Old Earth

by Gary Grossman

  Colin Kavanaugh chuckled, but quietly. Gruber had tutored him about the importance of maintaining the image of a distinguished British editor. Taking proper afternoon tea at Brown’s English Tea Room was Gruber’s favorite part of the job.

  Kavanaugh had no such tradition. Perhaps, he thought, he should begin one, though he considered such habitual activities a waste of time.

  Gruber sensed what his protégé was thinking. He was dressed for the part in a tailored three-piece black pin-striped suit. But he wore it like a costume.

  “Not for you?”

  “I don’t know,” Kavanaugh said, surprised he so easily telegraphed his reaction.

  “It’s all right. It’s a bit stuffy. But this will be your table. You’ll sit here, maintain a dignified image, meet with writers and even members of Parliament. Smile and relax. You’ll never complain and you will, as a gentleman, never speak of money.”

  Kavanaugh had heard it all before but he nonetheless agreed as if it were the first time.

  “Fortunately, money will not be a problem for you. Our financial resources extend far beyond the print revenue or online ads. However, you are never to discuss that point with staff. Never. If there is a legal problem of any type, immediately refer it to our counselors.” He smiled an artful smile. “They have special connections.”

  Gruber caught himself. “There I go again, getting off topic. I was waxing philosophical on Brown’s tea.”

  “It doesn’t interfere with your day?”

  “Quite the opposite. It is an essential part of my day. I get work done and often simply sit back and relax. Speaking of relaxing, you’ll have to learn how. That will not be easy for you. You’re eager to jump in and multitask. I suppose that is a quality of your generation. Certainly not mine.”

  “Oh, you should see what fifteen-year-olds are doing now,” Kavanaugh told the older man. “They make my head spin with their multi-tasking and second and third screens.”

  “Ah, but their attention span suffers because of it. And that is what you must work on. Focus and patience. Time to consider things that have come to pass and things to come. That’s one of the reasons I’m introducing you to tea at Brown’s. In years past there were other establishments in different countries. In each, there were corner tables like this where our predecessors would also sit facing out to meet, observe, calculate, and…relax.” Gruber had given extra emphasis to the last point again. “If you don’t learn to lighten up, the weight that you carry on your shoulders will crush you.”

  “That sounds like a mixed metaphor, Mr. Gruber.”

  “Alright. You may rewrite it any way you wish. But take the advice.”

  “To tell you the truth, it’s not the environment, Mr. Gruber. It’s the tea. I…”

  “Let me tell you the difference between tea and your coffee, Colin. You sip tea, you gulp coffee. You take your time with tea, your coffee speeds you up. Tea, like wine, offers something for the ages. Coffee is pedestrian; a bitter gift from the New World. There are tea sommeliers. Your coffee shop has baristas. You drink tea in fine china. You bring your Starbucks to the office in cardboard cups. One is refined. The other, undefined.”

  Kavanaugh was tiring of these discussions. Please God, take him now.

  “Have I lost you again?”

  “No, no, no, sir. Just thinking about what you’re saying.”

  Gruber laughed. “No, you weren’t. You were pondering how much longer you’d be enduring my interminable diatribes. And I don’t blame you one bit. My irascible secretary will have none of it either. Considering I never married, I suppose I’m taking it out on you.”

  “It’s all been…”

  “Boring. I know.” He reached across the table and patted Kavanaugh’s arm. “But there is a point to all of this.” He raised his cup of tea and sighed. “I have no real faith that there’s an afterlife or what it shall be. Heaven? Hell? For me, heaven would be right at this very table, listening to the world’s most beautiful music on Brown’s baby grand, and delighting on the delicate scones, sandwiches and pastries without fear of adding inches to my waist. All of that would be heaven without complaint. Hell? All the same, right here, but instead of being greeted by the experienced staff, there’s only the devil. He’s plum out of tea. And he’s only serving coffee in a paper cup.” He paused for impact. “For eternity.”

  Kavanaugh nodded. “Heaven it is. Deservedly so.”

  Gruber shook his head. “Let us talk about a decision,” he whispered. “It is yours to make.”

  The senior executive bent down and removed a file folder from the briefcase beside his foot. He had no concern that anyone would see or hear. They sat at his reserved corner table in privacy.

  “Read this.” He passed the file across the restaurant table.

  Kavanaugh opened it and read the single page summary from abroad. Kavanaugh read it once, then again. He began to form a question, but Gruber put a finger to his lips.

  “We’ll talk more about it later.”

  “Why wasn’t this sent to me first?” Kavanaugh insisted. “I would have…”

  “There are still some things that come right to me. Only me. You will insist on the same, but not until…”

  Kavanaugh filled in the thought almost cruelly. “Your passing.”

  Gruber didn’t mind the comment. It was the eagerness. “Read it again. It is the kind of problem that you will have to deal with not just effectively, but exhibiting proper discretion. Not all challenges require the same action. Learn that, you will succeed…” Martin Gruber left the rest of the equation unsaid.

  Twenty

  Makoshika State Park, MT

  Base camp

  “Slow down!” McCauley called.

  Enthusiasm was one thing; recklessness another. McCauley was insistent. “Slow down, Rich.”

  “I’m okay,” Tamburro replied. He was in the lead about twenty yards ahead in the gradually sloping tunnel. The lifeline was still around him with rope also attached to Anna Chohany and anchored by the team that followed.

  “Maybe, but wait.”

  “Okay.” That comment was followed by a discouraging, “Damn.”

  Chohany, caught up. “What’s the problem?”

  Tamburro shined his flashlight at rocks that blocked the way. “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Yup,” Tamburro stated. “End of the line. Looks like a collapse.”

  Now McCauley, Alpert and the others were upon them.

  “What’s up?” the professor asked.

  “We’re fucked.”

  McCauley assessed the obstruction. “Set up two lights facing this mess on either side of the walls. Let’s see what we have here.”

  Rodriguez attached the wiring and the lights. He had two left.

  “Hey, how’s…going…’n th… ?” Tom Trent’s walkie-talkie transmission from outside broke up. “Haven’t check…while.”

  “Say again?” McCauley’s reply was equally poor on the other end.

  “Are…okay?”

  McCauley responded in shorter blasts. “Ok. Blocked tunnel. Repeat. Blocked tunnel.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Hang on.”

  With Rodriguez’s lights in place, McCauley felt around the debris. Some crumbled to his touch. Then he moved to the right side of the tunnel and ran his fingers against the wall.

  “I think this was a natural rock slide and if the petroglyphs were essentially Native American maps, the tunnel continues beyond it.”

  He groped around more. “Mostly loose rock. We might be able to dig through it.

  Again, they didn’t have all the equipment they needed, but there was enough to start: one folding shovel with an axe and two picks.

  “Let’s do this methodically. Rich and I can cut away from the top. Dr. Alpert and Carlos, you can spread out the dirt behind us. Nothing high. Everyone, wear your masks. Keep the dust out of your lungs. If we don’t get anywhere in the next hour, we’ll call it quits. Leslie, have Tom come up with
more water. I think we’ll need it.”

  • • •

  The loosest dirt easily fell away. After forty minutes, they’d cleared two feet of the rock, about three feet high, enough to crawl forward. That’s when McCauley’s pick hit hard rock.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “What is it?” Katrina Alpert asked.

  “Another damned boulder.”

  • • •

  Rich Tamburro joined McCauley in the cramped space. “Give it another tap, Rich,” McCauley said. “Not too hard. But dead center.”

  The Michigan student, on his side, complied. McCauley was sandwiched next to him.

  McCauley cocked his ear to the sound. “Again.” The paleontologist pointed. “Right there.”

  Tamburro tapped again. “What?”

  “Don’t know. Move over. I want to hear.”

  That was easier said than done given the tight quarters. Behind them were Chohany and Rodriguez, ready to pull them out if any dirt and rock above gave way. Alpert was on all fours trying to look in as well.

  McCauley struck the boulder with his pick. The sound, he thought. It didn’t sound right.

  He placed his left ear against the rock, closed his eyes in case any stone splintered off. Again. His eyes popped open.

  “That. Did you hear that?”

  “Yes. The unmistakable sound of a hammer hitting solid rock,” Tamburro joked.

  McCauley rolled on his back and lifted his head. “Half right.”

  “Huh?”

  “Listen.”

  McCauley hit the rock wall to his right. It produced a dull, flat thud. Then he hit the rock in front of them again. It created more of an open sound. McCauley repeated the action and rolled onto his back.

  “And?” he asked, ever the teacher.

  “Thinner.” McCauley explained. “One more time.”

  McCauley tapped again.

  “Or hollow, like a huge geode. Probably easier to roll in and…”

  “Out,” Tamburro said. “Did the Lakota put it there?”

  “We’ll explore that question tomorrow. Enough for today.” McCauley motioned for Tamburro to inch back. “It’s getting late and we need a better plan.”

  He explained the same thing to the others in the cave and then added, “Time to clean up and head to town.”

  “Celebration?” Rodriguez asked.

  “No, just more shopping and some heavy drinking.”

  • • •

  Tamburro returned from the camp shower with only a towel wrapped around his waist. “It’s all yours.”

  Anna Chohany wore only a bathrobe herself. She was typing quickly on her laptop.

  “All yours,” he said again, letting his towel drop down. He was trying to engage Anna. They had not so quietly begun to see each other a few weeks into the summer.

  “Uh huh.” Chohany continued to type.

  “Before someone else takes it,” he added.

  “Uh huh,” she said again. “In a sec.” She finished by moving the cursor up to the send command. “There.”

  Chohany quickly closed down her computer and turned around to see her boyfriend completely naked.

  “Now, what could possibly be on your mind?” she asked.

  It was abundantly obvious.

  “All mine?”

  “You bet.”

  “Good. Then it will also be mine when I get back,” Chohany said, brushing past him.

  “But?”

  “Shower.”

  “Okay, but then no more computer,” he replied. “And we’ll have to make it quick. Doc wants to leave soon.”

  Anna Chohany had already decided she was going to stay at the base camp.

  Twenty-one

  Glendive, MT

  Late afternoon

  The team piled into the Chevy Tahoe for the bumpy off-road ride into town. The first stop was the hardware store. Once loaded up with more supplies, space became much tighter. But it was a short drive to early dinner at Maddhatters Bar.

  For a half hour they just drank. The local hangout had a great assortment of craft beer. Then came an hour of potato skins and shrimp appetizers. Compared to their meager cooking around the campfire, it tasted like Wolfgang Puck himself had been in the Glendive kitchen. Over their steak dinner came free-wheeling conversation, made all the looser by the liquor they consumed.

  • • •

  London

  It was late and Kavanaugh was tired, but Gruber was on one of his rants. Kavanaugh wondered if it was the Amaro they were drinking or if the old man was racing against time himself, knowing he was the slower of the two.

  “Again. Tell me again.” Martin Gruber demanded.

  For weeks on end he believed Gruber was losing control of his faculties. Nonetheless, he responded with the directive drummed into him.

  “We have a tremendous responsibility, sir. On one hand, there is chaos. On the other hand, there is order. We help maintain the order.”

  “Help? Help?” Gruber shouted.

  It was a slip on Kavanaugh’s part.

  “We maintain order.”

  “Yes! It is never help. We do. We simply do. With determination. Unknown to anyone but those we trust. A sworn duty you have accepted and will faithfully abide as if your life depended upon it.”

  Gruber paused for barely a moment. “Because it will.”

  Gruber never talked about anyone who left Autem Semita. The Path. Maybe now was the time to press the issue.

  “Mr. Gruber, you’ve spoken of the men who preceded you. They held the job…”

  “Not a job. Your job is Voyages. Your slips of the tongue are most concerning.”

  “You have no need for concern, sir.”

  “At this point, I would hope not. Your question?”

  Now Kavanaugh was reluctant to ask. He considered another way into the problem, taking himself out of any hypothetical.

  “There are, of course, those who must not have lived up to their responsibility. What if that…”

  Gruber explained.

  • • •

  Maddhatters

  Glendive, MT

  “What I don’t get is how the actual record can be denied,” Tom Trent said.

  They had returned to one of their first discussions, the age of the earth.

  “It’s not like it’s an unsolved mystery for God’s sake.”

  “Interesting choice of words,” Katrina Alpert noted.

  “Well, yes. For God’s sake…for our sake. We can have our beliefs, but we can’t deny the facts.”

  • • •

  London

  “The relationship is for life,” Gruber said. “Once you are fully committed, you enter a holy marriage.”

  “God’s work.” Kavanaugh said.

  “Man’s work. We help God stay right where he belongs.”

  • • •

  Montana

  “It’s still amazing to me that people come with their own set of facts,” Al Jaffe exclaimed.

  “They do,” interjected McCauley. “And successfully. Special interest groups have even blocked the distribution of some publications in national parks that support evolution.”

  “You have a troubled country,” offered the befuddled Spanish student.

  “Conflicted,” Alpert added.

  Lobel jumped in. “Who needs a meteor this time? Ignorance could destroy intelligent life on earth.”

  “Again, think about your words,” McCauley implored. “Not ignorance. Faith.”

  “Supported by?” Lobel shot back.

  “Well, that is the point of delineation,” McCauley concluded. “Considering our argument, two deities. Religion and business. Or, better put, the business of religion.”

  McCauley passed the conversation to Katrina. “Dr. Alpert, your thoughts?”

  The Cambridge professor wasn’t used to this kind of intellectual free-for-all, but her respect for Quinn was growing.

  • • •

  London

 
“The world in balance is a better world,” Gruber continued. “There are those who would prefer that civilization as we know it fall apart. We won’t let that happen. We never have.”

  • • •

  Glendive, MT

  “Okay, take Noah’s Ark. And the flood,” Alpert said.

  “The Russell Crowe movie?” Trent offered.

  “Ah, more the original text,” she added. “But, for the sake of argument, open it up to the millions of species. How would you say Noah got them all on the ark?”

  “Good question, people,” McCauley noted. “Stay with this and try to understand, because you will have to stand up to the positions held by others. And you’ll have to do it reasonably and with reason—in your research, in your departments, and certainly, when you go on the road for speaking engagements. Trust me,” he turned to Katrina Alpert. “You have to develop a thick skin and realize not everyone with a different opinion is out to destroy you.”

  “Just your credibility,” Tamburro interjected.

  “Maybe,” McCauley continued. “So, to Dr. Alpert’s question?”

  “Well, he didn’t take two of each species,” Leslie Cohen volunteered. “He took two of each genus. Not every species of dog, but two dogs. Not every kind of ant, but two ants.”

  “But creationists claim that man and dinosaurs walked hand in claw,” Lobel said. His reference brought a needed chuckle. “Aside from the fact that they didn’t, how would they have gotten onboard?”

  “Can I try this one?” Jaffe asked.

  “Go for it,” Katrina replied.

  “Well, go to the Bible. There are descriptions of ‘behemoths’ and ‘leviathan” which lived with man from the beginning, and they fit dinosaurs more closely than any other animals.”

  “You sound like you support the point of view,” interrupted Lobel.

  “Well, in this argument, yes. And if Noah took only one pair of dinosaurs on the ark, it easily explains how and why the others died. They drowned in the flood.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but dinosaurs could be incredibly big,” Tom Trent stated.