Montaro Caine (14 page)

“Obviously,” Colette had told Chasman, “since we are not trained astronomers, it would be impossible for me, Mr. Freich, or Mr. Hargrove to explain in detail why your services are needed, but Flugle and Welbocht would very much like your assistance.”

“We are prepared,” Hargrove said, “to pay whatever fee you deem appropriate, of course, and to fly you to Geneva and back. One or two days is all it will take.”

Dr. Chasman spoke directly to Freich. “But you’ve given me no information at all about the nature of the project. Assistance pertaining to what? The field of astronomy is as wide as the cosmos itself. And, forgive me, but you speak as if my expertise covers it all.” Still, Chasman’s curiosity had already been whetted.

Now, as he stood in Geneva in the customs line waiting to be processed, Dr. Chasman watched Colette Beekman, who was being greeted by an adoring smile from the tall, blond-haired customs agent who had processed her many times before. The young man had rescued her on numerous occasions from the backs of long, slow lines and Colette paid him well in warm smiles and, occasionally, with flattery.

After Dr. Chasman finally made his own way through the line, he joined Beekman and Freich, who led him out of the terminal building to the pickup area, where two black sedans awaited, their drivers standing like statues by the vehicles’ open doors.

“Hello, Charles,” Colette greeted her driver as she approached the car.

“Welcome home, Mademoiselle,” he replied cheerily.

“Thank you,” she added, and turned to face Dr. Chasman, offering her hand. “I hope you enjoy Lausanne. It’s lovely this time of year.”

“I’m sure I will.” He watched Colette step into her sedan before he got into the back of the second car with Herman Freich.

In the front sedan, which was heading toward Colette Beekman’s family estate, Colette felt comfortably reassured, the way she always
felt when she returned home. But as he sat beside Herman Freich in the back of the vehicle that was headed toward Johann Flugle’s home, Michael Chasman’s emotions were more complicated. He could not help but recall the last time he had come here with Lena; though she had already fallen ill, he had never allowed himself to consider that it would be the last time the two of them would travel together, and he never would have been able to imagine that he would return here without her.

As the car sped toward Lausanne, Chasman tried to linger on the most romantic of his recollections, partly for the comfort they brought him and partly to make sure they were still vivid and bright. As long as his memories kept the good times in focus, he hoped he would be able to continue staving off a sense of having been cheated by life.

Johann Flugle, doctor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Geneva, lived in a modest cottage situated next to a small vineyard on the outskirts of Lausanne. Chasman and Freich were greeted by Johann Flugle and Flugle’s German colleague Dr. Gertz Welbocht, doctor of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg. Flugle, in his early seventies, was tall and slender and looked as though he had been a playboy in years past. Welbocht was the younger man and yet he looked older—what was left of his hair was gray and his stomach hung over his belt.

“It was good of you to come, Doctor,” said Flugle, while Gertz Welbocht’s analytical eyes measured the American astronomer with a steady gaze. “Both Gertz and I are greatly honored by your presence. Come.” Flugle gestured with his arm as he moved toward the house. “Let’s get you settled, give you time to freshen up a bit, and then we’ll have lunch. Were you able to sleep well on the plane?”

“Not too badly. I don’t require as much as I used to,” said Chasman, falling into step beside his host.

“Yes,” Flugle chuckled. “For some of us, that goes for a hell of a lot more than sleep, I’m afraid. Though I sometimes wonder, is it that we really don’t require it, or is it that we’ve simply developed the habit of doing without it?” Then, over his shoulder to Freich, who was walking a few steps behind with Welbocht, he asked, “What do you say to that, Herman?”

“I think the body speaks to itself about its own needs, and sleep is no exception,” responded Freich.

“Which is to say, you don’t have a list of what you no longer require much of,” said Flugle with a wry smile.

“Correct. But which is also not to say that time and gravity won’t eventually force its own list on those of us who are reluctant to bow prudently to the irrefutable fact that we grow old and die,” said Freich.

“Only if we’re lucky do we grow old and die,” said Gertz Welbocht. “Only if we’re lucky.”

A splendid lunch was served in the garden; one, Chasman surmised, that was meant to put him at ease, for no mention at all was made of the reasons he had been asked to come all the way to Switzerland. Conversation was wide-ranging and included the tennis prowess of Roger Federer, the dangers of nuclear weapons development in Iran, and famine and unrest in northern Africa. Indeed, it seemed to Dr. Chasman that astronomy was the only subject that his hosts were specifically avoiding.

Once lunch was over, the men moved inside to Flugle’s cozy study and settled themselves comfortably around a table that had been dressed for the occasion: notepads, pencils, carafes of spring water, glasses, ashtrays, and, for Dr. Flugle’s sweet tooth, a bowl of individually wrapped chocolate-covered caramels. Flugle ate a pair of candies, washed them down with half a glass of water, then cleared his throat.

“Michael,” Flugle began, speaking in a soft, serious voice and looking steadily into Chasman’s eyes. “Let me get right to the point. Twenty-six years ago, you happened to come into contact with a very unusual object—a coin that appeared to predate even the oldest known civilizations. On the face of that coin was a remarkable configuration of the star Sirius, its companion star, and other nearby stars. Each star or configuration was fixed precisely where modern astronomy has confirmed it to be, with one distinct exception. Assuming you can recall the coin after such a long time, we would like—first of all—for you to comment, if you will, on that one distinct exception.”

Chasman was caught off guard. How did these men know about
the coin, he wondered. Were these the mysterious owners his friend Howard Mozelle had never told him about? And if so, why, after all these years, had they come into the open? And why had they called him and not Mozelle?

Flugle, Freich, and Welbocht sat patiently, awaiting the American’s response.

Chasman removed his glasses, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger, as if trying to pull a faded image back to memory. A heavy, palpable quiet hung in the room until Chasman asked, “Is this in some way related to the project we’re here to discuss?”

“It is,” replied Flugle.

“Well, that’s news. I take it you have proof that this coin, or whatever it is, actually exists?”

“We have.”

“Can you tell me under what circumstances it was supposed to have first been brought to my attention?”

“We won’t ask you to betray confidences, Doctor. But we know beyond question that the coin exists. Our knowledge of the coin goes far beyond its mere existence.”

Flugle looked away from Chasman to Freich and made a beckoning motion with his head. Freich reached for the briefcase he had placed on the floor next to his chair and lifted it onto the table. Not until Freich opened the case did Chasman realize that Freich had been carrying Colette Beekman’s briefcase since they had left the plane. He found it strange that Freich should have it now when it had never left Beekman’s side at Chappaqua or on the plane.

Freich lifted a small velvet box from the case, passed it to Flugle, then closed the case again. Suddenly, in spite of himself, Chasman flushed with excitement.

Welbocht edged forward in his chair as Dr. Flugle lifted the lid of the tiny box. Flugle then turned the box in the palm of his hand until it faced Dr. Chasman. He tilted it slowly forward, inviting his guest to examine more closely the object that lay on the maroon satin cushion. Dr. Chasman fumbled in his breast pocket for his reading glasses.

It was not the same coin; Chasman knew that immediately. Nevertheless, he studied the face of the object thoroughly to make absolutely sure.

“It’s very similar,” said Chasman. “But there is, to use your phrase, ‘one distinct exception.’ ”

“You’re certain of that?” asked Flugle.

Chasman looked down again. He matched the face of the coin to the one in his memory. Then he picked up the coin and lifted it as close to his own face as his bifocals would allow. One by one, arresting similarities drew his attention, but the dissimilarity piqued his interest even more. In the first coin, a moon seemed to be orbiting the star Sirius, a moon that, as far as he was aware, had never been detected by modern science. On this coin, however, no such moon was present.

“No question,” answered Chasman. “If you were under the impression that this was the same coin that was brought to me, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“My apologies, Doctor,” said Flugle. “I did not mean to question your recollection.”

“Similar, yes,” Chasman said. “Identical in some ways, if you allow for subtle differences such as the position of Reigel and Balustrade to the star Sirius. In this configuration, both Reigel and Balustrade are each found where the other should be—as they would appear looking back at them from deep space. Up close, though, as you know, such subtle differences become cosmic divergences of massive proportions. However, to answer your question, I am certain this coin is not the one I saw.”

Chasman passed the coin back to Flugle, and as he did, he wondered why these men had really asked him to come. It seemed unlikely that he had been summoned to simply comment on that “one distinct exception” on the face of the original coin. Surely, Flugle and Welbocht knew as much as he did about the strangeness of the moon that orbited Sirius on the first coin and its absence on this one. Assuming they hadn’t brought him all this way to discuss a fake coin, the object here must bear some genuine relation to the original, he thought, possibly even to the point of also having unknown elements
in its composition. The coins were probably companion pieces, designed and created as a unit: two halves of a single whole.

Herman Freich interrupted Chasman’s thoughts by abruptly reaching into Beekman’s briefcase for a large manila envelope, which he then slid across the table to Flugle.

Flugle, with gentle deliberation, pulled out three eight-by-ten-inch photographs and laid them before Chasman as if he were exposing cards in a poker game. Chasman’s eyes widened. The face of the original coin, magnified approximately one hundred times, stared up at him. He could see the moon orbiting Sirius, big as a coin.

Now Chasman knew why he had been invited here—his hosts wanted to be sure, beyond all doubt, that they were not being drawn into some elaborate hoax, that these were, in fact, photos of the coin he had held twenty-six years earlier. He looked up speechless at the three men in turn, then looked back down to focus on detail after detail of the images before him.

Chasman reached across the table toward the velvet box. “May I?” he asked.

“Of course,” Flugle said.

Chasman picked up the box, held it close to the pictures, and looked repeatedly from the small coin to each of the photos. He was surprised at how exactly he had retained those details in his memory over so many years. “Oh my, oh my,” was all he could say; his hand trembled so much that he finally set the box back on the table.

Then Chasman spoke. “This coin was brought to me by a friend whose name I am not at liberty to divulge, though I would venture you already know it,” he said. “In any case, my friend was representing someone who preferred to remain anonymous. My friend thought I could be instrumental in having the object analyzed. I took it to another friend, a metallurgist, whose assistant did the actual workup. That young man discovered some extraordinary and puzzling facts about the object. I returned the object to my friend, who presumably passed it on to the owner. In the meantime, my metallurgist friend and his assistant were so intrigued by their findings that they asked if I could arrange for them to have a second, more in-depth encounter with the coin. I tried, but the owner refused.

“That, in a nutshell, gentlemen, is the history of my contact with the item. I never discovered who the owner was, and I don’t know where the coin is now.” With a mischievous glint in his eyes, Chasman looked at Flugle, then at Welbocht. “Do you?” He was greeted with silence.

“At present, we are much more interested in your conclusions about the design on the face of this object,” Flugle said, pointing to one of the photographs.

Chasman raised his right hand under his chin and rubbed his fingers back and forth. Then, after studying Flugle for a moment, he spoke. “I’m not sure I know any more than you do. But in my opinion, whenever and however this coin was created, the markings on its face are, either by accident or design, an exact miniaturization of Sirius and the local group of stars around it, with the sole exception of this unexplained object here that appears to be a moon. But I believe you are aware of that as well. I can also say that the coin seems to be older than any civilization we know of that might have had the technical capabilities to produce it. That’s about all I can say.”

“We would very much appreciate it, Doctor, if you would consider incorporating your opinions in a formal, written statement,” said Flugle.

“I will consider it,” Chasman said, though the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had no intention of doing so. He was a cautious man, unwilling to attest to something that, as of now, was little more than conjecture.

Later that day, on the pretext of wanting to visit with an old friend in Lausanne, Chasman approached Flugle to ask if he could arrange for a rental car.

“A car will be here within the hour,” promised Flugle, adding, “Can we expect you back for dinner by nine?”

“If lunch was an indication of what dinner will be like, wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” Chasman replied.