Black Swan Planet

by James Peters

  Marco looked at me, pointed to the television, then pointed to his own chest.

  “I suppose I’d be pretty excited too if I hadn’t seen another human in years. It’s a cute chimp. Enjoy your show.”

  I sat down for a moment and watched the chimp on the television throw a banana peel into the path of a generic bad guy brandishing a gun. Generic bad guy fell down; the chimp jumped him and ran off with the gun.

  Marco screamed, pointed to his chest, and clapped his hands loudly.

  “Yes. A chimp like you. I’ll try to get her number for you.”

  Marco gave me a dirty look and returned to his movie.

  “Marco, how I wish you could talk. You could tell me everything.”

  Then, in a sudden epiphany, the curtains of my idiocy opened, allowing light into the deep, dull recesses of my mind. Marco could talk, in a way. His pantomimes and signing were a form of language, but not one that my implant chip could recognize. Just like the Dentist’s phonetic language. I lacked a reference to compare it to. I had grown so used to the chip translating everything for me at light-speed, I hadn’t seen what clearly stood in front of me all this time. Raka the Fool, once again. “Marco!”

  Marco looked at me with a look of total disdain, cocked his head to the side with a look of ‘What? I’m busy watching my show.’

  “This is important. I don’t know what you understand, or how you do it, but I need your help.”

  Marco motioned that I should place my lips upon his chimp ass, pucker up, and kiss away, for quite some time.

  “Nice. Listen Marco, I think the Empire is coming. Do you understand that? The Empire may be coming to Earth?”

  Marco motioned a fat man, wobbling to walk, pointing a rail-gun. Then he jumped up and down, replaying how he had jumped on the Emperor’s head and made him miss me all those years ago.

  “Yes! The Emperor. Probably not him per se, but the Empire. If the Empire comes to Earth, they will destroy it.”

  Marco shook his head side to side and shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s true. You see, someone has been leaking Imperial technology here on Earth. This television, the radio, probably even the whole space race technology. It’s all from the Empire. Earth is advancing at an unnatural pace, skipping an entire generation of tech. What do you think the Empire will do if they see Earth as a threat?”

  Marco shrugged, with a look of ‘I don’t give a flying turd’ and turned back to his movie. By now, the chimp swung through the air, hanging from a banner that read ‘Congratulations!’

  “Think this through. If the Empire comes to Earth, they’ll have two options. Destroy or subjugate. Either way, they’ll kill you, me, Maven, and Nicholai. Can you imagine what they’d do to Gina for aiding me?”

  Marco turned toward me; his jaw dropped a little, his eyes opened wide. He ran off, disappearing from sight.

  “Hiding won’t help!” I called. “Stupid monkey.” I released a large sigh. A few moments later, Marco reappeared, dragging a ragged map of the United States behind him.

  “Marco! Thank you!”

  He spread the map on the floor. His eyes scanned it, tracing the outline of the United States as if he were trying to get his bearings. I pointed on the map. “We are here, roughly.” Do you know where Maven and Nicholai are?

  Marco looked at the map and traced a pattern, touching Florida, then a spot in Texas, then California. He stopped for a moment at each spot, smiled, shrugged, or nodded for a moment. Then he traced a line north and east, into a mountainous area in the northwest. He squinted, got close to the map, looked confused, pointed, and looked confused again. Then he started to shred the map at the point he had been looking at.

  “What is wrong with you!?” I said. “I thought you were going to help! Now you’ve just made a mess.”

  I grabbed the map and tried to piece together what he had torn up. He had shredded the states of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. Marco gave me a dirty look, hissed and ran off. I found some clear tape from the kitchen drawer and tried to tape the map back together. It looked like something a child had taped up but remained mostly legible. “What set you off, Marco?” I started pacing and thinking, walking past the hall mirror, I glanced at my reflection. I needed a haircut. Perhaps just getting away would help. I grabbed the car keys and marched outside.

  I opened the car door and something lay on the back seat. The road atlas from the garage. I started the car and while it warmed up, thumbed through the map. Something had changed in this map. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I swear it looked different. I shut off the car and ran inside to compare. It stood out like a sore thumb, once I had the two side by side. In Montana, on the new map, it showed a lake that didn’t appear on the old one. I scanned down to the bottom of the old map and squinted. ‘Copyright 1957’ in tiny letters. The new road atlas showed a Montana lake that had appeared after the old map had been printed. What the Dentist had told me raced through my head as I read the name of the lake. Quake Lake. Mountain A. Montana. Fifty-Nine Quake to create a fishing hole. Quake Lake.

  I knew where I needed to go next.

  Chapter 21

  The Queen of Montana

  I explained to Gina that I needed to take a road trip out west. She insisted that we all needed a vacation and that she and Marco were coming along; the discussion being over. I tried to object, but a silent and stern look shut me down. I did get in a comment. ‘I have to have time to do my work.’

  We loaded up the car with luggage, a tent, camping supplies, and picnic baskets. I didn’t understand this idea of camping, but Gina insisted it a part of a vacation. I called it a vacation from living like civilized human beings, but she insisted it would be fun. So I’d be sleeping, on the ground, in a flimsy tent, with nothing more than a piece of canvas between me and the wilds of a barbarian world. Bears, badgers, bison and bees, all within mere inches of me. Sleeping under a useless tarp with my wife and a chimp who delighted in annoying me.

  Sounds like loads of fun.

  The drive seemed to take forever. As we worked our way west I noticed cars with bumper stickers advertising for Wall Drug, and we joked about what a Wall Drug is. Marco would pantomime long dreadlocks and smoking when I said ‘drug’. I smiled briefly, thinking about Nicholai and Marco on the shuttle, getting stoned to bejeezus the entire trip here. Gina eyed us. “I don’t want to know.”

  We all laughed.

  While the trip tired me, I notice something about this planet: its beauty, in its primitive way. Wide open spaces like I had never seen, fields of corn, wheat, and plants I couldn’t identify from the car. When we’d stop for fuel, snacks, or a bathroom break, we’d be greeted with smiles and the cheerfulness grew even more when they saw Marco getting out of the car in his ass-less chaps. One lady at a gas station insisted that Marco try on a kid’s cowboy hat. “Now you have a real cowboy with you! Or would that be a cow-monkey?”

  Marco grinned a big simian smile and acted like he drew a pistol from an invisible holster. She did the same and he fell over, acting like he had been outdrawn. The lady chuckled and insisted that he keep the hat as a gift for making her day.

  I learned a few things about camping, it being everything I feared it would be and more. The hard ground got me wet when it rained. The chore of preparing food: build a fire like a Neanderthal, hold a metal skillet over it while bacon grease burns your arm. Keep your food away from the tent in case bears decide they want it. Raccoons can get into everything, and who knows what diseases they carry. Rabid, filth-vermin they are. Having said all that, I discovered one thing: Being away from the day-to-day grind had its benefits. We talked, laughed, and enjoyed our time together. No matter what happened, these were the memories I’d cherish.

  As we got closer, we saw signs to visit the new Quake Lake Visitor Center. I picked up a brochure at a gas station. Apparently, the visitor center had just opened a few months ago to memorialize the victims of the August seventeenth, 1959 earthquake that crea
ted the lake. That would be the place to start.

  A friendly park ranger in a green uniform and ranger hat sat behind a counter and welcomed us. He had piercing blue eyes and wore an old wristwatch, noticeably scratched to the point you could barely see the dial. “My name is Brian. What brings you to Earthquake Lake?”

  I said, “Vacation. Is it Earthquake Lake or Quake Lake?”

  “Both really. Officially it’s Earthquake Lake. But the locals call it Quake Lake, and since it rhymes, it sticks. Are you here to do some boating? We have some fine fishing.”

  “I’m sure you do. Can you tell me a little about the formation of this lake?”

  “I’ve got a flyer on it right here. In a nutshell, on the seventeenth of August fifty-nine, the earth shook like nobody ever expected. That earthquake caused a landslide; that, in turn, created a natural dam. One thing led to another, and we have Quake Lake.”

  “I heard there were some deaths?”

  “Twenty-eight. The quake registered seven point five on the Richter scale. Looking back on it, we shouldn’t have been surprised. This whole area is a cauldron of geological nastiness.”

  “Was there anything unusual about the quake?” I said, knowing that I couldn’t ask, ‘Any chance you think this might have been caused by advanced technology from a galactic Empire you’ve never heard of?’

  “Unusual? Beyond the fact that the earth shook violently and created a new lake? Nope. Like I said earlier, this area is a geological mess.”

  “Thanks. By chance do you have any pictures of the time of the quake or the folks that died?” The ranger stopped still, staring directly into my eyes, so I added a reasonable lie. “My parents mentioned a cousin they think died out here during the quake. Thought I might recognize someone.”

  Brian pulled out a photo album from a shelf behind the counter. “Here you go. Don’t usually show this to visitors, but if you’ve got kin, you’re one of us. Tell me if you see anyone you know.”

  I flipped through the pictures, mostly graduation or engagement pictures, of all the victims. A few were less formal. One man sat in a webbed folding chair, with a beer in his hand. None of them looked familiar. I flipped to the last page to pictures from a mass memorial service. Hundreds of people attended. I scanned the photo, noticing a familiar profile.

  “Do you have a magnifying glass?” I said, studying the picture.

  “Yeah, I think so. Hang on a minute.” He walked away to a desk in the next room. He reappeared with a large black-handled magnifying glass. “See someone you know?”

  “Not sure.” I studied the picture, taking in the details of a lady in black, at the edge of the frame. It had been taken with a wide-angle lens, so the image looked distorted but remained in focus. I curved the picture’s outside edge upward to counter the distortion. Maven. She had been at the funeral.

  Some other folks walked in and Brian looked up to greet them.“Go ahead.” I said, nodding at him. He stepped away and met the other folks at the door. I took the chance to peel the photo from the album and slip it into my pocket. I closed the album and set the magnifying glass on top of it.

  “Thanks!” I said as we left.

  Marco had been waiting in the car. Gina wanted to wander around the visitor’s center, so I showed the picture to Marco, pointing to the corner. “Anybody you know?”

  Marco looked at it and pantomimed a crown on his head.

  “That’s right. Your sign for Maven. You and Nicholai believed her to be a Queen.” I noticed a stamped message on the back of the photo. ‘Property of J. Greenwalt, Photographer. Big Sky, MT.’

  The next day, I convinced Gina that I had some work and she agreed to see some sights with Marco. I drove to Big Sky, stopped at the first phone booth I saw, and thumbed through the telephone book chained to the wall. Greenwalt, John. 1514 W. Main. Should be easy enough to find. Main or State streets typically run through the center of town. A few minutes of driving and I found the house, a white two story with a big front porch. As I pulled up, I saw a man rocking in a glider loveseat. He wore blue dressy pants held up by a belt adorned with a camera on the buckle, and a white shirt that had been stained multiple times, probably by photographic developing chemicals.

  “Mr. Greenwalt? John Greenwalt?” I said, stepping out from the car.

  “Does he owe you money? If so, he just left.”

  “No, not at all. I’m a reporter and I’m working on a story on the fifty-nine quake. A follow-up, what with the new visitor’s center and all, there’s some new interest.”

  He studied me with his eyes. “Ah, I see. So what can I do ya’ for?”

  “A colleague gave me a picture of yours, and I’m working on a story. By chance, do you have any more like this one.” I showed him the photo. “My colleague recommended I come to see you. We have pictures of the deceased, but we wanted to do more follow-up on the families, and those who attended the memorial service.”

  “This colleague of yours. Would you mind sharing his name?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if you’d know him, he said he knew you through a friend of his.”

  “That’s an evasive answer. What’s his name?”

  “Marco.”

  “I don’t know a Marco. Where’s he from?”

  “West Virginia.”

  “I don’t know anybody from West Virginia. That’s a long way away. How did he get my name?”

  “He’s a photography critic, very fond of your work, and acted like he knew you. Probably knows you through your pictures. He said you could see the soul of a good photographer in the tone of their pictures.”

  “Bullshit. That sounds like a line I used to use to try and get the hot young girls to pose for me. I’d tell them that they were denying the world their beauty and declare how unfair to the world of art they were for keeping a perfect bosom covered up. Worked sometimes too. You want to see some pictures?”

  “I’d love to. But I’d really like to see if you had any more pictures from the memorial service.”

  “Follow me. You ever been in a darkroom before?”

  “Just to sleep.”

  “Ha. Me too. It’s in the basement.” He led me down a set of wooden stairs into a darkroom, just large enough for us both to fit. “Let’s see, in fifty-nine I was filing everything in this cabinet. I tried for a while to put the negatives into plastic covers, then ended up just leaving them in these envelopes. What do we have here?” He held a negative up to the light. “Yes, that’s it. See? Boobies!” He handed me the negative.

  “Nice.”

  “I remember this one. Shouldn’t show you that one, I ended up marrying her!”

  “Uh. Anything on the memorial?”

  “Keep your shorts on. I’m looking. Boobies, boobies, boobies. Baby pic, boobies. Memorial. Here we go.”

  He handed me a stack of several negatives, I strained to look at them in the light.

  “Give me those and I’ll make you a contact sheet. It will be easier for you to see them in positive form. Hit that light on the left and turn on the red switch next to it.”

  I shut off the white light and could barely see under the red light.

  “Give it a second; your eyes will adjust. Now, these negatives look a little dark and could use some contrast. I’ll set the f-stop on the enlarger to F sixteen and add a hash eight red filter. With that, a twelve-second exposure should get us in the ballpark.” He pulled a piece of photographic paper from a tray and laid it flat. He then carefully lined up all the negatives on the paper and set a piece of clear glass on top. He pressed a button on the timer and the enlarger exposed the negatives. “Now into the developer.”

  He slid the paper into a tray of some liquid chemicals. After a few seconds, the paper darkened and images started to appear. He rocked the tray as images grew stronger. “Now for stop-bath.” He pulled the paper from the tray with rubber tipped tongs and put it in the second tray, keeping it there just for a few seconds. “Now to fix it.” He moved the paper into the third tra
y and slid it under the liquid, rocking it for a minute or so. “Lights!”

  “Oh. The white light?”

  “Yes. Turn on the light. Trust me, it’s ready now.”

  “You’re the expert,” I said, reaching over and turning on the light. I walked back and looked at the paper in the tray, there were lots of images of the memorial service.

  “Give me a minute, we’ll rinse it off and dry it. Then we can look it over at the viewing table. I’ve got a grease pencil you can use to circle any pictures you need to have enlarged.”

  He placed the paper into a tray with water constantly flowing over it and placed it on a table, running a squeegee over it. “Here you go.” He set it on the viewing table and turned on an inspection lamp with built-in magnifier. “Circle what you need. I’m gonna’ look through some of these negatives I’d forgotten about. Some good pics here!”

  I looked through the small pictures and found four that might show Maven. I circled them. “Do you think you could enlarge these?”

  “Sure.” He went through a similar pattern but now he placed each negative carefully into the enlarger and focused it on a frame designed to hold a sheet of the photographic paper. A few minutes later, I had four perfectly exposed black and white prints of the crowd. In two of them, I clearly made out Maven’s face.

  “This person. Do you recognize her?”

  “Hmm. Looks like you’ve got your eye on the Queen there.”

  “The Queen?”

  “Yeah, that’s what everyone called her. She sort of appeared out of nowhere a couple years before the quake. Had a ‘superior air’ about her, not in a mean way, just much more refined, more ‘civilized’ than we were. After the quake, she made quite a donation for the surviving family members at the service. I heard she even set up a scholarship fund for the orphaned kids. We called her the Queen because she’d never say her name, just say ‘Call me a friend’. Some started to call her Amigo, called her Maggie. We all know her as The Queen.”