Chapter 2 The Dipper
It was completely dark when Rose’s car entered the area called the Dipper. There was no moon on this autumn night, and not a single wisp of cloud. Looking out through the car window, Rose was dazed by the numerous light dots crowding the suburban’s sky. Where was the Big Dipper? She wondered. It was supposed to be low in the fall or the winter, right?
In the past, they always searched for the Big Dipper on the way here. Nick was pretty good at it. Nick … She sighed quietly. It had been five years since he died. Could the star field have changed? The silly idea flashed in her mind before she started laughing at herself. Five years! That seemed a long time to her, but did the universe even notice it?
She made another attempt to locate the Big Dipper but felt dizzier. The car was riding up and down on the country road paved with layers and layers of leaves. The whole place was shaped like a dipper, with its longest distance around two and a half kilometers. Right now they were moving inside the “handle”, which was a valley roughly half kilo wide. Soon they would arrive at the basin, with its lowest point three hundred meters below the regular ground level. In fact, some geomorphologists believed that the basin used to be much deeper, but had been gradually filled up over thousands of years.
A beautiful, peaceful place. In the spring, the valley slopes were bestrewed with wild flowers, all common types carrying a tinge of exoticism for no apparent reason. A few years before the house was built in 1860s, someone claimed to have found gold in the area, which led to a brushfire of gold rushes. But the result was quite disappointing, and soon everybody left. The house was the only notable architecture here because the abandoned mines had rendered a lot of areas unsuitable for major constructions.
Anyway, Nick bought it when they got married. It came with a large vineyard that produced the best wine one could hope to find within a hundred miles. During their twelve years’ marriage, they had spent most of their summers here, and Rose had envisioned this place as their permanent home after retirement. But since Nick left, she had only come here briefly for business issues related to the vineyard. The house was too vast for a single woman and too busy for her mind.
The road kept descending. She took out the envelope from her bag and switched on the overhead light. Since she received the letter from Nick’s lawyer a week ago, she had gone through it several times, but now she still needed the affirmation that she wasn’t imagining the whole thing. In the letter, Nick told her to come here on November twelfth, 2073, the day the Rosetta spaceship was supposed to send astronauts to Comet 195F. Apparently, there was a room inside the house she had never been to, and now she was to enter that room following the instructions in the letter.
Rose put the letter back and tried to recall the last days of Nick’s life. After he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he came to the Dipper a few times without her. She had considered it his way of coping with stress and desperation. He had always been a strong person. A man who refused to reveal his vulnerability even to close family members. Now she realized that wasn’t the full story. He was up to something, and didn’t want to tell her at that time. But why would he want her to find out now? And find out about what?
* * *
Dinner was ready to serve when she stepped into the house. She was hungry and eager to visit the secret room, but still took time changing into a sequined gown. In a Chateauesque-styled mansion with steeply-pitched roofs, crystal chandeliers, and golden railings alongside spiral stairways, one simply couldn’t wear a business suit. After dinner, she carried a wicker basket with wine and magazines into the elevator. Who knows what’s in that room? She might have to stay there tonight, and she hoped it wouldn’t be too boring.
There were five floors in the building with a basement. After the door had closed, she pressed and held the number “3” with one hand while punching “1-5-2” in sequence with the other hand. Then she released the buttons, subconsciously hoping that the elevator would run upward and stop at the second, the third, and the fifth floors, as it normally would do. To her dismay, the elevator immediately began moving downward. Well, didn’t that make sense? She tried to ease herself. Wouldn’t it be easier to hide a room in a basement, which was not shown on the elevator’s control panel, than to place it on an open floor?
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 Matt 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.”
