Laura
It is the shape mixed with material. Shifting and moving in a wordless speech, they are carried along by the spirit of the whole.
Trains have their own style of surrounding human presence. Sharp corners on the bottom, flat seats bolted to the floor, and rounded corners on the ceiling; with the steam going by in the long tunnels underground and the rocking of the wheels on the track, the souls know they are inside even as they see each other in the middle of it all.
Laura had thought by now to have said something; surprised herself at how long she had gone without saying a word. She looks at each curve, each small wrinkle on the woman’s face; her nose with the eyes almost as slits just above. Eastern european, maybe. Laura imagines the woman, for no reason she can place, to be a survivor of Buchenwald; perhaps to have a number tattooed on her wrist. She has things to say you wouldn’t believe if you hadn’t been there; a wisdom only survivors are given. If they would just say it…
Laura: Are you Jewish?
Old woman: Belarus, she says in a heavy accent.
Three layers deep in warm, expensive garments, the old woman seems to Laura to have more presence than anyone else on the train. As the stops flash by and the presence of the other people lessens, the old woman stares restfully at the numbers. If nothing else she knows how to wait.
The old woman catches Laura’s discreet, admiring look at her demeanor and frowns. It irks her that she can never fade in to the background; that there is never, ever any real anonymity; she never can watch other people the same way they watch her. It is rude; awkward: to be caught watching other people and satisfying one’s curiosity about the particulars of bodies and souls and all the in-betweens at their expense. She expects the other person to dislike being watched; to think of it as being used. Yet they do it to her all the time no matter what she does or doesn’t do. Never told she is beautiful except by her husband, she has always wondered if that’s what it is.
She rides this train all the time.
She remembers the young man with the troubled look that threw himself under the train. She had said nothing. What was there to say?
She remembers the old man who smiled at her everyday for over a year each time she had gotten on. He had always sat opposite her. She had never said a word.
She missed him, not having seen him in almost a month. It was as if a tree had died in her small garden that had never been a favorite, but had provided a function. It was useful in its own way; a shadow clock for that niche of her life that was a source of small, beautiful leaves in winter and shade too small for anything large but just right for the small flowers around it in summer. It stopped moving when he stopped sitting there.
Things change.
She remembered all the people of consequence, the noticeable ones to which she had never spoken a word and given them the privacy she never has.
But if not now, when?
Old woman: “I see you looking at me. What is it you want?”
Laura looks in the woman’s eyes, sees shine and depth, then traces her hair over her ear, falling over into the fur of her coat. “Something you probably couldn’t tell me anyway.”
She had wanted to say “You look like a likely place for a soul to hang out .. in. It was Henry’s first sentence to her. He had never been a master of one-liners. For that she was glad. But it was nifty enough to get by, the stumbling way he had said it and it had broken the ice. He had added, “Maybe even a spirit. You’re a woman so I know you gotta heart.” He had been looking at her face, but not in her eyes. What a stupid thing to remember. She shifted her packages.
The old woman nods: You want to know my face –how I came by the shapes and how that relates to my soul and the whole world. You want the shape of my soul framed in words that match my wrinkles. My husband is like that. My daughter, too.
Laura: Why not?
The woman glances at Laura’s eyes and stares. You always assume it is something you want to see; that I am beautiful. What if I am ugly?
Laura: Only beautiful people talk that way. Those who at least think they have something valuable to hide.
The woman smiles slightly. They expect it here. “What do you do?”
I’m an attorney.
I see.
You?
I’m a wife.
Me too.
What are you? You look expensive.
Expensive? I suppose it’s better than cheap.
What religion?
I grew up Presbyterian. But I’m in a non-denominational church now. You?
I’m Jewish.
They fall silent as the train moves on.
“Non-denominational. That where you ..” the old woman raises her hands and slowly waves them back and forth in the air. “..do this?”
Laura: Some do. I haven’t quite worked up to it yet.
Why do they do it?
I don’t know.
I’ve watched them on television and done it when they did. But I don’t understand. It seems ridiculous.
I don’t know.
Why did you leave the Presbyterians?
Something happened.
You couldn’t find another group of Presbyterians?
It wasn’t the same.
I see.
The train brakes and stops. The old woman stands up and gathers her bags: It was nice talking with you.
Laura: You too.
Maybe we will talk again sometime.
That would be nice.
The door closes and the train is moving again. All the shapes and sounds are the same, but no one is talking.
—————————————————
At sea:
Hayt: We’ll have to connect the outer pipes with the inner core here and here.” Hayt points to the front and rear of the huge subterrene on the schematic. Basically the outside rotates while the inside, where we will be, is stabilized by the rotation.
Mike: How fast is it?
Hayt: It’ll do six miles an hour in solid rock. Silt and clay soil slows us down; higher moisture content, harder to heat. So we look for the highway as they say. We burrow as far down as necessary until we hit the solid stuff, then we go, well, where ever we want from there.” Hayt is standing in front of a schematic of the subterrene. The pride is evident in his voice. “We’re fifth generation on this now, past the initial problems. We built the first one in ‘75, been smokin’ ever since.
“I don’t understand how you’re digging through the rock. Where’s the grinding thing–and what happens to all the ground up rock?” Mary looks over the schematic Hayt has laid out on the small table.
Hayt: “We don’t grind it anymore, we melt it–which eliminates any tailings–the ground up rock. The heat pipes are filled with liquid lithium. It has a melting point of two thousand degrees Celsius. As the lithium is melted, it’s circulated to the front via the rotating blades which are against the rock face, pulling the machine forward. As the rock melts, it’s pressed to the side of the subterrene where it resolidifies. That’s ‘vitrifies’ for you technical types,” he says, looking at Gregg, “.. as volcanic glass.”
Mary: “So we’re surrounded by liquid lithium at two thousand degrees.”
Hayt: “Yes and no. It circulates and is rotated around the subterrene. Think of it as a corkscrew that rotates around the main compartment of the subterrene. Once you get it started, all you have to do is keep it rotating and it will pull itself into the material. The melted rock flows back along the blades as the pipes rotate and shapes the tunnel wall.”
Mike: “How far will it go? How long can we last under the surface?”
Hayt: “We heat the lithium as it passes through a small nuclear reactor. The lithium serves as coolant for the reactor, the heated lithium is in turn cooled as it gives up its heat to melt the rock. It’s a very efficient process. Nuclear gives us power to spare really–we can go anywhere. It’s safer that way too. In effect we’re really swimming through the rock and leaving a small tunnel behind. The only potential problem we could run into is underground streams and rivers. The water would make it difficult to control the cooling process and we’d be in trouble. But we’ve got ground sonar and a database of satellite info on where the rock veins run so literally, we’re almost bulletproof.”
Gregg: How difficult?
Hayt: Not as much as it used to be. Part of the learning curve was the temperature control. But we’re fifth generation on this now. It would give us problems, but nothing catastrophic. Mainly it would throw off our timing because it would slow us down.
Mary: You could go ..
Hayt nods. Anywhere.
Mike: Well it’s nice we can dig. But what about crew accommodations and all the experiments we’re supposed to run? I’ve got a ton of stuff I’ve got to set up as we’re getting there.
Hayt: Plenty of room. As I said, we’re fifth generation on this. The overall length of the subterrene has tripled over the last several models. We’ll be cozy but not cramped. You’ll all have individual work stations. There’s enough personal space not to feel claustrophobic.
Gregg: You’ve done this before?
Hayt: A few times.
Mike: What’s the ride like? I mean are we gonna be shaken to pieces?
Hayt: Going down can be rough. This time especially as we impact the ocean floor. Going through the initial substrate and getting to the rock will be its own ride. But once we hit the hard rock it’s pretty smooth.
Mike: This time?
Izzy: Going in through water is its own phase we’ve had to address. Never done this maneuver before.
Albrite wretches in the back of the cabin, not yet over his sea sickness. He looks at them apologetically. “Sorry.”
Izzy: “That’ll do it for now. We’ll meet in the hold in twenty minutes and start the fit. We’ve got a lot of work ahead. It goes without saying that we’re inexperienced with each other and not really a team at this point. Some of us have worked together. Some of us haven’t. If you look around you’ll see an ego as big as your own staring back. Get a grip on yourselves and let’s do what we came to do. There’s not much time to get ready.” Izzy picks up his coffee.
Everyone looks at everyone else and one by one file out the door.
Albrite motions to Izzy. “I’m not really up to it yet.”
Izzy: Can’t spare you. Bring a trash can with you, I won’t mind. You’ll be over it soon enough. I waited as long as I could. As I recall, we couldn’t get the funding unless you went. I told you then you wouldn’t like it. It’s not a cruise.
——–
Twenty minutes later they stand in the giant hold of the ship. The outer shell and the inner core sections are suspended from two shipboard cranes covered in canvas. Izzy, winch control in his hand, pushes a button. The canvas is lifted off the shapes to reveal sections of the cylindrical craft.
No windows. No markings. It is elegant brute force in the raw. The burnished steel looks good under the light. Massive tubes in smooth curves wrap around the front and flow toward the back. Grooves and small upraised blades are seen running the length of the pipe.
“Slick.” Mary says quietly in admiration.
Gregg smiles, walks up and feels of the outside of the tubes. The others walk around the other side to have a look.
Izzy: See what happens when you study?
Gregg and Izzy smile at each other broadly.
Gregg: A beautiful, beautiful beast indeed. Inside?
They walk toward the front.
Mike is grinning, staring at it. Mary is running her hand down a curve, smiling.
Hayt punches a code in a small panel he has pulled out. A door moves in slightly, divides in the middle and slides to the sides. Lights come on from inside. A small step slides out and down. Hayt jumps in the forward section.
————————————————-
The Institute:
Henry: What do we have so far?
The artifact lays in its case. Henry is trying not to look at it. He takes off his jacket and throws it over the back of his chair. The images within the artifact are fitted over images of hopeful matches from the database on the monitor screen.
Dmitri: We had several possibilities earlier. No matches.
Henry: Is it the program–the limits or variables?
Dmitri: Too soon to tell.
Henry: What’s it working on now?
Dmitri speaks as he punches in more data. “Babylonian, Accadian and Assyrian symbols and pictograms. How about that kid you mentioned. Any help?”
Henry: “I sent him a hypothetical. We’ll see how he does. Started the paper work on his clearance yesterday. He’s a little pre-occupied right now. His brother is home on leave from Afghanistan.” Henry sits and leans back in his chair. “I think it is writing. But it may predate any symbols we have.”
Dmitri: “What?”
Henry: “It could predate any writing systems to such an extent that it would assure no possible match. Just thinking about how we are searching here.”
Dmitri: “Better idea?”
Henry: “Not yet. But if so it would be the perfect test case of relationship minus context. An encryption with no possibility of knowing what or why it is or who made it or encrypted it. So we would have to find not only the base alphabet but the algorithm as well. And that could prove unknowable unless our methods are at least similar.”
Dmitri: “That is false premise. You cannot prove you do not know something. You cannot prove it such that you do not know specific parts of it. It is an unknown.”
“Why untestable?” Jack walks in and pulls a chair over.
Jack frowns. “It’s useful to be dumb sometimes. I read your report. Why can’t you test it for age?”
Henry: “We can’t test it for age. I said if it pre-dates any writing Jack, given the age of the surrounding ice. We don’t know yet. But it’s very hard to work backward with writing. There are codes even now that haven’t been broken—Linear A for example. Plus it’s made out of pure gold. Pure gold–meaning there are no impurities to test. All age tests depend on a mixed sample–it has a little of one kind of atom, a little of another and so on. Age is determined by comparing relative amounts of one element against another from the same sample. Over time some elements break down into others. The rate of conversion from one to another is predictable. How much of one atom is there can be correlated to how long it took to get there assuming a certain level of its absence to begin with. There is no test for a pure sample–nothing to compare it to. It hasn’t broken down into anything. The most stable isotope of gold is gold-one ninety seven; naturally occurring, what makes up the artifact. It has a half-life of several million years. Without getting into metaphysics, all we can say is it was made less than several million years ago or the plate would not still be pure gold.”
Jack looks at Henry. “I see your point. Sort of. Did you just dodge what Dmitri said?”
Dmitri points to the screens. I linked to database at National Science Foundation. It should go through info in two or three hours–that is next. If we do not get a match between now and then, I will not be sure what to check after that.
Jack nods.”Well!” he says, watching the images flicker on the screen and getting up to leave, “Keep at it!”
Henry: “Why do we even waste time talking to him? It goes in one ear and out the other and if we found anything he’d try to steal it!” He looks at the artifact.
Dmitri: He is important sponsor.
Henry: Who’s on shift at commo?
Dmitri: I don’t know names. All new people over there. That blonde-haired kid.
Henry: Peters. He’s okay. I’m gonna see if we have any word from the station. A couple of hours?
Dmitri: No. I said three or four hours.
Henry: Right.
The characters on the screen silently rotate, compare and change as Henry leaves.
——————————————–
Amos 9:2-4 Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall my hand take them; and though they climb up to the heavens, thence will I bring them down; and though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them; and though they go into captivity before their enemies, there will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen