In past relationships, Jess had tried to be the doting girlfriend, had tried to put on the mantle of the wife role. But she couldn’t stand waiting on someone else, waiting for them to come home. She had no idea how someone could love a person like that. How someone could love her like that.
“I have to disagree,” Giovanni countered gently. “I don’t think a person can become a true individual being alone. We only become unique and authentic by entering a community of two, by sharing our lives. Community, family, that is what is important.”
“If family is so important, why were you off trekking Antarctica while your dad was sick?” Jess shot back before she could stop herself. She didn’t like the feeling of being lectured.
“Jessica!” her mother exclaimed.
It took Jess a moment to regain her temper. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, no, it’s a fair question.” Giovanni took a deep breath. “Family is everything, but sometimes, family can be… complicated.”
“I’m sure there was nothing you could have done.” Jess tried to backtrack.
Giovanni forced a smile. “But, what a terrible host I am. Let’s change topics. Your father?” He looked at Celeste. “Is there a Mr. Tosetti?”
“Tosetti was my maiden name,” Celeste replied. “We’re separated.”
“But not divorced,” Jess added, looking at her mother and raising her eyebrows. “He’s an astronomer, works at Harvard.”
“An astronomer?” Giovanni’s eyes lit up. He looked at Jess. “Then there is something very special I would like to show you. After dinner perhaps?”
Jess hadn’t meant to be so sharp-tongued. A bad habit, but mentioning her father’s profession had a calming effect. “Yes, I’d like that.”
The rest of dinner went smoothly. Giovanni was the perfect host, and the food and wine were spectacular. Afterward, Nico offered to take Celeste for a walk through the gardens, while a nanny ushered Hector off to bed just before the final round of grappa was served. Which left Giovanni and Jess alone.
“It’s amazing.”
Jess stood on a stepladder, admiring the mirror of a large reflecting telescope in the castle’s observatory. It was similar in design to the one her father had taught her to use, back at their cottage in the Catskills. Jess had seen the dome-shaped roof on one of the castle turrets, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Giovanni had just clicked on a set of motors that winched back the covering, revealing a beautiful Tuscan night sky; a carpet of stars thrown across the inky blackness above.
“It’s, what, a meter across?”
“One point one,” Giovanni said. “My grandfather’s hobby, his passion, was astronomy. In the tradition of Galileo, yes? He lived not far from here.”
“Amazing, and it’s in such excellent condition.” She stepped down. “Can I give it a try?”
“Of course, be my guest,” Giovanni said, inviting her to the controls.
Jess did a quick calculation in her head. Early October. That meant Venus should be near Pisces. Looking up, she started by finding the Great Square, just like her father taught her as a child. There, in the south, four bright stars glittered. Three of them formed the edge of Pegasus, and she traced the outline in her mind. Just beside it was Pisces, and Venus should be just at its left tip at this time of year. Unscrewing the stops on the telescope’s gimbals, she swung it around, first eyeballing the approximate direction, and then looking into the viewfinder.
She found the tail of Pisces, and after slowly adjusting she found the bright yellow dot of Venus. Carefully, she focused. “Beautiful,” she whispered. Leaning away from the telescope, she turned to Giovanni.
“Yes, beautiful,” he said softly, but he was watching her, not the night sky. She felt him reach to hold her hand, and he leaned in to kiss her.
Jess recoiled. “Whoa, hold on. I said we could be friends.”
Giovanni let go of her, backed up two steps. His face fell. “Scusi, I didn’t mean to—”
“And, I told you to stop apologizing.”
They stared at each other. The stars glittered above.
She sighed. “If you’re going to do something, just do it.”
He stood back, the look on his face perplexed. A warm Tuscan breeze blew between them, and Jess felt the walls inside her crumble. Just a little. She took a step toward him.
The door to the observatory swung open and bright light spilled in from the stairwell. Enzo’s head appeared through the crack in the door, his brown pork-pie hat casting a saucer-like shadow across the stone floor. For a second, Jess could have sworn she saw a flash of something in his eyes.
Giovanni frowned at Enzo. “Che cos'è?”
“Many apologies.” Enzo grimaced. “But there’s a phone call for Ms. Jessica.”
“Who is it?” Jess asked.
“Te padre, your father.”
“My dad?”
Enzo nodded, offering a phone. “Si, Dr. Ben Rollins. This is your father, yes?”
Jess stepped across the platform and took the phone. It was a strange time to return her call. “Dad, what’s up? Are you okay?” She listened for a few seconds. “What? You want me to do what? Wait, slow down. You’re still at the Astronomical Union meeting, right?”
“Is everything all right?” Giovanni asked.
Jess listened to her father for thirty seconds, holding her hand up at Giovanni and Enzo. Then, setting down the receiver, she looked at both of them. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.” She pushed past Enzo and hopped down the stairs as quickly as she could.
NOMAD
Survivor testimony #GR14;
Event +62hrs;
Name: Aubrey Leaming;
Reported location: England, undetermined
My name’s Leaming, engineer onboard the RNLB Jolly Roger out of Gravesend station, just south of London. Suppose I’m captain now. We lost Valentine, first mate Ballie Booker too. Horrible. Did save eight civvies, got ‘em secured down in the survivor room, for what that’s worth.
When they ordered the evacuation of the city, we knew it was madness, but then the whole thing was madness, wasn’t it? Where d’they expect people go? So me and the boys decided to hoof it into Tower station, see if we could pick up a few. I mean, we had the Jolly Roger, the steel-carbon Severn-class lifeboat of the RNLI, bastard can take anything…anyway, we race up the Thames as it empties out. Twenty feet of water gone in an hour. We make it as far as Canary Wharf before our keel hits mud.
We know it’s coming, but people are standing there on the walls, just staring. Captain Valentine, God bless him, gets up there, convinces a few to trudge through the muck and we secure them, like I said. But then…we thought it was a cloud, mate. It was Ballie who realized what it was. A wave, man, maybe a thousand foot high. Ballie screamed at me to get inside, strap in while he battened down the hatches. The first sheet of water hit us like we’d been fired out of a cannon, cracked the superstructure and half the starboard windows on impact, but she held, our Jolly Roger, she did. Old Ballie never strapped in…we were tossed around like a cork in a blender, puke and blood everywhere. For best part of an hour we were submerged before popping to the surface and the Roger righted itself. Unbelievable, mate, absolute madness.
I was the only one still conscious, so I set the bilge pumps and went to check our position, radio for help. But the electronics was down, the VHF antennae sheared off. Just this shortwave, and thank God for that. So I went topside, took the sextant and charts. Didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not bloody blue skies. As if nothing had happened. Like we’d been transported into another world. I got latitude of 52.4 degrees north. Can’t measure longitude in daylight, but we started in London and were swept along, and that wave came from the south, near enough. So I was over Leicester. Or Birmingham. But nothing, just churning blue. No land visible at all and I was supposed to be in the middle of bloody England…
Transmission ended signoff. Freq. 2182 kHz/USB.
Subject reacquired pg
s 16,24.
OCTOBER 18th
10
CHIANTI, ITALY
JESS FOUND HER mother waiting for her at one of the stone tables in the garden outside the western wall of the castle. A cloudless, aquamarine sky hung over spectacular views down the valley and into the plains sloping to the Mediterranean. On this side of the walls stretched manicured lawns crisscrossed by gravel paths and trimmed hedges, shaded by huge, ancient oaks. Hector was playing soccer next to the reception building with Raffael and Lucca, teenage brothers who performed odd jobs around the castle. Enzo was playing with them as well.
“Someone slept in,” Celeste said in a singsong voice as Jess approached, the leftovers of a breakfast of cheese and cured meats spread on a plate before her. “Want some?” Celeste asked, holding up a cup and carafe of coffee.
Nodding, Jess slid onto the stone bench opposite her mother. She hadn’t slept in. She hadn’t even slept. All night she’d been on the phone with her father, going over the information he had. About Nomad. About the unknown anomaly approaching. This morning she’d hidden in her room, needing to be alone, needing to think.
“Did you have a nice evening with Giovanni?” Celeste asked, filling the coffee cup and handing it to Jess. “You seemed to hit it off. I saw the two of you up in the observatory when I was walking down here with Nico.”
Taking the coffee, Jess took a sip. She stared down the valley, at the village of Saline far below, at the networks of roads and towns in the plains beyond that. Soon, in a matter of months, all of this could be gone. Just like that, as if it had never been here. Nothing seemed real, as if a plastic sheet had been pulled over reality, insulating her from it.
“This place is magical,” Celeste said, following Jess’s eyes looking down the valley. She reached across the table to hold Jess’s hand. “You were right to drag me out here. It does feel like home. And what a silver lining!” She laughed. “The police, your fight with your ex…if it hadn’t happened, Giovanni wouldn’t have invited us to be his guests. He came by this morning, said we should stay the week, invited us to go horseback riding through the vineyards. We can stop for lunch down—”
“We have to go,” Jess said in a dead voice, still staring down the valley at the village. She hadn’t seen her mother this happy in years, and it broke her heart to ruin it. But she had to. And, in a funny way, she might get what she wanted: get her mother and father together.
“What?” Celeste squeezed Jess’s hand. “Don’t be silly. And can you imagine? Giovanni’s grandfather was an astronomer, just like your dad—”
Jess pulled away from staring at the village and put her coffee down, turning to look her mother in the eye. How could she even start to explain this? “We—have—to—go,” she repeated.
The carefree smile on Celeste’s face slid away into concern, her brows furrowing together. “What happened? Something with Giovanni?”
“No.” Jess shook her head. “He was lovely, a perfect gentleman.”
“Then what? Jess, you can’t always be running—”
“I talked to dad last night. He’s in Rome.”
“In Rome?” The furrow between Celeste’s eyes deepened, and she leaned toward Jess. “Why is he in Rome?”
“He’s at the Astronomical Union meeting.”
“The Astronomical Union…” Celeste whispered. Her frown dissipated, and she cocked her head to one side and grinned. “What are you up to, missy?”
Jess pressed her lips together. “Look, I wasn’t being entirely honest. I wanted some one-on-one time with you, but when you got that Facebook message from the long lost Italian relative—”
“Who we haven’t heard from since,” Celeste reminded her.
“I know, look, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get you and dad back together, you know, here in Italy, where you spent your honeymoon. I thought, I don’t know, maybe…”
The edges of Celeste’s smile trembled, her eyes tearing as she stared at her daughter. “Oh, baby, that’s what all this was about?”
“It was, but something’s happened.”
Celeste dropped her gaze, laughing. “Something is always just happening with you, isn’t it?”
“This is serious.”
“Is it something else to do with Ricardo? I’m sure that Giovanni could help—”
“Mom! STOP!”
Celeste blinked twice, letting go of Jess’s hand. “What?”
Jess took a deep breath. “Dad’s at this meeting, and they discovered something coming from deep space. It’s heading toward the Earth. He needs us to leave with him, get back to the States and go to the cabin in the Catskills—”
“From space?” Celeste shook her head, and then pursed her lips. “The cabin, but I thought he sold that years ago?”
“So did I.”
“What’s coming from space?”
“They don’t know, but it’s not good.”
Jess knew her mother, knew she wasn’t one to panic. She didn’t have to sugarcoat. Her mother had spent most of her life in the field as a geologist, exploring remote backcountry. Leaning across the table, Jess explained what her father told her the night before, and the look of disbelief on her mother’s face slowly turned to one of shock.
“Are they sure?” Celeste asked as Jess finished. “Shouldn’t we tell people?”
“Dad said not to, that they don’t know all the details yet.” As she said this, a soccer ball bounced off her right leg. Hector came running over, and Jess leaned down to retrieve the ball and give it to him.
“Prego, Miss Jessica,” Hector said as he took the ball, smiling at her before turning to run back to Raffael and Lucca and Enzo.
“Nobody?” Celeste stared at Jess, then looked in the direction of Hector.
Jess followed her eyes. “You’re right.” Enzo caught her eye and waved. She smiled, tight lipped, and waved back. Something about that guy was creepy. Nico was just coming out of the reception building behind them, leading another tour group. He waved, and she waved back.
“Nico,” Jess called out. “Do you know where Baron Ruspoli is?”
“Just out for five minutes,” Nico replied. “Down to the town.”
“Can you get him to meet me up in the observatory when he gets back?”
The view from the observatory tower was even more amazing during the day than it had been at night. Jess had an unobstructed 360-degree view of the surrounding countryside. Giovanni had left a note under her door in the morning, giving her access. She’d just finished rolling back the observatory’s roof covering when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Jessica?” echoed Giovanni’s voice through the half-open doorway. “Jess?” He appeared and stood on the landing, concern worrying his eyes. “Enzo said you wanted to see me? Are you all right? Is your father good?”
“He’s fine. Everyone’s fine.” At least for now. She let out a long sigh and looked at the plains again, imagining them flooding, the oceans rushing over them.
“Are…we okay?” Giovanni asked. He took a tentative step forward. “I told your mother we could go horseback riding.”
Men. Jess shook her head. They always think that it’s something they did, that it’s something to do with them. And then they try and fix it without even understanding. This wasn’t something someone could fix. Nobody could fix this. She looked toward the horizon.
Giovanni took another step toward her. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
How could she bring this up without sounding ridiculous? “My father, he’s an astronomer.”
“Yes?”
“They found something, in space, that’s heading toward the Earth.”
“What?” Giovanni took a second to process. “An asteroid? Is there danger?”
“Not an asteroid, something else. They don’t know what yet.” Jess looked away, up at the sky. Not a cloud. Perfect. “Nowhere will be safe.”
“Do they think it might hit us?”
“I doubt it. At l
east, that would be one in a million, whatever it is.”
“Then there’s really little danger?” He cocked his head to one side.
“You don’t understand.” Squinting, she shielded her eyes and looked at the sun. “This thing has fifty, maybe a hundred times the mass of our Sun, and is coming from right behind it. It seems to be heading straight into the solar system.”
“A hundred times the size of…” Giovanni’s jaw dropped open. “Will it destroy the sun?”
“A hundred times the mass, not the size. Nomad is probably very compact, not more than thirty kilometers across if it’s compressed matter, but it’s traveling at more than a thousand kilometers a second. Even if it hits the sun, it’ll be like a bullet going through a ball of foam. It wouldn’t damage it, not much, but its gravity will drag the sun away from us, eject all of the planets into deep space. Including Earth.”
“My God.” Giovanni sat down on a bench beside the telescope. “I didn’t hear anything on the news, the radio…”
“Nobody knows yet. And I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
Giovanni stared at her. A gust of wind blew through the treetops, washing over the observatory turret. Jess shivered.
“So, this is true?” he asked finally. “This is not some game…?”
“No game.” Jess shook her head. “I’d stay away from the big cities, move everything you can here. Get all your family and loved ones together.”
“Can’t they stop this thing? I don’t know, fire nuclear weapons at it? Push it away?”
“It’d be like a mote of dust in the path of a charging elephant.”
Giovanni rocked back and forth. “I see.”
“My dad says he has evidence of seeing this thing, decades ago.”
“So they can see it?” Giovanni stopped rocking and steepled his hands together, elbows on his knees, and rested his chin on them. “What is it?”
Nomad Page 6
