wasn’t real before?” she asked, adjusting her large gloves to avoid eye contact.
“Yes, but differently,” he answered. “I think a lot of people go through life experiencing God from their own lens. We each have a frame of reference for who God is and what He can and will do. But then if my entire frame gets picked up and moved, I see a whole new perspective I never knew I was missing. Walking through this pain has opened my eyes to how deep His love for me really is.”
“So I guess some good came out of it, huh?”
“Sure,” he said. “But it’s never a trade. It’s not like I wouldn’t go back a hundred times over. I mean, having her and still being stuck in my childish view of God... Man, that sounds terrible saying it out loud… But it’s true. I miss someone I never really met. We held her, you know, just for a while in the hospital. In a blanket, and they put a hat on her.”
Lucas’ throat got dry and his voice cracked. Riddhi waited and scored a metal piece, keeping her eyes on the handiwork.
As the minutes passed, the storm raged. Ice piled against the sides of The Dome, slowly insulating one side of the low hallways against the noise.
“I guess you wanted to hear a better answer, didn’t you?” Lucas said finally, clearing his throat. “Christians are supposed to have all the answers, but the truth is, we don’t. People don’t have all the answers. But I believe with all my heart that my Savior does, even though I don’t get it. And I’m a scientist, so faith should be contrary to my personality.”
“I have faith, too, but not like yours,” Riddhi said. “Mine’s a little bit looser. I still liked what you had to say, though. I’m glad you guys have that to hold on to. It’s important to know who you are in times of trouble.”
Riddhi stood up, looking satisfied, and handed Lucas the item she’d been working on.
“A moon?” Lucas asked, turning the beautiful metal piece around in his hand. It was abstract and stunningly unique.
“Yes,” she said.”Part of a mobile I’d been making last year. I was, well, you know… it was for you guys.” She opened a closet and lifted out the metal frame. Underneath dangled more than a dozen shapes.
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