The Twelve Stones (9 page)

He was back at Stanford. Tonight was different. Tonight
,
he finally agreed to go out with his friend to his
f
raternity’s end
-
of
-
the
-
year
Casino Party. Through the years, Alex had an active social life at college, but he wasn't the party type, preferring instead to concentrate on his studies.

His goal
in
coming to Stanford was to major in Engineering and Architecture. The hours spent working with his father building the house in Onyx back home had influenced him to pursue a career working with his hands, hopefully someday designing homes that were completely self-sufficient, without any need for outside energy. The grad school applications were now beginning to flow in, but Alex wasn’t sure about where that would lead him.

Alex swallowed the remaining beer in his cup and debated whether he should have another or return home to the apartment Scott and he shared just outside of campus. Scott had disappeared earlier in the evening with a sorority girl on each arm, and that meant
that
Alex
, like a good roommate,
probably shouldn’t return to his apartment for another couple of hours. Alex sighed, deciding to have another beer. However long that took would be however long Scott had.

Alex walked back to the center of the room
,
where a keg was standing in a tub full of melting ice. He pushed the pump at the top of the silver keg, holding his cup under the spigot.
As he depressed
the end, the cheap beer sprayed out all over his cup and hand, leaving most of his beverage on the floor.

“Need some help with that?”

Alex looked up
and saw
an angel. She stood, her arms, folded across her chest as a smile spread
over
her full, pouty lips. She looked at the keg and stepped forward, grabbing the spigot out of Alex’s hands. She began to pump the top of the keg, and took Alex’s cup.

“I never thought I’d have to teach a frat guy how to pour a beer out of a keg.” She stopped pumping and let the beer flow out of the spigot. Tilting the cup back up, she handed it to Alex, who had yet to say anything clever at all.

“See how easy it is when you follow directions?” She was being a smart ass, but Alex didn’t care. All he could see was her jet black hair, the ringlets of her curls falling across her face and back. She was five feet, seven inches of beauty
,
unlike anyone Alex had ever seen before.

She paused, uncertain what to make of Alex’s gaping jaw.

“I know we’re the big city and everything, but you’ve had to have seen a beer keg before right?” Emily asked, trying to make Alex laugh.

“I ahh, yeah, of course I have.” Alex stammered. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a party that had a keg in the middle of the room. Most of the parties I’ve gone to, all we do is bring computers, and a two liter of our favorite soda.” He swallowed, suddenly aware of how nerdy he was sounding. “Mine’s Mountain Dew.”

She laughed. Alex had never heard anything sweeter.

“Of course it is.” She began filling up her own cup. Once finished, she turned to Alex, nibbling on the top of the red plastic cup.

“I’m Emily,” she said sweetly, extending her right hand. Her eyes were the deepest blue Alex had ever seen. He realized after a moment that she had just introduced herself and he should respond before the moment got too long. Alex grasped her hand and awkwardly shook it.

“Alex.” Alex replied, finding more confidence. “I’m an architect
ure
major.”

“
Architect
ure,
huh?” She chewed the top of her cup some more and smiled. “Here I was thinking I was wasting my money at Stanford, then you come along and tell me you’re an architect.”

“
Why?” Alex began feeling flush under his collar. Who was she to attack his career choice? “What are you gonna do with yourself?”

“
Oh, only answer mankind’s longest
-
living question.”

“
How’s that?” Alex challenged. “What, you curing cancer?”

“
I listen for radio signals from outer space. ET phoning home and all that.” Emily’s eyes flashed, daring Alex to mock her. She was used to being made fun of for her choice of major. The idea there was intelligent life out in the cosmos had fascinated her for a long time. There was nothing like a big unanswered question to Emily
,
and whether there was alien life among the stars ranked as the biggest to her.

Her parents had been disappointed, but supportive. Her friends from high school
,
who didn’t understand it, laughed at her, and most men she met were put off by the combination of her brains and the fact she believed in extraterrestrial life. So it was a pleasant surprise when she saw his face light up.

“
Like Jodie Foster in
Contact?
” Alex asked excitedly.

“
Yeah, but without the whole lesbian vibe.” She said smiling, “Not that there’s…”

“…
Anything wrong with that.” Alex finished.

They smiled, Alex extended
his
cup, and they clinked them together.

“
You know, without a foot in my mouth, I promise, I’m much more debonair and charming.”

“Is that so?” Emily asked a glint in her eye. “What sort of debonair are we talking? Should I be expecting Cary Grant status or George Clooney?”

“George Clooney is a hack TV doctor that won’t last the decade.” Alex proclaimed. “He’s a pale imitation of Cary Grant.”

Emily shrieked and slapped Alex on the arm, “Are you crazy? Clooney kills it every time he gets on screen.”

“Are you insane? I’ll put
North by Northwest
up against any Clooney movie anytime.”

“You have obviously never seen
Ocean’s 11.
” Emily said
,
fuming. “I have a copy back at my dorm. Come on.” She grabbed Alex’s coat and began dragging him out of the party. “You’re watching
Ocean’s 11,
and afterwards, you’ll have some delicious words to eat.”

Alex, bemused at her energy, allowed himself to be dragged out of the room.

They had returned to her dorm where they hadn’t lasted fifteen minutes. By the time Brad Pitt and George Clooney met up for the first time in the flick, the two of them were
too
busy making out with each other
to watch the movie
.

They lay in each other’s arms, exhausted from their youthful vigor. He played with stray bits of her curly brunette hair, moving them each one at a time.

“Why do you look for them?” He had asked her.

“For who?” She murmured.

“Aliens
,
I guess.” Alex said. “I mean, I know
Star Wars
and
Star Trek,
and pretty much every movie in Hollywood has us convinced there are
a
liens
out there, but in the whole entire experience of mankind, there’s not a shred of evidence they exist.”

“This is some sexy pillow talk you know that?” Emily chuckled. She turned, kissing Alex on the cheek. It was rare feeling, but she felt incredibly safe with this man who had wrapped his arms around her. He had been a pretty good lover too, and that was probably rarer than extraterrestrial life.

“I'm just saying, you know, don't get me wrong, the whole idea of aliens is fascinating to me, but we’ve never got any proof of them. So, why aliens?”

“For one, there's a lot more to it than just aliens. I also do a lot of really fascinating radio astronomy, charting supernovas, the center of the galaxy
,
that kind of thing.

“Yeah, but you said
a
liens...” Alex accused playfully.

“Well, then, I'll give you the same answer anyone in my field would give you. The Drake equation.” She replied.

“Drake equation?” Alex thought to himself
.
“
S
ounds
familiar.”

“It's pretty famous
.
Y
ou
probably read about it in some bad science fiction novel trying to rationalize aliens in their story or whatever. But, yeah, back in the 60’s
,
the founder of the Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence
, Frank Drake
,
wrote a formula determining just how many radio
-
transmitting civilizations there might be out there. The formula’s not really anything too serious, since we don’t
really
know all the answers to the variables in there, but it is a good and simple little math equation that can give you an idea how many
might
be out there. Some of the values we know a lot about, and we can plug those no problem into the formula, like the rate of star formation in our galaxy for example.”

“
What else do you use?” Alex asked fascinated. He loved hearing her talk, though since she had just slept with him, she could be reading him the phone book, and he would have been just as fascinated.

“
Well, from that, we take
,
umm, how many of those stars have habitable planets, which we don’t really know, but for the sake of argument, let's call it ten percent. Then a fraction of those planets that develop life, a fraction of those that get intelligent life, and the fraction of those that are broadcasting, and then however long they broadcast for, surviving technology and all that of course, and voila!”

“
We’ve got how many ET’s are out there.” Alex said, not really getting it. He was too busy staring at her eyes.

“
Bingo.” Emily smiled at the man in bed with her. It felt comfortable.

“What do you mean
,
‘
survive technology
’
?” Alex asked bemused.

“Well, I think Drake looked at us as an example for a lot of things, and since we’re so great at killing each other, and finding new ways to kill each other, he put a variable that asks how many civilizations can get past killing each other. I mean, you gotta remember, he came up with the equation during the height of the Cold War. He has a pretty good point. Plus, science is only going to get faster from here
,
you know. Pretty soon we’ll have some pretty unimaginable stuff, and how long do you really think we can avoid killing ourselves?”

Emily slumped back in bed. It was the most depressing part of the Drake equation. The
n
umber of civilizations had to equal
at least
one
,
as it included humanity
,
but the lack of results in finding other intelligent life so far did not bode well for the overall survivability of a species in the universe. The idea that humanity wouldn’t make it past their technological phase of development was the most ominous part of the Drake equation to Emily.

Alex swallowed, “I didn’t mean to bring you down.” He touched her face and smiled
.
“I’m just trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of Emily Smith. She’s a pretty lady that I’d like to know better.”

She smiled, and they fell back into each other’s arms. The sense of dread Emily had experience
d
melted away the moment Alex kissed her. This was something she thought she could get used to pretty quick
ly
.

The images faded away as Alex awoke with a metallic taste in his mouth. The world appeared fuzzy around him, but it slowly came back into focus as he remembered where he was and how he had gotten there.

Alex struggled to move his legs, and found that his body was not cooperating with the orders he gave it. His painful gasps were only getting worse. He had survived some pretty harsh conditions and even some pretty bad field wounds, but never anything like this, and Alex didn’t have any options or help this time.

The brush around him was becoming shapeless as precious oxygen left Alex’s starved brain cells. In the distance he thought he could hear his father urging him to get up and keep moving.

It was then
that
Alex spotted a hungry
-
looking coyote
.
It
began to close in on Alex,
its
wounded prey and meal for the evening.
It kept its movements slow and cautious. Man
, even
in his
dying
throes,
could be dangerous,
it knew,
but the coyote had waited for a meal this long. It could wait a few more minutes.

Alex watched the animal move closer to him, a sense of dread
fill
ing
his stomach. The animal was quite large, and its fiery red eyes pierced into Alex's soul. For a moment, Alex thought he was hallucinating
;
he thought he could see a stone matching the one his father had given him hanging off the top of the coyote’s ear.