The thought made her sick, but she couldn’t dismiss it. Her grandfather had always told her to trust her instincts. And all those instincts told her that Anders was concealing something.
So what was she going to do?
Keep him close, Deirdre. And don’t act as if anything’s changed. Whatever his work is, it isn’t done; otherwise, he wouldn’t still be playing this game. The longer you can make him believe you know nothing, the better your chances of figuring out what it is he’s up to.
Deirdre massaged her throbbing temples. She had spent all night going over these thoughts again and again. Right now she wanted to think about something–anything–else. She unfolded the copy of the Timesshe had bought and bent her head over it.
However, she found little solace in reading the paper. On the front page there was an article about the worldwide increase in violent natural phenomena over the last few months. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes–all were happening with greater frequency than normal. The article discounted the common belief that the change in the Earth’s climate was a result of the celestial anomaly, and instead offered various theories about possible geologic and meteorological causes. However, Deirdre knew the article was wrong.
It’s perihelion. That’s what the Philosopher said. Eldh is drawing close, and somehow it’s a fecting Earth. It’s like the pull of gravity.
Only it wasn’t gravity, it was something else. But what then? Magic? All Deirdre knew was that it wasn’t chance that an earthquake had shaken Crete, revealing the stone arch.
And what about the dark spot in space? It can’t be chance that it’s appeared now as perihelion approaches.
According to a report she had seen on a morning TV news show, the anomaly was now visible to the naked eye in the northern hemisphere–at least to those who didn’t live in major cities. However, even if it hadn’t been cloudy the last several days, Deirdre doubted she would have been able to see it through the glare of London’s streetlights.
And maybe that explained why people in the city continued to go about their lives as if nothing had changed. That morning, Deirdre had taken the Tube with countless people trudging to their jobs, the expressions on their faces as dull as the leaden sky. On the streets, double‑decker buses ferried tired, trapped‑looking tourists to Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s. Ships oozed up and down the sluggish Thames. Yet surely, if people could see the dark spot in the sky, they would be panicking.
Or would they? Because even if they couldn’t see it through the London fog, people had to know it was there. Just as it had expanded in the sky, stories about Variance X had grown more prominent on television and in the newspaper. Reports about it were everywhere. Only no one seemed to be paying attention.
Except for the Mouthers. Deirdre had passed several of them that morning, standing on a corner outside the Blackfriars Tube station in their white sheets. Each member of the group had carried a sign that bore, not words, but instead a black circle scrawled on white cardboard. They did not accost passersby, but simply stared, their eyes as vacant as the circles on their signs.
Deirdre had ignored the Mouthers, as had everyone else passing by. No one ever looked at the people in white, or up at the sky. Or, it seemed, at the articles in the newspaper.
Maybe people are tired of hearing about disasters, Deirdre. Fires. Floods. Wars. Famines. Maybe there are too many troubles here on Earth to worry about something in the sky.
Maybe. But while others might be disinterested, Deirdre was anything but. Like the storms and earthquakes, Variance X had to be related to perihelion somehow. She leaned over the paper, scanning the article in the Times.
It began with a summary of what was known about the anomaly: how it had first been detected a few months ago, at a distance of about 10 billion miles from Earth–or fifteen hours as the light beam flies. At the time, the anomaly was dubbed Variance X by skeptical astronomers. The name was a joke. Over the years, various astronomers had put forth the theory that the solar system contained a dark, distant tenth planet– Planet X. Such a planet had never been found, and those who theorized it existed were generally regarded as pseudoscientists and crackpots.
However, no one was laughing now, for the joke soon ended as countless observatories around the world confirmed the existence of Variance X, as well as the fact that it was growing.
Some researchers speculated that the anomaly was indeed a tenth planet, surrounded by a cloud of black, icy comets, approaching the solar system on the short end of its elliptical orbit. Others suggested it was a disk of dark matter that until recently had been angled with respect to Earth so that it was invisible, like a dinner plate turned on edge. Now, as the disk rotated on its axis, it was coming into view, and blotting out Earth’s view of the stars beyond it. Others suggested Variance X was a cloud of light‑absorbing gas trailing a small, wandering black hole.
However, one researcher–an American astronomer who had recently accepted a position as a visiting professor at Oxford– had proposed a very different theory: that the dark blot was in fact an instability in the fabric of space‑time. So far, according to the newspaper article, most leading astronomers had rejected that theory.
Yet perhaps such an explanation is unthinkable, the article went on, not because it is impossible, but instead because theconsequences are so dire. If Variance X is a rip in space‑time– the cloth from which our universe is cut–what’s to stop it from unraveling? Nothing, says American astronomer Sara Voorhees. According to Voorhees, unless the instability that gave rise to it somehow corrects itself, the anomaly will keep expanding until the universe is torn apart in one final, violent blending of matter and antimatter that will leave nothing at all. It’s not difficult to see why that prospect has proven unpopular.
Feeling ill, Deirdre folded the paper and tossed it in the waste bin. What did it all mean? Maybe two different worlds were on a collision course. Maybe that was what perihelion meant. If so, then there was no hope for anyone on Earth or Eldh.
Except, the problem was, Deirdre didhave hope. She couldn’t wait quietly for the end of the world like the Mouthers; she had to do something. And she was going to. With a deep breath she rolled up her sleeves, turned on her computer, and got to work.
By the time Beltan and Anders showed up, she had a plan.
“What’s going on, mate?” Anders said, setting a tall paper cup on her desk. “You’ve got an extradetermined look about you today.”
She picked up the cup and took a sip. It was coffee: rich, bitter, and with just the perfect hint of cream. “Have you found a sorcerer yet?”
“No,” Beltan said, slumping into a chair next to her desk. “It’s like looking for something very small lost in an enormous pile of things that are also very small. Only not the same as the first thing.”
“You mean it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Anders said.
Beltan frowned at him. “By Vathris, why would anyone look for a needle in a stack of hay?”