by Daniel Diehl
It was just under two hours before Daniels had completed critiquing Jason’s report on the Tintagel dig. Obviously there were going to have to be changes; making changes to suit any given professor’s whims were part of being a university student. Fortunately these weren’t too extensive and Jason decided he could have the revised text back in Daniels’ hands within a week. At least he could if he could get some rest. For the moment, he was hardly able to hold his head up, but his spirits lifted immeasurably the minute Carver Daniels suggested they examine the globe.
Pulling the tray and its grapefruit sized treasure from their storage place in one of a dozen metal cabinets lining one wall of the lab, Daniels gently placed it on the large work table in the center of the room. Switching on the lights hanging low over the table and digging through his pockets for the pair of spectacles which would give him the best view of the sphere at extreme close range, the professor settled on a high stool and began gently rolling the object around on its towel.
“Most extraordinary,” he said “I’ve been pondering this for months now and still have no idea what its original purpose might have been. The total lack of markings left by the blowpipe which must have been used to make this thing has me completely baffled. It really is a brilliant piece of work. Still, we need to determine its exact chemical and mineral make up if we are going to make any headway toward identifying its origins. The swirling pattern on the surface tells us there are impurities in the glass, and we need to know what they are.”
“Am I crazy, professor, or are those imperfections moving?” Jason leaned forward, squinting his eyes.
“Trick of the light, obviously. Let me turn on one of these black lights so we can get a better look at the composition of the glass.” Daniels burbled away happily as he pulled a black, fluorescent light out of a drawer. “Under black light we can pick out any trace minerals, impurities or crystalline content in the glass. Switching on the lamp, Daniels held the light close to the sphere. The result was so startling, so unexpected, that he could only blink repeatedly before turning his wide-eyed stare on Jason.
“Good lord.” The old man said in amazement while Jason could only shift his startled face from the round object to the professor and back again. Under the otherworldly glow of the black light the surface of the glass appeared to be covered with a perfectly unbroken grid of pale blue-white crystalline threads as fine as lace. Each minute thread in the complex web was connected to another one, forming hundreds of minute, perfectly formed pentagons, hexagons and octagons. Under the unnatural illumination the web of crystals danced and refracted, breaking the black light down to its component parts, and throwing them off into the air like a thousand tiny rainbows. Turning it first one way then another, Daniels finally returned his gaze to Jason. “Do you see?” he almost whispered. “There don’t seem to be any seams in this web. I’m certainly no geologist, but I don’t believe such a thing can exist in a man-made object. If it had been worked, any crystalline structure inherent in the glass would be all fractured, especially if it were heated to a high enough temperature for the glass to have been blown. This object seems to have grown naturally, and no such object occurs in nature - at least none that I am aware of. I believe we have entered what one might quite correctly call terra incognita.”
Finally, after what seemed like minutes of complete silence, Jason spoke. “Doctor, this thing seems even weirder now than it did before.”
Nodding in silent agreement, Carver Daniels quietly replaced the orb in its tray and muttered distractedly. “Weird, indeed, Mr. Carpenter, weird indeed. Not only shall we have to bring in a specialist on Anglo-Saxon finds, but we shall have to bring in a geologist as well. This is quite beyond anything in my experience.” Then, almost as an after-thought, he added. “Any thoughts which might illuminate our little mystery?”
“If you’ll pardon my saying so, Doctor, I still think that whatever it is, it has to be pre Anglo-Saxon. It was well below the bottom of the last Anglo-Saxon finds in the trench.” When Daniels raised a hand to object, Jason bravely cut him off. “I know. There is no evidence of anything earlier than Anglo-Saxon at the site. But since there’s no evidence of anything like this existing anywhere else, don’t you think we should bring in experts on pre Anglo-Saxon and maybe even Roman glassware?”
Running his hand idly across his shiny head, Carver Daniels muttered, “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you’re right. But what in heaven’s name is it?”
Completely at a loss, Jason half smiled and said, “If it is pre Anglo-Saxon, and considering that it’s from a toilet pit at Tintagel, who knows, maybe it was Merlin’s crystal ball and he didn’t like what it was telling him so he threw it down the shitter.”
Daniels almost took offense at such wild and unprofessional speculation, but checked himself when he realized it was a joke. Looking up, he began to chuckle. Jason joined him and laughed at the absurdity of the entire situation. Finally, Daniels said between laughs “That’s undoubtedly as sound a theory as any we have come up with so far, my boy.”
That night, when Jason reared up in bed from a deep sleep, his eyes snapped open and he shouted a single word into the silence of the night: “SOON.” It took him a minute to orient himself, but when he did, he realized the dream had come again. This time, he could remember more of it than on any earlier occasion. The swirling, clinging, grasping fog and the brilliant blue eyes boring a hole through his head were still there, but this time there was also a hand. Long fingered and leathery, it reached out through the fog toward him, palm forward with the fingers slightly bent as though trying to grasp his face. Unnerving as the remembered image was, once Jason calmed down he drifted into a sleep that remained unbroken for the rest of the night.
* * * *
Friday the seventeenth of September was cold, wet and blustery. A steady, driving rain had dampened everyone’s spirits except Carver Daniels’. The departmental reception was to begin at seven that evening and nothing would be allowed to spoil his excitement. Daniels was in the refectory of King’s Manor before anyone else except the staff, who were busy setting up tables laden with hors d’ouvres, the bar and the podium which would be shared by Daniels, the department head, and other speakers. When Jason arrived shortly after seven-thirty the room was already filling with people, some of whom he knew, most of whom he did not. Despite not really wanting to come at all, and still drifting in a gray fog of sleep deprivation, he had made the effort to put on his one good suit, a dark tie and a pale purple shirt. To the rest of the world Jason Carpenter’s tall, languid figure looked handsome and at ease, but inside he was a tight little knot. Ambling toward the bar, he decided a drink might help to loosen him up enough to carry on a conversation with strangers without getting tongue-tied.
Walking up to the table covered with glasses and bottles of liquor and wine, he could hear a bar tender clattering around underneath the tablecloth. By the time the bartender stood up, Jason had decided that since the university was buying, and because he needed a little extra fortification against the interminable speeches and forced conversation, he would have a single-malt Scotch whisky. When it arrived, he stood swirling it idly in the glass. Only when the bartender started staring at him did he decide it was time to go mingle, wandering off in the hope of finding the relative safety of familiar faces. By the time the speeches began, Jason had managed to spend a few moments chatting with some of his professors and classmates, including Beverley. He had never seen her dressed up before and thought to himself how really lovely she was. Eventually he ended up in a group that included Steve Stone, his girlfriend Sue and Tom Morley. When someone he did not recognize mounted the podium to begin some interminable string of sage pronouncements, he looked around to see if he could spot Beverley again. No luck. Shrugging to himself, he settled in for an onslaught of academic pontification.
During the long, boring hour before Carver Daniels took the stage, the head of the Archaeology Department said his piece, as did several professors, one
of the “big guns” from the ARC, the Archaeological Resource Center, and another from the York Archaeological Trust. When Daniels’ turn finally came, his speech was gratefully short and just as gratefully he spent most of it dealing with the Tintagel dig. Word of the mysterious globe had already spread well beyond the confines of the university and Daniels was determined to dispel the wild stories that had percolated through the archaeological community over the past months. If anything, his praise for Jason and the work of his team were too effusive, at least too much so for Jason’s comfort. During Daniels’ time at the podium, Tom and Steve could not resist slapping each other, and Jason, on the back in exaggerated congratulations. Daniels’ speech marked the end of the formal segment of the evening, the rest of the time having been set aside for private academic discussions and politicking. Within minutes, Jason found himself surrounded by well-wishers and members of the archaeological fraternity, all plying him with questions to which he had no answer.
Frantic to escape the attention, Jason began scanning the room for a plausible reason to excuse himself. That was when he saw a small, thin, elderly man leaning against the far wall, staring directly at him. When he caught Jason’s eye, he raised his glass in salute. Strangely, the man looked exactly like the photograph of George Bernard Shaw that Jason’s mother kept hanging on the wall of her office. The man was not just reminiscent of the wild 19th century Irish playwright; he looked exactly like him, right down to his century-old tweed suit. But the most frightening thing about the man were his eyes, they were bright, electric blue and seemed to bore right through Jason. As the ice began clattering against the glass in his trembling hand, Jason bolted into the crowd. When he paused long enough to look where the strange figure had been standing, there was no one there. Shaken, Jason returned to the group.
“Are you alright Mr. Carpenter?” asked a middle-aged lady from the ARC.
“I just thought I saw someone I knew,” Jason said uncertainly, “but I guess I was mistaken. I’m sorry, you were saying?”
As the crowd around him began to thin, Jason was gratified to find Beverley standing nearby. “I like that.” she said.
“You like what?” He said; impressed for the second time that evening with how stunning she looked in an emerald green dress that clung to her in all the right places. “That I’m getting all this unwarranted attention or that the attention is making me sweat?”
“No,” she replied slowly, “I like that you’re not taking advantage of it and getting all full of yourself like most guys would.”
“You mean most American guys get arrogant?” he asked with a smile playing slowly around his mouth.
“No, I mean most anyone would get arrogant with so much notoriety being dumped on them all at once. You just take it in stride. You’re very down to earth and matter of fact about it. It’s very refreshing.”
Looking over the rim of his glass, Jason soaked-in Beverley’s face peeking out from behind a billowing mane of hair that shimmered with fiery highlights in the soft glow of the chandeliers. He had never noticed how soft and perfect her mouth was and the ruddy hue of her hair set off the gentle curves of her ivory throat in a way that riveted his attention. Moving the glass away from his lips, he smiled as he said, “you’re a pretty cool sort yourself, Beverley McCullough.” Having no idea where he wanted this conversation to go next, he abruptly changed the subject. “Say, did you see that guy over at the other side of the room earlier, the one who looked like George Bernard Shaw?”
“No, why?” She replied. From the shift in her tone of voice it was obvious that the abrupt change in the direction of a conversation she was thoroughly enjoying had slightly confused and irritated Beverley.
“No reason. I just was sure it was Shaw...I mean...” realizing that he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense Jason fell quiet.
"Honestly, Jason,” she said, laying a hand on his arm, “I didn’t see him and I could be wrong, but I’m almost positive that Bernard Shaw is still dead.” Jason burst out laughing and when she joined him, the momentary tension that had developed between them disappeared.
“Ah, Mr. Carpenter and Miss McCullough, enjoying our moment in the sun, are we?” It was Carver Daniels, beaming at what he obviously saw as the perfect end of a perfect evening. “I’m sure you will be happy to know that the York Archaeological Trust has volunteered every possible assistance in helping us solve the mystery of our little find. Of course, I will still be calling on the services of others, but this is a step in the right direction. ‘One small step for man’ as that astronaut chap said.” As he continued in this same happy vein, Beverley quietly excused herself, knowing that Dr Daniels was primarily addressing himself to Jason. After she had gone, and the conversation drifted in a less professional direction, Jason ventured to ask Daniels if he had seen the man who looked like Bernard Shaw.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t see anyone who looked like that. Why do you ask?”
“No reason, professor, I just wondered if you knew him.”
“No, I don’t believe I know anyone who looks like the great Irish bard, certainly no one in the department or any of the associated groups who were invited here. Possibly he was a guest of a guest. Oh, if you will excuse me, the director of the ARC seems to be making his way to the door. Wouldn’t do not to thank him, would it?”
“Certainly, Dr Daniels, and thanks for all the kind words.”
“Not at all, my boy, not at all, you thoroughly deserve them.” he said over his shoulder as his fringe of white hair wafted away through the milling crowd.
Left alone, Jason quietly scanned the room until he caught sight of Beverley talking to some of her friends. Forgetting about vanishing dead Irish playwrights for a minute, he realized that although he had known her for more than a year he could not, for the life of him, understand why he had never really noticed her before. It wasn’t just that she had the most amazing head of ginger hair he had ever seen, or legs that went all the way to the floor, she was really, really nice. She was very mature; she never seemed to get petulant and bitchy the way some women do because they think it makes them sexy. Since he was unattached and, as far as he knew Beverley was unattached, maybe it was time to move beyond just being professional friends. Certainly it was worth following up.
* * * *
While the guests filtered out of the refectory, across the courtyard the quiet darkness of the archaeology department’s basement laboratory was disturbed when first one, and then another, fluorescent tube in the ceiling lights began to flicker softly. On a corner desk a computer monitor pinged gently to itself before lighting up as file after file began to scroll randomly across the screen as if the machine was scanning its own, private reams of information.
The old man pressed the palms of his hands to his temples while small beads of cold sweat broke out on his brow. It had been so many years since he had projected a physical image even a short distance that the effort left him exhausted. But there was so much to do, so much to learn, and so little time left to do it in. Even a few short weeks ago he thought he would have all the time he needed; but now that he had been left exposed and vulnerable everything had changed. There was no time left for careful planning. No more time to wait. The only option left was to act.
Part of his mind cleared away the image of the long-dead man in the rumpled tweed suit while another part concentrated on absorbing the thousands of random bits of information from the strange, glowing machine in the room outside. As he focused his mind, waves of energy crept through the walls of the steel cabinet and darted around the room, moving and probing, searching for any scrap of knowledge that might be of use. As the tendrils of invisible energy moved in and out, building to a vibrating crescendo, he gathered up a few crumbling scrolls and precious books, shoving them into a cloth sack before moving to the center of his tiny room. Clutching the sack to his chest he curled his body into a ball on the floor. The only thing he could do now was to wait for the inevitable conclusion to the process he had s
ent in motion and hope for the best.
* * * *
Jason moved toward Beverley and the two women, who seemed to be drifting toward the door, saying their goodbyes as they went. Depositing his glass on a table, Jason walked purposefully toward them. “Leaving already, Beverley?” He asked, determined not to let her escape without picking up the broken thread of their conversation, anxious to see where it might lead.
“Yes, it’s been a long evening, but it was really nice to see you; and even if you think it was a little too much, I’m very pleased you got recognized for the dig.” Smiling up at him warmly, she added, “You deserve it, so enjoy it while it lasts.”
Allowing a half grin to play around his mouth, Jason acknowledged the compliment. “Thanks” he said; then taking a silent breath, added “Umm, if you’re not in too big of a hurry, I could walk you home. I really should say good-by to Professor Daniels before I vanish, but then I’m ready to go. We could stop for coffee on the way, if you want. It’s pretty nasty out there and a little warm-up wouldn’t hurt.”
“Ok. That would be nice.” Then with a gentle chuckle, she added “I don’t think Liz and Catherine will get lost if I’m not there to guide them.”
Jason retrieved their coats as Beverley tactfully took leave of her friends. When she turned to look at him, he smiled and held her coat out for her to slip into. “Oh, thank you. I could have gotten that. How nice.” Turning to her two friends she added with a knowing smile, “And the renowned archaeologist is also the last of the true gentlemen.” Beverley was just starting to slide her arm into the sleeve of the coat when Carver Daniels came bustling toward them.
“Mr. Carpenter, not leaving already, are you?” He asked with an anxious edge in his voice. “I was hoping to have a moment alone with you before you left.”
“I was about to come and say good night to you Doctor, and then I was going to walk Beverley...that is, Miss McCullough, home.”