They agreed to keep Simon’s secret, with the qualifier, for now.
When they reached the lobby, it was quiet; in the middle of the day most people were at the pool or the beach. Amy felt different coming back to the resort this time, strangely separated from the place. Maybe other things were more important now. “OK, let’s clean up and meet at the lunch buffet in 2 hours,” suggested Amy, needing some time alone; she needed to think.
“Why so long? 10 minutes?” suggested Frank.
Amy just gave him a contemptuous look and left.
As Amy walked up the stairs she heard Frank exclaim, “What did I say?” and then told Paul, “I’ll see you at the buffet after I get the photos and the video downloaded to my laptop. If we have pictures, we're not crazy!”
* * *
He was working quietly at his desk, checking a report on maintenance of the satellite. There was a knock on the open door. “Colonel Richards, do you have a minute?”
“Yes, come in. What is it Sergeant?”
“Three more pulses, Sir.”
“Did the new satellite software work?”
“Yes Sir. We’re working on the new data now.” The Sergeant showed him new data on the satellite control terminal. Dan recognized the data, but one of the sets was incomplete.
“Sergeant, what happened to the data on the third pulse?”
“It’s the sensors in the satellite, Sir. They need more than 60 seconds to realign. The second and third pulses were too close together.”
They waited for the computer to finish its calculations. When the computer data finished scrolling, the Sergeant displayed the map. Six large circles were displayed on the map, overlapping, and the computer shaded the probable location in red. The red oval was smaller, covering Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and part of Costa Rica, but that would be too big to satisfy General Hardisty. Dan prepared his written report, before calling the General.
* * *
Paul was at the buffet first. The resort restaurant was decorated in bright Mexican colors. It had a long buffet counter across most of the back wall. The food was good and there were different selections every day. Soon Paul’s plate was full and a glass of Coca-Cola Light completed his choices. He picked a quiet table in the far corner. Paul saw a number of familiar faces in the room, a few from last week, but mostly people who’d arrived this weekend.
There was a Japanese family, four generations, grandma, the parents, the son and wife, and the grandchild in the high chair. Paul waved; he’d spoken to the son and wife a couple of times at the pool bar. They were fascinated by the Roman Empire and asked Paul for hints on visiting Rome. They were enjoying their visit to Mexico, but what was called oriental food in Mexico was not a pleasant surprise.
An older Italian couple saw him and waved, they’d sat at the pool with his parents a number of times, but he didn’t know their names. They liked spending long hours in the restaurants, buffet, and snack bars each day, lovingly exchanging tastes of new foods.
There were few other people at the buffet; it was getting to the end of lunch so there was lots of space. An American man nodded to him, he was on his own, easily identified by his Alabama tee shirt and ball cap. He was reading a book, perhaps ensuring that people left him alone.
There was what Paul thought of as a typical North American family; man, wife and two noisy kids. Paul guessed that they were Canadian; no one else is that annoyingly polite, but by that standard you’d never guess that Frank was Canadian! Thinking about Canadians he recognized two French-speaking sisters in the corner who’d been here last week. Frank had met them at the Theatre and they had told him they were from Montreal. Frank told them that he had French speaking neighbors where he lived, and that there were over 6 million French speakers in Canada. Amy added over a million in the US to that. Paul had no idea that there were that many French speakers in North America.
Paul choose a table with no neighbors, so the three of them could talk.
“Where’s Frank?” asked Amy as she arrived with her plate filled with fruit and yogurt.
“I haven’t seen him yet.” He wasn't surprised; this was typical of Frank, late again. While they started in on their plates, Paul observed, “You know Amy, that was disappointing.”
“What was disappointing?” Amy had no idea what he meant.
“Well, I read science fiction, watch movies, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, watch Dr. Who and so on, and here we travel from planet to planet with a few taps of a walking stick on a stone. It’s just too easy!”
Amy laughed, “I don’t think it’s that easy. Someone put the stones there in the first place, and I don’t think it is just a stone.”
He took the chance to discuss something before Frank arrived. “I’ve been thinking. Everything turned out OK, but we can’t be so trusting. Frank’s a bit absent-minded and we have to protect him. We could have all disappeared. No one would have known where. If someone stopped us from getting back to the yellow stone we would be stuck.”
Amy paused, biting her lip while she thought it through, “You’re right, but everything turned out OK this time. We’ll be more cautious.”
Frank arrived with a heaped plate before Amy and Paul had emptied theirs.
Paul asked, “What kept you?”
“I was downloading the photos and the video,” mumbled Frank between bites. “There’s something on the video you have to see. I’ve set it up in my room, so we can all view it after we eat.” After that, Frank wouldn’t say any more about the video.
“Well,” Paul said, going to the dessert table, “if there’s another mystery then I need some ice cream first.” Frank and Amy joined him.
* * *
The room was air-conditioned, cold compared to the heat outside. Amy sat on the couch, Paul sat next to her, and Frank put his laptop on a small round table in front of them. Frank started the video. She saw the black dome appear, disappear, Frank and her waiting for Paul to return, the dome re-appearing, the dome disappearing, and Paul standing there. Then she watched their discussion, and then the dome, and all three of them were gone. Frank paused the video. Amy had been ready to think that this was a dream. “Well, that was real enough.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Paul. “Seeing it makes me believe it really happened. I didn’t realize that the dome was so big!”
Frank clicked the fast forward button. “Now watch. This is what I wanted to show you.”
Frank stopped the video when a man started to come out of the jungle. Amy heard an echo of her own surprise from Paul. Frank clicked play; they watched as the man left the jungle and stepped over the ruined wall onto the tiled floor. He examined Paul and Frank’s backpacks without touching them and looked around. He looked back up the path as if he was considering something.
Frank paused the video at a frame of the man’s face. It was partly hidden by a ball cap with a faded graphic on the front, and obscured by the shadow he was in. The man was wearing a faded blue tee shirt with the acronym for ‘I Love New York’ on the front, and blue jeans. He also had a staff similar to Simon’s, covered with carvings, but slightly lighter in color. They could only tell that he was about 30 and had short dark hair.
“He’s new to me,” commented Frank. Amy and Paul hadn’t seen him at the resort either.
Frank clicked play again. The man walked over to the yellow stone and used his staff to tap a sequence. The black dome appeared, but this time it didn't disappear.
Paul peered closely at the screen, “Is the camera stuck?”
“Just wait, eh!” said Frank.
After about thirty seconds, the black dome disappeared, and the man was gone.
“Let’s see that again,” Amy asked.
Frank reset the video and they all watched it again.
Paul pointed at the man as he started to tap a sequence. “He didn’t know that the camcorder was there. What sequence did he tap?”
Frank set it back to that frame and th
ey watched the man tap 1-1-8. Frank pointed at the screen, “The dome is different too. For us it appeared and disappeared in half a second. For the man it stayed on for thirty seconds. And the bell didn’t sound, like it did for us.”
Paul looked at Amy and Frank, “Should we tell Simon about this?”
Amy asked, “Why not?”
Paul suggested, “Let’s keep it to ourselves for now, Simon’s keeping secrets too.” It was clear that Paul didn’t trust Simon.
Frank added, “I agree. I prefer to keep our options open; let’s tell Simon later.”
“I don’t like keeping secrets,” Amy said, but she didn't feel like arguing over this.
“You mean, apart from planet-sized secrets,” said Paul spreading his arms. They all laughed, releasing some of their tension.
“Frank, what about the photos you took of the stars?”
Frank pointed at the screen. “Mine’s on the right. On the left, star charts off the internet. I haven’t had time to rotate the charts to match the pictures, but you can tell anyways. Look, that star is missing in the photo. The next photo and chart. Again, a star is missing. We were not on Earth.”
Amy looked closely at the screen. “Can you tell where we were?”
Frank thought for a second, “From the photos I shot I should be able to tell. There’s less than a dozen possibilities. We had to be close to Earth for the constellations to be similar.”
Paul asked, “How?”
Frank started up another program; the screen showed Sol in the center and many other colored dots. “This program has all the stars in it for 250 light years around Earth. I just have to move the observer’s location from Sol to other stars until the changed constellations match.”
Amy saw that Frank was anxious to start. “How long?”
“Five minutes if I’m lucky, a couple of hours if Murphy’s Law applies!”
Amy didn’t want to wait that long. “You can do that later.” Frank looked disappointed. “It’s time to talk to Simon. He's the only one who can tell us.”
“This is more important Frank,” said Paul, supporting her.
Amy picked up Simon’s pack and staff. “I’ll meet you in the lobby after I get some food for Simon. That hospital food looked bad!”
* * *
“Yes,” said Simon quietly. “You were on another planet.” Frank punched his fist in the air as if he had just won a video game.
Amy saw that Paul was more somber. “What planet?”
Simon looked at all three of them, as if he was assessing their reliability. “The sun is one you call Sirius, about nine light years away.” Frank looked extremely pleased with himself. “I don’t know the Galactic name for Sirius or the planet. The system has two stars. For a short period, every seven of your years, radiation from the two suns will make the planet uninhabitable. It will happen in about two years from now. I camp there because no one uses that pillar, and I don’t like to live in the yellow domes. All people know is that people get sick and die after going to that planet, so they stay away.”
Frank couldn’t hold back any longer, “What’s a pillar? What’s a yellow dome? How is it different from the black dome? How did we get there? Where do you come from? What’s it like out there?”
Amy put her hand on Frank’s arm stopping the list of questions, “Easy Frank. Let’s try one question at a time.”
Simon smiled, “It’s OK Amy, I will answer your questions. I just can’t do it with other people listening. Someone might understand English.”
Amy could see that Paul was suspicious of this avoidance. He asked “Like, when?”
“The doctors have given me pills, and told me that they can do no more for me. They say I must rest, and if I do I should have some time before I die. They expect me to go home, so I want you to help me get to my campsite. I will give you the answers there. But we are going to need more than one staff.”
“Why?” asked Amy.
“Think about it.” Simon answered. Amy saw that Simon was watching her as she worked out the problem. If they used Simon’s staff to get back to Earth, then they would leave Simon stranded on that planet. Therefore, they needed their own staffs. Amy smiled back at Simon and nodded.
Simon reached over and lifted his staff onto his lap. “If you hold my staff horizontal, like this, you will find that the center of the wide end will push in.” Simon pushed and the center of the end, about half an inch across pushed in about a quarter of an inch. “Now I twist it clockwise, a quarter turn. Push it back again. Next, I twist it anticlockwise a quarter turn, until it stops. Now I just release it and it pops out like this. Pull it out with the notch up.” A wood cylinder, the same color as the staff came out of the bottom. It was about six inches long.
Simon held up the wooden cylinder. “Do you see eight holes in the notch?” asked Simon pointing to the top of the cylinder, “each one has a gold bead in it.” Simon passed the cylinder to Amy, and lay back on his pillow.
Amy, with Frank and Paul looked closely at the cylinder. Evenly spaced along the notch were eight small depressions, and in each, a tiny gold bead.
Simon told them, leaving his head on the pillow, “Those beads form a code that tells the pillar to operate. There are different codes for each of the guilds. My guild is the Wayfarers. Some pillars have been set to only allow their use with staffs having a guild code, or a created code. A created code is close to impossible to guess, and there are only a few ways it can be removed. Eight gold beads is the code all individuals use. That code allows you to travel through any public archway or pillar, to another city or a nearby planet. You can travel from an archway or pillar to a yellow dome, and then from the yellow dome to another archway or pillar. If the trip is preset, you go directly from archway to archway, or pillar to pillar.”
Simon signaled Amy to give him back the cylinder, “You put it back together by doing the opposite sequence.” While Simon put the staff back together, he continued. “Now, on a pillar the black dome forms across the floor first. It separates the floor tiles from soft things like sandals or flesh. Then the black dome forms above you from the outside edge up. The platforms I sent you to are in good repair. Don’t stand in a hole; it could cut off the bottom of your feet!” With a smile, Simon added, “I always wear sandals.”
Simon had the staff back together and passed it to Frank, “You try it,” Simon prompted putting his head back on the pillow again. Amy was getting concerned that they were tiring Simon too much. Frank then unlocked the cylinder from the staff, showing everyone the beads.
While Frank put the staff back together, Simon told them, “Your staff does not have to be this complicated. Just find a walking stick. Put eight holes in it. Put gold in the bottom of each hole, and plug the holes. It can be as small as one of the links out of Amy’s chain.” Amy looked at her chain; it was one of her delicate ones. It wasn’t a gift, so she’d break it apart if needed. “Each of you needs your own staff. Frank, do you think you could make three staffs today?”
“Sure,” answered Frank. “When will you need them?”
“I need to sleep now. This has tired me out, but I am ready to leave the hospital after I’ve had a nap, say in two hours.”
Frank nodded. “OK. They’ll be ready.”
Amy took the chain off her neck and handed it to Frank as he and Paul headed out of the ward. As Amy watched Simon fall asleep, she realized that they hadn't received very many answers!
Chapter 5 – 100 Planets
After the taxi ride, the walk to the ruins, and using the pillar, Simon was so tired he could hardly stand. Amy went ahead with a flashlight to open up his tent, while Paul and Frank semi-carried Simon to the campsite and his tent.
Amy crawled back in, after Paul and Frank came out of the tent. She knelt next to Simon as he lay on his bed with a blanket over him. “How are you feeling?”
Simon grimaced. “I didn’t think that would be so hard! I can’t teach you about our planets today. Too tired. Can yo
u come back at this planet’s dawn?”
“Sure. We’ll even bring you breakfast!” Amy took a water bottle out of her backpack, and left her flashlight. “Use this to take your pills.”
Simon just nodded, too tired to speak.
Amy tied the tent flap behind her in a way that Simon could open it from the inside. She already heard the sound of Simon’s slow breathing as he slept. Amy stood and turned to Paul and Frank, “We’ll have to come back tomorrow, but let’s bring a camp bed for Simon.”
Frank nodded, “And if we’re going to spend time here, how about chairs for us, a camp stove and fuel, food and drinks. What else?”
“Some shade for Simon and us,” added Paul.
“Good,” said Amy. “If Simon is going to be tired all the time, we shouldn’t strain him. Frank let’s set up your camcorder and record what he says, and then Simon won’t have to repeat anything.”
“Sure,” answered Frank. “I’ll need some extra batteries, no way to recharge them here. I’ll get them in town.”
“Well, I guess we’re going shopping. Frank, what time is it on Earth?” Amy smiled as she realized what she’d said.
Frank smiled back, “On Earth it’s almost 3 pm. We have time to take a look around.”
Paul stated, “Let’s stay together. We can’t lose our way back. There’s no north or south here, no compass, no GPS, and no landmarks. This flashlight should last a couple of hours. If we get lost, we’re in trouble.”
“OK,” said Amy. “That makes sense.”
Paul suggested, “Let’s start back at the pillar.”
They looked around the platform but it seemed to be made of unremarkable grey stone slabs. The dome circle edge was there, represented only by a groove carved in the stones. Only the yellow pillar stone stood out as anything unusual. Amy examined the pillar stone. She was careful to keep her walking staff away from the pillar; she didn’t know what could happen. Frank and Paul were exploring the edge of the platform.
Frank shouted, “There’s a path here.”
As she walked over, Amy saw them scraping off a patch of ground.
Frank pointed at the cleared patch of ground. “This isn’t rock, it’s like concrete. The path heads off into the jungle. Let’s see where it goes.”