Cosmic Hotel (15 page)

CHAPTER 21

In California, morning light and hammering woke Van Raye. He had once again spent another surprisingly comfortable night wedged against Ruth's hot pregnant body. He lifted his head off the pillow and noticed the cold air coming through his bedroom window, flowing with a velocity that made him understand that the downstairs doors and windows were open, and the work crew had let themselves in for another day.

Ruth shifted in bed next to him, and from downstairs came the screeching of an impact hammer.

He stepped over Ruth's clothes and toed her underwear on the floor, these unsexy men's boxer briefs. What had started out as a one-night stand with an ex-wife had ended up as days of bedroom debauchery, days sequestered in the bedroom with the concert of construction noises playing downstairs, and then the nights in the silence when he and Ruth turned on the Trans-Oceanic radio and listened to the signal bouncing off the space station and down to terrestrial repeaters and broadcasted over Earth for them to catch. Or anyone else, he worried.

Her duffle bag on the dresser had slowly deflated and spewed its content of clothing and books over the room. She had, he worried, quickly made herself back at home here.

He went out on the balcony and looked over his front yard and pulled a metal pipe from his robe's pocket, inspected it, and flicked the lighter and smoked. (In
The Universe Is a Pair of Pants
, in the chapter “Cursing in Sunday School,” he discussed the creative powers unleashed by cannabis.) In the distance, a flock of pigeons flew over the terracotta roofs of the university, first forming a boomerang and then an awkward O.

Down in his front yard he could see the bleached roof of his old Jaguar. When she had gone up to the space station, she'd obviously not stored it inside because now the black roof and hood had been baked for nearly two years in the sun and bore the symmetrical gray ovals of oxidation.

Trucks and vans were parked in his driveway and on his grass. Construction junk littered his property, technically the university's property, and he looked down into the contents of the Dumpster and saw parts of his old house, what he still considered
his
house, though it had been “given” to him by the university when he was hired and was now being taken away. The guest bath's old lime-green toilet was now in the Dumpster, so were the cabinets from over the bar. Van Raye was thinking that once he announced his discovery, the university would not only halt the conversion of his house to an alumni inn, but they would probably give it to him on a permanent basis. But he wasn't ready to tell the world. Not quite yet.

When the computer had kicked out the anomaly, Van Raye had been alone in the control room of the Big Dish antenna, and he'd done something he always promised he wouldn't do at that moment: He piped the actual sound through a headset and listened. The edges of the signal were empty, like an open line on a phone, like a calmer outside layer of a whirlpool, but then fine-tuning onto the planet produced the electronic sparks and pulses, washing of waves, and burps.

Eight hours later, he'd contacted Ruth aboard
Infinity
. She was shocked to hear his voice and see his face on the monitor. He was charming as always, calling her “honey” and “sweetheart” and explaining why he'd called.

Per his request, she'd turned the station's little-used low-gain antenna to the coordinates he'd given her. Her exact words over the secure link to Earth—after the computer confirmed the chance of this “noise” being a random pattern was of the magnitude of 10
^-23
—her words were: “You got something extraterrestrial.”

Van Raye, leaning against the doorframe of his balcony now, smoked his pipe and watched the vehicles in his driveway and yard, observed yet another truck turning slowly into his driveway. Not just another construction truck but one with kennels on the back.
Animals. Animal control?
A gold seal reflected from the door when it opened, and a woman got out, a nice-looking young woman in a tank and a billowing skirt and black tights on her legs and practical tennis shoes, and he heard the dogs in the kennels yelping, lots of dogs.

She opened a kennel box, stuck her head inside, and Van Raye noticed her shapely calves beneath the black material, and the hounds inside the kennels bayed louder as his thoughts went to
shapely calves
and she lifted a gray-haired dog and gently put him on the ground. When she came toward his house, Van Raye instinctively hid behind the wall. Did one of those workers have a dog being delivered? It made no sense.

From the bed, Ruth blinked at him, wondering what he was doing flat against the wall.

The doorbell rang.

He put his finger to his lips.

It rang again.

“
Don't answer it
,” he whispered, though she was only stretching beneath the sheets, giving the headboard an isometric push. “What's happening?” she said.

“
Nothing
.”

When the hammering and sawing on the first floor stopped, a worker's voice yelled up the staircase, “Professor? Professor? Someone's at the door.”

“Shit,” he said.

He went down and through the big living room where workers stared at him in his robe and bare feet, a few mumbling, “Morning, professor.”

He went to the front door, which was propped open with a five-gallon bucket of scrap, and there, on his stoop in the morning light, was the smiling, young attractive woman holding a leash in one hand and an electronic pad in the other. The old gray dog sat calmly on the stones of the stoop, hair shading its eyes.

The woman saw Van Raye and she simply exclaimed, “Wow,” and began shaking her head, “I can't believe it's you . . . I can't believe . . . ”

Being recognized was a fine feeling, like Heineken bubbles popping in your mouth. The dog, he noticed, avoided looking at anyone, eyebrows twitching.

“Hi, darling, what can I do for you?”

The young woman said, “Okay, I look on my list, right, to see who's my next client, right, and I see your name, right, and I'm thinking I won't really see you, but it is you, right?”

Van Raye leaned against the doorframe.

“I can't believe I'm standing on Van Raye's steps. When I was a freshman, I went to your lecture on redshift galaxy formations.”

Normally he could have invited her in. “Fantastic, darling, what can I do for you today?”
Why are attractive people so fascinating?
he thought.

She bent to give the dog a hearty pat on the shoulder, and he admired her bare back between the straps of her double tanks.

“Look who we found here!” she said.

“Who?” he said.

“I bet you missed this boy, didn't you?” She held out the leash for Van Raye.

He took it but then immediately tried to give it back and said, “Oh no, there's some mistake,” he said. The dog sat obediently, tongue out. “This isn't my dog.” He shook the leash for her to take back.

She looked at her electronic pad. “You've got to be kidding me. This isn't Chava?”

“
What did you say?
” he said.

“This isn't Chava? Isn't that a girl's name? Sometimes the scanner picks up another dog in the truck.”

“Let's not say that word.”

“Ah, I'm not saying anything, professor,” she said. “But if this isn't your dog . . . I am so sorry. What kind of dog do you have?”

He glanced behind her for possible eavesdroppers, looked up and down the street at the houses.

“Why do you say that's its name?” he asked. “Who are you?”

“I'm Kathy, an associate at the shelter.” She looked at her pad.

“That's not my dog. I don't know what it is, but it's not mine.” After thinking for a second, he added, “It's impossible for that to be its name.”

She squinted her eyes at him and then looked at the pad. “His name is Chava Norma Raye,” she said. “His registered name.”

“Okay,” he said, “this is not my dog and there is a huge misunderstanding.”

“Hmm . . . a mix up,” she said.

She pressed buttons on the pad, knelt and touched the pad to the dog's neck. The dog held its breath and there was a pleasant chime. “It might have scanned a nearby chip . . . ” she said, “that happens sometimes.”

“That can't be the dog's name,” he said.

“Ah, yes.” She stood up. “You are Charles Van Raye. And this is definitely . . . Chava Norma, registered to you at this address.” She turned the pad so he could see. “This is you, and this is Chava. Do you call him Chava or Norma? I think he's underweight. How long has he been gone? Maybe you don't recognize him.”

“He hasn't been
gone
,” Van Raye said. “Can you change that?”

“Change what?”

“The name,” he said.

“Sure,” she said. “I mean, you'll have to fill out the necessary forms, but you can change your dog's name, though at this age we don't really suggest it. He'll always respond to Chava,” and she rubbed the dog's ears. “Good boy, good boy, Chava.”

“Please stop saying that!”

She considered his face and then his robe. Was he crazy? The dog didn't seem to mind that anything was going on around him. He panted. Slobber was about to drop.

“I'm very confused,” Van Raye said, “where did he come
from
?”

“Probably a Good Samaritan picked him up and brought him to the animal welfare center. Happens all the time. Can you just sign here?”

“I can't sign, this isn't my dog! I've never seen this dog in my life.” He looked behind her at the houses across the street as if neighbors would see him.

“He's been your dog—the records show . . . ” the woman glanced at the registry, “for seven years.”

“Seven years? Wait. I have a theory,” he said, “could someone be doing this to me? There are parties interested in harassing me. I have several ex-wives.”

“Ah, professor . . . ” she said, “this isn't a joke. These records are meticulous. No one can register you as an animal parent except you. You are accepting responsibility for your family member, aren't you?”

“Absolutely not,” he said.

He thought about the dog's name. How had that happened? It was the name of the exoplanet, given by some other astronomer years ago,
existing in the registry of known exoplanets among several thousands, and he'd discovered the Sound coming from this Chava Norma and now a dog shows up on his steps with the same name. It made no sense. Someone was behind this. He would take the dog and have the name changed with as little ordeal as possible and give the dog back to the shelter and someone's little harassing joke would be over. Someone less dense than this woman would understand.

“Professor?” she said. She handed him a pamphlet and turned to take experimental steps away from him and the dog.

He realized he was still holding the leash. Van Raye mumbled, “This isn't my dog, but it
will
be straightened out.”

When she was going toward the truck, she glanced over her shoulder and stopped. “Ah, Dr. Van Raye, it is my responsibility to tell you that the Veterinary and Animal Society, and I'm sure the university, takes dog abandonment very seriously. You do know it's punishable by municipal laws?”

“I didn't abandon this dog!”

“Good,” she said and kept going.

He started back into the house, kicking a box of construction scrap over with his bare foot. The dog stretched the leash to get away from the sound, and he dropped it but the dog stood still. He heard the animal welfare truck beep backward down his driveway.

He turned the pamphlet over. It was titled, “How to Welcome Your Dog Back Home”:

       
#1: Although you might be angry at your dog for running away, welcome him or her back with open arms, enthusiasm, and love!

He bent down and unhooked the leash. The dog didn't move, still panting, cocking his brows. Dogs, he thought, were the best creatures at pretending nothing was going on.

He left it downstairs, the dog free to go on about its business in the world. Maybe a worker in the other room would take it. He hated them all, them turning his house into something he didn't want.

Upstairs, without the dog, he found Ruth standing topless by the open window, wearing only those ugly briefs pulled below her slightly swollen belly. She'd told him that she was eighteen weeks “along,” and to him the belly looked like she'd drunk a milkshake—maybe two milkshakes and a few beers—and the skin was stretched tight enough to be mottled red, and her breasts hung full. She leaned against the wall and smoked as she studied the world outside the open patio doors, the canopy of trees.

“You shouldn't be smoking,” he said still standing in the doorway.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

Ruth Christmas was the only other person in the world who knew that Chava Norma was the planet in question. The dog had to be Ruth's doing, he thought, but she wasn't a person to play a joke.