However, when thirty seconds later the elevator was still descending, she started losing her nerve. Where was it taking her? She knew it was ridiculous but the word hell kept popping up in her mind. Why didn’t she bring a company? Stupid woman! But … but the letter was from Nick! He would never have done anything to hurt her!
One minute had passed and she could no longer stay sane. She randomly pushed the buttons, but nothing changed. “Let me out! Somebody help me!” She screamed as she pounded the door and kicked the walls …
The elevator slowed down and came to a halt. She had her back facing the exit when the door slid open. Cold and damp air brushed in and brought her a start. Turning around slowly, she expected to see a dark cave waiting for her, but found a carpeted hallway instead. She sighed in relief. Although dimmer than the elevator, the hallway didn’t look very different from any of the hallways upstairs.
She stood at the open door and hesitated. If she pushed a regular-floor button now, would it take her back to the house? It’d better do, or she would be stuck here. Then her gaze fell onto the letter tucked inside the basket. Nick must have had a reason, and this might be the very last thing she could ever do for him.
She took a deep breath and stepped out the elevator. There was only one room at the end of the short hallway. As she headed toward it, she suddenly felt like throwing up and the blood in her legs seemed to have been drained off. Must have resulted from her earlier panic, she reckoned. She decided to take a break when she arrived at the room. Luckily the sickness quickly dissolved. She pushed on the door, which swung open with no resistance.
The room was spacious and even darker than the outside, but she could see her wedding photo hanging on one of the walls, and that immediately drove away her anxiety. She entered the room, found a light switch near the entrance, and flipped it on. The furnishings were quite modern, so she figured the room was either constructed or renovated recently. On the wall opposite the entrance was a flat screen, right next to her wedding photo. There were a few wardrobes and bookshelves against the wall to her left, and a hefty bar counter to her right in front of a wine cabinet. She walked over to the center of the room and sat on the corner-sofa set. The ivory leather felt a little dusty, but the air in the room smelled fresh. There must be concealed ventilation somewhere.
She set the basket on the coffee table in front of her and grabbed the wine bottle. Had she known there was a bar here, she wouldn’t have bothered. She poured herself a glass of wine and surveyed the bar. The collection of wine was impressive, but what attracted her attention was the counter made of some translucent pink material. The outer surface was glossy and transparent. Further in, the material became more opaque. She left the sofa and examined the counter closely. The whole thing felt solid, but wasn’t made of glass or any material she was familiar with. When her fingers glided on the surface, she thought she detected tiny vibrations, but she couldn’t be sure.
She walked back to the sofa, and this time she spotted a TV monitor on it. She turned on the TV and was utterly relieved to find all the familiar channels. Now she no longer felt isolated from the rest of the human world. She watched the news for a few minutes before she remembered why she came here. She searched the channels and found five astronomical programs, with the first three all being related to mining. Only one of them mentioned the Rosetta project briefly. No videos. Just a static picture of the two astronauts who were supposed to be patrolling Comet 195F at this very moment.
Rose stared at the image of the senior guy. The picture was taken before he boarded a spaceship. He was wearing a common brown astronaut suit, and his hair was even shorter than what he had four years ago. The same sober expression. Eyes looking at a point far beyond the camera. Far ahead or behind in time.
The picture disappeared as the channel went on talking about something more “exciting”, judging by the switch of the narrator’s tone.
“We have just received three more pictures regarding the super diamond found in the Tau-Ceti No. 4 mine. Measuring one hundred thirty meters long, sixty-five meters wide, and fifty-seven meters tall, this priceless piece of gem will probably remain on the cold planet for at least another fifty years till we have the technology to bring it home in one piece …”
Rose turned off the TV and poured herself another glass of wine. Now her gaze fell on her wedding photo. A young couple standing in front of a lake and smiling brightly on a Saturday morning, brightly into the future, with a shared confidence that they would stay with each other forever, despite the mortality of their species.
“I did what you told me to,” she said to Nick’s image but no longer looked at the photo. “We were the only donor, and I remember at one point somebody higher up has tried to talk me out of that project and invest in something else—there were lots of competitions going on among NASA’s different divisions, I could tell—but I insisted. Later I got a dinner invitation from a guy, Kenton, uh … Kenton Clifton, I think. On the night before the dinner he told me he wouldn’t be able to make it, and was going to send somebody else. At first, I wasn’t happy. I was like, we gave you money, guys! But then …”
She paused, slightly embarrassed talking to her husband on such a subject. In the corners of her eyes she saw something flashing inside the bar counter, but when she turned to look for it, she could find nothing unusual.
“He’s one of the astronauts that will land on the comet,” she swallowed some wine and continued. “In fact, they should be on there now. His name is Devin Lee. To be honest, when he first described the project to me, I didn’t find it interesting. And I couldn’t understand a thing related to the research he’d been collaborating on with people when he wasn’t in space. But I enjoyed hearing him talking about those things. Just talking. He’s so …”
She tried to come up with a more specific word but failed. “Special! He’s different from all the people I’d met before … I’m sorry, Nick, but that includes you. He doesn’t care about boats, or clubs, or stock market. He’s like a kid, who does stuff mainly out of passion or curiosity. Or silliness.” She crouched on the sofa and smiled. “Many of his ideas, his philosophies, would probably appear to you meaningless …”
* * *
“So, what should we do?” Matt asked after Devin had walked back to join him.
Devin glanced at the lander, which was still busy working to complete all the measurements. If they sent back the result now, it would inevitably cause some dither at home. They would be receiving instructions after instructions, with the later ones contradicting the earlier ones. Newspapers and TV channels may start flooding the public with announcements and conjectures from various sources. No, he’d like to find out more before people sitting a hundred million miles away took control.
He pressed a button on his chest to turn on communication with the ship. “Connor, could you find out the maximum depth the drills can go? I mean, when they are extended.”
The soil sample that had produced the earlier result was obtained twelve inches beneath the surface. The drills of the SD2 module could normally dig down to thirty inches, but this lander was a new model with extensions for the drills.
After a while, he heard Connor saying, “Fifty-two inches.”
Nodding, Devin leaned over to configure the settings, but then changed his mind. “Matt, would you like to do that?”
To Devin, training younger colleagues was, at least, as important as carrying out a mission. Even in situations like this. In fact, especially in situations like this.
Matt knelt down beside the lander and began working on the touch screen. “… Oops! Almost there …” After a minute he stopped typing and gazed at the screen. “Twenty inches … Thirty … Forty … Wait, something’s weird!”
Devin also noticed the red flashing signal on the panel and bent down to take a better look. The two drills were still working, but no longer advancing in the soil. After half a minute, the result came back.
“Stainless Steel?” Devin and Mat
t exchanged looks with each other.
Hitherto it was still possible that the comet had come from a place with only primitive life forms, but now a more advanced species similar or superior to humans must have existed.
Seeing that Matt was waiting for further instructions from him, Devin said, “Let’s take the drills out and try the sensors.” This was the last device he could come up with, and if that got them nowhere, they would have to take a break and let their bosses decide.
Matt did some typing on the panel to insert the multimodal sensors through the holes the drills had created. After a few minutes, he read the report. “Mechanical movements and electrical activity are detected, as well as liquid flow that’s normally associated with cooling systems …”
“What’s this?” Devin pointed at a time-varying waveform shown on the screen.
“Hmm, interesting,” said Matt. “Some kind of vibrations or signals detected by the sensors.”
Devin studied the waveform for a moment. Tracy was an audiologist, and he used to volunteer in her research projects as a human subject. He had a faint memory of the typical waveforms of noise, music, and speech. The signal on the screen looked like speech.
“Could you send the signal to my channel?”
Seeing the confusion on Matt’s face, Devin extended his left arm toward him. The port name of Devin’s intercom, NXD21, had been printed on the cuff.
“Oh, I see! You want me to play it as a sound.” Matt typed on the panel, and soon a woman’s voice appeared inside Devin’s helmet.
“… I have to say, I’m a different person now. I know, it’s just a dinner, but … how should I put it? Like a comet flying past a planet, though the encounter took only a short time, its orbit has been forever altered.”
“Do you hear anything?” Matt asked tentatively.
Devin made no reply, waiting for more to come. But after that the intercom remained silent and no more waveforms were showing on the screen.
“I heard a woman’s voice,” he said eventually. “She was talking about a comet, but I don’t think that’s what she really meant.”
Who is she? And where?
“A woman?” Matt gasped. “You mean, a human woman?”
Devin rolled his eyes. “You think I understand aliens’ languages?”
“But how … how could? Are we standing on top of a radio?”
Although Devin could not argue against the possibility that the whole thing was a hoax placed by some of his human fellows, most likely from other countries, to make fun of the United States, but he doubted it. After years of adventurous experience, his intuition had evolved into something he could decidedly rely on, something that almost functioned in a mysterious way. This was more than a device that simply received signals. The comet traveled not only in space, but also in time. The last time when it visited earth, the ancient Persian Empire was fighting the Athenians. Who could have possessed the power and technology to do this? And more importantly, what was the purpose?
“It’s time to call home.”
Chapter 3 The Bar Counter
“Rose?”
Rose was refilling her empty glass when she thought she heard a man’s voice in the room. She froze for a second but quickly relaxed. She shouldn’t be drinking anymore, although she couldn’t recall ever having hallucinations in the past when she was drunk.
“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Chills went down her spine. Someone was speaking to her, and she knew that voice too well. A voice she hadn’t heard for five years. Not when she was awake, at least.
Nick will never hurt me, she reassured herself, if he’s indeed my Nick. Still, facing a ghost alone in a room buried hundreds of meters underground was not easy.
“I’m not a ghost.” Nick seemed to know what she was thinking. “I’m Nick’s brain copy. He created me before he died, although,” he said with self-mockery, “as far as I’m concerned, I am Nick.”
Now it was clear to Rose that the sound came from the bar counter. She gathered her strength and stood up. Nick’s image had appeared on the front side of the counter, or more accurately, it was showing underneath the glossy surface as if a miniature Nick had been trapped inside a glass container.
“Nick?” She walked tentatively toward the counter. “Is it really … you?”
“As I said—”
“Forget the brain copy!” she yelled. “I want to know if it’s you!”
She surveyed his image. He looked exactly the same as he was five years ago, wearing the plaid shirt she gave him for his fortieth birthday. The deep-set eyes conveyed a businessman’s prudence and calculation, but when he smiled, the sunshine would melt the ice hidden in the corners of your mind.
It seemed he was also looking at her, although it wasn’t obvious how he could accomplish that. “You didn’t change much, Rose …”
“What kind of body lotion do I like to put on after showers?” she asked warily. She had never heard about brain copies. She needed to make sure this “guy” wasn’t a fraud.
“You never put anything on your body, lotion or perfume,” he said decisively.
Then he must be Nick, but how did this happen? She sat on the floor so that they were roughly at the same height. “I still can’t believe I’m talking to you, Nick. So you’ve been here for all those years? Why didn’t you tell me before you made this … this brain-copy thing?”
Nick sighed. “A long story. When we bought the house from Victor, he once showed me this room. He said it was first discovered by a group of miners before the house was built. At that time it was simply a cave with this counter inside. The miners must have considered it strange, but they were too desperate to care about things that did not present immediate financial values. Over the two centuries his family sort of passed the information on. They were able to come down through one of the mine shafts, but I guess most of them weren’t interested.”
“Who built the elevator?”
“Victor. He also renovated the room. He came here frequently and tried to figure out the secret of the counter, but …”
“But I didn’t like him.” Another woman’s voice sounded in the room. “Especially when he drank too much.”
Next to Nick appeared the image of a woman. She had long maroon hair running in big waves, crystal-blue eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes, perfectly tanned skin, perfect everything, yet as a whole she looked like a doll or a robot.
“Nice to meet you, Rose.” She gave Rose a mechanical smile.
“Who is she?” Rose asked her husband.
“I’m Eve,” the woman said. “From Megrez, the central star of what you call the Big Dipper. It’s funny how you humans invented constellations. We are actually a lot closer to you than to most of the other stars in the Ursa-Major Constellation.”
An alien, thought Rose. So what she saw was probably not Eve’s original appearance.
“And she’s twenty-five years …” Nick said. “Sorry, twenty-five hundred years old. Or older.”
“It’s not polite to talk about a woman’s age, isn’t it, you Earth people?” She turned to look at him, her voice half reproaching, half flirting. “And you forgot to introduce me as your wife.”
“I don’t remember we ever had a wedding.”
“Why would that matter? I’m with you, I’m inside you, all the time.” She wrapped his arm with hers.
“So was the cancer that killed me.”
Rose looked away from the two, not knowing how to respond. Her husband’s soul had been trapped with another woman’s in the past few years when everyone thought he were dead. He wasn’t enjoying his company, but it was better than being dead, wasn’t it?
When she looked back, she saw Eve pouting her lips and staring at Rose and Nick back and forth. “Okay, you two are the true lovers.” She then said to Rose, “You know how he cursed you the last time you fought each other?”
“Enough!” Nick bellowed at her. He glared at her for a few seconds befor
e he heaved a long sigh and said in a softer voice, “All right, Eve. You’re my wife, my heart, my bladder. Can I have a few minutes alone with my ex?”
Eve twirled around and strode away, a set of sofa identical to the one in the room emerging ahead of her as she walked. She sat down, picked up a magazine from the sofa, and engaged herself in reading.
“Where were we …” Nick rubbed his forehead with a hand, suddenly appearing to be embarrassed. “Okay, so I had sort of forgotten about this room since then, until I received my death sentence. For a while, I kept thinking, what is it like to be buried underground, forever? I know it sounds silly … Then I remembered this room and decided to take a look. I even thought, why not just stay here and never go back again? It’ll be easier for everyone, and … and what’s the difference?”
Rose’s eyes were filled with tears. He never said similar things to her when he was “alive”. He had remained strong through the last minute of his life.
“I have to say, she scared the hell out of me when she started talking.”
Eve looked up from her magazine, seemingly wanting to add something, but decided to keep reading.
“So she offered to make a copy of you?” Rose asked.
He nodded.
“How did she do that?”
“I don’t quite remember …” He squinted, thinking.
Two curved light beams appeared in the middle of the room, connecting the two ends of the bar counter, kind of like what people typically draw to illustrate the magnetic field surrounding a magnet. The distinction was that the two beams, one in blue and one in red, were not in parallel. Their paths both went through Rose’s head where they seemed to be crossing each other.
Rosetta (Maura's Gate Book 2) Page 2