Читать книгу The Tower: Part Four - Simon Toyne, Simon Toyne - Страница 6

Shepherd burst from the interview room and headed across the almost empty office with Franklin following close behind. ‘It was during summer break at the end of the first year of my master’s,’ he said, bundling the laptop back in its case as he walked. ‘I was at Marshall working as a lab monkey in data analysis, cataloguing all the new stuff that was pouring in from Hubble. James Webb had just been green lit and Professor Douglas was in charge, though he hadn’t put his team together yet. It was really hot that year and everyone else seemed to be on holiday. Me and a couple of other research students were the only ones doing any work.’

They pushed through a set of double doors out to the main stairway and started heading back down to the reception area. ‘One Friday a few weeks into our placement Professor Douglas popped his head round the door and told us all to go back to the dorm we were staying in and pack for a two-day trip. We had no idea what he had planned but he was the boss so we did as we were told.

‘He picked us up in his old jeep and we headed east. We thought maybe he was taking us to one of the other launch areas but we drove right past them and kept on going. He said it was good to go back to basics every once in a while, remind yourself what it was all about, and that was what we were going to do: no hi-tech, no computers, just a simple reflector telescope, a few beers and a clear sky.

‘We wound up late in the afternoon heading up into the Smoky Mountains just north of Cherokee, North Carolina. He had this log cabin there, way up on a ridge. It looked like it was straight out of a Western: three rooms, potbelly stove, fresh water you had to pump out of a well. It even had a porch with a rocking chair on it. I guess it was just far enough away from anywhere so that the sweep of the modern world kind of passed it by. And because it was miles from anywhere it got so dark that the whole sky lit up at night. You could see more stars there with your naked eye than you could with a good telescope in a light-drenched town or a city. He had a telescope set up near the cabin in a hunter’s hide built on a rocky ledge and we spent two days up there, tracking the planets, looking at the stars, talking about Galileo and Copernicus and Kepler, where it all came from and where we thought it was all going. He was fired up about James Webb even then. Talked about how it was going to see right to the edge of the universe, right back to the beginning of time.’

They reached the bottom of the stairs and the desk sergeant looked up wearily.

‘We need a car,’ Franklin said.

‘Sure, no problem,’ the walrus replied, wearily picking up his phone and punching a button. ‘I trust your stay with us has been a pleasant one. Please let me know if you used anything from the mini-bar. I’ll let you know when your cab is here.’

‘I don’t mean a cab. We need to borrow a car. One that’s going to be able to cope with the weather out there.’

Shepherd frowned. ‘Why do we need a car? I mean, much as I hate to say it, but wouldn’t flying be quicker?’

‘I doubt anything will be taking off in this,’ Franklin said, pointing outside at the thickening snow. ‘We might get lucky and make it to Charlotte, always assuming they haven’t got worse weather there. But then it’s still about a three-to-four-hour drive to Cherokee on mostly mountain roads. It’s maybe five hours from here but mostly on dead-straight, flat plain roads. Trust me, I know this area pretty well. We’ll be better off driving.’

Franklin steered Shepherd away from the main desk and over to the row of seats by the wall. ‘Tell me why you think Douglas is there.’

‘There was something special about the place. The Professor had history there, real history, why else would he drive all that way when there are plenty of mountains much closer to Huntsville? It had all these photographs of people in frames tacked to the walls, some going way back, including one of the Professor as a kid standing on the porch and squinting into the sunlight as he held a model plane over his head. He must have been about five or six but you could still see the man he would become.’

Franklin looked over at the desk sergeant who was now resolutely ignoring the constantly ringing phone. ‘How we doing with that ride?’ he shouted over.

The sergeant looked at them over the top of his reading glasses. ‘We’re just having a Caddy waxed and polished for you now.’

Franklin turned back to Shepherd. ‘Funny guy. He should be on Comedy Central.’

Shepherd glanced outside at the swirling white. ‘What about the roads – the traffic’s all snarled up already, we saw it coming in.’

‘Exactly. We saw it coming in to town. The roads heading out will be pretty clear. So long as we get a decent car, driving’s going to be our best option. Trust me.’

Shepherd nodded, but for the first time he wasn’t sure whether he did.