Heartlight

by T.A. Barron

  At that moment, something new on the monitor screen caught Kate’s eye.

  “What’s that dark place on Trethoniel, Grandfather?” she asked, feeling strangely uneasy. “I don’t think it was there just a few seconds ago.”

  Grandfather dismissed her question with a wave of his hand. “Probably just a storm on the surface or a simple refraction error, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.” He smiled. “By the way, how are you feeling? I mean, after your encounter with our friendly local ghosts?”

  Kate shivered slightly. “They didn’t feel so friendly to me. I’d forgotten about them, so I guess I’m fine now. Except … I just can’t shake this feeling.”

  “What feeling?”

  “I can’t quite explain it. It’s a feeling that something … something just isn’t right around here.”

  Grandfather gave her a gentle squeeze. “It’s probably just an aftereffect from your fright. Perhaps you—”

  Buzzzzzz.

  Kate jumped. “What’s that noise?”

  “It’s the timer on the astro-vivometer,” declared Grandfather. “My new invention over there in the corner.”

  He walked over to the contraption, which was shaped like a large gray file cabinet bearing numerous dials and switches on its face. “It can measure the level of PCL in any star, so I can assess the star’s health and longevity with great accuracy.”

  “What was that timer for?”

  “Oh, I’ve been doing a test run to make sure it works properly. I set it to work on the Sun, since it’s the easiest star to analyze from Earth. The buzzer says it’s finished the computations.”

  With an effort, Grandfather stooped down to pick up a printout that had dropped from a slot in the astro-vivometer. Suddenly, his face went white, and he whispered: “My God!”

  “Grandfather!” cried Kate, hurrying to his side. “What is it?”

  The old man gave no answer. He continued to scrutinize the printout, trying to check some of the calculations in his head. His expression grew more grim with every passing second.

  “It must be mistaken,” he muttered. “It must be.”

  “What does it say?” pleaded Kate, seeing nothing but rows of meaningless numbers and symbols crowding the printout.

  At last Grandfather raised his head. Deep concern lined his brow, and the light of his breakthrough had vanished from his eyes. He looked at Kate somberly.

  “What does it say?”

  “It says the Sun is in trouble, Kaitlyn. Serious trouble.” His gaze fell to the machine, still clattering away ceaselessly. “There could be a problem with the astro-vivometer itself …”

  “But you don’t think so, do you?”

  The old man turned again to Kate, and for a long moment they held each other’s gaze. “No.”

  “What kind of trouble, Grandfather? Please tell me. What’s going to happen to the Sun?”

  Shaking his head sadly, Grandfather replied: “I—I don’t know how to explain it, Kaitlyn. It’s so—so enormous …”

  “This sounds as bad as nuclear war.”

  Grandfather grimaced. With a quivering finger, he pointed to various numbers on the printout. “You see, there’s been no change in the Sun’s temperature, chemistry, density, magnetism, or surface dynamics. Only one factor has changed—the most important one.”

  “You mean its PCL?”

  “Yes. If these figures are right, its core supply of PCL has started dropping at a precipitous rate.”

  “What does it mean, Grandfather?”

  He drew his hand slowly across his brow. “If—if nothing happens to reverse it … then …”

  “What? What then?”

  “The Sun will eventually lose so much PCL that it will reach a state of catastrophic energy imbalance.” Grandfather seemed to choke on the words as he spoke them. “Without any warning, it will collapse violently, and then—oh, Kaitlyn! The Sun will go out forever.”

  Kate stepped backward in disbelief. “But—but—the Earth …”

  The white head nodded despondently. “We’re not talking about any ordinary star, Kaitlyn. We’re talking about the Sun. The life-giving, beneficent Sun! What the Egyptians worshipped as Ra, the Greeks as Helios, the Romans as Sol; the star that inspired the great temples of the Aztecs, the ancient circle of Stonehenge, and so much more. This means no more dawns and no more sunsets; no more lilies or roses or chrysanthemums; no more kangaroos or chipmunks, sequoias or sunflowers.” He seemed to be talking to himself. “Millions of species, developed over millions of years—all wiped out in a single instant.”

  “But how can that be?” She struggled to take all this in. “It felt just like normal outside today.”

  Grandfather sighed. “This isn’t something you can see or feel. Only an astro-vivometer is sensitive enough to discern what’s happening inside the Sun. And the only one of those in existence is telling us we’re in grave danger.”

  Pressing a blue button on the side on the machine, Grandfather pulled another printout from the slot. Instead of being covered with equations, this one bore an image, much like a blurred photograph. Kate knew instantly that it was a picture of the Sun.

  “I haven’t had time to bring the imaging capability up to speed,” said Grandfather. “But this is good enough to show you. Do you see the dark blotch in the lower hemisphere?”

  “It looks like a huge sunspot.”

  “If only it were! That is a PCL void deep within the core of the Sun. And according to the figures, it’s spreading like a deadly cancer. At this rate, the Sun has no more than a thousand years left to live.”

  “A thousand years!” Kate felt suddenly relieved. “That’s a pretty long time, Grandfather.”

  “Not to a star. To a star it’s virtually nothing. If its natural lifespan hadn’t been disrupted, the Sun would have had several billion years left to live.”

  Kate frowned. “How can this be happening? Why does our star have to be the one that’s stricken by this—this disease?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. I suppose it’s all part of the Pattern, Kaitlyn. There is no other answer.”

  “What kind of Pattern would let such a thing happen?” exclaimed Kate. “If God really has some sort of Pattern, why does He let things die at all? Why doesn’t He stop the Sun from collapsing and destroying the Earth and everything on it?”

  The great eyebrows lifted. “Your grandmother would say that living and dying are both part of the Pattern. When something in the universe dies, she believed, something else is born.” Grandfather looked at Kate’s worried face and placed his arm around her shoulder. “And remember this: God has also given us the gift of free will, and that’s part of the Pattern, too. Maybe—just maybe—humanity can use its free will to find some way to save the Sun from premature death. After all, we still have a thousand years to find a cure.”

  Kate drew in a deep breath. “I guess a thousand years, while it’s not much time for a star, is really a pretty long time for humanity to figure something out. Do you think it’s possible that your discovery of PCL could help?”

  “Perhaps,” answered Grandfather. His gaze wandered from the astro-vivometer to the wall monitor, still glowing red from the light of Trethoniel, and a mysterious gleam shone in his eye. “Perhaps.”

  Lowering his arm, he spoke reassuringly. “We’re safe for now, Kaitlyn. The Sun will rise again tomorrow … in not very long, as a matter of fact. In any case, it’s time for me to get back to work. And for you to go to bed.”

  “Bed!” cried Kate. “But—”

  “You need your sleep,” he declared firmly. “Especially if you’re going to be helping me in the lab tomorrow.”

  “In the lab?” Kate nearly jumped out of her sneakers. “Really?”

  “You heard me, Kaitlyn. I’ve discovered today how much I need your company.”

  Kate turned and squeezed him as hard as she could. “Oh, Grandfather!”

  “Please! Please!” he protested. “I have too much to
do to get a broken rib.”

  She released the hug. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “You can ask.”

  “Would you mind—”

  “Coming upstairs with you?” finished Grandfather. “Not in the slightest. I want to make sure myself there aren’t any ghosts roaming around your bedroom.”

  “Thanks,” breathed Kate.

  “I don’t blame you. After all, you had quite a fright. I’ll leave the lab door open tonight, so if you get scared at all you can come right down here and join me.” Seeing the look of gratitude in her eyes, Grandfather added: “And I’ll do one thing more. I’ll join you in saying prayers.”

  As they walked down the hallway to the stairs, Kate cast an eye into the kitchen. It seemed the same as usual; the light burned strongly. She sighed in relief and started up the stairs. By the time Grandfather had joined her, she had already brushed her teeth and pulled on her pajamas.

  Together, they knelt beside the bed. The half-moon’s pearly light drifted through the high window, across the soft cotton quilt, and over their clasped hands.

  “What prayer shall we choose?” she asked.

  Grandfather thought for a moment. “Let’s sing the Tallis Canon,” he replied. “It’s the perfect thing for times like this.”

  “I remember when you first taught it to me, the night we went camping in Montana and we thought we heard a grizzly bear.”

  “Which turned out to be your father snoring,” he chuckled. “I’ll never forget that.”

  “Neither will he.”

  Suddenly, Grandfather’s face grew serious. “Kaitlyn,” he said softly, “if, for some reason …” Then he stopped himself. “I want you to know how much I love you.”

  Kate looked at him uneasily.

  “Why don’t you start the Canon?”

  For a long moment, Kate searched the old man’s eyes—for what, she wasn’t certain. Finally, she spoke quietly: “I love you, too, Grandfather. And I always will. Please remember that.”

  “I will, Kaitlyn. Now start us.”

  Kate lifted her eyes to the window, glowing in the moonlight. Then she began to sing:

  All praise to thee my Lord this night,

  For all the blessings of thy light.

  Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings,

  Beneath thine own almighty wings.

  Grandfather’s gravelly tones rose to accompany her voice like a bass fiddle. Three times they sang the Canon, and each time their voices swelled stronger, until the room was filled with their melody and with a peculiar kind of warmth both beyond feeling yet fully tangible. As they finally fell silent, Kate could still hear the words almighty wings hovering in the air, like the fading echo of an iron bell.

  At last Grandfather spoke again. “Time for sleep, Kaitlyn.”

  He kissed her gently on the forehead, then promptly turned and left the room.

  Moonbeams fell across the quilt like lovely long arms, ready to carry Kate off to sleep. But sleep was still beyond her. In her chest rose a surge of excitement, and a touch of foreboding, about tomorrow.

  In the darkness she felt she could hear anything, even the breath of a butterfly. The image of a lovely morpho, small and silent, came to her, beckoning her to float away on a gentle breeze of dreams.

  Soon she was sound asleep.

  Grandfather re-entered the lab and moved directly to the astro-vivometer, not even pausing to inspect the green box still humming on his desk. He turned several dials, then pushed a button marked Update.

  As he waited, he rubbed his chest, muttering: “So sore … perhaps she did break a rib after all.”

  Buzzzzzz.

  Impatiently, he pulled the printout from the slot and began poring over it. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed, his face filled with horror. “This can’t be right!”

  Stuffing the printout into the pocket of his lab coat, he walked over to his desk and stiffly sat down. Reaching for his pocket calculator and clipboard, he somberly shook his head. “There must be some mistake. I’ll have to recheck all the calculations. How can things have deteriorated so much in just half an hour? If PCL keeps vanishing at this rate, we’ll have only two or three years before … before …”

  As he labored feverishly, he didn’t notice when the Sun’s first rays started slowly to fill the sky. Songbirds, unaware of any peril, greeted the dawn with a chorus of celebratory chatter, and the room grew lighter by degrees. Fresh morning air began to mix with the slightly burned smell of the lab.

  He raised his eyes from the clipboard and cocked his head hopefully at the astro-vivometer in the corner. “It’s time to check you again,” he said aloud. “Perhaps it was only a temporary fluctuation … perhaps the trend has reversed. Then this will be a day of good tidings after all.”

  The old man lifted himself wearily from the chair and began to cross the room. “If only I had—”

  Suddenly, he clutched his chest.

  “No!” he gasped, staggering toward the door. “Not now!”

  Before he had taken another step, a new spasm of pain shot through his chest. He buckled and collapsed on the floor, knocking over a pile of papers as he fell.

  III

  The Green Box

  Kate awoke to a wet tongue licking her face excitedly.

  “Cumberland! Leave me alone!”

  She rolled over, burying her head under the quilt.

  The dog barked twice, leaped off the bed and padded to the top of the stairs. Then he turned, barked again, and waved his prominent tail like a red flag.

  “What is it, Cumberland?” Kate lowered the quilt and stretched her arms. “What are you so worked up about?”

  Cumberland barked again, then disappeared down the stairwell. As if taking no chances that Kate would change her mind, he sat at the bottom of the stairs and began to howl pitifully.

  “All right, all right, I’m coming,” she said as she rolled out of bed and quickly donned her jeans, sneakers, and a well-worn sweatshirt.

  As she descended the stairs, Cumberland padded swiftly into Grandfather’s lab. Suddenly, Kate sensed trouble and she ran through the open door.

  “Grandfather!” she screamed.

  The old man was sprawled on the floor, surrounded by a mess of papers and notebooks. His skin was terribly pale and covered with perspiration. She rushed over to him, just as he began to stir slowly.

  “Grandfather! What happened?”

  “Ohhhhh,” he moaned, rubbing his head and rolling over on his back. “I fell … But why now?” He looked up at Kate. “I’m fine, really. Just a bit dazed.”

  “I knew something bad was going to happen!” Kate’s round eyes began to fill with tears. “I should have stayed right here with you instead of going to bed.”

  “Nonsense,” said Grandfather as he forced himself to sit upright. “It feels like an elephant sat on my chest! I’ll be fine, though. Give me a hand.”

  “Are you sure you should move?”

  “Yes, yes. Just help me into the kitchen. A cup of strong tea is all I need. Then I must get back to work.”

  With Kate’s assistance, he struggled to his feet. So wobbly was he that he had to lean against her with most of his weight to stay upright. Awkwardly, they negotiated the long hallway, stopping twice to rest against the bookshelves. Finally, they entered the kitchen, with Cumberland at their heels.

  Kate helped him lower himself into the old rocker. Before he could object, she had covered him with Grandmother’s picnic cloth and tucked it in around him.

  “That will keep you warm,” she said, breathing hard from exertion. She put some water in the tea kettle and placed it on the stove.

  Cumberland seized the opportunity and started licking his master’s face energetically.

  “Down, boy!” Grandfather pushed him away, then looked at the dog severely. “Not now, Cumberland.”

  “You need to take better care of yourself,” said Kate. “You gave me an awful scare! How did you fall, anyway?”

  “Oh
, I just fell, that’s all. Must have tripped on something.”

  She looked at him piercingly. “That’s not true, is it?”

  The old man averted his eyes. “I suppose it could have been a minor heart attack. Nothing serious, though.”

  “Nothing serious!” Kate nearly lost hold of the kettle as she was filling the teapot. “A heart attack!”

  “I’ve survived worse things,” he grumbled. “I’m sturdier than you think.”

  “But a heart attack is serious,” scolded Kate as she poured the brew into his favorite blue cup. “People die of heart attacks! You’ve got to slow down, Grandfather.”

  Wearily, he pushed some white hairs off his forehead. “I know you’re worried about me, Kaitlyn. But I can’t possibly die now. The Sun—”

  “I don’t care about the Sun! I care about you! I think we should call a doctor.”

  “No doctors are needed,” said Grandfather testily. “All I need is that cup of tea that’s growing cold as we speak.”

  “Here it is,” said Kate as she handed him the cup. “Won’t you please let me call a doctor?”

  The old man’s eyes flashed with determination. “The answer is No.” He took a sip of tea, then studied her closely. “The Sun is in trouble, Kaitlyn,” he said earnestly. “Much more trouble than I thought.” He pulled the latest printout from his pocket and waved it before her face. “We could have only two or three years left! Maybe even less.”

  His words hit Kate like a splash of ice water. “I thought we had a thousand years!”

  “So did I,” answered Grandfather grimly. “But I was wrong! Now we have no time to spare. Here … help me get up.”

  “Are you sure you can do it?”

  “Help me.”

  With a strong tug from Kate, the old astronomer rose shakily to his feet. Suddenly, his legs buckled and he fell back into the chair, knocking over the cup of tea.

  “Drat!” he cursed, panting heavily. “Just when I most need my body to co-operate, it’s failing me! Come, let’s try again.”