The Season Of Passage Part 5

'Yeah,' Lauren agreed. On that note their conversation faltered. She still carried her white rose, and fingered it gently while she looked up at the moon. Suddenly, for no reason, she began to feel small and frail. The moon was bright, but the darkness beyond it - it went on forever. And there she was going.

Where it's always cold. Where there's no fire.

Lauren shook her head. She didn't know why her mind was suddenly infatuated with the thought of fire. She had been thinking about it ever since her nightmare.

Her toes were still cold. She stood and threw her white rose in the stream and watched as the lake swallowed it. 'Let's get out of here,' she said. 'Let's go see how Jenny's doing.'

They found Jennifer unconscious on the couch, her face buried beneath her long blond hair.

'She must have been waiting up for us,' Terry said, closing the door carefully.

'The poor dear,' Lauren said. She crossed to the couch and smoothed Jennifer's hair from her face. Her sister didn't stir. Jennifer's breathing was faint, which Lauren knew from experience to be normal for her. Yet Jennifer frowned as she slept, as if something troubled her in her sleep. Lauren noticed the red book on the floor beside the couch and picked it up. Then she frowned. She strode to where Terry stood.

'Some love story,' Lauren said sarcastically, showing him the t.i.tle of the book.

'Is that what she told you she was reading?'

'Yes. Why would she lie to me?'

'She probably thought you wouldn't approve,' Terry said.

'I don't.'

'What does it matter? It's only a book.'

'I think it's garbage,' Lauren said. She glanced at her sister, bundled up in one of her own sweaters, and felt a stab of guilt at having left her alone. 'Terry? Would it be OK if I slept on the couch with Jenny?'

Terry grinned. 'You don't believe our walk burned off enough energy?'

Lauren leaned over and kissed him. 'I'm sure it improved our odds. But no, I just feel I should be with her.'

He hugged her. 'That's fine.'

'You don't mind?'

'Of course not. When we get married, we'll have to have a daughter like her.'

Lauren hugged him hard. 'If that's possible.'

'She is one of a kind.' He released her slowly. 'So are you. Thanks, Lauren.'

'For what?'

'The last two years.'

She felt tears coming, and was embarra.s.sed, for she wasn't ordinarily a sentimental person. She turned quickly away lest he see her crying.

'Sweet dreams,' he said at her back, a trace of puzzlement, perhaps sadness, in his voice. 'Catch you early.'

She wiped at her eyes. 'Yeah.'

He was only a few minutes in the bathroom, and then disappeared into the bedroom. Lauren brushed her teeth quickly, and fetched an extra blanket and pillow from the closet. She was on the verge of lying down beside her sister when she noticed again the red-covered book. Jennifer's eyes were closed, but behind them Lauren thought she saw another nightmare forming.

I'll tell her it got lost.

Lauren grabbed the book and tossed it in the fireplace. A bottle of lighter fluid stood nearby, and she squirted a generous amount over the book cover. A touch of her match and the pages went up in flames. She sat patiently until the book was hard to tell from the rest of the ash. Then, finally, she stirred the whole mess with a black metal prod, satisfied. The author's imaginative universe would not be coming back to haunt her sister.

Lauren took the pillow and blanket and settled on the couch. She fell asleep with her arms wrapped around Jennifer.

SIX.

Professor James Ranoth sat at his desk on the third story of the isolation complex. Outside his locked window, the Florida sky was turning to black as his last night on Earth began. His room was spa.r.s.e, furnished mostly with boxes of books that would soon be going into storage, and lit by a small lamp that had bad wiring. It flickered when he touched it. The piece of paper lying on his desk was perfectly blank. He was trying to make out his will.

James Ranoth had seldom thought of dying. Death had always struck him as the least of life's worries. But he was going to Mars tomorrow, and it was best to be prepared. The problem confronting him, at present, and the reason his will was so far blank, was that he had no family. He had been raised an orphan and had never married. He was fifty-two, and had spent the greater part of his life in exotic countries, at archaeology digs, clawing in dirt with his bare hands. He felt no woman deserved the life he had led. Occasionally, however, he regretted his decision to remain single, particularly when he saw children playing in the park, running with their kites flapping in the blue sky. He had always had a special love for innocence. Perhaps that's why he had such an interest in ancient civilizations. Humanity as a whole had been young once.

Still, his life had few regrets, and none were painful. He had enjoyed a great deal of success. He'd published several books and won the n.o.bel Prize in the recently created category - 'General Science.' People thought he knew what he was talking about. He imagined he had an abundance of money he could leave some deserving soul in the event he did not return from Mars. There were the continuing royalties from his books, NASA's salary he never drew upon and of course the n.o.bel Prize money, which had been a pretty penny. But he had only a vague idea what it all amounted to. He had little interest in money. His bank paid his bills automatically and sent him a monthly allowance to live on.

Jim knew he shouldn't have left his will to the last moment. In fact, he probably should have set up a living trust. Someone had told him they were better than wills. But if he had little interest in wills, he had none in the law. Plus he had been so busy lately mastering the gadgets aboard Nova that were his responsibility. If only NASA had granted him a couple of days' vacation, as they had Lauren. They had probably worried he would take off to the other side of the world. He loved to travel. He'd walked across the Sahara, frozen on Antarctic beaches, and swum above the Great Barrier Reef. He was thankful he had been given the opportunity to enjoy so much of Earth's beauty. Now, on the eve of his departure, he had but one place he yearned to visit again. That place in the Himalayas, the ma.s.sive cavern he had been led to, where he had seen the ruins of a civilization that went back G.o.d only knew how far.

But could I find it again if I had a thousand days' vacation?

Jim didn't think so. He had already tried several times and failed. Sometimes he imagined that the cavern did not want to be found, or that it didn't even exist; that he had only dreamed he had visited it. Yet he doubted the latter possibility. For he had returned from his subterranean journey with a souvenir.

Jim pulled the ring from his pocket. He seldom wore it but always kept it near. To the naked eye, it appeared quite ordinary, a plain silver band. Its only unusual feature was its perpetual shine. It fit comfortably on his middle finger, although he seldom wore it. He had a private joke with himself that he was waiting for the right person to give it to. He was the prince with the lost gla.s.s slipper searching for Cinderella.

On the surface, the ring was nothing to look at, but it proved extraordinary under closer examination. It was not silver or white gold, or any other metal known to modern man. It was too hard. He had once tried to scratch it with a diamond drill, and had ended up blunting the drill. Harsh acids failed to chemically bond with the metal, and he had tried them all. More impressive, a ruby laser at the University of Houston that had the power to start nuclear fusion had failed to melt it.

Then there was the ring's symmetry. He had scrutinized it under an electron microscope and had the results a.n.a.lyzed by a computer. He found it to be a perfect circle, a circle so perfect that it went beyond the instruments' ability to detect a flaw.

Jim had never allowed other scientists to examine it. He wondered if he was afraid they would discover it wasn't so mysterious, after all. Yet he doubted that that would happen. He was no fool when it came to operating the equipment he had used on the ring. And there was another reason: the thought of someone else touching the ring - besides his Cinderella - filled him with distaste.

No, its phenomenal hardness and symmetry were a fact. As was the place where he had found it, at least three miles under the highest mountain range in the world. Jim knew that the ring had not been fashioned by modern man. Sometimes he thought that it hadn't been made by man at all.

There was a knock at his door. Jim slipped the ring in his shirt pocket. 'Come in, Lauren,' he said.

'You must have X-ray eyes. How did you know it was me?'

Lauren closed the door and walked over and sat on his bed. She wore a blue blouse, and a white skirt that swept an inch below her knees. She looked tan and healthy, not like an astronaut who had been cooped up in isolation for ten days and fed a diet of raw fruit and vegetables. In preparation for their long slumber, they had been put on a cleansing fast. Lauren had lost five pounds. Jim had lost only one. He had stashed away six bags of chocolate chip cookies in his closet. When Lauren had weighed him that morning, she had raised a suspicious eyebrow. He'd only smiled. He thought the doctors were wrong about sugar being unhealthy. It tasted too good.

'Only you or Gary would visit this late,' he said. 'And Gary never knocks.' Major Gary Wheeler was the pilot of the mission.

'He bolted in on me this morning while I was in the shower,' Lauren said. 'He had nothing on but a towel. I acted as if nothing was the matter. I think he was insulted. He mumbled something about being out of toothpaste and left.'

'Sounds like our Gary.' Jim knew Lauren had come for a reason. 'Have you heard any word on when the man is supposed to arrive?'

'The man' was the President of the United States.

Lauren brightened. 'Yeah, that's what I came to tell you. Dean called and said they would be here within the hour. I thought you might want to put on a suit.'

Jim nodded. Dean Ramsey was the head of NASA. 'I appreciate the warning. A shame most of my good clothes are in storage. But I'll see what I can dig up.' He paused. 'You look fantastic. You'll make up for the rest of us. I've always thought blue was your best color.'

'Thank you.' Lauren fingered the collar of her blouse. 'All my clothes are packed away, too. In fact, this is Lucy's top.' Lucy Delgado was their cook. She squeezed carrot juice, diced cuc.u.mbers, and raved about how fasting was a spiritual experience. Before Jim left tomorrow, he was going to stuff his empty cookie bags in Lucy's pillow case.

'I bet the president's going to wonder why he's sending such a beautiful woman to another planet,' Jim said. Lauren smiled. Jim continued, 'Is Gary presentable?'

Lauren lost her smile and groaned. 'No, he's despicable. He's in his cut-off jeans. He said he's kissed enough a.s.s these last two years. I warned him that Dean didn't give a d.a.m.n that he was a hero. But Gary just laughed. He's got a Budweiser T-shirt on.'

Jim chuckled. Gary had recently been promoted to Major. He and Lauren were the only civilians among the Nova's crew. Since Gary's climb in rank, he had become more contemptuous of authority than ever.

'He might get cold feet at the last second and change,' Jim said.

'I doubt it.'

'In that case we can only hope the president isn't a Coors man.'

Lauren laughed. 'Have you ever met the president, Jim?'

'Once, at the White House. I was invited there after I won the n.o.bel Prize.'

"What's he like?'

'Strange as it may sound, he's like you and me. And everyone else. He's not a bad fellow. He doesn't know anything about geology or archaeology, though. He wasn't even sure what I had won the prize for, but then, neither am I. But we did have a long talk about the Beatles.'

'The musical group?'

'Yes.' Jim reflected fondly. 'There never was another Beatles. But the sixties were great years for music. The Stones, the Doors, Simon and Garfunkel. Are you familiar with any of their music?'

'I've listened to the Beatles, but that's about it.'

'Friend has recordings of all of them in his data banks. I'll pick out some stuff for you. Wonderful music. The Doors would be great to listen to on Mars.'

Lauren had other things on her mind. 'Gary thinks the president's coming to tell us something top secret. Something about what really happened to the Russians.'

'And what do you think?' Jim asked.

'I think he's just trying to get on good terms with us. The next election is a few weeks after our return.'

Jim silently disagreed. Unknown to Lauren, Commander William Brent had called him that afternoon from the orbiting Nova. Bill's wife, Jessica, and Mark Kawati - the final two members of their crew - were helping their commander with final systems checks. The previous week, before leaving the Earth, all three had received a private visit from the president. On the video screen that afternoon, Jim had sensed concealment on Bill's part. Bill had been told something. They all had. The timing was logical, Jim thought. Once in s.p.a.ce, the government could censor all interviews, or cancel them altogether. And Jim believed there was something secret that had yet to be revealed. Why else would the two most powerful nations in the world have suddenly bent their every resource to go to Mars? Why now?

'You're probably right,' Jim said.

Lauren was shrewd. 'But you don't agree with me?'

'I'm sorry. I'm as bad as everyone else. I love a mystery. I'm hoping the president spoke to the Martians this morning, and that they're expecting us.'

Lauren wrinkled her nose. 'You sound like Terry.'

'I take that as a compliment. I read his ma.n.u.script.'

Lauren leaned forward, expectant. 'What did you think?'

'It was one of the high points of my life.'

'No. Seriously?'

'I am being serious.' Lauren's fiance was incredibly creative. It continued to amaze Jim that his work hadn't been discovered by the ma.s.ses yet. He thought it was only a matter of time. He chuckled. 'I love the part at the beginning when Ricky is walking back and forth on the newspaper, reading it.'

'That was great, yeah. What did you think when he found out his girlfriend had stepped on his best friend Joe?'

'It broke my heart,' Jim said. 'The whole story was so sad, even though it was funny. The way Ricky kept talking about everything like an important person, when he was only a c.o.c.kroach.' Jim shook his head. 'I think that book's going to explode.'

'If it doesn't die on the shelves in the first month.'

'Maybe when Earth is talking to us on Mars, you could read parts from it.'

Lauren's eyes glowed. 'I've been thinking of that. But wouldn't it p.i.s.s everybody in Mission Control off?'

'Not at all. They'll laugh. They'll want to go out and buy the book. Do it.'

'Maybe I will.' She tapped Jim's knee. 'I'm going to have to tell Terry what you said about the book. He'll be thrilled.'

'I didn't think my opinion meant that much to him.'

'Oh, he thinks you're a gem. Didn't you know that?'

'No,' Jim said.

'Don't give me that false modesty. Everybody thinks you're G.o.d. Doesn't it just drive you crazy?'

'I honestly never notice it.' He had always disliked talking about himself. 'Will Jennifer be here tomorrow for the launch?'

'Yes.'

'How is she?'

Lauren hesitated. 'Fine. She told me this morning on the phone that she wanted to see you before we left. You know, she talks about you often.'

'I think about her often,' Jim said. He had met Jennifer Wagner only a few times, but those were times he remembered well. She was a remarkable girl, with her deep silent pauses and her soulful blue eyes. She seemed to light up the room the moment she walked into it. She reminded him of a Cinderella...

How old is this place?

Jim remembered asking that question. Two miles under the Earth. He had never received an answer.