by Tom Upton
“I wish I could eat like that all day,” she said, and she was somewhat breathless. “It’s really ashamed that you have to get filled up like that. I swear it, if it weren’t for that, I could stuff my face for hours on end.” She paused here and unabashedly released a loud ripping belch, which she followed up with a giggle. “Gee, where did that come from? What’s the matter, Travis, you didn’t think girls burp? Well, they do. And if you think they don’t fart, wait till later. It’s too bad you never had a sister. You’d already known these things, and I wouldn’t have to be the one who breaks your heart.” She got slowly to her feet, collected the paper plates, empty soda cans, and what was left of the pizza, and retreated into the other room.
When she returned, she flopped down heavily on the sofa, and looked at me with eyes that were drowsy and content.
“So you were saying your father doesn’t know what the artifact is,” I said.
“Uh-uh,” she murmured, and seemed about ready to sleep. “Do we have to talk about that now? Yeah, I suppose so. All the madness you’ve been put through….But no, he’s not at all sure. He thought that maybe it was some sort of station. The chambers were so big, and there were so many of them. It took him months just to map out all the chambers, and still, every once in a while, he finds one that went missed. The thing is enormous, and so much room… it could only be designed to transport large numbers of supplies or people-- aliens, actually, because there is little doubt the artifact is of alien origin.”
“And we’re sitting in one of the chambers, now?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re in one of the chambers. He learned how to reconfigure the space in the chamber to make it into the interior of a house. Here, let me show you,” she said, and forced herself to her feet. She walked to the opposite wall, and placed her hand flat against the wall on a certain spot. To my amazement, the control console rose out of the floor, facing the front window. She walked over to the console. After she pushed a few button, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, all shimmered and vanished. We were now in the huge, cavernous chamber that Eliza had described to me yesterday. The transformation was startling. Hearing somebody talk about it and actually seeing it for yourself, were two vastly different things. I stood up from the sofa, looking around in awe. My jaw must have been hovering just above the gray floor. I wandered over to where she was standing, next to the console.
“Travis, look-- Travis-- Travis,” she was trying to get my attention, but I was mesmerized by the console. It was about eight feet wide and shaped like a semi-circle, so that if you stood in front of it you had controls round you one hundred and eighty degrees. “Travis-Travis--”
“Hunh?”
“Look,” she said, pointing straight ahead of the console, “If you walk to that wall, you’ll trigger a sensor that will open a door on our front porch, right? There’s another sensor way in the back that opens a door on our back door, right? The distance between the front door and the back door inside the chamber is over three hundred feet, while outside the house is barely seventy feet long. It still amazes me that your friend, Raffles, noticed a lousy three-foot difference. How this is all possible, Doc isn’t sure-- again, it’s not his field of interest-- but he says it must be based on law of physics that are unknown to us-- inter-dimensional physics or something. Whatever it is, it works, because the durned thing is a lot bigger on the inside than the outside.
“Along both walls there are sensors that open doorways to corridors that lead to other chambers, many of them the same size as this. So you sort of have an idea how humongous this thing is,” she said, and then added in a somber tone, “This is my curse. You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I hadn’t stumbled across it. My father says it’s still a good thing, because it was better that we found it than somebody else. If somebody else had found it, they would already be back-engineering the technology, unlocking all its secrets, which my father was always certain would be used for no good. Maybe he was right. Maybe the technology would be converted to military uses.”
“The people who built this thing-- any idea what happened to them?”
“Uh-uh. It’s impossible to say how long the artifact was at the spot we found it,” she said. “It could have been there for a million years or only a single day. Really, there is no way to be sure what happened to them, why they were here, or what they were doing. My father was able to access what looks like their central computer, and he’s been able to pull up what looks like logs, but so far he hasn’t been able to translate them. To me they look like a mishmash of different symbols running up and down in endless lines in endless computer files.”
My curiosity was beginning to flare up. “Can you show me the view screen you told me about?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, and tapped a couple of the symbols of the console in sequence.
The entire wall ahead of the console glistened. For a second it took on the appearance of quicksilver, before it solidified into a screen that showed the northern hemisphere of the planet.
“See right there,” Eliza said now. “The symbol that marks our present location.”
I scanned the topography of the map. It wasn’t like looking at a regular map, a map with all the borderlines that formed the states or the provinces of Canada. Finally I found the symbol:
“Looks like the symbol for Gemini, doesn’t it?” Eliza asked.
“Yeah, very close.”
“My father says that’s just a coincidence.”
“Are these maps the only thing this screen has ever shown?”
Eliza frowned vaguely. “Why do you ask that?”
“Just wondering.” I shrugged.
“No, it’s funny you should ask,” she said. “About a year ago, my father was-- well, I guess the only thing you could call it is playing-- with the console. He hardly ever does it, because it’s all trial and error. You press the wrong buttons in the wrong sequence, and who knows what could happen? Anyway, he was playing with the console one day, and he came up with this.” Here she tapped a couple buttons, and the view screen changed; the map vanished, and was replaced by a star field. “We’re not quite sure what it is-- as far as we know it could be like a screen saver on a p.c.. Either that or it’s a view of the sky on the planet where this was built. We know enough about astronomy to be sure it’s not local; none of the stars seem familiar.”
I stood in front of the console, and gazed up at the enormous screen, which was filled with inky blackness except for the thousands of speckles of light scattered across it. I was transfixed by the dazzling array of stars. There was something here, something I couldn’t put my finger on.
Now I sensed Eliza step up to stand next to me.
“Travis, you all right?” she asked.
“When I was five years old,” I said. “I looked into the sky one night. It was clear and cold and all the stars were out. I was fascinated by the way they seemed to dance across the sky. I think it was the first time I actually noticed the universe, and started to realize just how small I was-- how small I would always be. That Christmas I asked my parents for a telescope. You do realize I don’t use my telescope just to spy on people?”
“Well, I sort of figured,” she said, giggling.
“And during all your spying on me,” I asked, “did you ever find out that I’m somewhat dyslectic?”
“Uh, no,” she said, tilted her head in interest. “I didn’t know that. Is that why you were held back in school?”
“Yeah. I fell pretty far behind by the time they realized the problem, and ended up having to repeat the third grade. On the other hand if you write something down backwards, I can read it without blinking an eye.” I nodded toward the screen. “And-- you know something?-- that’s Sirius.”
“Well, it sounds serious,” Eliza said gravely.
I tore my eyes away from the screen to look at her.
“No,” I said. “On the screen. That star is Sirius,” I said, pointing to the bright point of light at the lower right
side of the screen. “And if you move up this way: there is Orion-- Rigel, there-- Betelguese, there. And there-- Castor and Pollux: Gemini. They’re all out of position, though.”
“What? You mean backwards?”
“Not exactly backwards, no…. maybe about thirty degrees off of backwards, which means-- and here I’m just guessing-- this is a view that can be seen from about…say…Vega. Yeah, I’m pretty sure in that general direction. If this were a 360-degree view of the sky, Vega would appear behind us and to the left. But wait,” I faltered. I started doubting that I was right about the whole thing. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“What’s wrong?” Eliza asked.
“Well, if I’m right about the other stars, that means this is a view of the sky that you would be able to see from a point between Vega and the sun.”
“Well, what’s between Vega and the sun?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing known-- oh, maybe an asteroid. And then this star here, the relatively bright one just up and to the left of center-- this star would have to be our sun, only it appears too bright-- the sun is a relatively dim star, you know. For it to appear so bright…”
…the place would have to be pretty close?”
“Yeah, probably not much more than a light year.”
We both stood in stunned silence for a moment. When I looked at her, her eyes were big and bright with wonder.
“It’s a ship, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said, certainly not willing to jump to conclusions. After all, I still might be wrong about the position of the stars; I was pretty good at astronomy, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still be mistaken.
“It would almost have to be,” Eliza went on. “If that’s true, then the artifact is-- what? A projection of that ship, a ship that is occupying two points in space at the same time.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s sort of a stretch.”
“No, it makes perfect sense. What a wonderful way for somebody to observe life forms on another planet. Use your imagination, Travis. You have a ship well off in space, where life forms on the planet you’re studying could never detect it. Then you have a projection of that ship, which can be hidden underground or in hillsides or mountain sides or even underwater, where the beings inside the projection can observe intelligent life forms or wildlife or whatever, totally without disturbing anything.”
“Well. Yeah, if that’s what it all means. I could be wrong, you know-- actually, I probably am wrong.”
“You have a real problem with that, don’t you?” she asked, then, studying me in a way that I found very uncomfortable.
“What do you mean?”
“You have so little confidence in your ability to think,” she said. “Did you ever think you might be selling yourself short?”
“Hey, it’s just the way I feel.”
“I think it’s the way you’ve been made to feel. You know, people don’t have to go around telling you you’re stupid for you to feel stupid. It can be much more subtle than that. It can be almost a kind of brainwashing. The truth is, I don’t think you’re dumb at all. It’s just that things have happened, and now you’re in a position where you don’t even give yourself a chance.”
I hardly wanted to talk about myself, let alone listen to somebody trying to figure out my personal problems.
“Can you change everything back,” I asked then, hoping the change would be accompanied by a change of subject.
Eliza moved behind the console, and deftly tapped some buttons. The view screen vanished, and suddenly we were no longer standing in the huge chamber, but in her cozy living room.
I walked over to the sofa and sat down.
When I looked up, Eliza was standing there, watching me with those bright green eyes that were so disarming.
“It’s a good theory, Travis,” she persisted, though I hardly wanted to discuss the artifact anymore. “I’ll run it past my father--see what he thinks.”
“Whatever,” I said. I was feeling very grumpy.
She studied me a long time, and then finally said, “All right, I give up. I can’t always guess. What’s bugging you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, which was true enough.
“You’re not mad at me, are you?” she asked.
“No, no not at all.”
“Then what?”
I shrugged, unable to answer.
“Well, it must be something,” she insisted. She sat next to me on the sofa. “Is your headache coming back?”
I could have easily lied, said the headache had returned, and so dismiss the issue. But, actually, I found it difficult to be dishonest with her. “No,” I said. “Actually, I feel fine-- better than usual.”
“Well, it’s obvious something is bothering you,” she said, growing exasperated.
“Something is,” I admitted, “but, strange as it may sound, I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe--” I began.
“Maybe, what?”
“Maybe if you explained something to me-- what you expect from me.”
“Oh,” she said, “I see. Yeah, well… geez, I never thought about that. I think I was concerned with whether I could trust you and whether you would believe it all. I never once considered the possibility you may not trust me. Is that it, then-- you don’t trust me?”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, I trust you just fine. I think, maybe, I need you to tell me, why me? You certainly didn’t choose me because of my brains.”
“No. Although I think you’re much smarter than you realize, I didn’t pick you for your mind. I picked you because I thought you were capable of great loyalty.”
“What?--like a Saint Bernard or something?”
“No, not like a Saint Bernard,” she smirked.
“Then why?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe because you’re socially maladroit. Look, let’s face it: what am I? I’ve been locked up in this-- thing since I was a kid-- no normal activities, no friends, no contact with people. You think I’m not socially maladroit? Of course, I am-- and probably worse than you. But nothing could be done about that. My father had made his decision to hide the artifact from the world, and I can’t say that he was wrong. He should never have brought the doodad down to the university; that’s how it all started, you know. A few people found out about it, what it does, where he found it. A gossipy bunch, those eggheads can be, I’ll tell you. That’s how it started, all right. There were too many questions he couldn’t answer without disclosing the existence of the artifact, and that he was dead set against. And he probably wasn’t wrong. Some of the technology on the artifact can be used to end world hunger. Some of it could be used to advance medical science. You think our injuries were cured by magic? Ohmigod, you were impaled by a piece of metal. Imagine what the artifact can do for people with diseases, incurable illnesses. But is that what it would be used for? Probably not. He was probably right; it would all be turned over to the military, for possible military uses. Doc always said when it comes down to a choice of building or destroying, it’s human nature to lean toward destroying…. Anyway, things are the way they are, and if you need to know what I expect of you, well, just imagine how much I could use a friend. Look at it that way for now, because no matter how complicated things seems, it all boils down to something that simple.”
While she’d spoken, she’d barely looked at me, and now she sat slouched down in the sofa as though sapped for energy or spirit.
“Maybe it is that simple,” I said. “But I think there’s something else you need, too.”
“Oh, and what would that be?” she asked, looking at me through the corner of her eye.
“You need to have fun,” I said.
“Oh, really? And what would your idea of fun be-- lifting weights? What am I supposed to do?-- bench press my way to bliss?”
“Well, your father still has one car left.”
“Uh… I don’t
think so,” she said, laughing.
“Aw, come on,” I teased her. “You really are a good driver. You drove off only one cliff-- that’s not bad.”
She laughed that deep gurgly laugh of hers.
Just then Mr. Laughton walked into the room. He appeared amused when he looked at us, as though he hadn’t heard laughter in his house for a very long time.
“So,” he said. “Everything’s going all right?”
“Yeah, doc, fine,” Eliza told him. “Better than I’d planned, maybe.”
“You give Travis, here, the grand tour of the house?”
“Not the grand tour,” she said. “I don’t think he could handle the grand tour.”
“And?”
“And,” she said, “our new-found friend made a keen observation about the star field you found.”
“Really?” He seemed mildly interested. I stepped up to the sofa and looked down at us. “What would that be?”
“That the stars are not unfamiliar, just out of place.”
“Oh, that,” he said, with a dismissive wave on his hand.
“What do you mean ‘Oh, that’? You mean you knew that already?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you never said anything to me about it,” Eliza said.
“I don’t tell you everything, you know,” he said.
That caught her by surprise. She started to say something, but stopped, her mouth slightly open. It was the first time I saw her speechless.
“Besides,” her father went on, “the implications of the placement of the stars are problematic.”
Eliza glanced at me, and I shrugged.
“What does that mean?” she asked then.
“The star field suggests that the artifact may actually be a space ship,” he said matter-of-factly. “That, I think, is just a bit much to swallow.”
“Well, isn’t that exciting?” she demanded.
“Sure, from a scientific point of view, it’s fascinating. But it also raises more troubling questions. If it is a ship, that ship must be just as abandoned as the artifact we found. It has to be adrift in space. So what happened to the people who built it? Are they coming back to reclaim it? If not, what if someone else finds it?”