by Speiser, Zvi
“He’s feeling a lot better,” Ramona said. “He fell asleep just a short time ago. I think you can come see him in the afternoon. Anyway, don’t be shocked by his condition. As you know, he sustained a serious blow to the head, and it looks like his brain was damaged. It’s hard for him to communicate with those around him. But why am I prattling at you, anyway? Come visit him and see for yourself.”
“I’ll come in the afternoon,” he said. “Should I bring anything? Would he like to see more people? There are other colleagues at the department who are worried about him.”
“No, it’s too early for a mass visit. You can come see him. As for the others, we’ll wait a few days.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there,” he concluded, and hung up.
***
Although he was head of NASA’s astronomy division, deep in his heart, astrophysics was Ethan’s true love. Perhaps this was because his first two academic degrees had been in physics, and only his PhD was in astronomy, mostly because he had received a full scholarship and had even been offered a teaching assistant position.
Gerry, in contrast, was a born astronomer. A bookshelf in his office still displayed the four-inch telescope he had received as a gift from his grandfather, as he was eager to tell anyone who asked about it. It had been the most precious gift he’d ever received. He’d spent so many long nights with his grandfather, observing the planets and the moon. He had especially adored watching Saturn’s breathtaking rings.
At age five, he could already recite the names of all the planets in the solar system, starting with the one nearest to the sun and ending with the farthest, as well as classify them by size. He would also recount how, when he had been in first grade, he had volunteered his grandfather to lecture to the students about astronomy. He liked to describe the preparations the two of them made for the class, and especially how his grandfather had allowed him to help present the lesson.
Ethan preferred long-term research, was very interested in astrophysics, and was up-to-date on the minute details of the various studies carried out by NASA. Gerry had told him more than once that he respected him for his hardworking nature, his leadership qualities, and mostly for the complete support he granted his subordinate researchers. He gave them full freedom to choose the topics of their research, so long as they fit in with the general spirit of NASA. Gerry’s current research was a case in point. All Ethan knew was that Gerry was investigating the relative motion of large asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. However, not infrequently, Ethan felt some discomfort in Gerry’s company. It might have resulted from the unbridgeable gap between those in love with their work, like Gerry, and those who worked to earn a living, no matter how well they performed this work.
Once Ethan arrived, Ramona prepared him for his meeting with Gerry. She asked him to ignore the stutter, to focus on what was going on at NASA rather than asking Gerry questions, and in general, to keep the visit short, as Gerry tended to grow tired quickly.
She updated Ethan as she led him to Gerry’s room. “He’s still very weak and needs a lot of rest, which will also have a positive effect on his brain. In the meantime, we haven’t observed any improvement in his mental state since the accident.”
She didn’t want to sit in the room with them, although she was curious to know how their conversation would develop and whether Gerry would manage to fool Ethan, who was considered particularly intelligent. In order to satisfy her curiosity, she sat in the giant armchair in Elaine’s room, which was adjacent to Gerry’s. The open doors of both rooms made eavesdropping easier.
The ensuing conversation between the two appeared to be relaxed and easy. Ethan ignored Gerry’s stammer and told him how worried his colleagues were, how much they’d been surprised on Friday when he hadn’t shown up for the meeting, and that they all wished him a speedy recovery.
“W-w-what hap-happened in the m-m-meeting on F-F-Friday?” Gerry asked.
Ethan described the contents of the meeting in detail, his report peppered with countless words Ramona didn’t understand. She had heard most of them numerous times, but had never dedicated any thought to their meanings. Astronomy didn’t particularly interest her.
Occasionally, Gerry interrupted Ethan with a stammered question that sounded completely authentic. She found his pretense believable, and didn’t think it would raise Ethan’s suspicion. Ramona immersed herself in her thoughts of Gerry, and stopped listening in on the conversation in the adjacent room. Only when she emerged from her contemplation did she notice that the dialogue, or more accurately the monologue, had come to a stop. What’s going on there? she thought. Just as she was rising from her seat, Ethan appeared in the doorway.
“He fell asleep. I guess I tired him out. There’s no point in me staying.”
“I did let you know,” she replied. “He gets tired very quickly and sleeps a lot. The doctor recommended that he get a lot of sleep.”
“I don’t want to burden the two of you. I’ll call in the next few days to keep a close eye on his condition. Do you have any idea what your husband was working on? He promised me a discovery with global implications.”
“I really have no idea. Astronomy has never interested me. In our many years together, I’ve learned a lot of terms, but I never really bothered to take an interest in the specific topics he was working on. This suited Gerry, who never bothered to share his work with me. I only know that during the last year, the information from the new array of telescopes was very helpful to him. He was very impressed by the quality of the data it provided, and mentioned it frequently. During the last year, he’d also say from time to time that the array was placing discoveries on our doorstep that we’ve been searching for, from a great distance, for decades. He was preoccupied with thoughts about his presentation at the meeting, and I guess he wasn’t careful enough.”
Only after Ethan had said goodbye did she find herself considering, for the first time, the mystery engulfing Gerry’s work. Until that moment, she had treated the whole matter of the discovery with equanimity. Gerry loved his work, and this wasn’t the first time he thought he had uncovered an extraordinary discovery. During the last incident she recalled, the “discovery” had fallen apart while he was presenting it to a colleague, the moment he understood where he had gone wrong. She wondered how certain he was of his discovery this time. Perhaps his lack of confidence had affected his caution. But this time, he had used the most innovative telescopes, which could present precise images and data at a previously unprecedented level. Maybe this time, there actually was something there?
Apparently, the person who might have followed Gerry and was responsible for his injury knew that he had uncovered a groundbreaking discovery. But who cared about an astronomic discovery, no matter how groundbreaking? How could an astronomic discovery even be parlayed into a financial profit? Why would anyone try to prevent any sort of revelation concerning astronomy, when so few people were interested in this field?
Perhaps he had found an asteroid entirely made of gold or diamond or some other precious mineral, as she knew he had been researching asteroids lately. She was certain of this because he had mentioned them frequently during the last year. He had also made repeated references to changes of trajectory. Perhaps he really had been investigating the possibility of changing the trajectory of a diamond asteroid and bringing it to Earth. An idea like that truly could have interested plenty of people. But then why hurt him? On the contrary, anyone who uncovered the details of his research should have collaborated with him and taken the best possible care of him—the complete opposite of what they had actually done. No, that wasn’t the right scenario.
What exactly had Gerry been hiding from her? What revolutionary discovery that might affect humanity as a whole had he come across? What revolutionary thing could possibly be discovered about a barren chunk of rock moving around in frozen outer space? She didn’t have the faintest idea.
Chapter 14
Kyra
Chicago, Monday, July 21, 2036
That morning at the lab appeared totally mundane. The events of the previous week were not mentioned, and everyone was busy with their work. Tom repressed any thought of the offer he had received. So long as he was at the university, he would continue working at full steam.
A brief glance in Lise’s direction revealed that she seemed unusually preoccupied. Her gestures were jerky, and she seemed to be checking the same data again and again. She’ll come see me when the time is right, he thought. Mike didn’t seem to be at his best, either. He was introverted, as usual, but today his gaze seemed downcast as well. Perhaps the events of last week had had a severe effect on him, and he still hadn’t managed to shake them off.
Tom ate lunch with his colleague Paul from the physics department, as usual. Their fields of concentration were so different that they generally did not discuss work matters, which suited both of them very well.
He debated whether to offer Lise his help or let her be. She seemed very busy, so he decided to hold off and wait. Mike, in contrast, seemed even worse off than he had that morning. He appeared at loose ends and very tense.
“What’s going on, Mike?” Tom asked him gently. Despite Mike’s somewhat odd character, his frightened expression made Tom feel a sense of suffocation. “Let’s talk,” he said, placing his hand softly on Mike’s shoulder.
Tom’s office was small but cozy, creating a calm atmosphere. The quiet classical music that piped in once they entered the room enhanced the relaxed environment. Tom gestured for Mike to sit in the small armchair and walked over to make coffee for himself and cocoa for Mike, a preference of which everyone was aware.
The relaxed atmosphere, the music, the cocoa, and Tom’s positive, mellow demeanor had a cumulative effect that calmed Mike down. Tom sat down across from him, focusing on his coffee cup, without saying a word.
“I feel like I have to talk,” Mike suddenly blurted out.
“You should feel free to do that. We’re not in a hurry, there are no recording devices here, and anything you tell me will stay between the two of us.”
“My girlfriend, Kyra, has disappeared.”
Shy Mike’s stunning girlfriend was a frequent topic of gossip at the lab, as well as the focus of many jokes. Everyone believed Kyra was the first girlfriend Mike had ever had. The relationship between them seemed odd. Kyra, a slim blonde possessing the body, the face, and the confidence of a supermodel, was a clear contrast to bashful, introverted Mike, who seemed like the ultimate geek, the type whose existence tended to be ignored by women, especially the prettier among them. The women in the lab would have been willing to pay a lot in order to find out what Kyra saw in Mike.
“What do you mean she’s disappeared? She’s not answering her assistant? Maybe something’s happened to her?” Tom queried.
“She’s not answering her assistant or messages of any kind. That’s really not like her. We usually communicate daily. Since we’ve been a couple, we’ve spent every single weekend together. It’s only now that I noticed that other than her assistant address, I don’t have any idea how to find her. I don’t know where she lives or where she works. We always hung out at my place. She would initiate and plan our meetings and our outings. I never suggested going to her house, so as not to oppose her suggestions. I just accepted her the way she was. I never thought she might disappear from my life in an instant. I don’t know how to even start looking for her. I contacted the addresses for the two entries I found in the assistant directory, but neither of those people knew anyone with her name. I feel completely helpless. I think about her all the time. I just can’t focus on work.”
“When was the last time you talked?” Tom asked.
“We talked on the assistant on Wednesday afternoon. Kyra asked if I had any ideas for the upcoming weekend. As usual, I didn’t, and she laughed and said she would think of something. I tried to call her several times on Thursday, but she was unavailable every time. That’s never happened to me. Kyra usually answered every one of my calls almost immediately.”
Tom thought for a moment, and then said, “I’m sure you remember how you two met.”
“That was strange, too. Her job is selling general equipment and materials to chemistry labs. She tried to interest me in purchasing high-precision scales. Even though I told her our lab was well equipped when it came to scales and that I wasn’t the one making purchasing decisions anyway, she insisted on coming to see me at the lab and presenting the company’s products to me. I remember I tried to get her not to waste her time and asked her to send me a catalog of the products by mail so I could peruse them, but it did no good. She explained away the visit by saying she was seeing several clients at the university that day anyway, and that it would be no hassle at all.”
“Do you still have the catalog?”
“No, she showed it to me on her computer. In fact, I searched my place from top to bottom for clothes or papers she might have left behind, and I couldn’t find a thing. For all intents and purposes, she might as well have never been in my house. I don’t even have her toothbrush. She’d always come with a packed bag and wouldn’t leave anything behind.”
Tom considered what he had just heard for another moment. A growing suspicion caused him to ask, “When exactly did you meet, and how did you make the transition from business acquaintances to having a personal relationship?”
“We’ve been a couple for about two months,” Mike replied. “In fact, even the business meeting felt very warm and personal. Kyra told me that she was single, and that after a series of boyfriends who were the partying type, she had come to the conclusion that the next guy she met would be the exact opposite. She described a serious man working at the forefront of science who would be an interesting conversationalist. In fact, she described me. It was the first time such a beautiful girl had even acknowledged my existence, much less flattered me like that.
“At the end of the meeting, she told me she’d love to keep talking to me under less formal circumstances. It took me a day to realize that in fact, she expected me to ask her out on a date, and it took me two more days to find the courage to ask her out. We met two days later, and from there, everything flowed way quicker than I’d hoped, even in my wildest dreams.”
Tom’s apprehension was gradually taking shape and solidifying. The entire story seemed more like a cheesy Bollywood movie than real life. Kyra had targeted Mike a short time before the break-in and the murder, and disappeared without a trace after those events had occurred. She definitely had an agenda in initiating the relationship, and might have actually achieved her goal.
Motivated by his growing suspicion, he turned to Mike and asked, “Does the material you take home from the lab include the access codes to the lab building and to our lab?”
“Yes, of course. I have a file in which I keep all my secret passwords.”
“Has Kyra seen them?”
“I don’t think so, although she worked on my home computer quite a few times. She’d always giggle and say it was a lot more convenient than her bulky computer. I always gave her complete privacy when she said she had to finish this or that for work.”
“What do you think of this scenario: Kyra was sent by whoever’s behind the break-in and the murder. She came to the lab seeking easy prey, made a connection with you, obtained all the secret passwords from your computer, and once the murder took place, disappeared without a trace?”
Mike’s gape of astonishment said it all. His surprise was absolute, or at least appeared to be so.
“I suggest we update Detective Rick Heller, the investigating detective, immediately. If possible, he’ll locate Kyra, and maybe she’ll provide a lead to finding the killer.”
Mike swallowed heavily. Tom imagined how hard it was for him to realize that Kyra had had no interest in him as a man or
as a boyfriend, to think that she was connected to the break-in and the murder and had also taken advantage of his innocence. His fragile male ego was probably on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. I wonder, he thought, which part is harder for Mike to accept: the fact that Kyra conned him or that she might be connected to the perpetrators of the murder.
“Maybe…maybe we should wait another day or two,” Mike said. “Maybe she’ll still show up.”
It was hard for Tom to watch Mike falling apart. “Okay. We’ll give her another day to show up. If by noon tomorrow I don’t get an update from you that Kyra’s gotten in touch, I’ll contact Rick.”
Mike nodded glumly, bowing his head.
Tom wondered whether he should rush off to tell Dr. Colin about his suspicions. But this would be a betrayal of his promise to Mike. No, Dr. Ron Colin could wait until noon tomorrow as well. Tom had no doubt that Kyra had disappeared because she had been involved in the murder in some manner.
He was in no hurry to get back to his empty house, so he stayed at the lab late into the evening. Eventually, he and Lise were the only ones still working. She seemed to have calmed down a bit, as she was focused on the computer before her. Around eight o’clock—an hour that was unusually late for Lise, whose evenings tended to be packed with various activities—she approached him and asked to review some findings. At that exact moment, her assistant rang.
“When?” she asked, and after apparently receiving an answer, replied, “I’m on my way.
“I can’t stay tonight,” she told him. “Could we continue this tomorrow?”
“That’s fine,” he replied.
Lise gathered her purse and left.
On his way home, Tom wondered when Gaya might call again to receive his answer. In light of her pressure to meet over the weekend, he had expected her to call during the day. Perhaps she wanted to give him time to consider the offer, or to consult others. He had already planned what he would say to her: he would want to receive an official offer, specifying the place of employment, the company’s general structure, the fields in which he would work, his role in the research, the team and budget at his disposal, what other studies the company was working on, and of course, his wages and other benefits. He wouldn’t accept the offer, but rather would display interest and inquire about the details, as would behoove a senior researcher who was considering factors beyond mere financial profit.
