They moved into the library while a member of staff arranged the call.
Jonathan cleared a space beside the telephone and laid out Isobel’s report. The photograph remained inside the folder. He had considered putting it on the table, then found no reason to do so that he wanted Mara to notice.
Kane drew a chair beside Elena. Sal settled against her, sleepy after the day’s excitement, while Daniel stood near the window with Mara. Vale remained at the end of the table.
The telephone rang.
Jonathan lifted the receiver.
“Yes?”
A man spoke briefly, then there was a click and a stretch of quiet broken by a faint hiss.
“Mr Reed?”
Her voice was lower than he had expected.
“Jonathan, please.”
“Isobel Rojas.”
“Thank you for speaking to us. I’ve put everyone through rather a long evening already.”
“Here it’s still afternoon.”
He glanced at the dark window.
“Then I’m only responsible for ours.”
He heard a small movement at the other end, followed by what might have been a laugh.
“There are several people here,” he said. “Would you mind if I put you on the speaker?”
“Are they the people Professor Valdés told me about?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Jonathan pressed the button and placed the receiver in its cradle. Her voice emerged more faintly from the telephone on the desk.
“Can you hear me?”
Everyone answered at once. Sal lifted his head. Jonathan held up a hand.
“We can. I apologise. We’ve only recently learned to do anything together.”
This time, the laugh was unmistakable.
At La Silla, Isobel sat with the telephone between her notebook and a pile of observations she had been trying to put into order.
Ernesto stood in the doorway. She beckoned him in and moved a chair with her foot.
“Professor Valdés said you recognised the drawing,” she said.
Jonathan looked at the four cases on the table.
“We did.”
“Where have you seen it?”
“In objects we have with us.”
Ernesto stopped halfway into his chair.
Isobel reached for the page on which she had drawn the pattern from the control file.
“The central stone and the five around it?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Ernesto. He sat down slowly.
“How many?”
“Four.”
“But the message said six.”
“We believe there are two more.”
“And you know where they are?”
“That’s what I hoped you might help us with.”
Isobel leaned back. She had expected questions about the telescope faults, perhaps a request to examine the equipment. For several days, people had listened carefully while deciding how much of her account to believe.
Now a man in England was telling her that the thing she had drawn existed.
“Before we discuss that,” she said, “I need you to understand what we’ve found.”
Jonathan drew his notebook closer.
“Please.”
She began with the observations.
Other sites had confirmed the object. Its movement was real, its distance no longer depended on her measurements alone, and the growing sequence of positions had allowed them to discard several reassuring explanations.
Jonathan listened without interrupting. When she paused, Kane leaned towards the telephone.
“Is it coming here?”
“To Earth?”
“Yes.”
“We haven’t confirmed an impact.”
Elena’s hand settled over Sal’s.
“But we haven’t excluded one,” Isobel continued. “As we improve the orbit, the range of possible paths becomes smaller. Earth is still within it.”
Daniel turned from the window.
“How large is it?”
“We’re refining that too. Brightness tells us how much light reaches us, but to turn that into a diameter we need to know how reflective the surface is. A darker object must be larger to produce the same brightness.”
“And your estimate?”
There was a brief silence.
“Large enough that an impact would have consequences far beyond the place it struck.”
Mara moved closer to Daniel.
“Professor Valdés called it a possible global catastrophe,” Jonathan said.
“He was being careful.”
“So are you.”
“Yes.”
Jonathan rested his pencil on the page.
“Isobel, how worried are you?”
At the observatory, she looked down at the figures she had checked so often that she could have written them from memory.
“Very.”
No one in the library spoke.
She allowed them a moment before continuing.
“We’re also revising the velocity. The early observations gave us too much room to underestimate it. It’s travelling faster than I first calculated.”
“How much time do we have?” Kane asked.
“I’ll send you the latest estimates. But I don’t want to give you a date over the telephone that becomes a promise. There are people checking this now who understand exactly what’s at stake.”
Vale leaned forward.
“And the equipment?”
Isobel glanced towards Ernesto.
“It’s helping.”
She told them about the repeated movements, the comparison stars and the sequences she had initially mistaken for faults.
Ernesto corrected one detail quietly. She thanked him, then explained that the telescope had begun directing her towards observations she could use, provided she checked them independently.
“You speak as though someone is doing it,” Jonathan said.
“I know.”
“Have you found who?”
“No.”
“Could someone be operating the system remotely?”
“Ernesto has been looking for that.”
The technician bent towards the telephone.
“If they are, they’ve chosen a complicated way to be useful.”
Jonathan smiled faintly.
“I’m familiar with the type.”
Vale looked at him.
Isobel heard a chair move at the other end.
“I call it a ghost in the system,” she said. “That began as a complaint. Now I’m not sure what else to call it.”
“Does it answer you?” Daniel asked.
“Sometimes I get the observation I’ve said I need. Sometimes I get nothing. I can’t tell how much it understands.”
She looked again at the drawing.
“But it put this into the control file. And you’re telling me you have four objects that match it.”
“We do,” Daniel said.
“Who are you?”
The question was quiet enough to make Jonathan look up. He glanced around the table. Daniel came closer to the telephone.
“My name is Daniel Ashcroft. I wish I had a better answer.”
“You’re not astronomers.”
“No.”
“Engineers?”
“Jonathan can take things apart,” Mara said.
“Usually on purpose,” Jonathan added.
Isobel smiled, but waited.
“We’ve had experiences we can’t explain,” Daniel said. “These objects respond to us. To particular people.”
“Bearing their own,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
Her pencil rested on those words in the notebook.
“And creation?”
Daniel looked at Mara.
“That may mean me.”
Isobel heard the uncertainty in his voice. It made the answer more difficult to dismiss.
“What does that mean?”
“I think it would be better to show you.”
Ernesto met her gaze.
After a moment, she said, “All right.”
Jonathan turned the regional map towards himself.
“There’s something else. A map we copied in Istanbul seems to indicate the area around La Silla.”
“How old?”
“We don’t know.”
“What does it show?”
“A coastline, mountains and an enclosure with six marks. Two objects are drawn beside them.”
“The missing two?”
“We think so.”
Isobel asked him to send a copy. Jonathan promised to fax it as soon as they finished.
“I’ve been reading about the rock engravings,” he continued. “The survey made in 1990. Apparently there are photographs in your library.”
“There are.”
“Have you looked at them?”
“No. I’ve spent rather more time looking upwards.”
“I’d be grateful if we could see them when we arrive.”
“When are you arriving?”
He glanced at Vale.
The older man nodded.
“As soon as we can arrange it.”
Isobel pulled a fresh page towards her.
“How many of you?”
Jonathan counted, although he knew the answer.
“Ten. Including a child.”
Elena looked at Kane. He waited for her to speak.
She leaned towards the telephone.
“I’m his mother. Will there be somewhere for him to sleep?”
“Yes,” Isobel said. “We’ll arrange rooms. And you won’t have to bring him into the observing rooms at night.”
“He’ll object to that,” Kane said.
Sal had begun listening again.
“I’m not tired.”
Elena brushed his hair from his forehead.
“That’s what he’ll say.”
Isobel wrote down the number.
“Let Professor Valdés know your flight details. We’ll arrange transport from the airport and make sure the people at the gate are expecting you.”
“Thank you,” Elena said.
The practical exchange eased something in the room. Jonathan could see it in the way Kane sat back, in Daniel reaching for a chair at last. Until now, Chile had been a place on the map. Someone there was preparing beds for them.
The others began talking quietly while Jonathan checked that Isobel had the right fax number.
She asked him to take her off the speaker for a moment. He lifted the receiver.
“Is there something else?”
“Those objects. Please bring them.”
“We will.”
“All four?”
“Yes.”
She breathed out.
“I’ve been trying to decide whether I’ve imagined significance in something meaningless.”
“You haven’t.”
“You sound certain.”
“About that, I am.”
He looked at the cases, then at the folder beneath his hand.
“About most of the rest, I’d welcome assistance.”
“Then you should know I’ve never found a buried artefact.”
“I’ve only recently started.”
“Successfully?”
“Complicated question.”
He heard her laugh again, and found himself wishing the connection were clearer.
“I’ll find the photographs,” she said.
“I appreciate it.”
“You’ll have to explain your map when you get here.”
“I’ll try.”
“And Mr Reed?”
“Jonathan.”
“Get some sleep before you travel. I’m beginning to think someone should.”
He looked at the notes covering the table.
“I could offer you the same advice.”
“Ernesto does. Regularly.”
“Does it work?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll wait until we’ve met before joining him.”
For a moment, neither spoke.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said.
“Yes.”
He remained with the receiver against his ear until the line clicked.
Vale went to arrange the aircraft.
Lucía accompanied Elena upstairs so she could telephone her sister before it grew too late in Chicago. Sal wanted to know whether Chile had horses, and Mara promised they could ask when they arrived.
Kane waited until the boy had left before approaching Jonathan.
“Anything she didn’t want the rest of us to hear?”
“Only that we should bring the objects.”
Kane studied him briefly, then nodded.
Jonathan fed a copy of the map into the fax machine. He watched the paper move beneath the rollers, thinking of Isobel sitting beside another machine thousands of miles away.
Mara remained near the door.
“Did you get your photographs?”
“She’s finding them.”
“Good.”
He glanced towards her.
She was smiling.
“Have you packed?”
“No.”
“Neither have I.”
She left before he could decide whether anything else needed saying.
Jonathan returned to the table and opened the folder. He checked that the survey pages were together, placed his tracing above them and slipped Isobel’s photograph between the cover and her report.
Then he went upstairs.
At La Silla, Ernesto collected the fax as it emerged.
He brought it to Isobel without speaking.
She spread the map beside her own drawing. The six narrow marks were less familiar than the shapes beside them.
Those she recognised immediately.
For several moments, they studied the two pages.
“Four,” Ernesto said at last.
“That’s what he told me.”
“And two somewhere here.”
“They hope.”
He looked towards the window. Afternoon light lay across the bare slopes, revealing scattered stones and the road winding away below them.
“Where do we begin?”
“The library.”
Isobel gathered the pages.
Outside the office, someone called for her. Another set of observations had arrived.
She stopped in the doorway, caught between the map in her hand and the figures waiting down the corridor.
Ernesto held out his hand.
“I’ll find the photographs.”
She gave him the map.
“Don’t lose that.”
He looked at the two small shapes.
“I wasn’t planning to.”